Chapter 137: Ancestral Orge Spirit

One after another, sharp bone spikes erupted from the ground. Each one was as pale as snow. And each one emerged with the intention to skewer Ray like meat cubes. But the intent behind their emergence went unfulfilled.

Ray had sensed them coming. His instincts as a heavenly being screamed before they even broke through the soil, allowing him to determine where danger would strike from and move away to safety in time.

He had already leapt aside, landing in a crouch several meters away as the jagged pillars of bone tore through the ground where he’d been standing.

“Don’t think this is over!” Kalen roared.

He raised both hands, his movements sharp and theatrical, as if he were directing an orchestra. In response to his hand movement, the bone spikes trembled, then ripped free from the earth and hovered midair. With a violent sweep of his arms, Kalen sent them flying toward Ray.

The air howled.

The ground cracked.

The spikes streaked forward like white meteors.

Ray darted aside in a blur, his movements too quick for the eye to follow. The projectiles struck the ground, exploding into clouds of dust and bone fragments.

Before the haze could settle, another volley followed, but this time Ray didn’t dodge, meeting force with force.

He unleashed the true form of his Warhammer before letting go of it, letting it spin through the air. It swung in wide arcs, smashing each spike to splinters.

Each clash echoed like thunder, the sound rolling across the barren plains.

After shattering all the bone spikes, it fell back into his hand.

The more Kalen watched, the darker his face became.

The power he had gained through betrayal, the gift for helping the ogres that should have placed him among the top of the Bronze Rankers, was being overpowered through sheer brute strength.

Kalen didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one bit.

One had to understand. This was a planet with stricter natural laws than Veloria. Vidiria did not welcome beings above the Bronze Rank. If someone were to break through to Silver Rank while on this planet, the world itself would reject them, forcibly expelling their existence, meaning Kalen was well aware Ray was Bronze Rankers same as him and not a silver ranker disguised as one.

The truth hurts his pride more.

His face twisted with disbelief.

He was being overwhelmed by a fellow human of the same rank. A human who hadn’t sacrificed his humanity for power. The truth struck him like a slap. His faced burned. Turning red.

“What other tricks have you got?” Ray called out, his voice calm, almost mocking. “Because right now, you’re starting to bore me.”

The taunt struck deep, like salt rubbed into a wound.

“Don’t you dare look down on me!” Kalen bellowed, fury distorting his face.

He lunged forward, closing the distance in a single stride.

A blade materialized in his hand. A bone shiv, long and curved like a fang. Its surface glistened with a sickly green liquid that dripped from its tip, sizzling as it hit the ground and melted the stone beneath it.

Bone shivs were the signature weapon of the Ogres, created by their Shaman. These weapons were classified as silver rank enchanted weapons. They were unique in the sense that their power varies.

Kalen’s bone shiv was infused with the power to produce toxins lethal for bronze rankers.

Kalen’s eyes burned with that same malice as his weapon carved a crescent of darkness toward Ray’s throat.

“When you do foolish things, others will look down upon you,” Ray said quietly.

His voice was low, unhurried as if he wasn’t the one in danger. His neck metallified under the effect of the Fortification skill. Following that, a purple memberance formed over it. A ring of flames burned around it with incredible stability.

Two more layers have been added to his defense!

When the shiv came near, the poison coating its surface hissed and evaporated instantly upon touching the black flames around his neck.

The shiv had high fire resistance, but it glowed red, melting at the edges as it made contact with the black flames.

Its lethality was greatly reduced before it went ahead and struck the purple membrane.

The strike carried enough force to slaughter an ordinary Bronze Ranker outright, but it didn’t even pierce Ray’s second layer of defense. The membrane of condensed amethyst wind held like tempered steel.

Kalen froze, eyes wide. Shock and confusion flickered in his gaze.

“How… how can you use so many powers at once? What the hell are you?”

Ray smiled faintly. “Your worst nightmare.”

To Kalen, that smile was no different from a devil’s grin. Cold, cruel, and utterly confident.

Kalen felt terrible.

He had believed that after betraying his kind and serving the Ogre’s interest, he would become an unstoppable force amongst his force.

A hunter who had tapped into the supernatural discipline of the ogres should be an unrivalled existence in the bronze rank, after all.

But now that illusion was completely shattered by a fellow human no less.

“I’ll be keeping that,” Ray said suddenly as he reached out with a metallified hand and grabbed the bone shive.

With a twist of his wrist, he disarmed Kalen, wrenching the bone shiv from his grip.

A flicker of light enveloped the weapon before it vanished as Ray stored it away into his dimensional inventory.

Before Kalen could react, Ray slammed his knee into his ribs — the impact producing a dull, wet crack. Kalen coughed blood, his body twisting under the blow.

Ray didn’t stop. His Warhammer came next — an upward arc that connected with Kalen’s chin.

The strike launched him skyward, his body spinning uncontrollably.

He soared like a broken arrow shot into the sky.

“Surprisingly sturdy,” Ray muttered, tilting his head as he watched Kalen rise higher. He had expected that blow to separate his head from his shoulders. The fact that he still clung to life meant his body was far stronger than it appeared.

“But it doesn’t matter. The outcome won’t change.”

Ray crouched, power gathering beneath his legs. The ground cracked as he shot upward. In no time, he went past Kalen.

He brought his Warhammer over his hand.

Then he brought it down.

Bam!

Struck by the Warhammer, Kalen’s body plummeted, slamming into the ground hard enough to shake the plains. The earth split, a crater blooming outward like a dark flower. Webs of cracks radiated across the terrain.

Ray landed nearby, dust swirling around his boots.

He walked toward the crater slowly, each step deliberate. His expression didn’t change as he looked at the battered and broken state he had struck Kalen into. There was no pity in his eyes — only murduorus intention.

“More tenacious than a cockroach,” Ray muttered.

Most Bronze Rankers would’ve been obliterated by that strike. Kalen, however, still breathed — barely. His body was mangled, his limbs trembling, but his eyes burned with stubborn defiance.

Kalen coughed violently, blood bubbling from his lips. He stared at Ray through blurred vision, then — impossibly — he laughed.

The sound was rough, broken, but carried a sharp edge.

“Heh… hahahaha! Looks like the Tower finally birthed a monster.” He spat blood. “But you… you offended the wrong person.”

As he spoke, the runes etched across his body began to glow.

A red eerier light.

Following that, His smile widened into a rictus grin.

“Too bad you won’t live long enough to see the demonic creatures winning the war.”

Kalen’s smile turned eerie.

He withered rapidly as the runes drawn across his body began feeding on his blood to bring forth the greatest secret and reliance of the ogre race to light. In but an instant, he came to look like a mummy as the runes drawn on his body sucked nearly all his blood to activate.

The area around him submerged in what looked like a scarlet mist. From the mist, a monstrous figure emerged.

Its form was vaguely humanoid but undoubtedly monstrous. It stood nearly ten meters tall, its form built from muscle cords wound like iron cables beneath stone-gray flesh. Plates of jagged bone armor jutted out from its shoulders and spine, each one engraved with glowing runes. Veins of crimson light snaked through its torso, converging on a hollow cavity in its chest where a heart should have been

In each of its four hands, it carried a weapon — a cleaver, a hammer, a jagged spear, and a skull totem bleeding spectral energy.

Its eyes snapped open. Then, two searing orbs of pure hatred fixed squarely on Ray.

Kalen lifted its head weakly from the ground. His voice was rasping, nearly gone, yet triumphant.

“Behold… the Ogre Ancestral Spirit,” he rasped, grinning with what little strength he had left. “A being capable of rivaling a Silver Ranker. The strongest weapon of the ogres. It’s a technique given form from blood sacrifice. That’s why the laws of this cursed planet won’t react to it even though it has the power of a silver ranker.”

He looked at Ray, eyes wide with deranged satisfaction. “You can’t run from it. You can’t hide from it. You’re doomed… completely doomed!”

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