243 Chapter 243: The Angel of Fire

For a moment, Cronus wondered if he was mistaken. He was pretty sure that Huang Shun Yin had just unleashed his ultimate technique, but all the flames had vanished. It didn't make sense to him. Shouldn't his fire spell get more powerful?

Where did all the flames go?

Instead, all Cronus could see was a single sword, its blade blackened and smoldering. His instincts warned him that there was something terribly wrong with the sword, and that it was highly dangerous, but he wasn't sure why he should fear such immense fear from a little burnt blade.

For some reason, his throat felt dry. The temperature seemed to rise, the air shimmering from invisible heat. His lips cracked, the dried skin peeling off to reveal blood. He raised a hand to it, and began to rewind time to heal it…only for it to crack against after seconds of exposure to the current temperature.

"…ugh…"

For some reason, he felt dizzy, as if he was suffering from heat exhaustion. But that couldn't be possible. He had been fused with a spirit. He should have transcended the very existence of humans altogether. So how could he…?

So hot…so dry…so thirsty…

No, it wasn't thirst. As a spirit vessel, Cronus could no longer feel thirsty. Yet, he felt a sensation akin to what was the equivalent of human thirst. It was as if all the moisture in his body was evaporating, drying up and fleeing somewhere. Probably trying futilely to keep his body cool, or diffusing to fill up the lack of water in the sweltering atmosphere.

"What's going on?" he demanded, his throat parched somehow. He staggered a little, wondering if he was staring at a mirage. His opponent seemed to have doubled himself…no, tripled.

Shun Yin merely grinned at him, seeming to hold his scorched sword in a relaxed manner.

However, Angelica rose out of the rubble to smack Shun Yin right in the head.

"What do you mean, Bankai?! Are you trying to be funny?!"

"Ow, come one! I just wanted to rip off one of the most awesome techniques ever from my favorite manga!"

"Rip off?! What happens when someone reports us for plagiarism and force us to delete this story? You're going to take responsibility?!"

"People are already complaining that we copied Battle Frenzy and a bunch of other manga, web novels and anime. What's one more?"

"Enough!" Cronus roared as he lunged at them. He could sense his wife, Serena, growing weaker by the minute. She was currently being cornered by Lionel Stuart and Yuan Dao Yue Guang. No, even Lionel alone was more than enough to overpower her.

If he didn't finish this idiot couple off soon, both he and his wife would be in danger of having their existences erased from this world.

As such, he didn't have patience for their antics and fourth-wall breaking humor, much like some readers and commenters, and hurled himself straight into combat. Silver mana rippled around him but he condensed it into pure power rather than time magic, as that would easily be countered by Angelica's purification flames.

However, Shun Yin didn't bother evading such a horrifying attack. He merely stood his ground and swung his sword.

Despite his initial misgivings and gut feeling, Cronus didn't care and plunged toward him with his punch. Even though his chest was feeling troubled and screaming a warning to him, he was pretty sure that there was no way a little, burned sword could do anything to him.

Even if it could, he could just merely restore himself with his time magic, rewinding time to back when he was still unscathed. He didn't need to worry about any sort of attack. As long as he still had his mana, he was immortal.

"!!!"

Cronus's view seemed to vanish as red-hot agony enveloped him. He continued barreling past Shun Yin before tumbling helplessly to the ground.

"…eh?!"

Through the red haze of excruciating pain, he glanced down at himself when he realized that he couldn't move his left arm. That he couldn't move either of his legs.

His body was gone. Completely erased. Only his head, shoulder and some part of his chest remained, his right arm clutching blankly at the ground. A cauterized wound ran where the left part of his chest would have been, but the rest of his body was simply gone.

It wasn't just his body. As he raised his head to look behind himself, he inevitably caught sight of the scorched crater that was all that remained of the ground. It was as if the ground itself had been sliced open, leaving nothing more than a ravine of molten rock behind.

His eyes moved toward Shun Yin's sword, and he suddenly understood where all the flames went.

That kid focused all of his flames into his sword! So each of his swing contains the full power of all those flames condensed into a single point!

As a result, his body was nearly completely incinerated from just a single strike.

Curling his fingers into the ground, Cronus forced himself to get up on his single remaining arm. With a roar, he gathered his mana into his body, trying to reverse time. A maelstrom of silver mana swirled around the remains of his body with immense force, buffeting both Shun Yin and Angelica, and a translucent silhouette of his body began to gradually form. Even though the time rewinding process had been slowed down by Angelica's flames of purification, he would not be stopped.

He could not be stopped.

"GUAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

However, he wasn't able to finish rewinding time and restoring himself. Withstanding the barrage of mana from his spell, Angelica raised a hand and bathed him in crimson flames. Cronus bellowed as he was engulfed by the mystical flames, but he gritted his teeth and struggled to endure it. All he needed was a few more seconds and he would be able to fully restore himself and break out of this inferno…

"!!!"

To his horror, Cronus realized that his time rewinding spell wasn't working. His magic was being neutralized by Angelica's purification flames. Even though he was attempting to overcome the purification effects through sheer volume of mana and willpower, it wasn't enough. He could see the regeneration of his body stunted and halted by the purification power.

"Damn it…!"

"Did you think I would just stand here and watch you rewind time to restore yourself?" Angelica's lips were curling to an insidious smile. "Don't be naïve."

Cronus growled and tried to lunge at her, hoping to catch her off guard with his remaining hand. She might be powerful, but if he caught her off guard, he might be able to break her concentration and interrupt her spell. That should give him enough time to complete the casting of his time rewind spell and restore himself.

"!!!"

However, he never reached her.

Shun Yin amputated his arm with his blackened, smoldering sword. The charred blade enveloped Cronus's remaining body with flames on par with those generated by the sun, and he screamed in agony. His arm vanished, completely incinerated, and it wasn't long before his head and chest followed it into the void, reduced into ashes.

"Phew…" Shun Yin wiped the perspiration from his brow. "I didn't expect my Can Huo de Tai Dao to be this powerful.

"It's not over yet!" Angelica warned. The next second, an explosion of silver mana erupted from Cronus's ashes, but Shun Yin leaped away in time. Gritting her teeth, Angelica blasted the silver maelstrom with crimson flames, slowly destroying it. The gigantic human outline that had gradually grew out of the ashes began to collapse again.

By purifying the time magic that Cronus cast, Angelica was neutralizing his resurrection and ensuring that he stayed dead for good. Even though this was similar in principle to the magic she originally wielded, she would never have been capable of casting purification flames of sufficient strength to neutralize Cronus's far more powerful time magic if she had not chosen to sacrifice her humanity and merge with a spirit.

That was why she had chosen to take this drastic step. In order to stop Cronus for good. Otherwise he would just return to life over and over again by rewinding time, and eventually slaughtered every single person here who belonged to the Global Federation.

This was the only chance they had for survival.

"UWAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

With an inhuman howl, Cronus's existence slowly faded away from this dimension. Without a physical form to which the spirit could tether itself, Cronus's biological body was expiring rapidly and losing cohesion. It wasn't as if Cronus's essence or soul could remain in the physical domain for very long if he didn't have a body to house it. It was dissipating, purged and cleansed by Angelica's relentless purification flames.

And then, just like that, he was gone.

"Cronus!"

Serena shrieked when she sensed and witnessed the demise of her husband. Greenish-black mana rolled outward from her body as she turned toward the two kids, incensed. At least eight pairs of hands burst from behind her, each carrying a different weapon.

"I suggest that you worry about yourself instead," Lionel advised. He had a point. Serena was in a critical condition, having been mauled by his countless Sakura blossoms. Her black synthetic suit had been ripped in a hundred different places, and she had lost a massive amount of blood from several dozen injuries. In fact, she was barely able to keep herself upright, staggering from the pain and blood loss.

"!!!"

Serena whirled around and slashed at Lionel, but he parried her short sword. Her eight pair of arms hammered or slashed down on him, but flexible wood sprang out from behind him, each bearing a green dragon coiled around it and blossoming leaves, and curled around the spectral appendages, restraining them. They began to diminish as the wooden technique drained the mana from them at an incredible rate.

"Kuh!"

Serena swung her second short sword, but Lionel ducked under it. Before she could respond, he twisted the sword in his hand and sliced off her arm.

"Argh!"

Screaming, Serena staggered back, blood spurting from her amputated limb, but before she could react, Lionel twirled his sword in an almost elegant fashion and rammed the tip of his blade into her chest, puncturing her heart.

Blood dripped from Serena's lips as she stared hollowly at the sword piercing through her chest, and then she slumped over lifelessly.

"That should do it."

Kicking Serena down and ruthlessly yanking his sword out of her corpse, Lionel turned toward the injured Yue Guang.

"Are you all right, Yue Guang?"

"Yes, my lord." the future security chief nodded and accepted the hand that his master offered him, allowing the latter to pull him to his feet.

"Good. Then I suggest that we…"

His proposal was cut short when a familiar figure burst into the cavern, followed by a massive White Tiger.

"I did it! I purged all the data in the cloud server, and destroyed the computer mainframe! I also went through the other rooms and wrecked them! There shouldn't be any physical hard disks containing the data, at least not in this facility!"

Glen Porter looked pretty proud of himself, but his triumph was short-lived. Catching sight of Angelica's angelic form, he did a double take.

"Angie!? What happened to you?!"

Angelica offered him a sad smile.

"I'm afraid that I'm…not Angelica. Well, I am still her, but at the same time I'm not her."

"Huh? What the hell are you talking about?!" Glen scowled at her. "Stop speaking in riddles and explain clearly!"

"I'm afraid I can't do that." Angelica shook her head. "Maybe we'll meet again, but for now…"

She disappeared, turning into a ball of fire that streaked toward Shun Yin and vanished into his chest. Shun Yin could feel a familiar and nostalgic warmth spreading throughout his body. Closing his eyes, he clamped his fingers to his chest.

"W…what?! Where did she go!? Angie!?"

Glen was gaping at the unbelievable spectacle, and his eyes came to a rest on Shun Yin's stationary form, the last place where Angelica went.

"Shun Yin! What's going on?! What happened to Angie?!"

"I would also like an explanation, if you don't mind." Lionel joined them, backed by his bodyguard. "It appears that…she underwent the same process as the Assassin we were fighting earlier. If I recall from the data correctly, that was Spirit Possession…"

"What?!" Glen's face paled considerably. He spun toward Shun Yin and grabbed his shoulders. "Don't tell me she went and turned herself into a spirit?! Why?! Why didn't you stop her?!"

"I tried to." Shun Yin slumped down wearily, feeling as if the weight of the world had just sank into his shoulders. "But she tricked me. I know it's not an excuse…I'm sorry."

"Instead of apologizing, why don't you start from the beginning?" Lionel suggested gently, placing a hand on Glen and coaxing him away. Shun Yin nodded.

"It's a long story…"