Bear School Astartes

”Swish, swish, swish!”

The shrill sound of the air being pierced exploded in mid-air!

Dark purple tentacles, as thick as one’s arm and resembling corpse spots, stretched straight at the tips, shooting out like spears from behind the Moon God towards the Demon Hunter in front!

However, the Spiritual Vision, which was enhanced almost every moment by observing the Moon God, now allowed Lann to more clearly capture the rhythm of the Ancient God’s movements and life.

Mentos at the edge of the retinas, massive amounts of sensory data refreshed and flowed down like a waterfall.

In the past, when Spiritual Vision improved, it only needed to slightly interface and refresh with the main body’s sensory data, which would allow it to connect freely and provide support.

But now, Lann’s Spiritual Vision was enhancing too quickly!

It refreshed almost every moment!

After all... this was almost like dissecting an Ancient God head-on!

”Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle!”

The dark purple tentacles pierced through everything in front of them without a hitch, like chopsticks through tofu!

But they didn’t pierce through the person!

Lann’s rapidly moving figure trampled many flowers, with the withered petals swirling in the wind he created.

And on his body, which suddenly turned into a wisp of smoke and disappeared, a layer of flickering light red Fighting Spirit was actively shining.

Dual Blade Technique: Ghost Transformation!

Dual blades, among the fourteen weapon techniques of the New Continent Expedition Team, emphasize speed, whether it’s attack speed or movement speed, etc.

This technique greatly stimulates physical abilities, and sometimes, inexperienced novices might even pull a leg or waist muscle.

The significant enhancement and risk have given it the name Ghost Transformation.

Not sure if it’s a bad name or a good one.

And now, Lann still thinks it’s not fast enough... Lann stacked Acceleration Technique on top of Ghost Transformation!

It’s just a bit slower than when Gremman uses Acceleration Technique to the point where blue flames emerge!

”Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!”

The tentacles stabbing down looked fierce in Lann’s view but weren’t lethal.

The Moon God was evidently unfamiliar with fighting an enemy like Lann using a materialized body.

He was quickly learning and adapting, but He was still not as fast as Lann!

Spiritual Vision continuously gained nourishment from the Ancient God’s wounds and actions, gradually understanding and seeing through them, while Lann’s experience and the computational power of his biochemical brain conducted analysis.

Lann and the Moon God were almost in a race against each other now!

The dragon skin skirt armor of the Smaug armor on the lower half of Lann sailed through, grazing the slanted tentacles.

That was already the most contact Lann had with the Moon God’s body.

Like a flicker of shallow red illusion, he skittered out from the throng of dense and swift tentacles!

After breaking through the tentacle barrage, Lann made a decisive decision.

In his hand, Aron Dite shimmered with a pure white light mixed with a pale red glow, held firmly.

Water-shaped Sword: Great Severing!

A proper vertical slash carried the sound of turbulent airflow.

It was as if this slash had cut a sharp opening in a dam, and the endless air blades burst forth like a massive jet from the crack behind!

The air blades flowed and extended from the physical blade, naturally carrying the holy light of the long blade and the vibrant Fighting Spirit like life itself.

This turned the originally vast white, compressed air flow blades into something with profound brilliance.

In front of the Moon God’s body was His grotesque string of rib cages and vertebrae.

The chaotically growing ribs numbered far more than several pairs, far exceeding two or three dozen, appearing densely overlapping and chaotic, shocking to behold.

Even the spine’s length was significantly increased due to the excessive number of ribs.

These ribs, squeezed together, smeared with flesh pulp and sticky blood, became a blur.

The long blade, already tinged with a faint sacred glow, along with the sword wind behind, dove into the exposed rib cavity.

”Kara La!”

The sword blade hacked down directly, upright and imposing.

The chaotic ribs piled together broke in a brittle sound, dragging flesh pulp and thick blood down as they fell.

And then the Qi Flow Blades, with a gentle searing sound of ’searing,’ and a wailing ’woo-woo’ sound like ghosts crying as wind passed through rib gaps.

In an instant, the Moon God’s dense ribs were scorched with large patches of burned marks!

”Ah!!!”

The Ancient God also wailed!

The Light of the Dual Holy Trees is so fragile and faint, almost like an illusion caused by an eye’s astigmatism.

But this light is so extraordinary because it is so close to the essence of a world, those good and beautiful essences.

Good and beautiful might be just adjectives unrelated to the objective world in other worlds.

But in the Ardan World, this world created by the Creator God Eru Ilúvatar, and the many Ainur born from His thoughts, in the Great Music of Creation, good and beautiful themselves have power.

Moreover, they are the world’s strongest and most resilient force, the foundation of the world.

Compared to these, what is the Moon God’s power?

Even not being constrained to the material world, what is the Moon God?

This was also why Lann previously made a very rational judgment: if his vision could truly ’see’ the Moon God’s ethereal form, then this light, this sword... could cut Him down.

The Light of the Dual Holy Trees is the manifestation of a powerful world’s essential power!

The massive air blades guided by the Great Severing, carrying the faint light from the Lady of the Lake’s Sword, continually slashed at the Moon God’s body.

Even though it was just a moment’s opportunity, these air blades still dealt terrifying damage!

The Moon God’s dark purple tendrils retracted suddenly, as if in acute pain.

And the deity immediately retreated, trying to distance itself from Lann.

By now, the ribs in front of it had already been cut down by the physical blade, and other parts of its body were sizzling and emitting white smoke from the sacred light of the Air Blade flowing through its body cavity.

The [Light of the Dual Holy Trees] inflicted unbearable pain upon the vile entity.

This kind of agony would be intolerable even for Morgoth.

Thus, the Moon God’s body convulsed, resembling a wild dog with full-body cramps almost curling into a ball.

Lann’s gaze intensified, the spiraling air currents around his legs rotating, and a light red Fighting Spirit surged on his body.

Although restricted to the material realm, the Moon God’s size is akin to the ordinary New Continent Ancient Dragon.

Aron Dite’s physical blade isn’t particularly suitable for dealing with this large physique.

Since confirming the light’s damage to the Moon God, Lann mainly focused on expanding the light’s contact area with the deity.

It now appears to be the correct tactical approach.

[Ghost Transformation] and [Acceleration Technique] activated simultaneously, Lann promptly closed in on the Moon God attempting to distance itself!

As the integration of various weapon techniques from the Expedition Team wasn’t completed, which was [Water-shaped Sword]’s next goal.

Forcing simultaneous usage, the power and effect were less effective than specializing in one, so Lann had to give up the Tachi technique that had just opened [White Blade] for the sake of movement speed.

The Moon God’s skeletal beast-like claws started pounding and flailing around wildly in front of itself.

The sea of flowers was ravaged beyond recognition, white petals fluttering and breaking.

But these actions couldn’t stop Lann.

That light red shadow wrapped in bone-white armor advanced while wielding the glowing Long Blade!

Tentacles and limbs had become a mass of dark purple curtain under the Moon God’s dance.

The garden in front of it was not just ravaged, the wind from these movements aimed to sweep across the entire flower sea!

It was like a low-altitude storm appearing out of thin air; the continually reborn flower sea because of the Dream Realm lifted soil and stones to the sky yet perpetually renewed itself.

”Woo~”

The wind passed through the three holes in the Moon God’s face.

’No... stop... there’s no need for us to fight like this, Lann.’

The halting and unfamiliar words were conveyed to the charging Demon Hunter wielding the blade, through the [Spiritual Vision] that began understanding the Ancient God.

The Moon God was rapidly learning and adapting to the ’narrow perspective’ it now found itself in, though Lann continually progressed even faster, keeping the deity suppressed.

From initially resembling a frightened beast, now the Moon God’s tentacles and claws even showed a little order.

And this was just under a minute and a half since the deity had formally descended and been ’locked’ by Lann!

”Oh? You want to negotiate? With a mere mortal?”

With seemingly friendly banter on his lips, Lann showed no expression and continued to swing his blade without hesitation or mercy.

”Alright, tell me about it; let’s negotiate.”

”Crack!”

Two more tentacles swung out, only to be severed by the Demon Hunter’s dramatically accelerated swordsmanship from [Ghost Transformation]!

Even those thick tentacles followed the swing’s momentum and left savage marks in the flower garden.

In mid-air, twisted in agony from the wounds inflicted by [Light of the Dual Holy Trees], the twisting motions undeniably increased the force-bearing area.

This resulted in them hitting the ground as rolling cannonballs.

The two flung tentacles easily lifted a vast section of earth and stones larger than the Moon God up into the sky!

It was practically an upward surge of a soil and stone waterfall!

Although mentioning negotiation, neither the learning-from-scratch Moon God nor the ceaseless young man halted in their actions.

It was as if fighting while negotiating was perfectly normal.

’Become..... my... child! Become a divine offspring!... Reincarnate once again!’

’Everything else... is irrelevant.’

Despite the rapid learning and adapting to the material world, the Moon God continued its so-called ’negotiation’ in a direct and unusually simple manner.

”Interesting, it’s the first time I’ve heard of this. Your divine offspring doesn’t start from choosing an embryo mother but can directly reshape the selected one into an embryo?”

Lann sidestepped, slicing off a claw from the Moon God while avoiding its head striking down and remarked.

”This truly is a novel theory!”

A novel theory indeed; upon this theory being understood, Lann’s [Spiritual Vision] instantly surged forward!

’Yes.....or no, make your decision.’

Using its head to strike the ground didn’t affect the Moon God’s resolve.

”No.” Lann didn’t even bother letting Mentos run the question over in his mind.

He chuckled as he spoke.

”Maybe being around those Yan’an researchers obsessed with Ancient Gods has made you misunderstand me a bit.”

”I am human. A mere mortal.”

”And this mortal intends to slaughter you today, right here.”

’Is that so? I don’t understand...’

Rapidly learning and adapting, even the Moon God’s dialogue became fluent.

Menacing winds blew through the three holes on its face, glaring black at the blade-wielding Demon Hunter.

’But I will make you agree.’

A claw lifted from the ground by the Moon God covered its distorted face...