Speed Is King

"Concede your ugly black head!" Elliot shouted as he blinked and struck Divine Fighter with a ferocious triple-thrust!

KA-BOOM!!!!

The very air exploded! A massive vacuum was instantly created at the site of the explosion and a powerful suction force appeared to suck all of the surroundings towards it.

BOOM!!

Rom's fireblast smashed onto Divine Fighter as well!

BAM!!!

Frosty's Venomous Glacial Beam followed almost immediately and froze a portion of Divine Fighter's body.

Divine Fighter was caught completely by surprise. He did not expect that Elliot would attack after he had "discovered" his identity and announced his withdrawal from the fight!

"STOP! I am a disciple of the Fortune Hermit! We're allies! ALLIES!" Divine Fighter roared in indignation. He unleashed his black spikes and immediately broke free of Frosty's Ice Beam.

Elliot's and Rom's earlier attacks had completely failed to penetrate his black armor.

However, Elliot couldn't be bothered to talk to Divine Fighter any more. He was completely riled up at the fact that his attacks failed to penetrate the black armor, and his mind was racing furiously to think of a way to break it.

"Let's try the armor-piercing effect of Lightning Slash!" Elliot decided.

LIGHTNING SLASH!!

Elliot treated Gilgamar as an extension of his hands and executed Lightning Slash using it. Gilgamar whistled through the air and caught Divine Warrior's armor slightly as he stepped back to avoid it.

SGREEEKKKK!!

The tiniest of scratch appeared on the black armor!!

"Hmmm? It worked?" Elliot was pleasantly surprised.

Divine Fighter noticed the scratch as well and immediately, his face turned ugly.

"You managed to damage my black armor? Just what in the world are you?" He growled softly. "Nothing of this universe was supposed to be able to deal damage to it!"

However, Elliot couldn't be bothered to chat with him. Now that Lightning Slash's armor-piercing property had proven itself to be effective, the only thing he had to do was to increase its damage. And to do that…

"I need to find a way to combine the system's skills with the Nameless Sword Technique!"

Elliot had successfully combined two system-generated skills before, and the result was his Azure Lightning Blast which was, until Gilgamar's arrival, his most powerful attack. But the combination was crude, and the skill was highly energy-inefficient for the amount of damage it dealt.

Still, the combination allowed him to raise the amount of damage he could deal instantly.

"Gilgamar. Any advice on how to combine Lightning Slash with the Sword Technique?" Elliot asked Gilgamar.

"Combining skills is simply a merging of the energy movement and physical movement. If you know how both skills work, you should have no problems doing that." Gilgamar replied in a way that both answered and didn't answer Elliot's question.

"So I need to understand how Lightning Slash works. Damn, that would require time. I'll just unleash Lightning Slash and the Nameless Sword Technique at the same time!" Elliot thought.

Immediately, he got into the opening stance of a slash attack and tried to cast both Lightning Slash and the Slash attack together!

The Purgatory Fire Energy started to flow in his right hand, while the familiar energy movement related to Lightning Slash appeared right behind it.

SLASH!!

Elliot struck Divine Fighter once more with his sword. And right at the moment before he expelled his Purgatory Fire Energy, Elliot superimposed the Lightning Slash upon the attack!

However, due to the overbearing nature of the Purgatory Fire Energy, the energy powering Lightning Slash disappeared without a trace. All that was unleashed was the Purgatory Fire Energy-powered slash attack!

"Damn you! You really won't let me go? In that case, I will fight you till the end! Come out, Forsaken Warriors, and Forsaken Blood Emperor!" Divine Fighter roared angrily as he shrugged off Elliot's attack as though it was nothing.

"An Emperor? This is not good." Elliot thought instantly. He could deal with one Emperor level Divine Fighter, but he couldn't deal with two! His only hope was that the effect from his awakened red dragon energy was enough to bridge the gulf between his King level beasts and the Forsaken Blood Emperor.

"Be careful guys, an Emperor is coming. Retreat if you can't handle it." Elliot warned his beasts.

As Divine Fighter's Forsaken Warriors appeared once more, and this time with an Emperor in their midst, a fearsome and soul-wrenching gloom seemed to fall upon the land.

BREKHHHHHHHHH HAAAAAAAAAAKKKKKHHHHHHH!!!

A fully black insect that looked strikingly similar to a praying mantis crawled out of the largest space crack. It was a tremendous ten meters tall, and was as large as Brock! However, the power and the sense of danger it radiated was many, many times above Brock's.

It was well and truly an emperor level beast!

"I will take point." Rom said very simply as he transformed into his powerful Flame Wolf form. Aldera stood a few steps behind him, ready to use her damage immunity skill to save Rom's life if need be.

"ATTACK!!" Divine Fighter howled and as one, he and his warriors surged forward to charge at Elliot and his beasts!

"KILL THEM ALL!" Elliot roared and charged ahead to engage Divine Fighter.

Behind him, his beasts howled their battlecries and began their assault on the Forsaken Warriors once more. The only difference was, Rom, Aldera, Frosty, Red, Wu Kong, Brock and Winter had all charged towards the praying mantis.

However, even though there was only a difference of one Emperor, the battle unfolded completely differently than before.

The praying mantis screeched loudly and the soul-wrenching gloom that permeated the air surged into all of the beasts, drastically lowering their bloodlust and slowing down their movements quite significantly.

All in all, it had a similar, albeit weaker effect to Elliot's awakened red dragon energy.

"Let's kill it quickly." Winter said calmly. "Do not hold back your secret skills, everyone."

"Secret skill? So you got one as well?" Brock asked in pleasant surprise.

"Secret skill? What's that? How come I didn't get any? Not fair!" Red squawked.

"Stop chit chatting and attack!" Wu Kong commanded sternly as he unleashed his own "secret skill".