Primordial Expanse: I have the Strongest Talent!

As Alex closed the distance, Xulthar finally made his move.

He extended out his hand, and the ground beneath Alex began to tremble.

Suddenly, thick, thorny vines erupted from the earth, aiming to ensnare him.

'Some sort of nature manipulation!'

Alex was shocked at seeing a talent like this for the first time.

The Red Demons truly had some diverse talents compared to the human race.

Alex leaped in the air in an attempt to dodge their entrapment, but he was unsuccessful, as it seemed these vines had no limit to their range.

Whether he was on the ground, or 50 metres in the air, he was going to be ensnared and tangled up by them as they moved at immeasurable speeds to catch up to him.

They started to coil around his legs, slowly slithering up his body like snakes.

The thorns were ripping into his skin, and with how they were constantly extending up his body, it was like they were trying to deglove his legs entirely.

That wasn't the worst part though.

Alex was somehow unable to break his legs free from their grasp, even though he could feel that the strength in his legs was more than enough to do so.

Like pythons, they started to tighten around his legs, further digging into his skin and constricting his blood and energy flow.

'I can't keep this up…'

Alex was dragged rapidly back down to the ground as Xulthar commanded his vines to retract, bringing Alex's feet back in contact with the earth, but he wasn't able to feel them at all.

Since his legs couldn't break free themselves, Alex took Virtue's Edge and sliced at the vines surrounding his legs.

Katcha!

He hacked away at one of them, and he actually received some positive results!

The sword had cut about halfway through one of the vines, and he could see them constantly trying to heal and regenerate, trying to fill up the gap that Alex had just made.

But his Phoenix flames were raging intensely against them, stopping them from being able to regenerate.

'I need more power!'

Alex gave them another, even more powerful hack, and combined with the 2x power multiplier from Virtue's Edge's F tier effect, he finally cut clean through the vines surrounding his left leg.

'Yes!'

But his moment of happiness was quickly turned on its head.

Fwoosh!

An arrow came flying over to him in a terrifying arc, moving so fast past the speed of sound that it was literally ripping the air molecules apart as it flew through the air.

Alex could sense all of Rakul's actions the entire time, but his right leg was still tangled up with vines, so he couldn't dodge even if he wanted to.

He felt his senses heightened as he registered the incoming threat.

With his right leg still ensnared by the vines and the arrow speeding towards him, he only had milliseconds to react.

Summoning all of his strength, Alex swung Virtue's Edge with a precise, downward arc.

The Phoenix Flames surged along the blade, and with an explosive burst, a sword light made of flames shot out and intercepted the arrow mid flight.

Or so Alex thought.

He thought he put enough energy and strength behind that counter attack, but it seemed like it still wasn't enough.

The flames cleared, and the arrow soared past them, slowed quite a lot, but it was still moving towards Alex at an incredible pace.

Alex's heart pounded as he realised his counterattack had been ineffective.

With basically no time left to react, he raised Virtue's Edge, and in the exact same moment the arrow had arrived.

Clang!

The arrow struck the flat side of his blade, the impact sending a shockwave through Alex's arm.

"Argghhh!"

But the deflection wasn't perfect.

The arrow had grazed his shoulder, tearing through flesh and drawing blood.

Pain surged through his body, but so did a sudden weakness.

'Poison! Shit!'

He realised in that instant that Rakul had laced his arrow with some sort of poison, and since it had still successfully grazed him, the poison could still take effect.

Alex's pounding heart slowed involuntarily as he felt the poison seeping through his veins.

The weakness was spreading quickly.

Rakul, Gormak and Xulthar stood with smug and triumphant looks on their faces as they witnessed the arrow graze Alex.

That was one of the deadliest poisons in existence for lower lifeforms, and it led to death in less than a minute for even the strongest C+ rank awakened.

For a D tier like Alex? He had around 30 seconds or so before he was dead meat.

And this was largely thanks to how strengthened his body had been by his constant use of Soul orbs and his rebirth.

'Fuck… fuck… fuck… fuck… fuck… fuck!'

Alex hurriedly retracted his Phoenix flames back into his body and activated the one effect he hadn't made us of yet.

Purification.

The actual effect described in its details was that it could 'purify damaged souls', but Alex was hoping that if he combined this effect with the regenerative aspect of them, then he might be able to save himself before his insides completely melted from the poison.

'Please work!'

Thankfully the elites, and even Varkoth, were stood on the side, unmoving as they thought they had already won the battle.

If they even came in and decided to deliver the finishing blow themselves rather than let the poison do all the work, then Alex really would be dead.

He was praying that they didn't decide to do this.

But he was praying even more that his purification worked.

The moment he activated the Soul fire effect, his Phoenix flames changed from a deep crimson to completely invisible.

Well, they were invisible to any outsiders, but with Alex…

He was seeing the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, in his entire lifetime…

It was like the flames changed into some sort of higher dimensional construct, as a myriad of colours flashed through them millions of times per second, and they no longer took on a three dimensional shape.

But instead of admiring the beauty like he would have liked to, he immediately pushed the soul fire into his body.

He summoned another set of Phoenix flames, pushed the regenerative aspect of them as far as they would go, reaching a 43:57 split.

It seemed his previous 60:40 split was just a fluke, or perhaps pushing past his limits.

But he has still increased his limit from 45:55 to 43:57, which was an improvement he would welcome any day.

This second flame was then pushed into his body.

'Now, I can only pray…'