Chapter 1080: Mutation
The Law of Brutal Rebirth and the Law of Abyssal Pyre.
These were the laws of Beginning and Spartan respectively.
The Law of Brutal Rebirth transformed pain into fuel, making severe wounds trigger powerful regenerative bursts. The closer to death, the stronger one became.
The Law of Abyssal Pyre, on the other hand, devoured anything in its path and reformed it into spiritual residue usable by its wielder.
These were the effects of Beginning and Spartan's laws respectively.
One was of the giant race, and the latter was now a true human. Both possessed powerful constitutions and inherent advantages.
Just what would happen if even a fraction of those traits were added to the undead High Drake?
Michael didn't know.
When he first comprehended this law skill, he had tried it out with a few unimportant Rank Four undead. Though the effect had been astonishing, the consumption was demonic.
After that, even though he knew he could use it on most of his undead, he hadn't applied it to any of his truly powerful ones. Instead, he had further refined the method and kept it as a trump card.
He hadn't expected a day like this to come so soon, nor had he expected to underestimate the actual cost of using this law skill.
The moment the skill was cast, Michael felt a massive drain of mental and soul energy leave his body, making him momentarily unstable in the air before he recovered some of his bearing.
"This is too much!"
Fortunately, after the initial activation, they only needed to maintain it. Though the maintenance cost wasn't as monstrous as the initial cast, it was still very energy-consuming, if manageable.
Now, with less than ten minutes remaining before he could finally store the Origin Battlefield treasure away, as long as he could escape the sight of the other awakeners, they wouldn't be able to track him. He had that much confidence.
As he felt the consumption of the law skill he had just cast, Michael sensed a dramatic shift behind him and turned around immediately.
Right before his astonished eyes, the undead High Drake began undergoing another transformation.
It started with its body. The already colossal drake trembled as every muscle across its enormous frame violently contracted.
Crunch!
Deep, heavy sounds echoed through the air. Its bones expanded. Its muscles thickened. Its wings stretched outward once more.
The drake's already gigantic body continued growing, passing three hundred and fifty meters before finally approaching six hundred.
The pressure radiating from its existence multiplied.
Michael's pupils narrowed. He hadn't expected such an obvious physical change.
The transformation didn't stop there.
The drake's scales slowly began changing. Every scale across its body gradually lost its original appearance before darkening further and further, settling into a deep black that seemed capable of swallowing light itself.
Even its horns, eyes, and claws underwent the same transformation. The cold green eyes that had previously observed everything calmly darkened until they too became completely black. There was no visible pupil or iris.
Just endless darkness. Anyone meeting those eyes would instinctively feel as though they were staring into a bottomless abyss.
Michael's breathing unconsciously slowed.
"…This…"
Before the transformation had completely finished, another phenomenon appeared.
Heat. An unbelievable amount of heat. It erupted from the drake's body without warning. The surrounding air distorted violently.
Large sections of cloud that had somehow begun reforming high above evaporated almost instantly. The plains beneath the drake started changing. Rivers flowing between valleys began producing enormous amounts of steam.
The rocky ground itself gradually turned red.
Michael, standing only a short distance away, immediately felt a wave of scorching heat crash into him. His expression changed.
"…Hot."
His physique had already reached an astonishing level. Ordinary flames couldn't even leave marks on his skin anymore.
Yet simply standing near the transformed High Drake made him feel distinctly uncomfortable. The heat wasn't merely physical. It carried traces of law within it.
Michael instinctively retreated several dozen meters. Only then did the discomfort lessen slightly. He stared at the transformed drake with unconcealed surprise.
"So this is what happens when Beginning's and Spartan's traits overlap."
The High Drake slowly spread its wings. The surrounding sky shook. A faint black haze continuously flowed from the gaps between its scales while waves of unbearable heat rolled outward endlessly.
"So strong…"
Michael had expected improvement, but even he hadn't anticipated a mutation of this scale.
Even from their rapidly approaching positions, the four figures chasing him instinctively slowed for the briefest instant.
However, Michael's focus wasn't on them. The moment he recovered his bearing, under the eyes of the four approaching at the fastest speed he had ever witnessed, he threw the Origin Battlefield treasure, which still carried a faint glow, directly into the mouth of the undead High Drake.
As for the treasure being destroyed, he had noticed a while back that as long as the glow still existed, it would be very difficult to actually destroy it.
Additionally, when some monsters became sufficiently proficient in void magic, they could create a stable spatial pocket within their stomach.
For a creature like the undead High Drake, which carried a significant amount of dragon blood, it had naturally mastered this technique.
This was only the first step of Michael's plan. Unfortunately, it produced a different result from what the four approaching figures had anticipated.
Just as he had suspected, none of them actually harbored genuine malice toward him. But this was the supernatural world.
A weak man didn't deserve to hold a treasure, and a strong man couldn't pass on a powerful one. It was simply the rule of the jungle, and if one died because of it, they could only blame themselves for being weak, or in Michael's case, for being greedy.
What none of them had foreseen, including Michael, was that even after the undead High Drake had swallowed the treasure, it still broadcast its location outward through a glow.