The black liquid—unremarkable in appearance yet seeming to carry a thick, corrosive intensity—gradually took on a bloody hue. No matter how the "Dark Jellyfish" deployed its innate magical abilities and its own lethal toxins, under the erosion of the eight Blood Sacrifice Magic Circles' power, it could not break free from this state-transformation Magic Circle designed for ancient demons—not for the time being.
At this moment, Helix raised the Golden Trident high, and strange, ethereal sounds emerged from his mouth in a language unlike any Lucian knew. Around him, the sound of crashing waves seemed to arise from the void itself.
The Golden Trident, with its gem-like "Azure Secret Key" at its core, blazed with brilliant azure radiance. At each of its three tips, a deep-blue, nearly black illusory vortex manifested, spinning ceaselessly, churning up currents of light that flowed like seawater.
This luminous ocean current surged backward into the state-transformation Magic Circle like a reverse tide, nullifying all of the "Dark Jellyfish" Tiers's innate abilities and halting the writhing black liquid that had been corroding the circle.
"Embrace of Water!" The "Dark Jellyfish" Tiers recognized Helix's famous spell-like ability at once. Fury and alarm warred within him, but trapped within layers upon layers of Magic Circles, he could not escape the Embrace's reach.
"Embrace of Water..." Lucian recorded this power in his Magic Notes within the Soul Library—the ability the Arcane Council had long sought to replicate but never successfully mastered. It was a sovereign power of the Sea Clan, capable of neutralizing, dissolving, and breaking down the vast majority of supernatural effects, all without distinguishing friend from foe. Truly a power that could stand alongside special legendary magics such as "Advanced Spacetime Stop," "Grand Disjunction," and "Star Heaven"—one of Helix's five strongest spell-like abilities.
The wave-like light washed over everything, rendering Tiers's resistance completely futile. The black liquid turned entirely blood-red, and unable to flee, Tiers could no longer suppress the despair, agony, and hatred surging within him. These emotions gradually resonated with the dense, almost tangible negative energy saturating the surroundings. And so, like a membrane sac swollen with water until it could hold no more, he lost his translucence, lost his fluidity—becoming something viscous, streaked with deep black and blood-red that struck the eye with horrifying intensity.
Lucian recorded every minute change and every strange rune's operation with meticulous focus. Though he had undergone state transformation once before, he had experienced it as the subject—intimately aware of his own changes, yet lacking any holistic picture. He could not perceive external changes or grasp the Magic Circle's specific workings. This time, Helix's transformation of the "Dark Jellyfish" presented Lucian with a rare opportunity to fill those gaps—a genuine "live experiment."
Just then, seeing that the "Dark Jellyfish" no longer had the strength to resist, Helix suddenly turned his head. Sounds like waves crashing against the shore issued from his mouth, and his cold, deep-red eyes instantly filled Lucian's entire field of vision.
"Trouble—I've been spotted!" The Star of Fate's projection within Lucian's soul reacted instantly.
The azure light of the Golden Trident in Helix's hand plunged to a deep, near-black blue. The vortices spinning at each tip grew ever more violent, and identical vortices materialized in the void around Lucian, spinning furiously, threatening to pull everything inward.
Crash—the seawater outside the chamber, influenced by these vortices, surged inward in a torrent, flooding the dense web of tiny whirlpools and making them suddenly "solid," pulling at Lucian's body and soul.
"Death Vortex..." The Elven Queen had clashed with Helix numerous times. As allies, the Arcane Council naturally possessed extensive records on this "Master of the Endless Ocean," and Lucian recognized it at once—one of Helix's five strongest spell-like abilities. In terms of eerie, arcane sophistication, it might not rival the Embrace of Water, but in raw explosive ferocity, it was arguably superior.
Caught in the pull of vortices both illusory and solid, Lucian—who had already dispelled the "Lord of the Underground" state—felt the terrifying pressure of a peak-Legendary powerhouse. And Helix's injuries were clearly not as severe as Doris and the Sea Elves had believed; his control over the surrounding area far exceeded expectations!
A refined, intricately wrought silver-white pocket watch materialized in Lucian's right hand, its second hand ticking steadily onward, carrying the eternal, irreversible weight of passing time.
Click. Lucian pressed it gently. The deep blue surrounding him drained away to a hopeless, ashen grey, and the violently spinning vortices ground to a sudden halt, freezing solid around Lucian like a series of peculiar bas-reliefs.
After being enhanced by the "Spacetime Tablet," Lucian's Moon Chronometer had reached the third tier of Legendary rank. And because it was a personal Legendary artifact, intimately linked to his own Cognition World, its power approached that of a peak-Legendary!
Within the frozen spacetime, Lucian took a single step back with his left foot and appeared instantly at a distance, escaping the Death Vortex's encirclement. At the same time, he extended his left hand forward and chanted a spell that sounded like howling wind: "Storm Barrier!"
This time, the barrier held no hurricanes, no torrential rain, no scorching heat, and no freezing cold—only a vacuum alive with countless jumping arcs of lightning and writhing serpents of thunder.
Lightning crackled and smashed into the palace's stone pillars, toppling them with thunderous crashes, surrounding Helix—frozen in place by the time-stop effect—upon the altar.
But Lucian had not used the Storm Barrier to trap Helix. His purpose was to create a vacuum. His outstretched left hand suddenly overflowed with a dense aura of annihilation.