Despite having been enhanced and upgraded numerous times, the Chip's capabilities still fell short in the bizarre world of wizards.
Faced with this kind of failure, Leilin had no energy to dwell on追究ing it.
Because the Abomination had already caught up again!
The Specter Abomination's body had lost most of its arms, bore numerous charred marks, and featured a gaping hole torn open in its belly, revealing intestines and other unidentifiable organs.
But none of this hindered the Specter Abomination's movements.
Quite the opposite — right now, scarlet light blazed from the Abomination's eyes, making it even more ferocious than before.
Veins twisted and bulged along its body one by one, looking like countless tiny blue snakes coiling and intertwining as it charged straight at Leilin.
With much of its fat and deformed tissue burned away, the Abomination was now even faster than before.
"Damn!"
The scales on Leilin's body rattled, shedding layers of dust and grit.
The Soul Detonation had been powerful, but after being absorbed by the Falling Star Pendant's defense, its destructive force had been reduced by a tier. The Kemoyin Scales on his body had blocked the remainder completely.
Right now, aside from some minor impact injuries, Leilin had sustained almost no damage.
Meanwhile, the massive Abomination was still charging forward at full speed, with clumps of green soul plague radiating outward in all directions.
"Shadow Lurk!"
Seeing this, Leilin rapidly chanted incantations. At the same time, the scales on his body emitted a faint black luminescence. Under that ghostly glow, Leilin's figure gradually grew transparent.
The massive Abomination then plowed straight through Leilin's phantom image, crashing directly into a decaying flower bed behind him and shattering it into a thousand pieces.
Over the past year or so, Leilin had accumulated enough contribution points to exchange for numerous first-level wizard spell templates. Among them was Shadow Lurk — a spell that had left a deep impression on him.
Back in the Dilun Gardens, the sudden ambush from the Horalar Black Snake had been an experience Leilin would never forget.
If not for his natural wariness and the fact that his companion had drawn the enemy's fire, the outcome of that battle could easily have been different.
After that incident, he had deliberately sought out this Shadow System stealth spell, and eventually found its template in the
"Shadow Lurk — Shadow System, First-level
This spell synergized perfectly with Leilin's elemental affinity, and the Kemoyin Scales on his body seemed to further amplify its effects.
As a result, Leilin had devoted considerable effort to mastering this spell.
With Shadow Lurk in his arsenal, his shortcomings in mobility and concealment had been thoroughly compensated.
Leilin carefully felt out the sensation of lurking.
It was a peculiar experience — time seemed to slow tenfold, and the surrounding air grew thick as though filled with heavy glue. Every movement Leilin made required far more effort than usual.
He glanced at the Specter Abomination.
Having lost its target, the Abomination was now venting its fury on the surrounding terrain, its massive axe carving deep grooves into the ground. The area was a complete mess.
And in Leilin's eyes, the Abomination's entire body had taken on an eerie green hue — no, not just the Abomination. The surrounding landscape, the earth, the sky, all were coated in a layer of green luminescence. The green was so intense that Leilin felt waves of dizziness and nausea.
Leilin's body felt as though it were floating in midair, slowly "swimming" toward the Abomination.
The Specter Abomination seemed to sense something. Its left hand swung the massive axe, sweeping it past Leilin's waist.
If Leilin had been in physical form, he would have been cut clean in half.
But right now, he was nothing more than a phantom in the physical world. The massive axe passed through him, producing only a ripple of distortion across his form.
The Abomination wildly brandished its axe, with several strikes cutting through Leilin's body — yet not even a scrap of his clothing was severed.
Closer! Even closer!
Leilin maintained his gliding state, floating above the Specter Abomination's head. One more downward glance and he could see the Abomination's mouth — oozing yellow pus, lined with uneven, jagged teeth.
Whoosh!
A dark shadow flickered through the void, and Leilin's figure materialized directly in front of the Specter Abomination.
His eyes had turned into amber vertical pupils, radiating a strange, otherworldly light.
"Look into my eyes!" Leilin spoke, producing bizarre syllables with a hissing, serpentine tremor — like a great snake flicking its tongue.
Innate Spell — Petrifying Gaze!!
The sound seemed to carry an irresistible force. The Specter Abomination found itself involuntarily locking eyes with Leilin, an odd expression spreading across its face.
Crack! Crack!
A circle of grayish-white began radiating outward from the Abomination's eyes, then spread rapidly across its face.
"ROOOAAARR!!!"
Just as petrification was about to consume the Abomination's entire head, it suddenly threw back and let out a sky-shaking roar.
With the roar, its muscles bulged in clumps. Two massive, hard muscle masses erupted from its shoulders, almost as if it had grown two additional arms.
Amid the constant trembling of its musculature, the gray stone skin on the Abomination's face began flaking off piece by piece — like a snake shedding its skin.
"Target's constitution too high. Beginning to develop immunity to petrification effect. Localized stiffness detected. Duration: 3 seconds!"
The Chip flashed a notification.
Sure enough, the Abomination's movements abruptly slowed. Its mouth hung wide open in a bizarre, almost comical posture — like a wind-up mechanical toy that had forgotten to be wound, frozen in an uncanny stillness.
"Now's my chance!"
Leilin's eyes lit up. Countless black shadow fireballs poured into the Abomination's gaping mouth, detonating continuously inside its body.
"Falling Star Pendant! Activate all remaining energy!"
Leilin bellowed, and a dark crimson glow erupted once more from below his neck.
The glow condensed in his hand, taking the shape of a long blade.
Leilin looked at the Specter Abomination before him and roared. The muscles on his arms swelled, his entire frame expanding several sizes in an instant — transforming from a slender youth into a hulking, muscular figure.
Right now, Leilin's entire body thrummed with explosive power.
Gripping the blade with both hands, he leapt high into the air and brought it crashing down on the Abomination's still-burning, black-flame-wreathed neck in a devastating downward slash!
SPLAT!!!
Yellow-green fluid splattered in every direction. At the same time, the Abomination's massive head was severed clean off, tumbling across the ground.
Even without its head, the Specter Abomination's enormous limbs continued moving, as though still struggling to run.
Leilin's gaze was dark and focused. One by one, vials of purple-red potion were hurled out, splashing onto the Abomination's massive body and severed head.
BOOM!!!
A ring of purple-red flames erupted, burning with fierce intensity.
The flames quickly engulfed both the body and the head.
POP — the Abomination's skull cracked open, and another cluster of bizarrely shaped spirit entities burst forth.
But Leilin was already prepared. He tossed a pink crystal into the flames and began rapidly chanting incantations.
The mindless spirits were drawn to the pink crystal and, surprisingly, forgot to self-destruct. Instead, they crowded around the crystal, expressions of reminiscence and other emotions flickering across their faces.
"Success! The improved Dickv's Spirit Attraction Method — computed and refined by the Chip!"
A flash of delight crossed Leilin's face. He immediately began carving eerie runes and symbols on the ground around the flames while continuously feeding various materials into the fire.
By the end, the purple-red flames had turned a deep, pure violet. Clusters of spirits melted within, dripping down like wax.
Only now did many spirits attempt to burst forth and self-destruct!
"Activate!" Leilin smirked as he enunciated several runes.
BOOM! A ring of crimson light blazed to life from the magical array, binding all the spiritual energy within the flames.
This light also seemed to seal the spirits' ability to self-destruct. Though the spirits inside had lost all reason and their faces were twisted with madness, not a single one could carry out the self-destruction it had attempted before.
Screams of agony. Shrieks of terror — they filled the air without end.
Leilin could even sense the most anguished wails of the specters within.
The violet flames continued to burn, their bizarre scent spreading ever outward.
The Specter Abomination corpse at the heart of the flames finally ceased all movement. Under the scorching heat, a thick, viscous fluid began seeping from its bloated body, flowing outward.
Although the fluid was extremely thick, its surface had turned an eerie black.
As this black oil continued to drip away, the corpse within gradually shrank — like something wringing itself dry.
From a towering frame over ten meters tall, it began converging toward the size of a normal human. By the end, it had shrunk to roughly the size of a monkey, its surface covered in folds and wrinkles.
"This..."
Leilin's eyes were fixed intently on the shrinking Abomination head.
Once the head had completely dehydrated, what lay before Leilin was an ordinary human skull.
Though its surface was covered in wrinkles, Leilin could still make it out — the head of a middle-aged Western man, roughly thirty years of age.
"So the primary raw material for a Specter Abomination is... a human body. And the manufacturing process basically involves flooding a human body with massive numbers of crazed spirits, then fusing them together..."
This method gave Leilin the impression of using a human body as a vessel, gestating something within.
"Because these specters were originally human souls as well, they have the highest compatibility with the human body. The real question is how the Soul-Hunting Cult solved the spirit-flesh fusion problem — that's a critical technique!"
Leilin's mind raced on.
He had a feeling that this Abomination was far from the final product of these experiments.
Those crazed spirits, fusing within the Abomination's body, would eventually burst free and grow into something far more powerful — and far more evil!