Daren could not be any more excited for a fight as this was probably the most adrenaline-boosting one he had ever had.
During his reign as the king of shadows, ruler of the criminal underworld, he had never had a head-on fight that was exciting and challenging. He had only participated in boring assassinations that ended in seconds.
These were extremely boring and always made Daren demoralized to even participate in the fun of assassinations himself. What he had always desired from a fight is a worthy opponent that could not beat him but he wouldn't have an easy time fighting either.
The wyvern presented a perfect chance for his long-desired situation to arrive.
The wyvern was at Level 7 of Body strengthening, peak grade. This is the same cultivation level that Daren was. Unlike most human cultivators, wyverns could control their force element from birth due to the talent granted to them for having dragon blood.
Human cultivators on the continent could not be guaranteed control of their force element until they had reached Core Condensation. For the miserably unluck and abysmally untalented, they would not be able to use the elemental force until reaching the Core Refining stage.
Because people with poor talent could not even hope to reach the Core Refining stage anyways, they would only have strengthened bodies and never be able to use the mysterious power of elements.
Daren had displayed his control over the ice element when he froze the legs of the elite soldiers into the ground.
Even though the beasts have twice the body toughness than that of a human cultivator at the same level Daren had the same because he had absorbed this talent from the soul of the tiger beast.
This entailed that Daren literally had no advantages in this fight due to all except the insane amount of battle tactics and experience he had accumulated over time.
This would be a battle that tested who had better skills and intelligence.
As Daren was breezing towards wyvern, his aqua hair was flowing backward due to the air resistance. His cloak was fluttering relentlessly in the wind as his hood was down and you could see his handsome, angular face smiling intently at his foe.
Well, you could see him if your eyes could keep up with the speed of hundreds of miles per hour.
As he got closer and closer to the towering, light green wyvern, Daren gradually decreased his bloodlust and killing intent. By the time he was only at a distance of 100 feet from it, the Daren had completely gotten rid of his visible intentions.
Daren unsheathed the luxurious, white hilted sword from its scabbard as he was standing still on the ground. He lifted his head towards the wyvern who was carelessly floating over 300 meters in the air while flapping its ginormous wings.
It looked down upon the beats ahead of it with the gaze of a king. It had a look of despise on its very bony and scaly face and that changed when he looked down towards Daren.
Its gaze now contained a deep hostility as its pride was challenged by a being that looked like an ant. This black-dressed monkey in front of him was no bigger than many of the weakling beats that had accompanied him in their ousting from the forest.
The wyvern let out a large amount of killing intent and directed directly towards Daren.
If Durant faced this killing intent head-on, he would start buckling at his knees as it was equivalent to the pressure that he felt from some ruthless generals on both his and the opposition's side.
This killing intent needed the massacre of tens of thousands at their hands to be formed. This was not hard for these generals as the lives of regular humans were like dust to those who reached Core Condensation and above.
That was the minimum requirement for a low-ranked general of the regular army within the confines of the Gigantus Empire.
Daren stood still under this unexpected pressure as his mouth started to twitch and his already calm smile became more of an eager smile when a kid finds a new toy to play with.
He was unfazed by the killing intent as it was like a drop in an ocean compared to the endless killing intent he had formed with the slaughter of millions with his own bare hands.
After seeing that this monkey did not fear him whatsoever, the arrogant wyvern made a 'hmph' noise with his nostrils. It looked like a car's exhaust during a cold day as the white, steam the air came out.
The wyvern aimed its mouth towards the monkey with godly speeds as it loosened its jaws and green elemental force particles could be seen gathering within his throat.
Daren slowly started to step away as he sensed dangers from whatever the beast was about to spew.
Foooooooooosh!
A green fire came out of its open jaws as it targeted Daren like a highly concentrated flamethrower. The mysterious green fire burned with the same intensity as the leaves of a healthy plant.
Daren flew backward and to the left as he controlled his steps and pace in a very strange way. The intense fire always kept a 2-inch space between itself and him.
"Good' thought Daren as he realized that he good use the foot techniques that he had learned in a life where he was a martial arts master. This indicated that he had adapted from his old, bulky and muscular body to a more lean and speed-oriented physique.
The movement of his feet and legs was in tune with the coordination of the rest of his body. The technique he used was called "Inch Pace" and was used mostly for keeping your enemy at a distance that was dangerously close for both sides.
The fluidity of movement was created to make sure that the enemy could not escape your grasp and you could not escape theirs.
It took Daren 55 years to master this technique and caused a lot of headaches since the only way he could do so was through constant battles against equal or stronger foes.
When he had realized that this new world had strength that was almost beyond that of humans in the galactic era, he figured that he could adjust his techniques to be more effective.
He had hundreds of thousands of minor and major techniques he was going to develop in this new body and world.
This "Inch Pace" was only the first step to a much larger plan he had cooked up.
As Daren kept circling the wyvern, the beast had to constantly rotate their body and head to keep on tracing Daren across these wide and open plains.
It was getting frustrated from the fact that he could not land a direct hit on this monkey but he was not too worried. That was because his fire was not meant to kill through bringing but rather something else.
Daren could feel the changes in the wyvern's attitude as it persistently followed Daren around in a circle. This entire time, the wyvern had been spinning but staying in the same spot so it looked like a green hurricane in the sky as a smaller, black tornado was circling it.
It looked like that due to the immense speeds that they moved at. It only took twenty seconds until fire stopped pouring from the beast's mouth as it tightly clenched jaw.
Daren was surprised at the beast for giving up on using its breath so early since he read that wyverns could breath use their elemental breath attack for about 3 minutes straight and then take a 12-minute break until they could use again for the same duration.
Daren knew that wyverns were smart but didn't realize that it could be so smart to realize its first attempt was useless and give up on using its powerful breath.
He then quickly took a glance at his surroundings to confirm the strength of the beat's fire but his smile faded quickly at the image of the green plains around him.
The grass that he was expecting to be turned into ashes by the fire had turned a purple and black color. This color was spreading to all the grass, wildflowers, and plants around it.
'Poison!' thought Daren as he saw that there were no signs of burn damage on the ground anywhere. He also realized why he could not feel the heat from the flames even though he was only 2 inches away from it.
Then Daren smelled a rotten and dirty smell in the air that was like expired eggs and milk combined. The air around Daren turned purple as the poison from the plants had entered into the oxygen in the air as plants were what produced oxygen.
The plants around him were not doing but rather becoming carriers and spreaders of the poison. hundreds of feet off the land around Daren had turned purple as a purple and black miasma started forming.
"Uhe...Uhe..." coughed Daren as he felt a foreign substance enter his lungs and spread through his blood at an insane rate. It only took 3 seconds for the blood vessels and veins on his skin to turn purple from heavy poisoning.
"Fuck!" said Daren out loud as he brought a large chunk of ice energy into his core and started to dash towards the beast that had poisoned him with ease.
"Hahahaha. Serves you right you ugly monkey. That's what you get for being arrogant." sneered the dragon in his mind as he puffed more smoke from his nostrils.
Before he could continue basking in his own glory, Daren sped towards him like a bullet. The wyvern knew that Daren had become desperate due to the fast-acting poison that he prided himself in.
The wyvern also was not stupid enough to fight Daren head-on as he could just fly around in the sky at a speed similar to Daren's. Being a flying creature in the first place, the wyverns air mobility was superior and he could evade Daren all he wanted.
"Arrogant monkey! I'll let my poison finish you. There's no need to fight you upfront. Hahaha. Once you're gone, I'll post the rest of those monkeys on this field. Then I'll munch on some humans in that city. Even though they don't taste good, there are a lot of them."
The wyvern was quite hungry but not as much as those lower lever beats who were affected by the forest's majestic speels that would create massive hunger in those lowly beasts and force them to become mindless battle maniacs.
"This wyvern here is the princess of the noble Gorgon family. Monkey's like you can't defeat me."
This arrogant wyvern was not a 'he' but rather a noble 'she'.
The wyvern was just about to take off and fly higher so Daren could not catch her but to her surprise;e, the man who was 200 meters ways from her disappeared.
He then reappeared almost instantaneously on top of her as stabbed his sword towards the art of the skull that housed her precious brain. She could not even react to this teleportation-like skill before the sword clashed with her skull.
Dink!
The sword rebounded almost instantly as a tiny layer of milky, white energy surrounded her skull.
Daren took 3 steps back as the rebound send large amounts of force back into his arms and spread out towards the rest of his body.
Daren was sure that the exquisite sword could slice her brain in two.
"What the fuck was that? That is not energy that was coming from the wyvern. It felt more foreign and powerful." thought Daren.
Before he could rethink his actions, the wyvern princess quickly dashed about 1000 meters in the air in seconds. she then stopped abruptly and her mighty wings stopped flapping as she flipped on her back.
Daren who was not ready for this sudden movement could not react in time and grab hold of one of the small gaps on the large wyvern scales.
Instead, his instincts kicked in as he stabbed his swords into her scales while holding onto the sword for dear life. Even if he was 10s of times stronger than a normal human being, he would still die instantly or receive life-threatening injuries if he fell from this height.
Even dropping from 500 meters was fine but 1000 was definitely too much to ask for. This height was deadly to even level 9, peak grades of body strengthening.
Puchi!
The sword slice into the thin gap between one of the scales on the wyverns back.
"Found it." thought Daren as he figured out how he would beat this wyvern. His face was no longer smiling at all as the poison was acting fast and he was going to soon lose control of his muscles.
"Damn it!" The wyvern could sense the sword stabbing into the back as the sharp prick was easily felt by her.
She straightened herself and was no longer on her back in the air. She then turned vigorously as she started to nose dive towards the ground at an incredible rate. Daren took this chance to start stabbing deeper into her body as he was formulating an escape plan.
Daren knew that he had to run away and cure this poison and find a counter to it. He might have to abandon this city if he can't beat this menace.
"I really chose the wrong day to fight." thought Daren. For the first time in this world, Daren started to regret his decisions. He remembered he had someone to take care of now.
He had a whole new world to explore and enjoy so it was too early to go. Death and despair started to loom over him again. It had been so long since he felt this despair. He had lost these emotions around his 15th life but now they resurfaced after thousands of years and tens of lives.
Before these things could consume his emotions and cloud his thoughts, a mysterious force took control and suppressed the despair, and tossed it aside like a ball.
Daren knew that Celina could get out of the city with the help of the marquess and he also knew of the rendezvous point. so all he had to do was escape. Even though this failure would lead to many of his plans being delayed for a while, all that matters is that he lived.
Daren did not take long to think of an escape route but before he could do so, a miracle of luck occurred.
The sword in his hands that was now covered in the wyvern's blood started to dry itself and absorb all the blood.
The sword started to glow a mysterious white and holy light that then started to enter Daren's body without resistance. The holy light entered the bloodstream and decimated the existence of the poison and made Daren fill up with unprecedented energy and strength.
Suddenly, Daren's instincts blared like loud sirens and he reacted instinctively by jumping off the wyvern's body. At this point, the wyvern was only about 400 meters off the ground and was about to smash her back into it forcefully so she could crush Daren like a bug.
Daren knew he would only be lightly injured if he jumped off at this height. He did exactly did as the blue force that he had been storing up in his body exploded around him and covered him with a thick blanket of ice.
This large block of ice and large wyvern both crashed into the ground with an unimaginable force as they sent dust and plants into the air.
The wyvern was in great pain due to landing on her pack like this so she let out a bone-chilling yell.
Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech!
This is the screech that everyone forced everyone's eyes towards her on after finishing all the other beasts on the plain.
The furious wyvern had lost lots of scales in the drop and had many wounds gashing out with blood on the areas that had no more scales. A huge chink of them lay on the ground as a visibly bald spot of scales was formed on her back.
The wyvern was someone with great battle instincts and experience and she felt that the poison from Daren was gone but he was still alive and even stronger than before.
She knew that Daren was no stronger than her for some reason and also could tell she needed to end this fight quickly. She decided to use her ultimate move that her grandfather only told her to use when she was in dire straights.
She quickly concentrated all the elemental energy of fire and poison around her and from her own core as a wall fire was created and the miasma that covered their fighting area exploded. The poison miasma that had becomes green and purple had ignited like gasoline.
This hellfire like a wall would destroy everything in it and could even kill her if she hadn't been prepared.
Will Daren survive this hellish environment that was considered a truly devasting ultimate attack in the world of mythical beasts and superpowered humans. A world with countless races and unlimited techniques.
This truly ultimate technique was called the "Hellish Sacrifice Of No Return".
Can the great MC of this story truly pull through?