Jason had felt and heard rumors about Argos undergoing drastic changes.
There had also been the news about several temporary world bridges that had manifested out of nowhere, only to suddenly appear, throwing several hundred thousand beasts on Argos in short succession.
This had caused devastating damages to the already weakened big clans.
However, Jason hadn't believed some rumors because it was unlikely for an entire large group of beasts to immigrate to another planet all of a sudden, with countless beasts at that.
Yet, now that he saw how a temporary world bridge had just manifested in front of him within a few hours, only to break out, allowing numerous beasts to emerge on Argos, Jason couldn't help but feel baffled.
Not only was he on a small island, which the governing big clan had been unable to fully reclaim due to their weakened state, but the rift was right above one of the only cities that was almost unscathed.
It inhabited the majority of humans that had sought refuge there, only to face a dungeon breakout.
The chimeras were four-legged beasts that looked similar to griffons. The three heads along with scales covering their entire body were the only indicator of them being chimeras.
In the end, their exact race was not really important because the real issue was something else.
Every single chimera that had emerged from the world bridge was at the Lique stage!
Most of them had even liquefied around 1000 drops of mana, which was the biggest issue Jason perceived.
'There are only three humans at the low 2nd Lique stage inside the city'
His emperor eyes had become strong enough to sense and distinguish the mana fluctuations, mana cores, and the number of liquefied drops of mana they had, within a minute.
Unfortunately, Jason lamented about his eyes' ability for the first time in a long time, thinking that they should have shown him something more promising.
The only two positive points he could assess from the current situation were that the chimeras didn't seem to have any affinity other than the fire affinity seed in the central lizard head that was between the two other heads.
Other than that, there had yet to be a Chimera at the 4th Lique stage or higher. This was extremely beneficial because Jason was confident enough to finish off the rest.
Even tackling higher-ranked chimera might not be an issue, but facing a huge number of them at once would be cumbersome for him.
Despite his confidence, that was not unfounded, Jason was not sure whether he could protect the city or not.
The three humans at the 2nd Lique stage had already emerged above the city with wings protruding out of their back.
'At least they have a fortified soul conjunction. Otherwise, they would have to wait until the chimeras were to descend to the ground, dangerously close to them at that.'
Jason tried to make the best out of the current situation as he let Solaris occupy his mana core.
His white wings that belonged to Artemis were replaced by an identical replica that consisted of black flames.
Byakur was already tightly grasped in his hand that was as calm as if he was about to do nothing special at all.
Right now, Jason was not even a little bit worried about his own life, and his only thoughts revolved around safeguarding the other citizens, and the reason for the sudden appearance of multiple unstable world bridges that had appeared out of nowhere, only to disappear.
If they had been constructed by other races, it would have made more sense, but Jason was able to see that they were naturally generated by Argos and the corresponding world on the other side of the world bridge.
This was confusing, and Jason wanted to investigate more about the temporary world bridge that could dissipate any moment.
As such, he released Solaris' entire strength at once, with ginormous flames erupting from his body.
In an instant, Jason was enveloped in a thick layer of flames that were accurately controlled, while Byakur's runes were activated as a thick stream of mana was led towards it.
At the same time, Byakur's size continued to increase as Solaris' black flames began enveloping it.
Since the last seven months, Jason's mana soul energy had crossed 50 million units multiple times, only for him to notice that it was extremely difficult to increase the number of soul energy units after crossing it.
From a daily increase of his soul energy of 1.5% which he had attained after his Celestia bloodline had been unsealed to a small degree, it had decreased drastically to less than 0.5%.
However, instead of nurturing Solaris directly with every single spare soul energy unit, he had made use of the difference in his daily increment in order to feed him slowly.
After seven months had passed, Solaris had finally reached a bottleneck to increasing its strength once again.
Jason was sure that it was not the bottleneck of Solaris as a Tier-1 origin flame, but more that it lacked something to create the first solidified prismarine-crystal.
He had already made several assumptions, but the most likely was that Solaris was required to devour another origin flame.
At least, that was what Jason predicted after he perceived Solaris' train of thoughts!
Because of that issue, Solaris could only annex 10 million soul energy units, without it being able to make use of soul crystals.
Every soulbond that reached the Prismar stage required soul crystals in order to be controlled properly.
One soul crystal was equivalent to 10 million soul energy units, which would be taken out of the passive soul energy increment cycle forever!
However, despite the restrictions that prevented Solaris from entering the 1st Prismar stage, Jason could hardly complain.
The little origin flame that was devouring and burning three soul energy units only to annex one single unit had become his strongest soulbond all of a sudden.
It had attained the combat strength of a Peak 10th Lique stage!!
This was shocking, but unfortunately enough, Jason's mana was not enough to make use of Solaris in his strongest state.
In the end, this was only temporary, but Jason couldn't help but be dissatisfied with himself!
Maybe, he could execute a single attack with Solaris' strongest flame, but that would strain his mana veins, and mana core, if not damage both!
When Jason had released Solaris' black flames, he could faintly hear the three protectors of the city mumbling, and gossiping about him.
They realized that he was the halfling everyone had been talking bad about on the Skynet forum.
Because of that, they immediately assumed that Jason had summoned the world bridges.
However, they realised just how grossly wrong one's assumptions could be as Jason released his Celestia aura, and stigma before he shot towards the first chimera that was only a few meters away from him.
With a swift set of movements from the Floating Sky technique he had been learning, Jason had emerged in front of the chimera as Byakur swung around at a terrific speed.
Not even a whole second had passed as the chimera had been beheaded, and all of its three heads fell to the ground with a sickening thud. With no time to spare one more glance, Jason passed by it, ignoring the limp body that followed the heads to crash into the ground without a single trace of life left within.
After witnessing the chimera's death in front of them, the three protectors of the city could only stare at Jason in shock.
"Doesn't he have only around 150 liquefied drops of mana in his mana core??"
That was already shocking, but more astonishing was as the younger protector suddenly exclaimed,
"Is...he really a monster and the cause of the world bridges' emergence?"
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