Life Hunter

Chapter 171: ''It may work.''

Arima tried to land as lightly as possible but the earth still shook and a small crater opened in the middle of the small town. His silver mane fluttered and the inhabitants who witnessed the landing were put into a trance.

Arima looked around and observed the people of this planet. 'Humans?' he thought but when he saw all the people with different skin colors like blue, green, pink, and red, he dismissed the idea.

This race was called Ranians. They were even more spread and numerous than humans. They possessed around the same average intelligence as humans if not a little lower, but their physical abilities were worlds apart.

With each different color, there was a certain resistance or ability that came with it. Some could breathe underwater, be immune to fire and breath it naturally, be as hard as stone, and several others.

'Well, it's not the point here,' Arima thought. He folded his wings and walked toward one of the Ranians nearby. The blue-skinned guy panicked. He wanted to flee but the shadow and pressure brought by the giant dragon made it impossible to even move his head.

"Hey," Arima called and everyone shivered in fear. The situation for the Ranians at the moment was as if they had been cornered by a hunter chasing his prey. They all thought that they were going to die. They heard that dragons were aggressive on top of being insanely strong.

"Don't resist, and you'll live," Arima said and the Ranian's mind went blank. Just after, the Arima pointed his finger at him before a mysterious will and energy entered his head. He felt scared but he immediately remembered the dragon's words and didn't struggle.

After a few seconds, Arima retrieved his spirit and smiled. "The only civilized race on this planet are Ranians. The rest is comprised of animals, beasts, monsters, and of course, Tra. All right, now I have the spiritual signature of your race. I need to recover quickly so you'll help me," he said out loud and the gray-skinned chief who had just arrived froze in his steps.

"I'll warn you," Arima smirked. "Many will die," he declared and everyone paled. His sigil glowed along with his eyes. He looked up at the sky and started chanting.

"[Judicandus] (Be judged)."

"[Vel poenas non morietur] (Be punished or die)."

"[Condemnetur ad iudicium] (Be condemned after the verdict)."

"[Non potes effugere oculis meis] (You can't escape my eyes)."

"[Quamdiu vos habere vestrum] (As long as you have yours)."

"[At illa erit] (You will look at them)."

"[Fifth Black Art, Causam Finalem, Penitentia Conspiciunt] (Final Case, Penance Stare)," Arima finished his incantation and a whirlpool of darkness appeared in the sky. That dark mass promptly covered the whole sky, turning the day into a murky night. If you looked at the planet from space, you would have been able to see it being consumed.

The Ranians looked up anxiously. They felt as if their hearts were being squeezed, under the threat of bursting at any moment. Then, something happened that almost made them faint.

A giant pair eyes formed within the darkness and the yellow pupils of a dragon stared down right at them and they couldn't help but return the stare as if they had been ordered to do so. A few seconds later, a few other pairs of eyes appeared for every inhabitant of the planet to see.

Arima's actual eyes were glowing with an ominous light. He didn't even move a finger and one Ranian suddenly screamed and lost all of his life force in a second. The people around him yelled in fear until one of them noticed that the man in question had just lost consciousness.

But their relief was short-lived as another person screamed before collapsing on the ground powerlessly; dead. Then, the Ranians became even more agitated. Now, they didn't even know how victims were chosen and why.

The same phenomenon occurred across the entire planet. Even certain beasts and animals were knocked out or killed. In every case, they would be drained of their life force to the last drop.

After a dozen people had died in the town Arima was in, someone finally noticed what was happening and exclaimed in shock. He even gazed at Arima with some respect alien to his peers.

"It's only criminals!" When he shouted that, everyone frowned. The chief examined the corpses dubiously. But when he went through all of them, his eyes widened. Among those people, some had a bad historic and others had an unsavory reputation. It also seemed that those with lighter crimes were only deprived of their life force but not killed.

The chief looked back at Arima with a tensed expression while the other folks knelt as if they were in the presence of a god. A huge part of them was actually fearful and angry but they didn't have the nerve to speak up.

Arima glanced at them and utterly ignored them. He didn't have any intention to answer to their respect or hate. He merely wanted the life force and then he would send them to another planet before snatching the core. It was far from a good deed in his opinion so he disregarded their gratitude, admiration or hatred.

After a ten-minute-period, thousands of life forces, if not tens of thousands, were robbed and transferred to Arima. The Fifth Black Art had scanned the memories and guilt of people to punish them accordingly.

The life force was, in fact, useless to Arima in its basic form, he just used it to refine mana and replenish his mana pool. After all, with the size of the latter, he would need a lot of time to fill it without getting mana from external sources.

Arima's entire mana capacity was bigger than all the gods he had fought with reunited. To fill up something like that, you would either need the life energy of an entire planet or the mana of hundreds of thousands of people.

But with life force, Arima could accelerate the process. When he finally was back to his top condition, he cracked his neck and exhaled a blue mist.

He looked around at the Ranians. "I'll send you to another planet now. I need this one," he stated and before anyone could reply, the dragon snapped his fingers and everyone on the planet disappeared.

"Hm, 2% to teleport all of them, huh?" Arima muttered and then looked at the ground. "Now, how do I do this?"

"{Why don't you do it as Layla said; blast it open and take the core,}" Night quipped and Arima shook his head with a sigh before suddenly halting.

"{Wait, it may work.}"

"{What?}" Night was joking so what Arima said shocked him.

"{If I trap the core in a time lock then open the planet, it would work. Then I just have to put it into my soul where I'll freeze time directly,}" Arima explained and Night mused.

"{It may work indeed but isn't there another solution? It also will take quite a lot of mana.}"

"{Should be okay around 10%,}" Arima uttered and teleported out of the atmosphere. He looked at the planet from space then focused a huge chunk of energy into six points of light around him. When the small spheres were completed, Arima sent them around the planet.

Two went above and below the planet and the others formed a square around the middle of the vertical axis.

"[Compesce, Obfirmo, Prohibere, Custodi, Rigescunt Indutae] (Confine, Lock, Stop, Keep, Freeze)," Arima chanted and the six points were instantly connected by blue lines.

When the sides finally formed, a diamond-shaped barrier was confining the entire planet. Arima clasped his hands and the barrier started spinning. When it stopped, everything inside of it had turned shadowy.

Time had been stopped and unless Arima went in, he would not see anything else. The dragon flew toward the barrier and went through it easily. He ended up in a world like the one Chronos had created before but it was slightly less refined and powerful.

Arima breathed in. "[Terminus Confractus, CCC]."

"{What are you going to do?}"

"{What? This the best method, if I want to save up mana,}" Arima responded. "{Utain could destroy a planet with a single punch. I should be able to do that too you know.}"

"{I'm sure you realize that it was an exaggeration and it only meant smaller planets like the Earth. Don't tell me you really thought it was true and don't even try to convince me,}" Night retorted and Arima laughed.

He flapped his wings and reached the ground instantly along with a detonation, his momentum was bigger than the one a meteorite would have. He contracted his muscles and punched with all of his strength.

Even if time was stopped, everything that entered in contact with the shockwave temporarily moved. The whole planet distorted into a really disturbing shape. It looked like some kind of deformed softball.

Everything around Arima turned into ruins and only stone and soil remained. The water ascended before freezing in time again. Arima then went even closer to the center of the planet and lodged both of his hands on the hard stone around the core.

The temperature was considerably high and traces of magma could be seen. Technically, the core was still far, but Arima was planning on reaching it from there. He channeled mana in his arms and pulled outward as if he was trying to tear something apart.

He had already stabilized the whole planet with a reinforcing link. Everything would be moving together no matter what. The planet was blasted open across a perfect, linear fissure that opened the entire way around the planet. Arima roared and gave a final push.

It was the final strand and the planet broke apart to become two different pieces hovering in space with flowing lava in the center.

Arima sighed and went through the lava before reaching the core. He knocked on it a few times; it was intriguing as it didn't feel liquid nor solid. It was definitely hot but nothing for his resistance as a dragon. He covered the core with his magic and unhesitatingly hauled it inside his soul.

"{Done,}" he declared and teleported away.

Just after, the diamond-shaped barrier collapsed. The water congealed then turned into ice, mountains became drifting asteroids, and the lava turned into stone. There weren't any explosions or flames. The core was gone and so was the planet.