Guild Wars

Chapter 825: Core Members Tournament 3

These green cubes exploded around Essence to form a band of 25 Aurora Knights. They were clad in green plate mail with their faces obscured, the only thing showing their 'humanity' being their green glowing eyes from their helms.

These 25 Aurora Knights were mounted on horses that were also green-colored and seemed to be made of energy. They whinnied as their reins were pulled and the knights unhesitatingly charged toward the rushing undead.

BANG!

The collision was like two trains ramming into each other. The Knights steadily remained on their steeds as they swung about, using their lances, great axes, or swords to cut down all in their path. These fodder-like undead could only act as a napkin meeting a high-pressure water cutter, being manhandled without a chance to fight back.

Essence at the back grimaced slightly. "Man, spawning these guys is costly as hell. 25% of my reserves gone spawning them and about 1% drained per minute maintaining them."

Despite his words, one could see a green light of energy flow towards Essence at great speeds from all over the battlefield, as the undead the knights cut down were decomposed into bits of Aurora energy and collected by the Aurora Lord.

"Still, thankfully these guys are able to help with their upkeep like this." Essence muttered to himself.

If not, it would be impossible to use a skill like this. However, Essence had designed this ability to handle large waves of enemies when he was farming to reach Rank 4 in the past. Rather than do survival dungeons or Field Zones, he simply entered Continental Dungeons and let his knights fight until they were overwhelmed.

With each kill they made, depending on the quality of the foe, energy would be returned to him because anything that Aurora 'interacts' with would be decomposed into the same type of energy.

Aurora was different from Creation Energy. Creation Energy was a subset of Origin Energy, and this energy was nonviolent and used for post-primordial creation of things in a universe. Aurora was pre-primordial and primordial, and most importantly, was a caustic and violent energy despite bearing creative properties.

To give the best analogy, let's use an artist. Before an artist draws, they use a random pencil to sketch the general outline before they draw the linework. You could take Aurora as the chaotic sketch of the idea while Origin was the linework and Creation energy was the final render.

Or, as a more general example, take mathematics. When writing an exam, one does not do their rough work on the answer sheet, but on the side, then they write the neatened equation on the answer sheet. Aurora is that rough work you did on the side while Origin was the equation and Creation Energy was the final answer.

It could be used to make anything, but that thing would be archetypal and unable to separate itself from the nature of Aurora. So unlike Hikari who can create life at her current power, Essence can only create the archetype of life, but it would not be permanent.

Even if he could, that life form would be like Vitae, but made of Aurora Energy. And as stated a hundred times, Aurora that interacted with anything turned that matter/energy into more Aurora.

Despite being bullied by the balance-breaking Draco, everything else was strived to be balanced by the AI. Creation was clean and 'easy' so it had no combat utility and those who used it were normally of good and kind characters, or would be influenced by the energy to display such characteristics overtime.

Likewise, Aurora had creative capabilities, but it could be used for offensive and defensive means, so it was made 'dirty' and 'hard'. It was denied permanence, denied cohesivity, and stability as well as some aspects of general utility.

Essence's Divine class allowed him to regain stability, much like how Draco also gained stability with Destruction Energy, but that was it. It was likely impossible to gain permanence and full cohesiveness with aurora Energy.

Why, if he did, he would likely be able to travel to alternate universes and maintain great amounts of power. He would be so powerful that mere energy that dropped from his body could create Origin-tier beings in other universes and he would likely have to hibernate often to prevent his energy from flooding the universe.

But that was totally impossible, haha.

Dreary Traveler did not seem bothered. Rather, he had a strange smirk on his face as he released undead continuously until the skills timer ran out.

Since the battles between core members had no timers to allow for more strategies and usage of power, hours could pass and the battle could still rage on. By this point, Essence was panting because he was saturated with Aurora Energy.

It couldn't be helped, when the fight started out, the little droplets of energy from the slaughtering were still building up. However, that damned gate never stopped releasing easy-to-kill fodder, so the little droplets soon formed a mighty ocean where the influx suppressed even the consumption.

Essence had killed many things before, but the highest he had every reached was around 70% fullness. This was his first time hitting his cap, and he felt like he had swallowed 3 burgers in 30 minutes.

Seeing this, Dreary Traveler let the skill expire and folded his arms behind his back.

"I forfeit."

With that line, he turned and left the stage. Before doing so, and under the shocked and speechless gazes of all the core members, he turned to Essence with a half-smirk.

"You owe me a favor."

Essence himself was stunned speechless, then could only rub his forehead.

This guy… sigh.

Essence may have won the battle, but he technically lost the war.

3rd Battle: Essence wins!

4th Battle: begin!

Noble Soul solemnly walked upon the stage while AP_Berzerker picked his ears lazily.

Noble Soul saw this nonchalance and was annoyed. "Bitch, even if I am weaker, that doesn't mean you can act like a dog!"

AP_Berzerker gazed at Noble Soul for a short while then sighed, looking up to the sky.

"A competition at hand, foes galore, a retard before me, what a bore."

With that blow, Noble Soul was forced to check his class details by the powers above.

?Hero - Legendary Class (Rank 4)

Skills: Final Strike (Active), Rage Mode (Active)

Exp gain rate: 80%

Rank up difficulty: 85%

Class weapons: Any large.

Class skills: Any Aura, Large Weapon.?

?The Power of Friendship – Active skill

Effect: You are powerful, but are also nothing without your friends who had contributed everything to bring you where you are today. Acknowledge the prowess of your friends and give yourself and every ally a 60% boost to all stats, a 200% boost to Damage and Defense, and a 3 seconds invulnerability period!

Duration: 10 minutes.

Cooldown: 12 hours.?

?Rage Mode – Active skill

Effect: As a Hero, you have witnessed crimes and death, but nothing like watching your precious friends die before you. As such, you unlocked the rage of the gods, and can unleash obscene power for a short time at great cost.

Note: All abilities, powers, and stats are boosted by 1000%!

Note: After the duration ends, you will be in a Severely Weakened state until the cooldown expires.

Duration: 30 minutes.

Cooldown: 7 days.?

?God of War - Divine Class (Rank 4)

Skills: Divine Strength (Passive), Divine Endurance (Passive), Mighty Strike (Active), Warrior Rage (Active), Axe Throw (Active), Axe Recall (Active), Divine Speed (Passive), Divine Will (Passive), Divine Power (Active), Divine Summon (Active)

Starting Stats: Str 120, Dex 90, End 120, Int 70, Spr 70, Cha 10, Lck 10

Exp gain rate: 0.5%

Rank up difficulty: 50%

Class weapons: Any Axe.

Class skills: Any Divine, Combat.?

?Divine Strenght – Passive skill

Effect: The God of War is a being in possession of a Divine nature by default. Your Strength is enough to shatter mountains and move continents at will when you reach your prime. Currently, you have a 400% boost to Strength.?

?Divine Endurance – Passive skill

Effect: The God of War is a being in possession of a Divine nature by default. Your Endurance is enough to withstand the apocalypse and the crashing of the sun on your body when you reach your prime. Currently, you have a 400% boost to Endurance..?

?Mighty Strike – Active skill

Effect: Draw power from the divine nature within you and condense it in your axes, striking a single target before you and dealing 3,000% weapon damage and 400% splash damage to an Area Zone.

Cooldown: 1 hour.?

?Warrior Rage – Active skill

Effect: Channel the rage of an angered warrior as your abandon your axes and resort to your fists. All damage is increased by 600% and you are invulnerable for the duration. Every strike returns 30% of its damage as HP to the caster.

Duration: 30 seconds

Cooldown: 1 hour.?

?Axe Throw – Active skill

Effect: A simple axe throw containing 120% of your total damage that tracks any foe you target within the range of an Area Zone.

Cooldown: 10 seconds.?

?Axe Recall – Active skill

Effect: A simple axe recall that strikes up to 50 random or targeted enemies on its way back to your hands.

Cooldown: 10 seconds.?

?Divine Speed – Passive skill

Effect: The God of War is a being in possession of a Divine nature by default. Your Dexterity is enough to baffle the fastest beings and subdue even the sneakiest of foes when you reach your prime. Currently, you have a 200% boost to Dexterity.?

?Divine Will – Passive skill

Effect: The God of War is a being in possession of a Divine nature by default. Your Will is enough to subdue Ghosts and Gods at will when you reach your prime. Currently, you have a 200% boost to Intelligence and Spirit.?

?Divine Power – Active skill

Effect: Draw Divine power from the heavens, boosting your stats by 100%. This lasts as long as there is ambient energy to burn, and upon exiting this form, one would enter a slightly weakened state for as long as the duration lasted.

Note: Slightly Weakened state means a 10% reduction to all stats.

Duration: Variable.

Cooldown: None.?

?Divine Summon – Active skill

Effect: The God of War does not fight alone, but commands an army of the True Spirit Warriors. Summon a portion of this army onto the battlefield to make a lightning strike on the enemy on your behalf. This deals 1200% damage to all foes within an Area Zone.

Cooldown: 6 hours.?

AP_Berzerker originally had a normal class upon joining the game since he was present within before joining Umbra, but he had long since classed up into a Divine one. What made this possible was when he received the avatar of Xingtian, the God of War, in his body.

As such, the same class became available to him in the game. Luckily, for him, the actual God of War in the game died during the battle of the old era and since now new Gods had been born to fill those roles, the position was still empty.

Otherwise, like with Sunna and Eva, AP_Berzerker would have likely developed beef with the actual God of War despite one being from Western Fantasy and AP's largely being from Eastern Fantasy.

Whatever the case. Noble Soul wielded his large greatsword easily as he entered a battle stance, while AP opposite him flourished his two poleaxes that gleamed with a golden-blue light.

In a single split second, both parties blasted forth toward each other, their Strength, Speed, and Endurance far greater than their peers in the core members since they both had pure battle-type classes.

When the greatsword collided with the two pole axes, it was as if Armageddon had come as the entire space shook and began to crack, making the faces of the various core members change from casual to horrified once again.

Meanwhile, Noble Soul and AP kept clashing in the middle, ignoring the plight of everyone else as they grinned at each other.