A flash of silver-gray sword light, and Natasha appeared behind Ktonia. A long gash opened across his right abdomen, blood tinged with a faint silver-purple hue flowing outward. Even a mere backlash from the power of the "Heart of Time" had left him gravely wounded.
The wound seemed infected by temporal energy, healing at an agonizingly slow pace. Combined with the exhaustion of wielding a legendary artifact, Natasha could no longer remain standing. She dropped to one knee, her long sword driven into the ground to prop herself up, her hands—clad in white, semi-transparent silk gloves—trembling violently like those of an aged elder.
Meanwhile, Ktonia floated in midair, seemingly unscathed, his expression frozen in lingering shock and bewilderment.
Then, suddenly, a phantom wound that looked utterly alien to this world materialized on his body. It expanded rapidly, spreading countless hairline fractures in every direction. Blood erupted in a spray, dotting Natasha's sacred white wedding dress with one crimson blotch after another, like roses blooming across a blanket of snow.
The thick stench of blood filled the air. A sigh escaped Ktonia's mouth, and then his body violently split apart—shattering into an uncountable rain of flesh and bone fragments that plummeted to the ground, staining Natasha's wedding dress red in several more places.
With a soft clatter, a medal dropped to the ground. At its center was a river of time coiled into the shape of a heart, representing the glory of the Ktonia bloodline.
The medal was smeared in blood, as if embodying the last lingering worry Ktonia could never let go of.
Blood with a faint, shimmering luminescence dripped ceaselessly from the medal, like a flowing river that seemed it would never run dry.
Clatter—another sound. The legendary sword "Heart of Time" fell onto the ashen gray gravel, while the storage pouch, stripped of its legendary enchantments, had lost all its color, reduced to a dull blackish-gray that dropped silently at Natasha's feet.
Natasha's body was drained of strength and the wound burned with searing pain, yet her spirit blazed with fierce exhilaration, her blood surging through her veins as if her very soul had dissolved into the torrent.
"I finally killed Ktonia! I've finally avenged Uncle!"
That single strike had appeared effortless, but without the paralyzing effect of Lucian's "Gaze of Vengeance," without Grandmother Hathaway's "Grand Disjunction" stripping away every other defense and magical effect on Ktonia, she never could have landed that blow. In a head-on exchange, she would have died a hundred times out of a hundred.
Of course, as a Golden Knight, Natasha had keenly sensed that at the crucial moment, her aura and willpower had suppressed Ktonia's, causing him a brief moment of hesitation. Combined with the not-yet-fully-dissipated paralysis, his defensive swing had been just a fraction too slow. Otherwise, she wouldn't have merely been gravely wounded—she would have been teetering between life and death, with survival depending purely on luck. And with no life-saving measures left, death would have meant permanent, irrevocable death!
That single strike had required her to conquer her fear of death, to forge a path forward by facing it head-on.
In the distance, Lucian quietly let out a breath of relief. The "Elemental Aegis" he had been priming to deploy was finally held back—a precaution he had prepared to shield Natasha at the most critical moment. How could he ever watch his wife perish without lifting a finger?
On the other side, the Lich King and the Ancient Mummy had already guessed Ktonia's fate the moment they witnessed Natasha's strike. He might kill Natasha, but there was no way he would survive either. So instead of pursuing Hathaway, who had blinked away to safety, the Lich King began chanting strange, arcane incantations in a low voice.
The multicolored gemstones circling above his head suddenly lost all color, and a dense, deathly gray spread outward, blanketing everything around them.
Then the deathly gray vanished—and with it, both legendary undead were gone.
If they didn't flee now, while Hathaway hadn't yet recovered her breath, they would never escape!
A simple shift in the situation—and they could read it well enough!
Lucian had cast "Gaze of Vengeance" enhanced with "Hand of Uncertainty" four times in succession, layered with other legendary spells and the cost of activating legendary artifacts. His mental energy was down to barely a quarter, but he had no intention of wasting time slowly recovering with potions. Hathaway had already freed her hands—what did he have to fear from the Primal Flame?
Within the legendary realm, a difference of two tiers was enough to be completely overwhelming, let alone three!
If Ktonia hadn't been old and enfeebled, if Lucian's Grand Archanist's Robe weren't a second-tier legendary artifact, if the "Lunar Chronometer" weren't also approaching second-tier legendary power, and if the strange ability of the "Hand of Uncertainty" hadn't played its part—then even with Natasha and himself fighting together, Ktonia would have completely crushed them, leaving them barely clinging to life.
The Undead Plane returned to its silence, still an austere landscape of black, white, and gray, with chaotic peaks and iron rails stretching in every direction. Lucian flew to Natasha's side, helped her up, fed her a healing potion, and cast a medical spell to stanch the blood from her wound, restoring a measure of her strength.
Hathaway, meanwhile, was watching the spot where the Maze spell had been cast, waiting for its effects to dissipate.
"Deal with the Primal Flame first. I'm fine." Natasha picked up Ktonia's storage pouch and pointed at the Sword of Truth, the Heart of Time, and the Shield of Truth embedded in the ground nearby. "Transform into an Epic Knight and work with Grandmother Hathaway to finish him off for good."
She no longer had the strength to lift a single legendary artifact.
Lucian nodded and swiftly transformed. Dots of lunar radiance flowed across his body, his complexion growing paler still, lending him an almost ethereal quality. With the Shield of Truth in his left hand and the Sword of Truth in his right, he waited—for the Primal Flame to break free of the Maze, and for his teacher and the Council President to arrive.
If he were to dispel the Maze himself, the Primal Flame would instantly grasp the situation and use whatever hidden means he had to flee without hesitation. And if too much time passed, the Primal Flame could simply calculate from the elapsed time that reinforcements had already arrived—and would likewise refuse to engage.
Inside the Maze, the "Primal Flame" had already abandoned the puzzle. His face ashen with fury, he was violently hammering against the Maze's walls while silently counting the seconds.
Rumble—the Maze, woven from warped spacetime, began to tremble, shaking violently.
The Primal Flame's expression flickered with brief hope—but quickly darkened once more. Dozens of seconds had already passed. What would await him outside?
Would it be a circle of legendary powerhouses watching his every move? Or had Ktonia nearly succeeded in killing Lucian and Natasha, needing only one final push from him?
"No—Lucian has advanced to the legendary realm and concealed it. He must have made thorough preparations. The legendary artifacts and life-saving measures on him are certainly numerous. And Ktonia is old and declining, far from his peak. Killing Natasha is possible, but killing Lucian is almost hopeless—unless he uses the act of killing Natasha to lure Lucian into a trap."
"Regardless, the risk isn't worth taking. Killed by the Sword of Truth, and death is truly permanent."
The Primal Flame saw that his escape was taking far longer than expected. Perhaps Ktonia had already fled. He looked at the legendary staff in his hand, the legendary robes on his body, the legendary ring on his finger—and his expression twisted into something savage. "There's no choice—I have to sacrifice them!"
The pain in his heart was beyond words, giving the Primal Flame an almost suicidal urge.
And indeed, he began to destroy himself. A pure white flame bloomed from within his soul, burning outward from the inside, consuming his body. He endured agony beyond imagination, controlling the pace of the conflagration, waiting for the Maze to end, while simultaneously activating the marks sealed within all three legendary artifacts.
The greater the heartache, the denser the killing intent!