As the sword light came hurtling toward him, Lin Ran unleashed his power to cancel it out, though doing so consumed a great deal of his strength.
"Use that move. If you still can't beat him, run!" Lin Ran told Akame telepathically. In truth, he already knew the outcome. Akame was no match for this sovereign.
"Absolute-Sorrow!" Akame murmured, drawing all her power inward before slowly bringing her sword down.
The slash seemed to strike empty air, without even a flash of sword light, yet the sovereign grew unusually serious. He sensed an invisible wave of sword qi cutting toward him, shattering the space between him and Akame piece by piece.
"Is this your strongest strike? Then today, I'll show you what despair means!"
The sovereign beckoned, and a pillar of purple light appeared on every foreign-tribe puppet within the imperial city behind him. For a moment, the entire imperial city was bathed in purple.
Streams of purple energy flowed from these pillars into the sovereign. Under Akame's shocked gaze, the energy swelled his body until cracks covered it, making him look as though he would explode the next second.
"Die!" The sovereign threw a punch, effortlessly shattering Akame's killing blow. His fist hurtled toward her without losing any force.
A teleportation formation suddenly enveloped Akame. Just as she was being teleported away, the force of the sovereign's punch struck into the formation. Lin Ran controlled Divine Abyss, placing it in front of Akame and taking the punch head-on.
Divine Abyss hummed incessantly. A crack was punched into its gold-and-red blade, only to be repaired immediately.
"Escaped, have you? Heh, then I'll make the Eastern Empire join you in the grave!" The sovereign looked toward the Guardian Temple in the Divine Dragon Empire, a cold sneer appearing on his face.
"Divine Abyss, are you all right?" Inside the Guardian Temple, Akame held Divine Abyss anxiously and examined it.
"Don't worry, I'm fine. But that sovereign really is troublesome. I imagine he's already dispatched his puppet army and is preparing to attack the Divine Dragon Empire."
"We can leave those puppets to Esdeath and the others. Have them contemplate the Heart Visualization Diagram during this time to improve their strength as much as possible. As for the sovereign, we'll still have to rely on you to deal with him."
"Yes, I'll summon all the Teigu wielders back right away!"
Akame used the temple to summon every Teigu wielder back. Once they learned what had happened in the Western Empire, everyone was stunned. If even Akame was no match for that sovereign, wouldn't anyone present simply be throwing their life away by facing him?
After Akame finished making arrangements, Lin Ran brought out the Heart Visualization Diagram. Some entered a state of visualization sooner, others later.
"I found a cultivation method that's perfect for the two of us!" Lin Ran whispered into Akame's ear. Her face immediately flushed crimson, for the method he described was something she had never even heard of.
He took Akame back to the base and set up a barrier to prevent anyone from disturbing them.
Lin Ran chuckled. A short while later, the two faced each other bare. After their bodies joined as one, Lin Ran began guiding Akame. Yin and yang gave birth to each other, and a wondrous power circulated around them. With every full grand circulation, their auras grew a little stronger.
That still wasn't enough. Lin Ran allocated ten million Origin Points to System so that He could continue strengthening Divine Abyss.
Time swiftly passed in this fashion. Half a month later, the Western Empire's puppet army had advanced to the Divine Dragon Empire's border.
All the Teigu wielders had also finished their visualization and were quietly awaiting Akame's return.
As the puppet army set foot on imperial soil, Esdeath and the other Teigu wielders began heading to the front. Inside Night Raid's base, Lin Ran and Akame slowly opened their eyes. Two immensely powerful auras erupted from their bodies, causing the barrier to ripple violently.
With a single glance from Lin Ran, Akame understood what he meant. Leaving the room, she looked at Divine Abyss floating in the courtyard. After its upgrade, gold-red and black-gold intertwined across its blade, while a pure black pattern stretched from the hilt to the tip.
Akame beckoned, and Divine Abyss instantly appeared in her hand. A tremendous power flowed from it into her, raising her imposing aura another level. The next instant, she vanished from the base.
When Esdeath and the Teigu wielders encountered the puppet army, neither side exchanged a word. The mark on Esdeath's chest blazed with dazzling light, and ice swords filled the sky as they hurtled toward the puppet army.
A sixteen-year-old girl beckoned toward the nearby river, sending its surging waters into the puppet army's ranks. The girl possessed none other than the water Teigu. Esdeath gave her an approving glance, and every puppet submerged by the river water was frozen solid.
Although she could create ice directly, freezing river water consumed far less power. This would be a prolonged battle, for the puppet army stretched out in a dark mass with no end in sight.
Seeing the puppet army suffer at the Teigu wielders' hands, the sovereign could no longer sit still. A figure suddenly appeared before Esdeath and threw a punch at her. Kurome and Sheele were prepared, slashing out with their two Blades of Devouring, but the sovereign sent all three women flying.
Just as the sovereign was about to pursue them, a sword shadow tore through space and reached him in an instant. Alarmed, he immediately brought the Heavenly Resentment Sword into his hand. The sword tips collided, and the Heavenly Resentment Sword let out a mournful cry, but it still managed to block the strike.
Akame appeared before the assembled Teigu wielders as well. Seeing her arrive, every Teigu wielder smiled. They believed their leader would surely defeat this sovereign!
"It's only been a few days. To think this sword's power has increased so much!"
"Indeed. I wonder how much you've improved over these past few days?" With Divine Abyss in hand, Akame clashed with the sovereign.
"Divine Prohibition! Heavenly Sorrow!" Akame unleashed her full combat strength at once, using ultimate moves as basic attacks. The sovereign barely blocked the two moves, his expression turning ugly. He had never expected this woman's strength to increase more than tenfold in such a short time! She was practically a different person from before!
After exchanging blows for a while, the sovereign was already considering retreat. If he couldn't defeat Akame, no number of puppets would be of any use!
Hardening his heart, the sovereign used the forbidden technique again. Purple pillars of light lit up on every puppet once more, and all their energy gathered within him. An overwhelming pressure erupted as though beyond his control. Now his entire body was filled and enveloped with purple energy; he was clearly preparing to unleash his strongest strike.
Akame's fighting spirit burned ever hotter, and Divine Abyss hummed without cease. Their wills aligned, and at that moment, Akame's aura also reached its peak.
"Seven Techniques as One! Crimson God Slash!" A heaven-shaking arc of sword light shattered space and locked onto the sovereign. Through the Heavenly Resentment Sword in his hand, the sovereign also unleashed his strongest strike. Unable to withstand his enormous power, the Heavenly Resentment Sword shattered on the spot.
The two heaven-shaking arcs of sword light collided head-on. Four enormous sword dragons suddenly emerged from the sword light woven with gold-red and black-gold: two gold-red and two black-gold. Then the gold-red and black-gold dragons intertwined, lifting their heads to roar at the heavens.
Heaven and earth seemed to tremble beneath them. Vast power from the Heavenly Dao poured down, all of it absorbed by the four dragons. Then the dragons plunged into the sword light, instantly magnifying the power of Akame's slash and crushing the sovereign's strongest strike in one stroke. Seeing things go awry, the anomalous will hurriedly tried to leave the sovereign's body, only to discover in terror that the sword light imbued with the Heavenly Dao's power was slashing toward Him, following Him like a shadow!
A despairing howl rang in everyone's ears. The sovereign's figure had already vanished. As though celebrating the grievous injury dealt to the will at the source of the anomaly, the Heavenly Dao showered down divine radiance. Everyone illuminated by it grew greatly in strength. Some Teigu wielders expended a portion of their life force when using their Teigu, and now, to their excitement, they discovered that the life force they had spent had actually been restored!