"Don't be scared, Zaar; I will not have you dead, but you will receive the divine punishment for the crimes you have committed," the voice old snake rang through inside. "Old snake, I will not die without killing you," I replied while looking at the cracks that were rapidly healing across the shields. "I will hear those words if you survive," it said with a laugh as its voice faded, while the cracks had also reduced to 5% and now healing at an even faster speed. I looked at the healing cracks when I saw the sphere of shield moving, getting deeper into the snake; at the same time, I saw the dark red-black mist ahead of me; just seeing it made all the hair on my body raise. Crack Crack Crack Soon, the mist touched the shield, and the moment it, my eyes widened in shock, and the cracks that were healing stopped and began to spread faster than earlier. Its power shocked me, but I did not let shock interfere with me in making a quick decision; I immediately increased the power of the formation. More and more divine energy began to come inside and merge with the divine energy of the curse, but despite increasing divine energy, there seemed to be barely any change in the pace of cracking, which had already reached 20% and spread even faster. As I go deeper into wherever it is taking me, the mist is getting denser at a very fast speed; that refined divine energy I am sending seems to have no effect on it. "Use the highest quality divine stones," I said through gritted teeth; I have spent the divine crystal-like water, and now, I am even choosing to burn even the highest-grade divine crystal I have in my storage, but I do not have them in a huge amount; I will have to get out of here, or I will die in the hands of an old snake. Hun! I had asked that when I felt the sphere of shield falling down in what seemed like a gorge, which seemed to be filled with extremely dense mist black-red curse mist. "Fuck!" I cursed loudly when I saw the dense mist touching my sphere of shield, and immediately speed of breaking quadrupled. At that same time, much denser energy came into my armor and filled it before merging with the divine energy of the curse and beginning to get refined. A second after, a trickle began to flow into my shield, and the speed of breaking finally began to slow down despite the mist getting denser with the falling speed. "It had not stopped," I said with a worried frown appearing on my face; the cracking process had slowed down, but it was not stopping at all; instead, it was increasing as I fell into the denser mist. I tried stopping, but the mist seemed to pull me down, and no amount of force seemed to be affecting it. It is like there is something more in the divine energy, which I can't seem to understand. Soon, crack covered 75% of the shield, and the edges of them turned purple, and despite that, the cracks spread without much change. A second passed, and all divine energy of the curse had emptied; immediately, I let the small stream of black-red mist inside through the shield; just as I did that, they shook and lighted up, even brighter than before. Despite it increasing the speed of cracks, I have not let the mist in, except for the small sample; this cursed divine mist is extremely dangerous, and I don't want something like this into me unless I am solely focused on it. The moment the mist entered inside my shield and came at me, the volume of divine energy in my armor also increased by 4.6 times, and they merged the moment the mist entered my armor; I had to use a heavy amount of rule-bending power to merge them together. The merged divine energy begins to enter inside the thousands of refiners, and those who were very fast immediately slowed down under this energy and are taking more than twice the time to process. Hun! Finally, the first trickle of processed divine energy came out and entered the shield, and something shocking happened. It immediately slowed down the cracks, they stopped at 84% and did not increase to 85% nearly a second later, which is huge, and it had happened the moment I sent the energy. My shields have got familiar with higher level divine energy and increased their resistance and also got the power to defend it. 'Make it better,' I told my clones; I would have gone too, but I am doing something important. I could not process divine energy; it is in the huge amount that I don't think those limited highest quality divine crystals I have possession going to last till that. Nor could I afford to waste that much time here; I needed to deal with it soon and find a chance to finish that bastard old snake. That would be an extremely difficult thing; that bastard is extremely careful against me; it did not seem like it before. I have sensed five different types of invisible defensive methods covering its body; three are from artifacts, and there is extremely powerful detection later. These are the ones I found out in my earlier battle and this one; I am sure there are definitely more there. Hun! A few more seconds passed, and at 87%, I was able to slow down the process enough; now, to increase a single percent, it needed eleven seconds. With such time, I will not let it increase to 88%; it will recede from there. Thud! Six seconds after, I had thought that; the sphere of shields had finally hit the ground, and immediately, the crack covered 88% and moved toward 89% fast. I gritted my teeth and doubled the amount of black-red mist coming inside me, which immediately increased the amount of divine energy coming from my core, but even then, it only slowed and stopped, only slowed. "Fuck it!" I cursed and doubled the amount of black-red mist; it was above the limit of safety, but I did not care because if I did not do something now, the cracks would spread further. They had already covered the 92% of it, and I could not let them cover more. "It is near breaking limit," I said softly as I looked at the state of my armor; it was not only taking a huge amount of mist but merging it and processing it; it produced a massive amount of strain that even my amazing strings have a hard time bearing it all. Finally, when the cracks reached 94%, the trickle amount of processed divine energy began to come out of the refiners and merged into shields, powering them up, and like before, the result was amazing. The cracks began to slow down fast, and at the 21st second, they stopped spreading; by that time, the cracks had covered 96% of the shields, far more than I liked; if the power of mist increased further, then it won't take long before my shields to blast into pieces and this curve ravage. I don't know whether it will happen, but I don't want to wait till that moment. The moment cracks stabilized, I focused my all on the plan. I will not die here; I can't die here.