The team had escaped being surrounded by the army, but now they had to withstand the frontal assault of the ones sent to pursue them.
Six hundred demons was an overwhelming number of demons.
Now, the demons had their speed greatly boosted, and were rushing towards the team.
The impact was going to be very heavy.
Mia had decided for them to make a steady retreat.
They couldn’t outrun the demons.
The team braced themselves for the impact.
Lancelot had cast all sort of defensive techniques.
Neo and Mia also reinforced him.
Neo didn’t hold back on the number of techniques he cast.
As long as he could cast it, he did so.
He had no concern for his essence running out.
The essence projection of a large shield came out from Lancelot’s shield.
It covered the path of all the incoming demons, making sure they were within its range.
The moment they were a few meters from the projection.
It moved forward.
The impact was indeed heavy.
Lancelot strained as his essence was depleted rapidly.
The demons hadn’t just had their speed boosted, their strength was also greater than before.
The impact only killed the demons momentum.
They weren’t knocked back.
Lancelot was greatly taxed.
He was in no shape to fight again.
Sofia and Derek attacked next.
The daggers and arrows didn’t have much impact.
Those tattoos boosted the demons in all aspects.
They were almost invincible.
But as the two continued to attack, the daggers and arrows began to find their place in demon flesh.
The glow from the tattoos on the demons’ bodies had begun to dim.
The demons were turning from the super demons into the regular demons they were used to.
The numbers were still overwhelming, but they could manage.
They were already making a slow retreat.
The plan was not to engage the demons, it was to slowly make them give up the chase.
These demons, however, were determined to destroy the team.
After the frontal assault didn’t work, they scattered and surrounded the team.
Neo knew that Lancelot was unable to create the dome again.
He would have to be the one to protect everyone today.
He released his white essence aura, and drew his sword.
He slashed once at the air, then twice.
He didn’t stop.
His speed increased.
With every successive slash, a sword made of essence aura floated into the air.
They floated to form small sword arrays that then arranged themselves into a dome made of interconnected swords arrays.
It protected the team from all corners, covering them under the dome.
Neo’s essence aura which had been released in full, showed his current essence cultivation.
Something that shocked every member of the team.
The third level of essence cultivation.
Neo was at the third level of essence cultivation.
They knew his cultivation had been improving very fast as of late.
But essence cultivation became progressively hard to improve, especially when breaking through a level.
There were two aspects to cultivation.
Rank and Essence.
One denotes the level of life, and the other the cultivated essence held within one’s being.
From one percent essence to ten percent essence was the first level.
Eleven to twenty percent, the second.
And so on it went to the tenth level.
The peak of the essence cultivation within the rank.
When one reached the peak of the rank, they had to rank up.
A breakthrough even more challenging than climbing levels.
Then they cultivated essence again from the beginning to the peak.
But one of their new rank.
That was all cultivation was, the endless climb upwards.
But that upwards climb was very steep.
Neo, however seemed to be defying that common sense.
The shock however hadn’t ended.
Neo had more surprises in wait for them.
He made the biggest reveal as of yet.
On his forehead, dim golden light began to glow.
Mia was the first to figure out what it was.
No.
She didn’t figure it out.
It came directly to her mind.
Like a scream.
Bloodline.
Neo had a bloodline.
The others didn’t know what it was at first, but they were able to put two and two together.
And with Mia’s shocked expression, they could guess what it was.
A bloodline.
It felt like a dream.
This was something everyone wished they had, but fate had denied them.
They had been together with a bloodline bearer all this while.
Neo knew the technique he was performing now was powerful.
This sword dome consumed a lot of essence.
Far beyond that of Lancelot’s shield dome.
He needed something to explain his unbelievable capabilities, and his current cultivation alone wasn’t enough to explain it away.
That was why he displayed the Nascent Essence Loving River Snake, the five character bloodline.
A bloodline was enough to wow everyone.
It would also somehow explain what he was about to do next.
The sword dome wasn’t just for defense, it was an ultimate weapon of offense.
The essence swords didn’t stop, they kept being released with every slash from Neo’s sword.
The dome was already strong enough, it was time to go on the offensive.
Essence swords detached from the dome to form a ring around it.
As they detached, they were immediately replenished from the essence swords Neo continued to release.
The ring kept expanding with every essence sword that detached from the dome.
The ring wasn’t static.
Every essence sword in it vibrated together.
The presence of the ring made of essence swords sent a chill down the demons’ spine.
They unconsciously retreated.
When everyone thought that was it, the tattoos on the demons’ body that had become dim lit up.
It began to glow again.
The glow intensified, and it seemed to fill the demons with courage.
They charged at the ring of swords.
Pitting their bodies against it.
They weren’t torn apart.
Their actions stressed the ring, as the essence swords that made it up began to crack and dissipate.
Neo knew it was time to up his game.
The dim golden light on his forehead began to glow with a tint of red.
It was the sign that he was overdrawing his bloodline.
Using power beyond what it could support at its current stage.
Bloodlines grew along with their host.
Overdrawing was just like a self destruction technique, but with no permanent consequences.
The bloodline would just go into dormancy for a while.
The ring of essence swords became whole again.
Then more rings began to form.
Neo would need more than just a ring of essence swords to deal with these insane demons.
Sorry.