Only through actual combat would one understand...
Among the three Royal Guards, the opponent Morrow had the best chance of defeating was undoubtedly Youpi.
Although Youpi possessed unreasonable physical strength and aura output far exceeding human limits, his shallow understanding of the Nen system was precisely the key to defeating him.
Moreover, from Youpi's aura, aside from the violent bloodlust, Morrow sensed a kind of biological arrogance.
That arrogance was like a creature standing at the pinnacle of the pyramid, looking down upon the ants beneath its feet with contempt.
And this deeply ingrained condescension rooted in genetics was also a weakness that could be exploited.
Morrow was deeply convinced of this.
His peripheral vision caught the thrusting spear-like arm. After dodging it, he didn't seize the opportunity to counterattack. Instead, he decisively activated Starlight Convergence.
In an instant, brilliant points of light scattered and bloomed, enveloping the fully extended arm.
Almost simultaneously with the starlight's expansion, the surface of the spear-like arm suddenly shot out crisscrossing slender spikes, descending upon Morrow like a thorny thicket.
Morrow, already prepared, easily avoided this treacherous attack once again thanks to the starlight's warning ability.
His 'Biological Mutation' ability is even more unreasonable than mine.
Having dodged the oncoming thorny spikes, Morrow lowered his eyelids slightly.
Strictly speaking, this ability to freely alter physical form wasn't a Nen ability Youpi developed himself, but a talent inherited from his magical beast genes.
In essence, it was a Biological Mutation ability perfected to its extreme.
Paired with this innate ability, the reason Youpi could unleash such terrifying destructive power was entirely due to his exceptionally massive aura output.
Otherwise, freely extending his body like this without sufficient Nen output for protection would be no different from exposing his most vulnerable parts directly to enemy attacks.
A fighting style with no regard for consequences... Perfect. I'll use you to 'test' the mechanics of my new ability.
Morrow knew that only by solving the problem of breaking through defenses would he have a chance to defeat Youpi.
This was also why he had developed a new ability.
Star Mark.
Morrow calmly looked at Youpi, who had already revealed more than half of his crimson figure from the smoke and dust. He extended his right hand forward, gathering flame-like aura in his palm while silently commanding in his heart: Transform!
With a slight thought, the Star Mark on Youpi's body suddenly shattered, turning into a cloud of Stardust that silently covered his entire body.
Sizzle. Immediately after, a cluster of deep blue flames, no larger than a ping pong ball, ignited without warning right in the center of Youpi's chest.
Within the flickering ghostly light, a deeply branded stellar cross could faintly be seen on his chest.
Hmm!?
This sudden anomaly made Youpi halt his ongoing assault.
He quickly retracted his extended arm, looked down at the inexplicably ignited flames, and instinctively raised his hand to swat at them.
Slap. Where his palm covered, the azure light instantly vanished.
Youpi felt no heat whatsoever, assuming the flames had been extinguished, and withdrew his hand.
However, the moment he moved his hand away, the cluster of eerie blue flames reappeared out of thin air. Witnessing this, Youpi's temples and forehead instantly bulged with veins.
Another bizarre ability...!
Seeing the flames couldn't be smothered, he immediately realized it must be Morrow's doing again.
Yet these ethereal blue flames, though burning out of thin air, brought no discomfort whatsoever.
Even upon direct contact, not the slightest heat could be detected.
Then what exactly... was their purpose?!
Youpi was never adept at thinking, and the successive occurrences of abnormal ability phenomena further battered his limited comprehension.
Perhaps the accumulated confusion had grown too overwhelming.
Without even considering whether he might receive an answer, he impulsively blurted out to Morrow, "What is this?"
Morrow, of course, had no intention of replying.
Seizing the moment while Youpi remained disoriented, the priority was to fulfill the lethal conditions of his new ability as swiftly as possible.
Thus, the response Youpi received was the sudden fragmentation of the Shooting Stars in mid-air, transforming into hundreds of slender streaks of light hurtling toward him in a star rain.
It was at this very instant that Youpi belatedly reflected inwardly: How foolish of me to expect an answer from the enemy.
As this thought surfaced, Youpi quickly grasped the reality.
No matter how hard he racked his brain, with his meager understanding, he stood no chance of deducing the truth or danger of the opponent's ability.
In that case... better to let rage take control of his body, channeling all action into a single motive: tear the enemy apart.
Youpi acted on this impulse.
And so, in the split second before the hundreds of streaking Shooting Stars reached him, his body transformed once more.
Six arms? Not enough. Then grow eight.
If one pair of eyes couldn't see through the enemy's tricks. Then sprout more eyes, constructing an absolute field of vision with no blind spots.
Youpi's body swelled again, his shoulders abruptly extending eight arms resembling octopus tentacles.
Slender, twisted, yet possessing a visually supple quality.
His head had completely morphed into an irregular mass of flesh, covered in eyes of varying sizes, spreading down to his collarbones and shoulder blades.
Transformed into this aberrant monster, his first act was to swing those eight tentacle-like arms, weaving a seamless blur of afterimages before him.
The hundreds of fragmented streaking Shooting Stars, upon contact with this blur, shattered and exploded one after another.
In less than a second. The star rain was effortlessly blocked by Youpi.
However, just as the aftermath of the Shooting Stars dissipated, two of Youpi's suspended slender arms, right at their midsections, inexplicably ignited with ethereal blue flames.
No tangible attachment, no detectable warmth.
They simply materialized out of nowhere.
The dense eyes on Youpi's fleshy head swiveled, each gazing at the silently burning flames on his arms.
Though he witnessed the flames appear from thin air, he still couldn't comprehend their mechanism, let alone what consequences they might bring.
But this time, Youpi didn't hesitate or pause.
In this monstrous form, he charged straight at Morrow like an unstoppable war machine.
Faced with such a formidable assault from Youpi, Morrow had no qualification to confront it head-on.
His only option was to swiftly retreat, creating space for the next wave of attacks.
Just as anticipated, the ignition zones of the Accretion Charges don't shift due to changes in the target's form.
Morrow rapidly retreated while calmly observing the flickering azure flames dancing across Youpi's arms.
Conversely, the difficulty of 'focus fire' actually decreases when the target enlarges or splits... Indeed, there's no more suitable first test subject than Youpi.
Back when developing this ability, while focusing on breaking through higher-level defenses, Morrow had already envisioned Youpi as his hypothetical opponent.
If he didn't need to worry about Youpi detecting his ability's intel, Morrow would have answered Youpi's earlier question "What is this exactly?" like this:
Accretion Charge.
This was precisely the name of his new ability.
「Stellar Collapse」
Through countless accumulations of minuscule power, eventually igniting an inferno capable of consuming everything.
The activation prerequisites for this ability are:
Must successfully plant one Star Mark on the target using the Starlight Convergence ability effect. Must launch one attack against the target with a full-power Shooting Star. Regardless of whether the attack causes damage, as long as the above steps are completed, the activation conditions for 「Stellar Collapse」 are triggered.
At this point, Morrow can voluntarily choose whether to sacrifice the Star Mark on the target, converting it into the ignition fuse for 「Stellar Collapse」.
Once conversion is confirmed, one random location among seven positions (forehead, chest, abdomen, left and right arms, left and right thighs) will ignite the first Accretion Charge.
Morrow must ignite the remaining six Accretion Charges to fully activate the one-hit-kill effect of 「Stellar Collapse」.
The method to ignite Accretion Charges is to accumulate a trigger count on these designated body parts, a number even Morrow himself cannot determine.
Only through so many Limitation conditions could this ability capable of challenging higher-level opponents be constructed.
If not for the upgrade reward granted by Etude of Love significantly reducing the difficulty of ability creation...
Morrow wouldn't dare imagine how much time he would need to complete it.
Moreover, when adding Limitations initially, it was like stacking building blocks; each restriction had to consolidate the foundation one after another.
By the final stage, Morrow had even considered imposing the harsh condition of only being able to focus fire on one area to ignite an Accretion Charge at a time.
Fortunately, after staking his entire Nen capacity into it, he ultimately didn't need to add that Limitation and successfully developed the ability.
And Youpi happened to be the first test subject for this new ability.
Morrow's reasoning was to utilize Youpi's freely transformable body to verify the underlying logic of "igniting Accretion Charges."
For instance, if Youpi manifested eight arms, would the ignition areas originally limited to "left and right arms" expand to include all eight?
Or, if he retracted or even severed his arms...
Would the Accretion Charge ignition positions follow some proximity principle and continue to take effect on the remaining limbs?
At least now it's confirmed that all eight arms Youpi manifested fall within the mechanism scope of 「Stellar Collapse」.
Meaning... Youpi's actions of increasing arm count or even enlarging his body are, in a way, actually helping Morrow overcome his ability's Limitations.
Although this possibility had been anticipated during the ability's development...
When it actually occurred, there was still an indescribably peculiar sensation.
Probably around 50 focused fire are needed to ignite an Accretion Charge.
Morrow reached this conclusion based on Youpi's earlier destruction of over a hundred fractured Shooting Stars with those eight tentacle-like arms...
The Accretion Charges on his arms were successfully ignited precisely at that moment.
From Youpi's perspective, he had indeed perfectly blocked all attacks from the Shooting Stars.
But from Morrow's standpoint, as long as the Shooting Stars made contact with Youpi's arms, regardless of whether they caused actual damage, the condition for concentrated fire had already been met.
This was precisely the key to how "Stellar Collapse" could achieve kills against stronger opponents.
It's worth noting that during its activation, this ability could only target one opponent.
Moreover, once a target was selected, the Star Mark implantation ability of Starlight Convergence would no longer work on that target.
This meant Morrow couldn't rely on the Star Mark's guidance effect to more easily ignite Accretion Charges on the target.
However, this wasn't a major issue.
Because even without Star Mark implantation, this Limitation could be overcome using "Divine Script."
The remaining areas... the forehead is the most difficult to ignite. It's a shame it wasn't randomly selected initially. As for the legs and abdomen, they shouldn't be problematic.
Morrow quickly analyzed the situation.
In his view, if he could ignite the most challenging forehead area first, then proceeding systematically would give him a great chance to eliminate Youpi.
Therefore, considering Youpi's potential reactions, he absolutely couldn't leave the forehead for last.
After all, once Accretion Charges were ignited on all six major body regions, even a fool would guess what was happening.
Even without guessing correctly, there should be some sense of crisis.
At that point, igniting the forehead, with its small surface area and vital attributes, would become a tricky problem.
While Morrow was contemplating this, Youpi finally entered attack range.
Those eight tentacles once again unleashed a storm-like assault, instantly enveloping Morrow.
For a moment, Morrow resembled a small boat in turbulent seas, his figure swaying precariously as if about to be completely swallowed at any moment.
「Starlight Convergence」
Brilliant starlight suddenly emerged, filling the surroundings.
Relying on the starlight's warning, Morrow barely stabilized his position, narrowly dodging the dense whip-like shadows that seemed capable of slicing through space as he twisted and turned.
To evade attacks from narrow openings, he had to frequently use his "Biological Mutation" ability to alter his body shape.
Such precise and frequent transformations undoubtedly greatly increased his mental load while dealing with the fierce assault.
But at least, he was barely holding on.
The dense compound eyes on Youpi's tumor-like head clearly captured Morrow's every movement.
Even though he noticed Morrow could also change form, no distracting thoughts remained in his mind.
Tear him apart... This was his only thought now.
And so, two new arms suddenly extended from Youpi's shoulders.
This abrupt change instantly compressed Morrow's evasion space to its limit.
Swoosh, swoosh...!
Within just two or three seconds, countless tears appeared on Morrow's clothing as wounds opened up one after another, blood spraying everywhere.
Even though Youpi had now split into ten arms, even though he had to distribute his aura output across more areas...
The power behind each strike remained formidable.
Even the mere aura gusts from near-misses were enough to leave bloody marks on Morrow's body.
This was a true monster.
No wonder. In the original work, when Youpi merely grazed Knuckle's face with the tip of his claw, the damage inflicted was equivalent to the interest generated by Knuckle's full-power strike.
This stark contrast clearly reveals the terror of the Royal Guards.
To defeat such a monster, Morrow had to constantly bear the risk of teetering between life and death!
—--
This intensely fierce confrontation was witnessed by Knuckle, who had finally arrived as reinforcement.
In that instant, Knuckle trembled from head to toe.
With his experience from over five thousand actual combat engagements, just seeing Youpi's aberrant form alone led him to one immediate conclusion:
Monster.
A monster with bottomless aura!
What followed was astonishment at how Morrow had managed to hold off such a monster for so long.
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Bonus chapter @1800power stones, ty for your support