"Chip! Gravity Magical Array — activate at full power!!!"
Leilin roared inwardly.
At the same time, his muscles swelled, and rows of fine black scales spread across his entire body.
His eyes had also completely turned amber, with vertical pupils like those of a wild beast.
The Scales of Komoin!!! And the Petrifying Gaze!!!
At this moment, caught between life and death, Leilin activated both of his innate magical abilities!
But Leilin's vertical pupils were not aimed at Gegewu. Instead, he stared intently at the tentacle shackles on his wrists.
This Gegewu was at least a second-rank Wizard's strength — his spiritual power exceeded Leilin's by an immeasurable margin. The gap was absolutely not one that could be closed by a single Petrifying Gaze.
Even if Leilin used it on Gegewu right now, there would only be one outcome: a spiritual backlash!!!
Crack, crack, crack!!!
Under the stare of the Petrifying Gaze, all the tentacle chains binding Leilin turned a grayish-white stone color.
Leilin tensed his arm, and the chains binding him immediately shattered into pieces, stone powder scattering across the ground.
At the same time, an inverted "l"-shaped symbol on his clothing lit up.
An overwhelming attractive force instantly took effect on Leilin's body, yanking him backward at tremendous speed.
This velocity was four or five times faster than when he had used magic to flee earlier.
The old witch and Jay only saw a flash of black light before Leilin completely vanished from their sight.
"No…" the old witch let out a shrill, desperate scream.
Jay's expression was complex — as though disappointed, yet also somewhat relieved.
"The substitute item has disappeared. The ritual has already begun and cannot be interrupted. Begin incorporating other components…"
But Gegewu merely stared from afar at the spot where Leilin had escaped, making no move to pursue. Instead, he spoke words that made the old witch and her daughter's faces change drastically.
"No…"
Accompanied by the continuous dissipation of magical energy, a ghastly, piercing shriek cut through all of White Bone Mountain.
…
Boom!!!
A tremendous explosion rang out, and the entire magical array on the garden's blank patch of ground detonated.
At the same time, a dark figure was yanked here by the colossal attractive force in an instant, slamming into the ground and carving out a deep crater.
"Cough, cough…"
At the bottom of the massive pit, Leilin spat out the sand and stones from his mouth and looked at his visibly deformed and twisted right arm with a bitter smile.
"The ancient gravity array that the Chip reconstructed was only partial. Using it rashly like this really does tend to cause problems. If I hadn't activated my innate abilities beforehand and sacrificed my right arm, the injuries would probably be even worse…"
Though he wore a bitter smile, Leilin's movements were anything but slow. In just a couple of bounds he leaped out of the pit and surveyed his surroundings. This was the very place where he had previously battled the Wraith Abomination and set up the magical array.
"Setting up this gravity array here really was the right call!"
Leilin sighed with emotion, then immediately gave the order. "Chip! Pull up the map and find the optimal route to the secret realm's exit!"
Back at the Soul Altar, Leilin had glimpsed something resembling a map of the secret realm.
Being cautious by nature, he had immediately ordered the Chip to record it, then compared it with the route maps he had collected before. Sure enough, the map he had obtained turned out to be a map of the entire secret realm!!!
The gravity magical array set up here was an ancient formation that Leilin had modified himself.
He had only ever seen the prototype of this array in an ancient text at the Four Seasons Garden, and many parts of it were incomplete.
Even with the Chip's calculations, only a portion had been completed — achieving perhaps thirty to forty percent of the array's full effect.
But even those thirty to forty percent were enough to delight Leilin, and he had immediately stored it away as a trump card.
The effect of this gravity magical array was to generate an overwhelming attractive force, forcibly pulling any object or creature inscribed with the subsidiary array to the location where the gravity array had been deployed!
Because it incorporated a great deal of ancient technology, the pulling force was immensely powerful, and the speed was astonishingly fast! Even a second-rank Wizard could not resist it!
If Leilin's previous chances of escaping from a second-rank Wizard's clutches had been ten percent, then after setting up the gravity magical array, those odds would absolutely surge to forty percent — perhaps even higher!
"Map uploading! Optimal route selected!"
The Chip whirred at full speed, projecting the entire secret realm's map before Leilin's eyes and marking a red line that stretched from Leilin's current position all the way back to the original oil-painting entrance.
"Screech!!!" The bizarre, ear-splitting sound that Leilin had heard from Gegewu rang out once more. A black figure grew larger and larger, swelling until it filled the sky.
Crash!!! The entire sky of the secret realm seemed to be torn apart, revealing a massive black gash. Bolts of blood-red lightning struck down directly at the dark figure.
The shadow wore a grotesque demonic skull mask, roaring continuously as it clashed with the blood-red lightning.
Wherever the shockwaves of the battle reached, everything was reduced to powder — and the battlefield kept expanding, slowly moving toward Leilin's position.
"Run!"