'Now!'

The golden opportunity Arthur was waiting for finally came, as the Vermillion Bird continued shaking its body, especially its head to injure Arthur, it fiercely waved its head high-up, leaving a small portion of its chest exposed.

Usually, it uses its wings to defend against any attack that was aimed at its body, which is why Arthur had to wait and suffer from a beak penetrating his back and chest, causing the [Bleeding] debuff to stack multiple times.

Like a shooting black star, the dark arrow flew straight at the bird's chest, causing black flames to land on the flaming body of the bird and result in a painful screech from the Divine Beast.

Arthur grasped this chance to forcefully move his body and push the beak to the back with all his force, he strangely wasn't able to use [Faster Than Death] in such situation which left him helpless, however, he managed to get rid of the bird's beak and he was finally free.

The large wound on his chest started recovering at a fast rate, nonetheless, the damage he had received won't be fully healed in just a few seconds.

Facing the Vermillion Bird, which waved its flaming wings and tried to deflect the dark arrow that has just struck it, Arthur raised his right hand to a direction.

The dark blade came flying from below with lightning speed, it heard the call of its master so it rushed at him and in just a split second, it was already held by him.

Fortunately, it wasn't damaged when it hit the Divine Beast's eyes, this ensured that'll be able to unleash its full potential, especially since [Thousand Waves] isn't done yet.

Even with his recent power-up, Arthur was skeptical to be able to unleash the full ten waves. Previously, against the old Sovereign, he was barely able to unleash less than half of the ten waves, much less half. With his current stats, he knew that he's capable of executing five waves with ease.

If he forces himself, six waves are possible too, however, if he were to execute the seventh, not only will it stress his mind and injure his muscles, it'll surely damage Makaze heavily.

The effect of [Eternium] lessened, the place where he was injured reverted back to its usual appearance, however, when Arthur held Makaze and was ready to execute the fourth wave, the intensity of the black and red flames increased and the aura was multiplied by at least threefold.

'Fourth Wave, The Reaper's Call, Evocation of Death!'

A grey fog cloaked Arthur's figure, rendering the other party unable to locate his position. This was but the beginning, coupled with the core of this attack, several hundreds of short grey blades appeared all around Arthur, they were all aimed at the Vermillion Bird, only waiting for their caster's will to stab the screeching Vermillion Bird.

The Heavenly Arrow weakened as the orange flames of the bird assaulted from all direction, it was even cut in half but it successfully managed to cut through the high defense of the target and even cause dark red blood to spill from the newly suffered wound of the bird.

Its cry indicated its pain but it also called for help from the others. The white tiger was still unable to move, the Azure Dragon wasn't in its peak condition but it could still aid the Vermillion Bird, the third wave did impeccable damage as it bought Arthur so he wasn't surprised when he saw the twirling figure of the dragon rushing at him.

Its two abyssal eyes stared through the grey fog, as if all his weaknesses were seen and he was completely naked in front of such terrifying eyes, Arthur could only avert his gazes and focus on controlling this death formation, which is what the fourth wave was essentially about.

As the swords were aimed at the raging bird, Arthur let go of Makaze which floated vertically in front of him, he stretched his hand and closed his eyes, as he focused his Mental Power

'[Blood for Blood]!'

Without hesitation, he used that skill two consecutive times and as he did that, two spinning grey tornados appeared above his palms. They were spinning in a weird manner and very slowly, with his command, the two tornados started increasing their size until they covered all the death formation, making the environment dense of active Death Energy that even obstructed the vision of the incoming Azure Dragon, its Mental Spells had no effect on Arthur right now.

As they say 'playing with fire is dangerous', so is playing with Death Energy. Since the second he obtained Lissandra's book of the damned, Arthur became able to launch a few death-related skill and even manipulate Death Energy but he wasn't very efficient in it, he was lacking compared to his servant, Swain, moreover, he doesn't have total control over it which is why he abstained from using such dangerous energy in battle as it could cause a backlash and kill him instead.

The only time he chose to seriously attack with it was against Rozak, the results of his attack back then were more than satisfactory, however, the expenditure was more than he could manage. Sure, with his pool of Mana and Nether Energy, he could fight with Death Energy for a while but it simply isn't worth it when he could use the same amount that he would use with Death Energy to execute similar powerful skills with a lower cost and high risk.

These spinning grey tornados, also known as [Death Storm], the reason it's called a storm and he's only able to create one tornado is because of his lack of skill and control over it, normally, it required a very high amount of intelligence to execute such skill, more precisely, it requires 999.999m intelligence, so to execute this skill, he had to use [Griffin's Bloody Switch].

Strangely enough, no matter how much he poured into the intelligence stats, it just wouldn't reach the one billion mark, he guessed that it's related to his low cultivation but he paid no heed for the time being.

With the Death Formation in place and the two spinning tornados around him, which he planned to use as a layer of defense, Arthur was sure that he'll able to last for a while longer and deal considerable damage, whether to the incoming Azure Dragon, or the Vermillion Bird, which finally was able to get rid of the countless golden threads around its beak and extinguish the Heavenly Arrow.

Seeing the weirdly colored blood pouring from the wound of the bird, Arthur smirked and felt a bit relieved.

'As long as it bleeds, I can kill it, that's all I need to know.'