*Shing!*
Facing a surprise attack that was directed at Caspian, Conan jumped at Talon, saving Caspian, but endangering himself.
The two lost their balance and both of them used the chance to end the other, rolling on the ground like a snowball.
After they caught their balance, Conan retracted his claws and sent a punch, utilizing his faster speed, but Talon caught it with his coarse palm firmly.
The two then engaged in a battle of strength, to which Conan used his other hand to attempt a punch, but Talon also caught the punch with his free hand.
It suddenly turned to a physical brawl, where each side was trying to push the other side.
However, it wasn't close as Talon showcased his astonishingly brute strength by pushing Conan to a nearby wall, even going as far as to break some of his bones while doing that.
He overpowered Conan and was about to bend his arm when Caspian intervened by sending a blast of wind at him.
Not wanting to waste any further time, Caspian howled like a wolf and went on all fours, then chased after Talon.
Amid his chase, he encountered a healing Conan and snarled at him to give him back up.
Caspian ran like a wolf to the position where he blasted Talon, but couldn't see him.
He stood up and sniffed at the air, trying to detect where his enemy was, but he was too late as a figure appeared very close to him and grabbed his throat.
However, Caspian tried to use his claws to mangle up Talon's skin, and yet, the claw attacks did nothing.
While it managed to damage Talon's skin, it seemed to have accomplished nothing as Talon did not even shake upon being clawed at.
The only he could do was try to muster enough [Spirit Essence], which was almost impossible due to Talon's grip on his neck that made it hard for him to manipulate energy or even breathe.
A pulse of [Nether Energy] lighted up Talon's face as something began charging in his mouth.
After charging up his attack, Talon inwardly chanted as he let out a blast, "[Nether Breath]"
The attack was a basic ability of all Netherans, but it differed based on their creativity and control over [Nether Energy].
Talon expected his attack to corrupt Caspian's, sucking out its vitality like it was intended for, but his trajectory changed due to Conan slamming his body into him.
This, in turn, made the [Nether Breath] blast the ceiling of the tunnel all the way to the surface, making the ray of sunlight invade the grim underground!
Seeing the effect of the attack, the two brothers got the shock of their lifetime, as they then thought of what would have happened if the attack touched Caspian's face.
Although it wasn't their first time seeing a Nether attack technique of this scale, it was never this close to them.
Their mission had always been to p[rotect the kingdom from the Nether leaks. So, while they had fought with zombies of various strengths. They had never fought against someone like Talon
Freeing himself from the grip of Talon, Caspian grabbed his brother and used a special technique, "[Feet of the Wind]"
[Wind Energy] gathered around his leg and propelled him far away from Talon, exploding at great bursts.
After having gained a sizable distance, Caspian then looked at Talon, who was under the ray of sunlight, and asked the question that had been in his mind for a long time, "What are you?"
His transformation made his voice almost inaudible, but he knew that Talon would be able to understand him.
Calm as the sea, Talon responded, "What am I? I was human. My arm is from a [Black-Eye Zombie]. With that, I became different. Different from the past. I became…..a hybrid, just like you!"
The two brothers understood his word.
In fact, they already knew what he was, but they just wanted to confirm it.
Their first meeting with a creature similar to Talon was Ray, or rather, the corpse of Ray, a dead participant of the Aztec Competition.
Followingly that, they began to find other similar creatures, but when tortured for information, those captured creatures didn't reveal anything.
They were blessed by their zombie side and were susceptible to pain, to the point where cutting their limbs won't earn any shout of pain from them.
However, they were quite weak and easy to capture, but not the one in front of them, right now!
"You are not the other ones," Conan voiced out his thoughts as he clutched his broken ribs.
When his words reached Talon, the latter held his head high as he smiled at them, "Yes, I'm not. I am more stable, stronger, and far better than those you have met."
Talon was being honest.
He had been tasked to invade Aztec, using whatever means he had. So, he used them.
Using the items given to him, he turned some of the desperate Aztec citizens that caught his eyes into his pawns.
Moreover, he needed them to deceive the eye of people like Caspian and make them unconsciously think of his organization as a lower threat than they actually are.
Among the party that, composed of those he brought and those he recruited, Talon was the most stable type of hybrid. He was even able to retain his intelligence after transforming.
Though some of his men could do that, it was hard for them to maintain.
While talking to the two brothers, Talon enters a strange stance, "Do you know that [Nether Energy] and [Spirit Essence] are almost two sides of the same coin?"
As he was talking, different colored energy swarmed his body, making it incredibly hard for the two brothers to see him.
"So, it makes one wonder what might happen when you join two opposite forces together"
Talon's words managed to alarm the two brothers, who had begun recharging their energy.
They didn't need anyone to tell them, something bad was about to happen.
After a period of silence, Talon was fully covered in cocoon-like energy that was both grey and blue, representing the two great forces he mentioned.
"Let me show you," his muffled voice passed through the cocoon, which had begun gathering around to form a tiny dark-blue dot, which then was firmly grabbed by Talon.
Talon looked at the two brothers and calmly said, "[Polarity Beam]!"
Instantly, he threw the dot with his greatest speed that even tore apart his arm.
The two brothers did everything they could to stop the dark-blue blue dot, but it was fruitless.
The dot smashed through all their techniques and proved so fast that the two brothers could only evade at the dying minute.
However, it didn't matter. By the time the dot touch its first physical object, which was the tunnel wall, it exploded like a bomb and almost collapsed the tunnel's sturdy wall.
The explosion of the dot caught the two brothers and seared into their skin, causing them to revert their transformation, revealing their badly injured bodies.
The two brothers couldn't even move their bloody fingers. Their limbs were in the wrong shape, their skin was cracked, their blood gushed out of their body.....
And like that the winner was determined.
Savoring his victory, Talon walked to the two brothers and told them, "Do you understand now? This is the power that will change those detestable stereotypical concepts!"
"This will single-handedly erase the human cultivation system!"
Fulfilling his mission, he steps on the two defenseless brothers and attempts to kill, when something strange happened.
The hand that he moved to kill the two brothers suddenly stopped mid-air, and judging by his expression, it wasn't his doing.
Talon's sharp senses, though not as sharp as the two brothers, managed to pick up something around him, something ephemeral.
He closed his eyes and clinched on the feeling of familiarity he sensed swimming around him.
After a while, he opened them back and instinctively struck his right side.
His arm seemed to have passed through the air, but it was later revealed that he grabbed something.
.....Something that became visible upon contact.
The invisible thing materialized into a female humanoid, that had a lucid aura around her, that would make anyone who stared at it think they were dreaming.
The body of the humanoid also followed the same theme. A translucent body, that seemed to be disappearing and reappearing every second. A silvery-white hair, that when paired with her black clear eyes made her an astonishing beauty.
However, the definitive feature of this strange humanoid was her ghostlike clothes and the fact that her feet weren't touching the ground, but instead, hovering a few inches above it.
Seeing this, Talon murmured the only name this creature could be, ".....A ghost!"
However, the two brothers, with their broken mouths, went emotional at the sight of the creature.
"Impossible…...Lillian?!"