Martial Era: Starting With The Strongest Talent

Chapter 244: The Angel Of Death

The lich staggered back the moment Adam spoke, its hollow gaze flickering with something dangerously close to confusion. Knowledge flooded its mind, drawn from the rift and strengthened by absorbing the Angel of Death, yet none of it explained this.

It understood humans. Weak creatures that clawed their way upward through effort, talent, or bloodline. Growth was slow, painful, earned step by step. Even the most gifted followed rules with limits and progression being the main factor. But Adam... had just shattered all of that.

This wasn’t growth. This wasn’t talent.

This was cheating.

A chilling realization struck the lich as its skeletal fingers twitched slightly. Adam’s words replayed in its mind, cold and deliberate.

Feed the egg... on me? The thought alone sent an unnatural ripple through its undead body.

It didn’t hesitate.

"If I die today," the lich said, its voice cracking with fury and resolve, "then you will die with me!" It had already understood the truth. It could no longer match Adam’s current strength. So it chose the only path left.

Mutual destruction.

With a sharp gesture, it unleashed its final weapon. The skeletal bear roared as it surged forward, its massive frame shaking the rift’s ground. Dark energy pulsed through its bones, amplifying its already terrifying presence.

Adam didn’t move back.

Instead, he stepped forward.

Without hesitation, he activated the bloodline.

"Famine."

The change was immediate.

Dark markings spread across his skin like living ink, twisting into intricate patterns. The air around him warped as grains of sand began to rise, swirling faster and faster until they formed a massive storm.

Then the tendrils appeared.

They erupted outward, thick, writhing constructs of condensed sand, expanding rapidly until they blotted out the dim light above. The entire battlefield darkened as their shadow fell over the charging beast.

The skeletal bear faltered.

For a brief moment, something flickered within its empty eye sockets.

Fear.

It didn’t matter.

The tendrils descended in an instant, crashing down with overwhelming force. The bear didn’t even have time to resist. Its body was torn apart, shredded into fragments before it could complete its charge.

It died instantly.

Even within the lich’s domain, there was no saving it. The attack ignored such limitations entirely, crushing the bear’s existence itself under its overwhelming effect.

Adam stood calmly at the center of the storm.

The sand obeyed him completely, moving with terrifying precision as the bloodline remained active. Unlike his domain, it drained nothing from him. It simply existed, as a constant absolute, under his control.

More potent than anything he had used before.

And he wasn’t even trying yet.

His gaze lifted slowly, locking back onto the lich.

The storm of sand still raged, but Adam stood unmoving at its center, his gaze fixed on the lich. The creature didn’t attack. It simply stared, its hollow eyes trembling as it processed what it had just witnessed.

That power... it recognized it.

The lich’s mind raced, digging through fragments of inherited knowledge. The power Adam used belonged to one of the creatures he had created. The same creature that had been devoured earlier by the egg. Yet now, it was different.

The range had increased. The effect had evolved. Every flaw had been stripped away and rebuilt to suit the boy standing before it. The lich’s thoughts spiraled as it reached a terrifying conclusion.

It changed the power itself.

And not just one.

It recalled the other beings devoured by the egg. If this was the result of one... then the others had likely undergone the same evolution. Adam hadn’t just taken power.

He had improved it.

The lich had once believed it understood death. It had used the remnants of the [Angel of Death] to create subordinates, to build its domain, to control decay itself. That had been its greatest achievement.

Now it felt meaningless.

Is this... true dominion over death?

Before it could react further, Adam was already in front of it. One moment he stood at a distance, the next he was within arm’s reach, his presence pressing down like a silent execution.

He raised his hand slightly.

"Hand it over."

The words were calm, but absolute.

The lich didn’t resist.

Its bony fingers trembled as it slowly reached into its own chest, tearing through decayed flesh without hesitation. There was no scream or struggle. It simply searched, as if retrieving something long hidden.

Then it pulled it out.

A totem emerged, shaped like an angel with broken wings, its surface dark and cracked. The moment it left the lich’s body, the entire domain shuddered. The spreading death energy across the rift began to collapse.

Everything was returning to the totem.

The decay, the control, the power, it all flowed back rapidly, drawn into the object like a vacuum. The massive influence the lich once held shrank with terrifying speed, leaving the battlefield empty and still.

The lich’s body began to change.

Its presence weakened. The intelligence in its eyes dimmed as its form regressed. Layer by layer, its power was stripped away, absorbed completely into the totem it had just surrendered.

It looked at Adam one last time.

"Why... are you so different?"

Adam took the totem from its hand without hesitation, his expression unchanged. He glanced at it briefly before answering, his voice casual, almost indifferent.

"What do you mean? I’m just a normal human."

The lich froze.

Its hollow eyes widened as something inside it broke. The last trace of awareness vanished instantly. Its body slackened, reverting completely into a mindless zombie, stripped of everything that once made it dangerous.

And with no hesitation, Adam activated Cryogen and a thin layer of frost spread instantly across the creature’s body before it shattered apart in the next second, collapsing into lifeless fragments. The fight ended without resistance, without struggle, like extinguishing a dying flame.

Silence returned to the rift.

The storm began to settle, the sand slowly falling as Adam stood alone, the totem resting in his hand. The pressure that once filled the battlefield was gone, replaced by something far more controlled as his full attention shifted... to the totem.