Prime Originator

"Too bad, Duke Flugerd. You almost succeeded, but alas, even your strongest attack failed to kill me," Priest Merkkon's voice echoed in the distance.

After the column of water dropped, Priest Merkkon's broken body was revealed floating in the air.

All his bones shattered, his organs mushed, his skin lacerated with countless cuts and holes, and even his neck was bent at a weird angle.

Any normal person would have died from such serious wounds. Even most cultivators would have died.

Yet despite the odds, Priest Merkkon survived with his powerful vitality, which could be comparable to a Paragon-level body cultivator.

At that moment, Duke Flugerd and the others watched with solemn expressions as Priest Merkkon's broken body reconstructed itself.

"I offer my body to the Sun God. Fill this servant's body with thy divine strength; transform, grow, and reforge this mortal body so that the Sun God may use it to unleash thy wrath upon the heretics," Priest Merkkon prayed.

Not long after, veins protruded across Priest Merkkon's body before it similarly grew in size to the previous two gigantified devil worshippers.

"Lord Raygor, take this and lead everyone back to the kingdom," Duke Flugerd solemnly handed the Demon Gathering Array over to Marquis Raygor.

"You're going to stay back and fight that thing, my Lord? That's not possible. That thing survived your most powerful attack! Now that it's transforming, it'll become even more powerful! You have to flee too, my Lord!"

Marquis Raygor accepted the Demon Gathering Array, but he didn't recommend Duke Flugerd should stay behind.

"Someone has to stay back and buy time, and it can only be me! None of you will be able to do anything, so leave now! This Duke will not repeat a third time!" Duke Flugerd bellowed.

"Let's go!" Marquis Raygor barked at the Transcendent-level troops without further delay.

However, a sudden voice grabbed everyone's attention.

"Who the hell can tell me what is going on here?" Leon's voice shortly echoed across the region after he arrived with Faelyn and the two Winter Cats.

One-third of the city was gone, two-thirds of the people were grieving, large portions of the northern part of the region were devastated by floodwater, and many foreign Transcendents were present.

Leon's voice wasn't loud, but it was clear and authoritative; there was hidden power behind it that made sure it reached everyone's ears.

'A Paragon!' many Transcendents thought.

"Your Excellency, you've arrived just in time. We need your help! This devil worshipper is transforming and is about to rampage!" Duke Flugerd informed.

Vaguely sensing Leon's Paragon-level strength, Duke Flugerd did not see Leon as a young man.

Instead, Duke Flugerd immediately assumed Leon was an old powerhouse who had rejuvenated his youthful appearance.

However, Leon ignored Duke Flugerd and shifted his gaze to the Demon Gathering Array in Marquis Raygor's hands.

At the same time, Leon's divine sense spread out, covering a wide area of the city and overhearing the people's cries.

After piecing the clues together, Leon understood the gist of the situation.

His gaze quickly glistened with coldness.

Swoosh!

Leon's figure disappeared from his location on the flat roof of a three-floor building and appeared next to Marquis Raygor in an instance.

Everyone's expression immediately changed.

Marquis Raygor sensed the danger and quickly retreated while storing the Demon Gathering Array in his interspatial ring.

However…

Puchi!

Leon sliced off Marquis Raygor's arm with a chop infused with dark energy before retrieving the Demon Gathering Array from the interspatial ring on the detached arm.

"Arghhh!" Marquis Raygor cried.

At the same time, everyone distanced themselves from Leon's new location, which was in the midst of their ranks.

Duke Flugerd's expression darkened with gloominess.

"Your Excellency must be someone from the empire. In that case, This Duke completely understands your anger. We were in the wrong for stealing an array from your empire," Duke Flugerd quickly apologized.

"However, this is not the time for that! Us humans must unite our strength to defeat that devil worshipper! His transformation will turn him into a powerful gigantified monster on par with Paragons!"

After so much delay, Priest Merkkon had already finished his gigantification.

However, Priest Merkkon's size was even more impressive than the last two devil worshippers. He had increased his overall size and mass by ninefold!

At the same time, Priest Merkkon's strength rose exponentially. Even Early Paragons might not be his match!

"Dammit, we wasted too much time! The devil worshipper already finished his transformation!" Duke Flugerd frowned when he was suddenly alarmed by the danger coming from his side, "Hm—!?"

Duke Flugerd quickly conjured a water shield, but it still broke under Leon's casual smack.

Bam!

The excessive force sent Duke Flugerd crashing into the ground.

"Lord Flugerd!" Earl Almeric shouted before shooting a glare at Leon in the distance. "What the hell are you doing?! Can't you see the bigger threat before you?! That is our enemy!"

"Our enemy, you say? The audacity that you people have," Leon sneered.

"You dared to intrude on my empire, steal my empire's Demon Gathering Arrays, devastate the land, destroy people's homes, and kill my people. And you think we are on the same side just because we have a common enemy?!"

"To me, you are all my enemies and equally deserve death!" Leon barked as his eyes exuded strong killing intent.

Earl Almeric's expressions and the others all changed.

"This is bad. The Crawford Kingdom's Paragon wants to kill us all!" Earl Bendro cried with fear.

"But this doesn't make sense! How can the Crawford Kingdom have a Paragon?! Just a few months ago, they barely had any Transcendents!"

"Is this really the time to be worrying about that right now?" Marquis Raygor bellowed while clutching his shoulder to stop his bleeding.

Roar!

Priest Merkkon gave a shocking and mighty raspy-pitch roar in the distance before focusing his hostile gaze, full of madness, in their direction.

It was clear that Priest Merkkon had already lost his sanity to the power of wrath he absorbed from the sun.