Shepherd Tantra

Chapter 972 My Immortal Friend

——Time stopped.

It's not just one person, but an entire space and time that is frozen here!
The almost miraculous sight shocked all the teammates around Master Chongbo!
Everyone only knew that this ordinary, silent and decadent old man was the preservationist hired by Aiwass. It was said that he could release a shield with extremely strong protective ability and resurrect the dead...but people didn't know that his power was so strong!
Where is the assistance you promised?!
"——What are you waiting for?!"

Ligeia shouted loudly and slapped Julia's buttocks lightly.

Yulia suddenly woke up, feeling ashamed for being distracted during the battle, and with a determined look in her eyes, she reached out and grabbed the black and red bow on her head.

The moment the bow was taken off, it burst into flames. The dark red flames gathered between her fingers, like a small reactor.

"——Liya!"

Yulia shouted loudly and suddenly threw the ball in her palm upwards!
The dark red flames expanded into a huge vortex in the air and turned into four gradient red and black butterfly wings.

Then, the Flame Butterfly emerged from it!

Wearing wings of ash and a skirt of flame - with dark red irises that remind people of an insect's eyes slowly opening, staring at the frozen magic fly in the sky.

She raised her hands high, forming a triangle with her index finger and thumb, and then the triangle was completely filled with flames.

The golden-red flames gathered in it, and were constrained into a beam of light in front of the triangle, shooting into the sky with a bang!
The air was pierced by the flame beam, emitting circular air waves.

The violent storm spread in all directions, and Yulia's long silver-white hair fluttered in the storm and flew all over the sky.

There was an unquenchable flame burning in her bright red pupils!
She glared at the sky, and seemed to have formed some kind of resonance with the Flame Butterfly - the golden-red flames instantly expanded three times and turned into platinum-colored flame beams!
The beam of light swept across the entire swarm of flies carefully from west to east, but it seemed to have no effect.

“…I’ll leave it to you.”

Master Chongbo spoke in a low voice, his body swayed slightly, and he seemed to become a little weak, and was immediately supported by the quick-eyed and swift great guardian at the side.

Then, the frozen time resumed its flow.

Explosions occurred one after another in the sky!

The burning magic flies fell to the ground like a shower of falling meteorites and exploded before hitting the ground; it was also like many missiles were intercepted when they flew over.

Although it was too far away to strike accurately, and it was impossible to see where the fly demon was hidden in the layers of demon flies... However, the Flame-Rebellious Butterfly roasted it carefully from beginning to end, so it would be able to hit it at least once.

And when the demon flies in the sky were roasted and the swarms became sparse, they finally saw where the demon flies were.

The fly demon was clearly at the sixth energy level, and was completely immune to the Flame Butterfly's power being halved... but at this moment it was making a hysterical and noisy insect sound, as if it had suffered a huge injury that could not be ignored.

He was madly splashing plague and curse, and visible green and yellow mist kept falling and spreading around him.

But unfortunately...even though the fly demon looked angry and crazy, he still remained rational and did not come down to fight them.

Instead, he began to fly upwards, trying to hide somewhere higher.

——That won’t do!
At this moment, Cardinal Galatea's pupils suddenly turned into two mirrors.

Her magic could not affect the fly demon, but it could affect a group of them!

The sky above the fly demon suddenly turned into a clear and transparent mirror.

Then, with a severe feeling of dizziness, everyone was surprised to find that they were standing above the clouds, and the sky above their heads was the earth!

The fly demon that was originally far away from them was now approaching them rapidly!
The fly demon had obviously realized this, but it was too late -

"——Drink!"

The first one to rush forward was the roaring Siegfried.

The Great Guardian hesitated for a moment, because he didn't want his partner Philip to be poisoned by the spores in his mouth; but he quickly reacted - they seemed to be upside down in the sky at this moment, and the fly demon's spores were falling away from them!
Siegfried stepped forward step by step, faster and faster - the ground beneath his feet turned into an arc of ice. He kept pushing the air to speed up like an ice skater, and finally gave up pushing the ground, just like skating or surfing, and rushed forward with the ice wave that had just formed!
The fly demon was shocked and angry, but instead of retreating, it advanced!

He took Siegfried's charge and slash head-on, his body seemed to be much more fragile than the Greedy Demon. This attack almost completely cut him off.

However, at this moment, his left arm rapidly extended and turned into a sharp structure like a tree root or a tentacle, which fiercely pierced Siegfried's heart!
If this attack could hit the target, it would directly drain Siegfried's vitality and allow him to rebuild his demonic body!

——This is the style of fighting where you exchange injuries for injuries, and life for life!

No matter what kind of injuries he suffered, he could recover quickly by absorbing the opponent's vitality!
"……what?"

The fly demon was suddenly startled.

His tentacles did easily pierce Siegfried's heart, as well as his left arm, which he subconsciously used to block it.

However, there was no "feeling of flesh and blood" that he was familiar with, and his roots could not take root in the other person's body.

Instead, it was as if "he was still a mortal" - or, just like when Leverkühn was a child, he punched the glass window in extreme anger, but ended up feeling hurt and pain!
The "Siegfried" suddenly shattered in front of him with a sound like cracking ice!
Without having time to think, the fly demon stretched out his other arm and knocked back Ligeia, who had transformed into a dragon. Realizing that he could not absorb vitality, he immediately changed his previous battle strategy and transformed his right arm into a soft, thorny black whip, whipping away the enemies who had not yet approached him!

This enemy formed by a strange mirror image will shatter after just one attack!
However, at this moment, several extremely hot beams of light shot out again and merged, almost cutting his body apart!
The fly demon tried his best, but could only protect the body of "Leverkhun" under himself and use his upper body to forcibly take the blow.

However, he suddenly felt a sharp pain coming from "Leverkühn" -

An adult dragon that was at least five or six times larger than Ligeia, with a huge scar on one of its eyes, appeared out of nowhere and bit Leverkhun's body!
“——Damn it?!”

Feeling the excruciating pain of his body being torn apart, the fly demon watched in extreme fear as Levequn was bitten and torn off by the giant dragon!
"No, that's not right..."

He immediately realized that the dragon was an illusion!
The fire explosion did not completely kill the swarm of magic flies around him. It was impossible for a giant dragon to bypass them and approach him silently!

These people are also my own hallucinations!
When he realized this, the adult dragon stopped moving and gradually turned into a shadow and disappeared. The people who appeared in the sky to block him and the mirror that appeared out of thin air also disappeared at the same time.

however.

——"Leviqun" had been bitten off by the Illusion Farna!

The fly demon, which was gradually becoming weak and emitting purple smoke, tried its best to fly towards the young man with an expressionless face, dull eyes, and flesh on his back that was still spread out like a butterfly, trying to connect itself back again...

But at this moment, the familiar golden-red pillar of fire attacked again.

Just before he was one step away from grabbing the young man's body, he swallowed it directly into the fire!
“No, no…!!”

The fly demons made overlapping buzzing sounds like the sound of cicadas.

It wasn't sadness, it was fear.

Because he knew that he was already dead.

The Fallen Angels are not short of demon servants, what they want are "human agents". That's why he injected his power into those two humans, and in this way he bypassed the restrictions of the Balance Wall of the Sand Clock.

Any extraordinary being that reaches the sixth energy level will have its power suppressed in the material world, so the power of the sixth energy level has a time limit; however, the "devils" will not be suppressed within the territory of the Fallen Angels... Because of the influence of the Ring of the Tail, this place has been partially integrated with the territory of the Fallen Angels in the dream world, so the Fallen Angels themselves can also retain the power of the sixth energy level.

However, his kingdom has not yet truly manifested, and the power of those upper demons has been temporarily suppressed to the third energy level. Only the power of the servants in the material world is unrestricted.

But even the Fallen Angels cannot bypass the promotion ceremony and inject the sixth energy level directly into the bodies of mortals in the material world to forcibly promote them to the sixth energy level; if he directly promotes the power of the demons, it will be equivalent to turning them into his followers, and will suppress their power to the third energy level. However, the old-fashioned rules of the Sand Clock have never been a problem for the Fallen Angels.

As a rule breaker, the Fallen Angels quickly thought of a way to circumvent this rule - that is to brand a person with the mark of sin, and continuously transfer his own power to the upper demon bred in the body of the "devil incarnate"!
The Fallen Angels command thousands of demons and can grant or strip them of their powers at will. Although the demons bred in demonized bodies are hostile to their hosts and want to take their bodies away at the first opportunity...the Fallen Angels personally instruct them to protect their hosts, so they dare not act rashly.

Once the host dies, it means that they have lost the Sin Brand that transmits power!

That not only means that they have lost the power of the sixth energy level...it also means that -

"—means you've let me down."

A lazy, somewhat disappointing voice sounded out of nowhere: "That's what you think."

"No, Master, my Lord... My Lord! My King——"

The fly demon yelled, but his body gradually tightened in the invisible restraints, making a sour creaking sound: "Help - please forgive me -"

He didn't even dare to cry out in pain, he just kept begging.

It's like taking an empty plastic water bottle and gradually crushing it into a ball.

In the sky, the fly demon's body twisted, shrank, and deformed with a creaking sound.

In the blink of an eye, the giant demon that was more than three meters tall turned into a black ball the size of an adult's fist.

"You guessed it right then."

That lazy voice sounded again.

A ferocious sharp claw stretched out from somewhere and crushed it!
When the right claw opened again, only a clean crimson rune was left, rotating quietly. It looked like a somewhat exaggerated lip print, as if it was smiling or eating something.

It turned into a red light and flowed into the center of the claw.

An extremely strong pressure came.

A four-meter-tall, slender man stood in the sky out of thin air.

Quietly, looking down at all living things.

There were no wings behind him, nor was there any hurricane-force wind behind him.

He wore a dark gold helmet in the shape of an eyeless bull head, revealing only the outline of his mouth and the lower half of his face. He was wearing a slim-fitting black bone armor—but the armor outlined the contours of his muscles. His hands were not as slender as those of a human, but ferocious claws, like a dragon or a bird.

The purple-black hair was tied into thin strands, like optical cables, draped over the back, nearly ankle-length. Each "optical cable" was tied with a ring of a different color at a different location, and there were up to seven rings of different colors on a strand of hair. The total number of hair strands was nearly a hundred.

At this moment, a dark red ring gradually formed at the end of one of the strands of hair.

Needless to say.

Even if they had never seen him, even if there were no fallen wings behind him, people could immediately understand that this figure was the Fallen Angel.

The man slowly fell from the sky.

After the fly demon died, the remaining demon flies did not die together. But now they seemed to be frightened and driven away by something, and fled in all directions.

However, just as one of the demon flies panicked and staggered over the head of the Fallen Angel, the corners of his mouth, which were not very happy to begin with, suddenly drooped again.

Without saying a word, the demon fly on his head suddenly turned into nothingness, and all the demon flies turned into black dust and dissipated at the same time.

He just looked down at the land, and said in a calm tone that even surprised himself: "Is this the 'Brave Team' you used to challenge me, you immature snake tail?"

"——Why, you're not qualified enough?"

A mature and deep voice suddenly sounded from above.

Yulia was stunned for a moment, feeling that the voice was extremely familiar.

She immediately raised her head and looked in the direction of the voice.

But the next moment, she was stunned for a moment, and her pupils trembled violently.

That was Aiwass.

He stood on the crown of the giant tree, holding onto the meteorite. The antlers on his head had expanded to several times their size a few days ago, and were so large that people were worried that they might deviate from their center of gravity and cause their heads to fall forward.

...But at the same time, that was not the Aiwass they were familiar with.

Because the details of his appearance are completely different from Aiwass's -

But even so, Yulia could recognize it!
——Even if he aged dozens of years overnight, she would still be able to recognize him!
Yes, at this moment, Aiwass had somehow turned into a man in his forties. From a boy of eighteen or nineteen, he had turned into a determined and experienced middle-aged man!
His face was still handsome, but it lacked a neutral flavor. Standing on the high tree canopy against the light, he looked as solemn and sacred as a statue.

"...Don't worry," Saint John held Yulia in his arms and whispered behind her, "This is normal, and every priest will go through this. Using the power of devotion close to the limit will burn your lifespan... Using the fire sacrifice method can slowly replenish it."

Hearing this, Yulia seemed to be thinking: "I do know about this... but when my brother treated other people, he never paid a price... I forgot about it..."

"……snort."

No one else said anything, but Fallen Angel replied contemptuously: "Of course, after all, he is not an ordinary person.

"He is a snake that has lived since sunset!

"Snakes that confuse people, cause strife, and make people fight each other!
"The church teaches depravity and vanity, the intoxicating serpent!

"Before him, all flesh is like grass. There is nothing that cannot be betrayed, nothing that cannot be deceived, nothing that cannot be plundered—

"—Because he is the immortal snake, and all things must eventually die!
"My immortal friend!"

Accompanied by deep hatred, the sound of gnashing teeth came from the air.

This was the first time his emotions fluctuated after the Fallen Angel appeared—and it was an extremely violent fluctuation for the first time.

Full of hatred, yet mixed with inexplicable pride and unwillingness.

He had thought he wouldn't be so excited.

But when he saw these mortals who were supporting the Snake Tail...

I still couldn't help but think of my past self.