The first strike yielded no results, and the creature retracted its tendrils.
Tianyang then lowered his body and assumed a running posture. As his body tilted forward, the view in his eyes became blurry. The tunnel, the walls, the crystalline pillar, everything in his vision turned into a colorful blur.
When he stopped, the view revealed the creature's back!
The face of the dark entity, a woman, froze in astonishment. Just moments ago, the young man had vanished. It was just about to search for Tianyang's body when it suddenly shivered.
A jet of blood gushed forth from the creature's body, forming a blade of blood that seemed to follow some mysterious force's rules.
After a momentary pause, the force restraining the blood loosened, and the black blood, as viscous as oil, spilled onto the ground.
A hand, in a palm-blade posture, thrust out from the creature's chest.
Tianyang's hand.
The young man, who had appeared behind the dark entity, had torn the creature's body apart with a single strike. But these severe wounds inflicted on a human seemed trivial to the creature. It extended two clumps of tendrils and plunged them into the tunnel's walls.
The tendrils quivered, pulling themselves out of Tianyang's hand and propelling the creature upwards towards the tunnel's ceiling.
The enigmatic creature suddenly contracted its body, folding over its blood and flesh, increasing its density. In the blink of an eye, it transformed into a spherical shape.
The cloak fell off its body, and supported by tendrils on both sides, it shot towards Tianyang like a bullet. Along the way, the sphere expelled a dense black mist that covered its surface, swirling like flames.
This fireball-like entity plummeted at high speed, but Tianyang had already evaded it, and the sphere of dark flames landed on the ground. The tunnel shook violently, as if struck by a heavy artillery shell. The ground cracked and chunks of sand and stone shot up like a geyser. After being swept over by a ring of black flames, they fell back as black crystalline formations.
Tianyang appeared next to the crystalline pillar and reached out to touch the trunk. His five fingers effortlessly pressed into the hard crystal.
When he lifted his hand, he pulled out a large chunk of starcore crystal. Under the influence of certain rules, these crystals quickly joined together, forming a crystalline longsword that connected seamlessly with Tianyang's palm.
Tianyang lightly ran his hand over the sword. Inside the crystal, fine threads as thin as hair gradually lit up.
When the mass of dark flames on the ground reared up again, sending its tendrils upward, connecting to the crystalline longsword in Tianyang's hand, the sword was now shining all over.
From afar, the young man at this moment appeared to be holding a galaxy in his hand.
The dark flames roared, full of power, and shot forward!
Tianyang raised the sword, and the galaxy spread across it.
A silver streak of light appeared in the tunnel.
This streak of light split the tunnel in two.
It crossed the center of the dark sphere with extreme precision, down to the millimeter!
Time seemed to come to a halt in this moment.
The black mist covering the surface of the dark sphere was pushed aside by the silvery-white beam as it came into contact. The beam slid across the sphere, penetrated the other side, and disappeared into the tunnel's wall.
The sphere, which had a surface hardness exceeding that of alloys, and the organ deep within, similar to a human heart, were both sliced open smoothly as if they were soft cheese cut by a wire. The sphere's surface immediately erupted in a ring of blood waves.
The organ at the center, originally emitting an orange light, now cast its light like a flickering candle in a strong wind, rapidly extinguishing.
This organ was the cage for the creature's will.
With the destruction of the will's cage, the dark entity's life came to an end.
The shattered sphere fell to the ground, sliding several meters, leaving behind a dark blood trail on the tunnel's floor.
Meanwhile, the muffled rumbling continued from the wall where the silvery thread had penetrated. If one looked into the cracks in the wall, they could see that the silvery beam, like a tidal wave, was still advancing.
It traveled for who knows how far before the energy forming the silvery light finally dissipated. If someone were to dig into the city's foundations in the future, they would discover a kilometer-long fault near the tunnel!
The creature's flesh was rotting and decomposing rapidly. In just a few seconds, the ground was left with only a patch of black, mold-like substance.
Crystals cracked and fell to the ground, disintegrating into powder.
Tianyang's eyes dimmed, and the surging river of energy in his body slowly receded.
Accompanying its retreat was the peripheral signal, which gently touched the young man's nerves before returning to its source. It transmitted a signal.
And so, Tianyang opened his lips and released the information carried by the signal in a human language: "Elevation... evolution... growth... my apostle..."
The last syllable had just left his mouth when the young man collapsed to the ground like a puppet at the end of a performance.
It was unclear how much time passed before Tianyang groaned, slowly awakening.
He sat up, shaking his head to clear his thoughts.
Looking around, he saw the remnants of destruction everywhere. He was bewildered, having no idea what had happened.
But one thing was clear, the creature known as the "Spreader" was gone. That being was a level-three threat among the dark entities, and encountering something like that and surviving was nothing short of incredible luck.
Wait a minute!
Tianyang suddenly remembered that just before losing consciousness, the Spreader had injected something into him.
He hastily removed his protective suit and carefully inspected himself but found no abnormalities except for a new marking on the back of his right hand.
It was a blurry hand formed from black flames, grasping a crescent-shaped sickle. On the edge of the sickle's blade, there was a symbol: I!
What was this?
As this thought began to take shape in his mind, a cold, emotionless voice sounded in his ear: "This is the insignia of a Avenger class!"
Tianyang jumped in surprise, looking around: "Who's speaking? Who is it?"
No one answered.
Avenger? Class?
While pondering these two keywords, some information started to emerge in his mind.
Avenger Class:
Rank 1: Assassin
Class Abilities: Weakness Sensing, Instantaneous Elimination
Ascension Progress: 14%
Next Rank: Eradicator
...
The tunnel remained silent.
Tianyang stood like a statue next to the star pillar, unmoving.
Inside, a storm of astonishment raged within him.
I...
Have I become an Ascendant?
Avenger Class? It doesn't seem to be among the known classes in the fortress.
Could it be a new class?
Ascendant...
Ascendant!
"Haha..."
Tianyang couldn't help but let out a loud laugh, but he quickly covered his mouth. He didn't want to attract any more mysterious entities with his laughter.
However, he couldn't contain his elation. After all, the identity of an Ascendant represented so many things.
One of them was that it would allow Tianyang to start a completely new life. It meant providing a better life for his mother and seeking justice from Qin Wu, who held the status of a higher citizen.
All the problems that had plagued him in the past were easily resolved with the title of Ascendant!