Guild Wars

The energy of the entire world surrounded and obeyed the call of Ghost, the purple lighting billowing around his form, growing more and more exaggerated.

The ground quaked, the sky trembled and the air itself cracked. It was the scene of an apocalypse come to Earth, and no, this was not Nightwalker's doing. This was all Ghost's fault, who was depriving the world of its sustenance so fast that it was withering, concentrating that same energy into an attack that made the wold shake in fear.

Ghost, who had his arms outstretched, roared and brought them together with his wrists pressed together and his palms half closed. All the energy that was leaking from his body converged into his palms, generating a growing ball of purple light that crackled with electricity.

Kiran could only stand there in shock and dismay, his lips twitching as he felt the tremendous energy and killing intent coalesce on his pitiful form. His monk robes were torn on the upper body, revealing a mass of muscles honed from training, and a body so beaten that even a predator would disdain hunting him.

Kiran could barely remain standing, panting as he clutched his left arm and had only one eye open. Yet, he could only watch as Ghost continued to condensed the energy he gathered and perfect it, reaching its pinnacle in size and power.

"ARE YOU BRAVE ENOUGH TO TAKE THIS ONE?!" Ghost roared the question as he could no longer control or suppress the energy he had condensed.

It sparkled and shook, growing and shrinking rapidly as it sought to release its power onto a willing or unwilling target by any means and rend the Earth of its existence.

"INITIAL GLOOM!"

With that cry, the tremendous energy was released towards the arena,. From a small hand-sized ball, it bloomed into a gigantic energy wave that was large enough to cover the arena over 20 times. Its size was truly terrifying and its speed was not to be underestimated as well.

Kiran bit his lips and stood up straight. Despite not having even a lick of stamina left, his two bloodline energies had recovered, and his Internal Force too roared to life, its quantity far from anything Ghost could muster.

He forcibly entered his Base Warrior form and used the healing nature of Noble Energy and Internal Force to reduce the impact of his injuries before raising both hands up. As such, when the energy beam inevitably came crashing down upon him, he caught it with both hands.

Kiran screamed in agony as his skin ruptured and tore, revealing muscles and blood vessels under, his legs pushed deep into the ground from the sheer weight of the beam.

He struggled to hold the beam at bay, but every second saw him pushed back even more as his three energies were being rapidly drained to keep him alive and preventing the beam from overpowering him.

Ghost above maintained the position of firing the beam as energy was continually expended from his body to increased the force. At the same time, Ghost was draining ambient energy and splitting it into half, one part becoming freshly converted Internal Force and the other half being sent raw into the energy beam.

As for his Serpent God Energy, heh. Don't worry about that one, as Ghost's energy production and consumption were his strongest suits among the God Serpents.

As such, Kiran was bound to lose this clash, which was already a given looking at his poor physical state. Ghost even pulled back and then pushed forward, releasing a huge wave of power into the beam that caused it to double in intensity.

Kiran was easily overwhelmed by the increased power of the beam and was about to give in. As he saw the powerful beam begin to encapsulate him, he could only smile bitterly and close his eyes, accepting his inevitable defeat.

However, despite doing so, Kiran felt nothing after a minute or two passed. In shock, he opened his eyes to understand why he was still alive when he happened to see Essence Stalker standing beside him, holding back the beam that was about to finishing him off with one hand.

Kiran had fallen to his knees and was on the verge of passing out, squeezing the last of his energy to ask one simple question.

"Why?"

Why did Essence step up at this time? Why would Essence help him at all? After all, they were rivals!

Essence understood Kiran's questions and turned to the Dark Monk with a smile.

"Because it's overkill. Because I hate seeing my rival so brutally outclassed. What does that say about me?"

Kiran was left speechless by this, but then smiled with relief.

"T-Than..ks…"

After letting go of his will, he immediately fainted and fell to the ground, passed out. Essence Stalker saw this and used his psychic abilities to send Kiran's body off the stage and to Sublime whose earlier facade had long since crumbled, now only looking anxious.

Then Essence's smiled disappeared as he turned to the ever growing beam of energy that was pressing down on him. Where his hand met the bean, a small glow of green energy was separating the two.

Essence was strong, but not invincible. No one among the core members could tank Ghost's beam so easily. Even the 99% bloodline purity Draco and Eva would be unable to take it with their base bodies, forced to transform into one of their forms to resist this power.

However, Essence could do so using a loophole. Anything energy or matter based that met with raw Aurora Energy would be converted into Aurora Energy itself. As such, he was constantly releasing a small amount of Aurora Energy as a buffer, which converted Ghosts' beam into Aurora Energy which he absorbed.

However, unlike when he was converting Dreary Traveler's undead, his Aurora Energy reserves were filling up at a rate  that scared even Essence.

Just how much fucking energy did Ghost gather and release? If Essence didn't stop it, this beam could destroy this Tier 6 realm and render it into debris most likely.

Essence grit his teeth as he reached his maximum capacity. Just as he was about to use his other hand to conjure something with Aurora Energy, Ghost cut off the flow of the beam and stopped the attack.

Unlike Kiran who was always beaten and weak after firing an energy wave at full power, Ghost was calm and casual, still in his purple Super Warrior 2 form. In that state, he gazed down at Essence with burning purple-black eyes full of coldness.

Essence also glared back while the endless Aurora Energy he possessed coalesced and floated around him, making him look like a Creation god descended upon the mortal realm.

The two remained locked in this staredown until Ghost's fierce eyes dimmed and became full of laziness. He exited Super Warrior form and returned to his normal self, placing his hands at the back of his waist as he descended to the ground lazily.

While this happened, one could almost make out the words 'it's not time yet' from his mouth.

Essence Stalker sighed with relief that Ghost backed down and left the stage as well. He had already crossed the line by interfering, so he didn't want this matter to blow out of proportion.

The rest of the core members were drenched with sweat, feeling as if they had come out of the abyss. Only the God Serpents and Pangu Inheritors were relatively nonchalant about the power they had just witnessed.

Case in point, two hooligans walked over.

Misery and AP_Berzerker were sneering and laughing maliciously as they surrounded Ghost who was trying to slink away in peace. As for Nightwalker, he had been placed headifrst into the Legendary rank alcohol basin, his life and death currently unknown.

"Hmm?" Tunder saw this and grinned, also joining the fun as he stood on one side of Ghost, preventing him from leaving. Surrounded by three powerhouses, Ghostpro was a little dismayed but still somewhat calm.

"How can I help you gentlemen?" Ghostpro asked amiably.

However, how could such a thing work here? Especially against these two bandits?

"Hehe, brat. Let's not make thing difficult for either side. Are you going to quietly come with us or are you going to do this the hard way?" AP_Berzerker asked with a evil grin.

"We brothers just want to introduce you to our Dao. It's quite the experience and your own fellow God Serpent, Nightwalker, can attest to how much it changed his life, heh heh." Misery added with a smirk.

Ghost turned to Tunder, who shrugged. "I'm just in it for the chaos. Besides, you nearly wiped us all out in your bid to live your childhood fantasy of firing a Final Flash."

Ghost sighed and scratched his head. He then placed his right hands over his left palm and released a strangely colored mist. The mist condensed into a liquid that he placed in a bottle made of Worldly Energy a trick Draco often used in the past to create Semi-Epic items when crafting.

He then filled two bottles and tossed them over to Misery and AP who frowned as they received them. They gave Ghost questioning glances, and the fellow lazily explained.

"In there is a unique poison that when added to any brew, would prevent you from becoming sober for up to 3 days. It also makes the brew taste 400% better at the minimum from what Orochi tells me."

The faces of Misery and AP-Berzerker greatly changed. Their malevolent bearing immediately disappeared as they walked over and pated Ghost on the shoulder.

"Hahaha, brother Ghost, Your strength is magnificent and your intelligence is limitless. Your future is bright!"

"Thank you, Brother AP."

"Ghost, you are a man among men. You are welcome to hang out with AP and I any time."

"Thank you Brother Miz, I will."

AP and Misery left while humming a tune, satisfied with their gains. As for Tunder, he folded his arms and raised an eyebrow.

"What about me?"

Ghost pondered for a while then glanced at Tunder.

"Want a knuckle sandwich?"

"… no thanks." Tunder replied dryly as he left.

After seeing what Ghost could do, he wasn't about to fight this maniac. Previously, they had all seen him as a pretty chill guy who didn't do much, but he had shown that he was a tiger wearing the skin of a sloth.

It was just that nothing really ever pushed him to reveal his true colors.

And with that done, the core members tournament had come to a close. The Winner of Group A was Essence Stalker and the Winner of Group B was Ghostprotokill.

Technically, both men were supposed to duke it out to find the overall best, but as if through an unspoken agreement, both men decided to postpone their fight until later. Ghost especially was intrigued by this transformation stuff that Kiran did and wanted to develop upon it later.

As for Essence, he was chok full of Aurora Energy and needed to vent it out through training rather than battle. After all, he was still learning the ropes of this unique form of energy and how best to use it.

The tournament took about a week's worth of time to go through, as there had been breaks in between. However, this was only a small part of the events that took place while Draco and Eva were in seclusion grasping the basics of having 100% bloodline purity.

In this time, the core members also got entangled in another big event, this time orchestrated by the two bandits Misery and AP_Berzerker as well as a few others chosen for their valor and insight like Shadowheart, Nightwalker and surprisingly, Sienna who still hung around.

The event?

It was none other that the legendary grand opening of the first Rank 7 Var, Valhalla, the first Rank 7 Brothel/Strip Club Eamnha and the formation of Umbra's soon to be most notorious group, the Golden Savages!