Max lifted his body off the ground as if trying to do the last push up after an intense set where the muscles felt extremely fatigued, as he stared at the back of his clone standing underneath the body of a single giant.

Max was surprised to see his clone re- use the same skill that was on cooldown for himself as he realised that the clone was its own entity and could use the spells which Max had already exhausted.

The only things that seperated Max from his clone were the equipment he was wearing and the Agni-Astra as his clone was incapable of using fire spells that were exclusive to the Agni-Astra.

*Kaboom-Thunder*

A blinding flash covered the entire fields of thunder as the 8th and the most devastatingly powerful strike yet rained down upon Max and his clone.

The lightning strike first hit the body of the giant, disintegrating the massive beast within a second as it continued to travel underneath where it was blocked by Max’s clone who had prepared an energy blast in the one second that the lightning took to travel from the sky to disintegrating the giant.

The spell [ energy blast ] was only a tier3 spell which could not hold a candle to the power of the lightning strike, but the clone had extremely cleverly angled the attack such that it only deflected the lightning strike away from Max’s body.

The clone succeeded in his endeavour partly, as while the lightning strikes path did alter by a very slight margin, it was still not enough to completely miss Max, as the clone was forced to become a human shield for Max, as he took the blow straight to his chest

[ Flame Shield ]

Max watched in horror as the lightning strike pierced a hole straight through the clone’s chest as the blood that was supposed to drip from the clone’s body because of the massive wound vaporised from the energy.

The clone received critical damage and his perfectly full HP bar turned dangerously red extremely quickly.

Max barely managed to block the 8th strike by deploying the flame shield once more to block the residual power of the attack as he managed to come out of this round of lightning strike relatively unscathed.

” Quick, Drink my blood ” The clone said as Max saw his eyes zooming in and out of consciousness as he selflessly decided to sacrifice himself to save Max.

Max felt goosebumps arise all over his skin when he heard his clone speak in his own voice, as Max reluctantly plunged his fangs into his clone’s neck as he began devouring the clone’s blood.

[ System Notification – You have survived the 8th round of the lightning strike, your evaluation has been improved from A to S grade.

Do you wish to continue onwards to the 9th strike?

Yes

No ]

Max saw the system notification and chose to ignore it for a split second as he rapidly regained HP from absorbing and drinking his clone’s blood.

He had finally reached S grade evaluation and it had cost him a divine spell to reach this length and even then it was only barely possible.

Even with his clone by his side, two of Max’s were not enough to stand the power of a tier6 strength attack.

Logically, there was no wisdom for Max to continue, but S ranked evaluation was not enough for the future vampire king aspirant.

Max felt his clone die by his own hands in what was a psychologically disturbing experience as his HP bar recovered to 53%.

Clicking ‘ Yes ‘ Max decided to continue the trial as he decided that while he himself was incapable of passing the trial by his own strength, there was a certain shaman god whose strength he could rely upon to pass this stage.

To summon Angakok he needed to sacrifice half his HP bar, half his stamina bar and half his mana bar.

Currently he had barely enough HP to summon Angakok, but doing so would put him back at the 3% bar which was extremely low.

If Angakok took even the slightest bit of damage with his frail body, Max would die while not even being in control of his own body.

But despite understanding the risks fully well he chanted the ancient spell.

” O holy one, the progenitor of all shamans

Your descendants call for your help.

In exchange for my vitality, my mana and my vigour grant me your immense powers,

for my enemy’s need to be destroyed.

Heed my call for I know your name ‘ Angakok ‘ the shaman god, the enslaver of the’ Kraken ‘ and the slayer of the sea god Poseidon.

Heed my call! “

Max chanted the spell and underwent the procedure he was all too familiar with as his consciousness was pulled into an cosmic space where he was face to face with the purple eyed god Angakok.

The two of them stared into each other’s eyes momentarily before Angakok waved his hand off and sent Max to the white space as Max once again had to play the waiting game.

This was the third time he had summoned Angakok’s power, and it was like a drug he could not rid himself of.

Everytime he used Angakok’s powers, he promised to himself that he would no longer be reliant on him for everything, but somehow he always ended up using it when the situation demanded it.

*********

( Angakok’s POV )

Angakok inspected Max’s body as momentarily he was angered to see the boy inside the fields of thunder attempting a tier promotion.

In Angakok’s mind Max was a long way from stat maximisation based on his last takeover of the body, however, his anger turned into a pleasant surprise as he found that Max had indeed achieved stat maximisation in such a short period of time

*Kaboom-Thunder*

The 9th lightning strike rained down from the heavens as Angakok leisurely looked at it fall in slow motion before raising his hand as he said ” Begone “

The lightning strike carrying the power of a peak tier6 strike dispelled just like that upon Angakok’s command as he helped Max survive the 9th strike with just a simple word.

Angakok had a deeply vested interest in Max and for his own purposes, he wanted Max to become as powerful as possible which was the only reason why he would not let Max fail here.

” Bring the Divine Punishment ” Angakok said to the heavens, which was the name of the 10th lightning strike which was golden in colour and carried the judgement of the heavens for someone who had the power of gods while being a mortal.

Angakok was a god from the chaos era, in his times the fields of lightning were always packed with challengers trying to get promoted as he himself was one such challenger who had reached tier4 in this very field a few thousand years ago.

At the time, Angakok was not privy to the secrets of the universe as he did not understand the true meaning behind the ten strikes.

For anyone capable of handling 6 strikes, they were considered worthy of becoming tier4

For anyone capable of handling 7 strikes they were considered extraordinary and revered in the universe.

For anyone capable of handling 8 strikes was considered once in a 100 years prodigy and was the highest level of genius that was possible at tier3.

Nobody ever survived the 9th strike in his era unless they were a being that defied the laws of the universe themselves which is why the 9th strike was called the ” Strike Of Fear “

It was the universe being afraid of an individual having potential to overthrow god’s while being an ant like mortal.

The tenth strike however was a myth that nobody ever experienced, it was called Divine Punishment, an attack created by the heavens themselves to suppress an individual whose ascension could potentially break the balance of the universe.

In the entire history of the universe there were only 2 individuals who had ever rumoured to have received divine punishment

The first was the ‘ Unnamed God ‘ and the second was ‘ Kane ‘, both being individuals who ended up disrupting the universal order after the chaos era ended.

Angakok himself only reached the 9th strike, however, for Max he wanted to complete the 10th one to steal the power of soul hidden within the tenth strike and turn him into a genuine powerhouse.