Pouring soul energy into the saber, Azzy dashed towards the healer and slashed at her.
His speed was so fast that she wasn't able to react to it and her body just moved on instinct.
The staff she was holding in her hand blocked Azzy's attack. However, the attack was too heavy for her to block it completely.
*Crack*
Along with a slight crack appeared on her staff, Ellis was blasted away a few meters by the force and crashed onto the ground.
"Ellis…" Eugene screamed in worry and controlled the wind to go to her rescue but this time, Claire intercepted him in the middle, swinging at him with her sword.
As their captain was blocked, Barbara who wasn't engaging in any battle dashed forward with her sabertooth tiger.
In the meantime, the saber in Azzy's hand turned into charcoal and got destroyed.
Azzy went into a daze as he looked at the charcoal power that remained in his hand. "What just happened?"
"Man-made weapons couldn't handle your soul energy unless you master it. You have only gained near-perfect control over your soul energy. Mastering and controlling it is different.
When you master it, you can do wonders. It will act according to your will." The Reaper who pretended to be deaf until now once again gave an explanation to clear Azzy's confusion.
His reply brought criticism from Azzy, who replied with sarcasm, "And someone advised me to use the saber and chop off the hands of my opponents."
"You are not training hard in gaining perfect control much less mastering soul energy. That's your first mistake, Azrael." The Reaper wasn't the one that admits that his statement is wrong. He countered Azzy's criticism with a harsh lecture.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇt"You are no longer a beginner. After experiencing so many battles, you should have already realized the prowess of death energy which was further supported by the Protos energy.
It is common sense that the saber isn't tied to your soul. Even if it is in your hands, it is just a stranger for either you or me. Not realizing such a simple thing is your second mistake, Azrael.
From the start, you never had the desire to do that. I know that you are fast enough to change the direction of your weapon at the last second and attack her limbs. You didn't even use soul energy to power up your legs. And this is your third and final mistake, Azrael.
Had you change the direction of your swing and gone for the arms, right now, that healer would have been out of this match. Even if the saber gets destroyed, you would have still ousted one of the opponents whose attribute itself is an enemy of you."
After hearing the lecture that was pointing his repeated mistakes, for a moment, even Azzy thought he was the careless one.
Realizing that he couldn't win against the Reaper in argument, he didn't give any reply to him and focused on the Archer that just successfully hit the arrow at Claire's back.
"Vajra, she's your opponent," Azzy passed the orders to Vajra and he dashed towards Barbara and Ellis.
Looking at the blurring figure, Barbara stepped in front of Ellis to shield and then, gave a quick order in a serious tone, "We'll halt him for some time. You stay behind."
<strong>"Neko, use soul skill: Roar of the Overlord"</strong>
*Roar*
Just as Azzy almost reached her, he saw the sabertooth let out a powerful roar.
All of a sudden, Azzy suddenly stopped against his will. He was just two meters away from Barbara.
The same was the case for Vajra that was on its way towards the Archer.
At the same time, Claire was also frozen in the air and fell onto the ground.
A bright smile appeared on the members of team Crescent as they were fine and weren't affected by the roar that can paralyze anyone but Barbara for atleast 10 seconds as long as they aren't of a higher realm.
Looking at Claire and Azzy's state, Eugene raised his hand and showed the gesture of thumbs up. Ellis and Elvera let out a sigh of relief at the same time.
If one would carefully observe their ears, they could see tiny earplugs in the ears of Ellis and Elvera that block the sound.
As for Eugene, he just controlled the wind around his ears to block the sound. So, he was completely alright.
He descended onto the ground quickly and reached paralyzed Claire.
Meanwhile, ignoring Vajra that was helplessly paralyzed on the ground, Elvera raised her bow and unleashed a soul skill as they planned before.
As Elvera aimed the bow at the sky, a normal energy arrow was conjured between her fingertips. She released the arrow towards the sky, which traveled for like a couple of seconds before it disappeared and rained down ten arrows that were dancing in lightning.
In the meantime, Barbara didn't sit straight either. According to Plan-C where Eugene fails to eliminate Azzy, she will have to use it on this cousin of hers instead of Claire who was her original target.
And once she paralyzes Azzy, the others available should use their soul skills without wasting time as they weren't sure how long the skill will affect someone like Azzy. They planned to go all out against Azzy.
According to their data, Azzy's defense is comparable to that of atleast a mid-rank-6 Arcana master. So, Barbara wasn't worried about accidentally killing him.
Jumping back to dodge the incoming arrows from the sky, she threw out a five-star skill card towards Azzy while ordering her Arcana to unleash the soul skill as it was still in mid-air while jumping back with her.
<strong>"Activate, skill card: Explosion" "Neko, use Soul skill: Fireblast"</strong>
The black fireball and the lightning arrows from the sky almost reached Azzy at the same time, followed by a card that will explode the moment it touched something.
Right then, deathly dark energy suddenly erupted from Azzy as he mumbled, "Energy Eruption."
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmAll of his soul energy was forced out of his body. Vajra disappeared as a result.
The dark energy collided with the incoming projectiles and not only the latter were destroyed without a trace as a result, but the explosive force also impacted Barbara and Ellis who were standing little more than five meters away from him.
Both of them were thrown away a couple of meters but they managed to withstand the counterattack despite being shocked by the development.
No one expected that the effect of the Roar wouldn't even last for three seconds.
Meanwhile, Elvera, Eugene, and Claire were unaffected as they were far from the range.
The former was about to use the binding skill card to trap his opponent but because of the sudden development behind him, he could only turn his head and take a look at Azzy in shock.
This time, Azzy didn't wait for his opponents to make their move.
He opened his mouth while staying at the same place. "Soul skill: Soul absorption."
Simultaneously, with a thought in his mind, seals were locked and his soul power was suppressed to the realm of four-star.
All of a sudden, Barbara, Ellis, Elvera, and Eugene were forced to kneel down and then got fainted on the ground at the same time as all of their soul energy seeped away from their body within the following three seconds.
Every one of them had a look of disbelief on their faces, not expecting the match would turn around this quickly with just one soul skill.
Even the higher realm experts were shocked to see a soul skill that can essentially absorb the soul energy of others to fulfill theirs.
Meanwhile, his soul energy was slowly refining the absorbed soul energies as they were of different attributes. Azzy also lifted the seals to become rank-5 experts once again.
The Reaper's words echoed in his head, "Carefully, focus on the soul energies and control their refining process. Your cousin has also Protos energy mixed in her soul energy. Your entire attention should be focusing on that."
While he was guiding Azzy on the process of refining multiple soul energies, he sneakily destroyed the soul energy of Claire before it gets even refined. Azzy who was focused on the wild Protos energy of Barbara didn't notice it.
After finishing with the refining, more than two-thirds of his soul orb was filled with soul energy and Azzy thanked the Reaper for his simple yet wonderful suggestion of suppressing his soul orb when using the Soul absorption so that it won't damage the soul orbs of others.
"Chronos, why can't I use Soul absorption to deal with the Celestial grade beast?" A thought emerged in Azzy's mind.