"You are pretty emotional, aren't you?" Klynster continued the conversation as a cover to draw Varian's attention. "Or maybe that old man knows you well." Varian clutched his injury, hoping to heal it quickly. But the environment here made it very difficult. "Recently, you killed an entire civilization for the sake of a trial. And you strangled a little girl who trusted you so much." Varian's fingers dug into his palm and blood spilled out. Klynster tilted his head as if he found his reaction interesting. "We had to plan every interaction with you. Saving you twice, sharing our tragic stories and reminding you of the time you couldn't save that girl's civilization. This is a retry, a second chance! You won't be able to abandon us." As Varian underwent a turmoil of emotions, Klynster used his aura to build a couple of red suns in the sky, suns filled with the power of death, the power he knew Varian was desperately resisting to stop himself from becoming an Undead.
"I wasn't saved by an Undead and gained sympathy for them. I was killed by one." There was a conflicting expression on Klynster's face, as he seemed to recall the moment of his 'death'.
The death suns in the sky began to emanate beams of death energy that lit up the region they were in.
Varian's body trembled as he tried to resist. But he was fighting against both Klynster and Purgatory itself. With each passing moment, his resistance was growing weaker.
"The Undead showed no mercy to me despite my willingness to understand their side of the problems. He murdered me brutally. I didn't understand then. But I did once I rose back. We are sides of the same coin. But only one side must win.
The current stalemate against Jai Empire is because the two empires can't be decisive enough.
Once the alliance turns into an Undead empire, there will be no fear against even the God Emperor."
Klynster clenched his fist and the large suns fell from the sky, reaching Varian in a blink.
Created from the power of all these Undead, including Klynster's, this was the attack that should certainly kill Varian.
"Now die!" Klynster roared. But—
"You weren't only the one using the conversation as a cover."
Despite the pale face and gaping wound, Varian had a smile on his face.
Klynster's plan was near perfect. But as an Undead, he only fought against other Undead all his time in purgatory. The only other paths he encountered were the genesis powerhouses who entered purgatory for various reasons.
In divine ranks, he never encountered a space-time powerhouse. He was aware of the blindspot in his knowledge too. So, he decided to bruteforce his way through it and simply poured a tonne of death energy for locking up space.
But that's not all. He wasn't aware that Varian was as proficient in death energy as he was in life energy.
Even worse, he never accounted the fact that Varian would grow so quickly that estimates based on his strength as recent as even three days ago could be misleading.
As a result, Varian simply used his own death energy and resonated it with a tiny portion of the barrier built to lock him in.
With the death energy of the barrier in that region turning unstable, he used his space-time power to blast a hole through it. It's a tiny hole in which even a hair wouldn't fit. But…
"Stop!"
Boom! As the red suns exploded, Varian's body perished. But a tiny droplet of blood squeezed its way out of the hole and teleported itself into the distance.
A moment later, Varian materialized with a full body. Even compared to earlier, his face was horrendously pale and his skin was turning red.
The power of slivers emerged from him and seven divine powers in his body rumbled.
"Come," Noticing Klynster who was fast approaching him, Varian grinned with a bloody smile. "Traitorous son of a bitch."
The next five minutes passed in a blur with Varian escaping most of the time and landing a blow whenever he could.
Klynster grew increasingly frustrated as he failed to catch this leech that kept slipping.
The best he could do was stop Varian from leaving purgatory and inflict serious injuries on him.
But the more the battle progressed, the worse things seemed.
Klynster desperately wanted to deny it but it was clear that the power difference between them was shrinking at an unbelievable pace.
"H-How?!"
A badly bruised Varian answered with a middle finger and jumped into a space crack.
"Urgh!" Groaning in frustration, Klynster kicked the ground and chased after him.
Due to Varian's incredible ways of escape, the Undead were not able to catch up with him at all, leaving the responsibility of chase solely to Klynster.
If he had to face off every Undead under Klynster, he wouldn't have survived this long.
'Status'
[Dragon: 15/100 (+5)
Titan: 15/100 (+5)
Phoenix: 15/100 (+5)
Order: 15/100 (+5)
Chaos: 15/100 (+5)
Space: 15/100 (+5)
Time: 15/100 (+5)]
'One more unit and I'll step into mid rank 1. My strength should be barely able to touch high rank 1. Still weaker than Klynster but much more bearable.'
Varian planned to prolong the fight, grow strong and end Klynster. It was a great plan. But the thing with plans…they often get disrupted.
Boom!
The sky turned dark all of a sudden before it cracked like glass.
"Oh no!" Varian knew what it was. Without hesitation, he poured all the space-time power he had and teleported away.
Tentacles fell from the sky and caught Klynster who couldn't escape.
"It's time to break out of this prison and get new children. Come!" The Parsite Queen high in the sky raised her arms.
The tentacles grabbing thousands of Undead from all over purgatory including Klynster reached her.
The parasites themselves prostrated and allowed themselves to be carried by the tentacles.
Varian realized something fucked up was going to happen.
From the information he gathered, Parasite Queen had once challenged the guardian of Purgatory and failed. Since then, she had been planning to secure her victory.
But since the guardian was rank 1 and she's saying these things now—
"Var, run!" Sarah's voice was drowned out by the screeches of hundreds of parasites.
A tremendous concentration of aura filled the space around the queen and the pressure emenating from her sheer presence grew at an unbelievable pace.
The injured Sarah, Sia, Isadora and Enigma appeared next to Varian with grim faces.
"We don't have to fight. Just leave the purgatory." Varian said with a pale face.
"We can't." Isadora pointed to the red barrier that came up at some point over the existing barrier. "She sealed the entire purgatory."
"Ahahahaha! Do you love me so much you're willing to die for me? I love you too! I love you all!" The ground under their feet cracked and massive red tentacles emerged out of them.
Parasite's Queen aura broke through the range of high rank 1 and entered the peak of rank 1.
"We can't beat her." Sarah bit her lip, clutching onto her bleeding shoulder.
Varian looked at his injured women before turning to Klynster who was being squeezed to powder by the tentacles.
Even now, that man kept his gaze fixated on Varian. He must be regretting not taking more chances.
"Haa~" Varian exhaled deeply and created a spark of red and green.
He clenched his fist and the red-green jumped into a space crack, reaching a location that Klynster warned Varian to never cross.
The ground suddenly shook and the shaking sky stilled.
"We can't beat her."
Parasite Queen's smile vanished and she turned to the sky with a solem gaze. "But he can."
A pitch-black eye opened in the sky.