Chapter 295: Fatal Error

Amidst the shouting, the crimson red tendrils Herellia had conjured made their way towards the lightning bolts at incredibly fast speeds, a great contrast to the speed at which the crimson thorns approached the bolts from before. All of this was due to the massive boost in power Herellia obtained from sacrificing the crimson thorns she had formed. In actuality, she wanted to save the move for later as it would allow her to rely less on Argentum and Horell's buffs from the side. Unfortunately, the destructive intent hidden inside the current round of bolts was enough for Herellia to go ahead and use this skill.

Psh! Psh! Psh!

Utilizing the entirety of her mind, she willed the tendrils to head towards the crimson lightning bolts, to which the tendrils easily dispelled thanks to the inherent power currently imbued inside them. While that was happening, Herellia split her attention into two as she allocated a part of it towards conjuring more tendrils before fusing them into crimson thorns. Although she would be able to deal more damage with the tendrils thanks to the skill she had used, to her, it would still be beneficial for her to combine the tendrils into thorns. Not only would it allow her to unleash far greater power than ever before, but if she needed to, she could sacrifice the thorns to achieve another [Amarathine Release]…though it would put a greater toll on her body.

Nevertheless, since this was her existence tribulation, she thought that it was more or less useless to think about the safety of one's body when one's life was at stake. By the time the crimson red tendrils had dispelled all of the crimson lightning bolts, only leaving the lavender lightning bolts remaining, Herellia had already formed three crimson thorns within that short timespan. Unexpectedly, a faint gold sheen could be seen on the surface of the crimson thorns, acting as a nice contrast to the bloody red of the thorns.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Recalling the tendrils that acted as the temporary vanguard, she then willed the newly formed crimson thorns to head towards the lavender lightning bolts from a lateral angle. Thanks to this decision, a decent amount of lavender lightning bolts were dispelled within one swipe of the crimson thorns. After a few more minutes, the three crimson thorns were able to successfully dispel all of the lavender lightning bolts while two more crimson thorns were made in the process.

Seeing as all of the lightning bolts in the current round were now gone, Herellia could not help but let out a sigh of relief as she let the purple strands from the dispelled bolts be absorbed by her body, bringing forth a decent improvement to her combat power. While she was in the process of acclimating herself to the power increment, she could not help but take notice of the number of lavender lightning bolts in comparison to the crimson lightning bolts.

"At first, the number of purple bolts was far less than the red bolts," Herellia muttered as her mind worked on overdrive as she allocated a part of her attention to making more crimson thorns. "But at this round, the number of purple bolts are equal to the red bolts."

Feeling that the next round was about to become more difficult for her, Herellia could not help but briefly radiate an aura of dread as she asked herself, "Does that mean that…in the next round, the number of purple bolts will be more than the red bolts?"

Rumble…

As if the heavens were answering her question, the dark clouds let out a loud rumble that resounded throughout the area. Concurrent to the rumble, the crimson lightning bolts darting through the dark clouds seemed to have formed an agreement as a great portion of them congregated and fused up, transforming into lavender lightning bolts.

While this was happening, Argentum and Horell could not help but radiate auras of glee as they noticed what Herellia had done to clear the eighth round. With a light chuckle, Argentum could not help but say, "To think that she was hiding something for times like these. As expected from the Alliance Leader!"

"To be honest, she was saving that skill for a later time," Horell said by the side, informing Argentum of Herellia's thoughts when it came to the skill. "Maybe she remembered your words from a while ago where you said that us giving her buffs would lead to a bump in the trial's difficulty, forcing her to use this skill without hesitation."

"Speaking of which, wouldn't the trial still bump up in difficulty even if she used her own skill to boost her power?" he asked Argentum not long after in a curious tone, prompting Argentum to become silent as he pondered over the question, recalling his and Aurus's experiences of such matters. It did not take long for his thoughts to eventually arrive at his first Power Baptism, recalling the huge spike in difficulty at the very last round. He remembered very well that the only thing he obtained as external support was Blob's shield. Other than that, all of the power boosts he had undergone were reliant on him.

Feeling that he had not come to a conclusion yet, Argentum decided to ask the question to the system in his mind, specifically asking whether or not utilizing one's own skill in boosting their power would increase the trial's difficulty. Fortunately, it did not take long for the system to respond to Argentum's question as it said in a feminine-sounding voice, "That would be a yes, though the increase in difficulty from one using their own skills instead of external support would result in a far smaller bump than the latter. The same thing applies to Power Baptisms as well."

Hearing the response of the system, Argentum could not help but feel a bit of dread as he thought to himself, 'So you're saying that…if all of my buffs came from another person, then the last round wouldn't just be facing up against a dark blue bolt of lightning?!'

'Wouldn't that already be Genesis-level…' he continued to think, only for him to stop thinking about it as it had already happened in the past. Returning his train of thought to the present, Argentum focused his sense of vision towards Horell and replied, "I'm not sure. As long as we make sure to help Herellia, she'll definitely zoom through her Existence Tribulation."

"I see…" Horell uttered in a tone of mixed understanding and confusion as a response. He then focused his sense of vision back to Herellia, noticing that the fusion of lightning bolts in the dark clouds had finally stopped.

"The next round of lightning bolts are about to come," Horell said to Argentum, to which Argentum responded by focusing his sense of vision towards the dark clouds. It did not take long for him to notice that the area occupied by the lavender bolts on the dark clouds was now far larger than the area occupied by the crimson bolts. With such a sight, he then hastily focused his sense of vision towards Herellia and muttered, "You better hold on for as long as you can, okay?"

Bzzt…crash!

And so, the ninth round of lightning bolts had finally come down from the dark clouds, bringing along a total of 81 lightning bolts for Herellia to dispel. And just as she thought in her mind, the number of lavender bolts had exceeded the number of crimson bolts in a ratio of 3 to 1. This time, the crimson bolts were the ones being surrounded, with almost all of them being surrounded by three lavender lightning bolts in a spiral formation…though one crimson bolt had no lavender bolt surrounding it whatsoever.

Looking at the great number of lightning bolts she had to dispel this time, Herellia went ahead and steeled herself as she manipulated the nine crimson thorns she had made so far towards the crimson lightning bolts as they were the weakest link. Naturally, due to the vast difference in power between Herellia's current crimson thorns and the crimson lightning bolts, all of the crimson lightning bolts were dispelled, even giving Herellia enough time to add in one more crimson thorn into the fray.

Unfortunately, that was where the good news stopped. The 60 remaining lavender bolts were still on their way to collide with Herellia's body, prompting Herellia to combine the 10 crimson thorns she had into two large crimson thorns as she used them like a blunt weapon, swinging them from a lateral angle. Although that was enough for about half of the lavender lightning bolts to be dispelled, the remaining half still remained adamant to smite Herellia down with the power inherent within them.

Seeing as the lavender lightning bolts were still heading straight towards her body, Herellia went ahead and summoned all of the energy inside her body towards movement, activating the movement speed boosting buffs that were cast on her body as well. With a soft whoosh, Herellia pushed her movement skill to its greatest as she moved in between the large swath of trees, thinking of using the trees as a cover to give her some time to retaliate against the lavender lightning bolts.

Surprisingly, that idea had worked, with the lavender lightning bolts taking more time to head towards Herellia as they decided to swerve around the trees rather than pierce directly through them. With the amount of time she had bought for herself, she hastily conjured two more crimson thorns, bringing the total amount of thorns she had back to the maximum as she combined the two into the two large crimson thorns.

Just as she had finished fusing the two new thorns into the large crimson thorns, she decided to focus her vision behind her, only to see that the lavender lightning bolts were already a few meters away behind her! Wondering what she could do to widen the gap between her and the lightning bolts, she eventually concluded that there was no way for her to do as most of her trump cards were related to the increase in combat power.

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Fortunately for her, just as she was on the brink of despair, a decently large green ball of energy hastily made its way towards Herellia's body. Due to the nature of the ball's energy, Herellia's movement speed was instantly increased to a level where she could outrun the lightning bolts. Within a few seconds, the gap between the two was large enough for her to stop where she was and focus all of her attention on the large crimson thorns. And just like that, the remaining lavender bolts were dispelled by Herellia, although the time at which she had taken to do so had increased in the process.

Letting out a sigh of relief as she made her way back to her original position, Herellia went ahead and focused her sense of vision towards Argentum before saying through an energy strand, "Thanks for the buff."

"Don't mention it," Argentum said with a light chuckle. Soon after, he told her in a somewhat serious tone, "In the next round, I won't give you any more buffs. I hope you can survive the next round with what you currently have."

Although she wanted to ask a few more buffs from Argentum, she understood where Argentum was coming from, prompting her to keep her requests to herself as she replied, "I'll try my best."

And with that response, Herellia ended the conversation between them as she unhesitatingly went ahead and fused the two large crimson thorn into one large crimson thorn. This time, the golden sheen surrounding the thorns had become a bit more intense, making anyone that looked at it from afar think that the thorn seemed to be made out of gold.

As for Argentum and Horell, Horell could not help but look at Argentum with an aura of shock as he asked, "Did you just buff her up?" In response, Argentum lightly nodded, prompting Horell to ask him yet another question, saying, "Didn't you say that we shouldn't buff her up too much?"

"I didn't say anything like that," Argentum said. He then added, "In any case, we can't afford to buff her up one more time as this round might be the hardest she would ever face."

With that, the two of them focused their senses of vision back at Herellia…just as the final round of lightning bolts had come crashing down.

Bzzt…crash!

In an instant, 100 lightning bolts filled with destructive intent had come down from the dark clouds to smite Herellia down. To her dismay, these 100 lightning bolts…were all lavender!

"Ahhhh!!!!" In response, Herellia let out a loud shout as she went ahead and activated one of the offense boosting skills she had in her arsenal. Simultaneously, she willed the large crimson thorn to head towards the lavender lightning bolts, willing it to move in a spiral direction as she took the tendril connecting the thorn to her body into consideration. With that, the number of lightning bolts heading towards her way gradually became less and less.

90…80…70…50…30…

Unfortunately, although the number of lavender lightning bolts continued to decrease, the gap between her and the lightning bolts decreased as well, prompting her to head into the trees once more to buy some time for her to push herself to the limit and break through the current situation she was in.

Whoosh!

Just like before, the remaining lavender lightning bolts, which amounted to about 20 or so, swerved around the trees like slippery snakes, continuing to head towards Herellia to achieve their ultimate goal. Thanks to the movement speed boosting buff Argentum cast on her earlier, the gap between her and the lavender lightning bolts continued to gradually increase. After about ten seconds or so of utilizing her movement skill to the fullest, she felt like there was still hope for her to clear the tenth round without asking for help…

Until there was none anymore.

Swoosh! Swoosh!

Out of the blue, a few lavender lightning bolts appeared in front of Herellia, instantly making her radiate an aura of disbelief as she wondered how these bolts came in front of her all of a sudden. She then noticed the arcs of the lightning bolts in the sky, seeing that some of the lightning bolts, noticing that she had entered the trees, decided to change their approach…as if they had a mind of their own.

'This is it,' Herellia could not help but think to herself as she was basically sandwiched between two groups of lavender lightning bolts wanting to smite her and turn her body into a mangled mess. But just as she felt like there was no more hope for her…

A barrier was soon cast around her body!

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