The God Virus

"The Lion King? So, you were talking about his father… wait, are you feeling okay, by any chance? You said 'what did you do?' just now when you were supposed to use a famous line like 'Do you know who his father is?', you're acting out of character bro." Faking an expression of stupefaction, Virus stated. Internally though, the situation only made him amused and nothing but amused.

"Huh? W-What the fuck are you talking about? You have no idea who his father is, do you? His father is the fucking Golden-Maned Ancient Lion King!" Feeling absurd about how casual Virus was behaving after having just killed someone extraordinary, Ra honestly didn't know how to react.

"There you go, that wasn't hard, now, was it? I was starting to get worried about you back there." Letting out an exaggerated sigh of relief, Virus looked like he had been finally put at ease.

Meanwhile, internally, Virus' synthesis rate was shooting through the roof. In fact, that was why he was delaying the fight right now by acting like that.

90%... 96%... 100!

The moment the synthesis rate was complete and his seventh pathway formed to perfection, that passage started trembling and shaking as if something was stopping it from breaking through and entering the eighth level.

'Again?' Momentarily focusing within his internal world, Virus willed his energy manually as he rammed it into the wall of taboo that was trying to hinder the progress.

'Begone!'

Bam!

Unfortunately, the second taboo seemed even stronger than the first one. 

'I said get the fuck out of my body!' A tick of anger popped into Virus' forehead as he gathered every bit of energy from every one of his pathways as he rammed them all directly into the barrier of taboo!

BOOM!

Fortunately, the taboo barrier was entirely incapable of impeding his path in this round as it immediately disintegrated into nothingness.

The Second Taboo, broken!

With no delay, the energy stormed into the subsequent pathways as Virus successfully progressed to the eighth level of Liberation!

Albeit, although there was a humongous amount of vigor remaining from the killed Purple-Maned Ancient Lion, all of that only increased the fusion rate to two percent.

Now that he had reached the eighth level of Liberation, it seemed the difficulty of increasing the synthesis rate had also been elevated to a terrifying degree!

In the meantime, outside, both Ra and Knightgruella were gazing into each other's eyes, trying to figure out what they should do in order to avoid the wrath of the Golden-Maned Ancient Lion when they leave the Invisible Ancient Fortress World.

"Boss, bringing the head of that bastard to the Lion King might soothe some of its anger. You should kill him asap!" Knightgruella advised with some fear exhibiting itself within his pupils.

"Hmm, you're right, that's the only thing we can do right now. I'll get serious then." Instantly hardening his grip over the hilt of his ax, Ra charged at such speed that he was almost like a blur. This was the peak momentum he could display right now.

Earlier, while fighting both the veiled lady and Virus, although he had mobilized most of his energy, he had not truly gone up to his limits.

However, now that the Purple-Maned Ancient Lion was dead, Ra could not take this lying down anymore.

On the other side, easily following Ra's movements, Virus mumbled to himself.

'Unnamed Virus Technique, First Form – Impulse!'

At once, lightning came to his aid as Virus grabbed his sword and retaliated against the giant that had reached him.

'Fountain Bow Cut!'

Swish!

A graceful horizontal slash was drawn in the air, rapidly closing in on Ra to behead him in case he didn't succeed in defending.

FZZZ!

Two weapons, one sword, and one ax, directly clashed, however, none seemed to be willing to back down as an intense collision of power was keeping the two in a locked-up position for a few seconds.

Only after that few moments had passed did the equilibrium break apart as Ra's figure was thrusted away backward!

"Huh!" Shouting in ridicule, Virus promptly sprinted at the opponent that was looking at him while gritting his teeth since the situation was reversed.

'Unnamed Virus Technique, First Form – Impulse!'

Along the way, lightning sparkled, increasing Virus' speed by an entire level. And yet, Virus wasn't finished.

'Unnamed Virus Technique, Second Form – Friction!'

Wind also joined the fray! As two hurricanes like air particles covered his forefront, his speed once again skyrocketed!

By now, Ra's eyes were nearly bulging out of their sockets as he looked at Virus in shock!

"How did he become so… wait! He broke through another level?!" No matter how he calculated, he could not get to a conclusion where that was possible.

The last time he met him, Virus had been much weaker than him, they weren't even comparable, to the point someone else had to protect him.

However, the next time they confronted one another, Virus was at least scarcely capable of keeping his ground against him. At that point, he could still comfort himself that he had probably come across amazing encounters in the Invisible Ancient Fortress World and that it must've been a one-time boost. 

But now, out of nowhere, after a short pause in their battle, Virus had suddenly broken through and gotten much stronger with no obvious reason whatsoever! Furthermore, there was more to it than just that.

'He can't possibly be that talented to breakthrough left and right, even in the middle of the battle!'

'Fountain Bow Cut!'

Swish!

"Tree Cutter Ax – Fourth Form!" "DAMN IT!"

BALAAM!

Barely employing his ax attack technique, Ra triumphantly interjected the path of Virus' sword to his neck.

Instead of using his technique for attacking, Ra had just ingeniously taken advantage of it to defend!

However, even then, the force behind Virus' strike had been so heavy that it launched Ra's gigantic figure away just like a cannonball!

Smashing into the panel right beside Knightgruella, Ra's physique damaged and broke many of the pills apart!

Once again, Virus was just about to charge, when he heard Ra's awestricken and full of disbelief scream, "This is impossible! How did you become so powerful in the blink of an eye? You were at the Seventh Level of Liberation just now, but your energy seems even stronger now! But you don't seem to even be in the Sublimity Emergence stage yet so how can you be so powerful?!"

Virus was aware that due to some mysterious reason related to their genes and DNA, the barbarians could actually cultivate to the seventh level of Liberation since they had fourteen single pathways instead of the usual twelve.

Thus, it was understandable why Ra wasn't surprised after seeing that Virus had attained the seventh level as well. Of course, he might've been a little taken aback considering how it was so rare for a normal human to achieve such a feat. However, it wasn't anything extraordinary in his opinion, therefore, he dismissed it and didn't show any kind of reaction to it.

But right now, Virus' energy seemed to have progressed even further. He was quite confident that Virus' energy quality was still in the Liberation stage and not the Sublimity Emergence, and yet, he was above the seventh level!

Although Ra unconsciously knew what that signified, he just didn't want to believe that someone had been capable of going even beyond the barbarians' degree of talent and achieved even the eighth level of Liberation!

"Huh? I'm sure you know why though?" Grinning in contempt at the barbarian who seemed to be in some kind of denial, Virus added before dashing at him again, "But why are you suddenly starting a speech in the middle of the fight?!"

'Unnamed Virus Technique, First Form – Impulse!'

'Unnamed Virus Technique, Second Form – Friction!'

"Tree Cutter Ax – Fourth Form!" Urgently yelling this after seeing Virus about to enter his attacking pose, Ra quickly released his offense technique.

'Fountain Bow Cut!'

BOOM!

Once again, the powerless Ra narrowly made it alive. Alas, just as he was about to shoot backward like a broken puppet, Virus froze his time perception and comprehended the second form of 'Fountain Bow and Arrow Cut'.

Now that he had access to the seventh pathway, there was nothing preventing Virus from acquiring the second form.

'Fountain Arrow Cut!'

Since the 'Fountain Bow Cut' had been released just a moment ago, the window of unleashing the 'Fountain Arrow Cut' was still open, therefore, Virus didn't hesitate and let it go!