Bro, I'm not an Undead!

Chapter 1203: The One Left Standing (17)

Replicus dodged another slash just as he flashed into the town where he and Skullius had been fighting in before the ridiculous parting of Aigas into past and future. As soon as he saw that the Hybrid Luman was no longer here, he cursed and teleported out of the way of another slash that threatened to split him two.

'I messed up. I should have immobilised the Angel with [Cold Time] instead of destroying it earlier,' Replicus thought.

He was now standing opposite the giant with its four arms and the two powerful swords that had been in Skullius' possession.

'That [Infinite Sword God] skill is capable of cutting time itself. Skullius doesn't even need swords to do it. I imagine he won't fall for skills that involve time now and neither will this thing,' Replicus thought. 'In order to beat either of the two, I need to throw a series of rapid attacks that bypass their capacity to use that trick of theirs.'

And indeed, this was the only way to get around Skullius' 'trick'.

With his enlightened eyes, Replicus had figured out that Skullius was increasing the output and power of his attacks by removing their cost requirement.

In Aigas, the power system designed by the Deities limited the power of combatants by designating a cost for the activation of each attack.

A Normal skill could be performed with a basic white mana core.

A Special skill could only be cast using a blue core or higher.

A Super skill needed a purple core or higher.

A Supreme skill required a gold core.

The nature of the fuel required for the activation of a skill was what limited its power.

So, Skullius, upon talking to Ashema in Opungale, and learning that his entire race (the Carven) did not require the use of mana or any energy source to use their powers, had devised a method to replicate this unique trait.

Initially, he had only wanted to get rid of the bother of needing a predetermined amount of mana for his skills in battle, but as he worked towards achieving costless casting of skills, he realised another advantage of this.

If he got rid of the cost of using a skill, didn't that essentially mean he could adjust its potency to no limit?

Skills with no defined parameters other than their costs in particular, could be made far stronger, raising their efficiency past Supreme and towards the borders of the Divine!

Of course, reaching beyond even that with a mere skill wasn't possible with a mortal body, but Skullius realised that being able to fight using capabilities beyond Supreme without needing a gold core was a priceless quality!

It wouldn't matter what Stage he was in or what Class he had if he could accomplish a feat like that!

Nomatter how powerful an opponent like Replicus became, he would always be able to match him!

That said, achieving costless activation was easier said than done.

Skullius had surmised that no mortal combatant could gather enough Creeds to make it happen in their lifetime.

Perhaps a Rule could work, but he didn't have access to those. He doubted one, two or even ten of those could achieve it anyway - permanently, at least.

After agonising over the subject for a while, Replicus finally figured out how to do it. It was a rather lengthy process, but he learned to do it nigh instantaneously over the last seven days.

The first step to his 'trick' had been to finally use the affix on the Bashful Abomination that was still engraved with Hobbu Gobbu's desired effect: to increase the power of the Ghost Rending Divine Sword Art by 475%.

To suit his needs, Skullius had changed the affix to one that allowed him to reduce the cost of all his powers by 55%.

The next set of requirements following this needed to be achieved in rapid succession each time he wanted to unleash unrestricted output attacks.

To start, Skullius had to apply the Unmotivated Bender Divine Sword Art. This sword style's forte laid not in slicing things apart, but in sabotaging their very functionality. Skullius had used this sword style to cause Arch-Mage Ryte's Cross Time spell to fail earlier.

The Hybrid Luman would apply this sword style on the skills engraved in his body, sabotaging their need for a source to activate them.

Of course, this alone wasn't enough.

Next Skullius would simultaneously use the Absolute Severance Divine Sword Art, which had allowed him to cut even something as intangible as the Ode's voice back in Opungale, to finely slice at the junction between a mana channel and the skill it fed into within his body; his goal was to separate the mana channel and the skill only momentarily, cutting off their

connection.

Of course, this wasn't enough. It was only the first half of what Skullius needed to do within a split of a split of a second.

Next, Skullius employed Creeds.

Through a complex mechanism that had taken his greatest bits of ingenuity yet, he made it so that at the beginning of every battle, touching the Bashful Abomination would begin a process that stabilised his 'trick'.

Skullius made a Creed that allowed him to temporarily remove the cost of any skill, provided that he managed to successfully ISOLATE and SABOTAGE the need for an intended skill to use

any kind of fuel.

However, this Creed wasn't a one and done. It was perpetual - there was no end to the number of Creeds it consumed.

While in combat, the mechanism Skullius had set in place would consume fifty Creeds every ten seconds in order to keep him open to the benefits of costless activation!

He borrowed this mechanism from the same design that allowed Incandescent Stagers and above to automatically expend Creeds for a Territory's activation simply by calling its name! Normally, even the ridiculous cost of Creeds he expended wouldn't have been enough to achieve his 'trick', but the trade-off in its use, which made it so that Skullius on his own couldn't use the 'trick' consistently (spam it), and could only activate it for a little more than a second at one time, finally enabled him to cement his standing as a combatant worthy of standing toe to toe with the Warmoth's Progeny!

'No Incandescent Stager on Aigas could do this, other than perhaps the Bishop,' Replicus thought with a hard frown. 'And like her, to ensure that he has enough Creeds to use throughout the battle...'

At that moment, the skies were suddenly littered with Soul Spawn racing in all directions, some spilling over below, where Aigas' past was!

Masterpieces were made out of both individuals from the past and the present, and in the

Hybrid Luman's vision, the guidance field cried:

[You have received five new Creeds!]

[You have received eight new Creeds!]

[You have received twelve new Creeds!

[You have received six new Creeds!]

[You have received...]

...

Skullius grinned.

For Incandescent Stagers and beyond, there was a plethora of other ways to earn Creeds other

than conquering Tasks and Trials.

As long as a combatant did something to impact Aigas on a large scale - particularly in a way that was... godlike - they could earn Creeds. It was a kind of rite of passage towards Divinity.

Replicus had seen firsthand how one could easily earn Creeds in the Mad Bishop.

She essentially created her own faith on Aigas and each individual she indoctrinated earned her a Creed. This was why she was so feared in the Severed Union, especially when it came to

Territory battles.

Now, Skullius employed a similar means of earning Creeds despite never having met the

Bishop.

The hundreds, no, thousands of Soul Spawn that immediately began latching onto victims far

and wide earned him enough Creeds to keep on abusing his trick.

Furthermore, a slew of information flooded his brain and body!

Skills.

Memories.

Spells.

Affinities.

The ins and outs of different categories of Classes: Energy Formers, Arma Users, Form Users,

were revealed to him.

Skullius instantly began learning the powers of combatants from the present times and those of the past, transcending the boundary that Rayn and the Immoral had reached in the previous millennia, when they had been known as the greatest fiends of their time!

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