"These thin threads should represent my contract with the
A hint of delight appeared on Leilin's face.
A unilateral breach of the contract benefited him even more! It meant Leilin could break free of the contract's restraints, freely harm the Four Seasons Garden's interests, and even brazenly kill their members!
Meanwhile, Leano — who had represented the Four Seasons Garden in signing the contract with Leilin — would instead be bound by its restrictions, unable to move against Leilin without definitive evidence!
Moreover, with this kind of unilateral breach, Leano on the other end of the contract wouldn't feel a thing. This was one of the Corruption Bird's chaotic properties at work.
"Gulp!"
The Corruption Bird circling overhead swallowed the Eye of Judgment in one gulp! Leilin could even see a round bulge form at the bird's throat and roll all the way down to its lower belly.
"Cheep cheep!" After devouring the Eye of Judgment, the Corruption Bird let out a cheerful cry and simultaneously transmitted a string of information directly into Leilin's mind.
"Judgment will ultimately perish! But chaos is eternal!"
"More! More summons! I will erase every trace of the Eye of Judgment from you!"
Fragment after fragment of mysterious information materialized in the depths of Leilin's consciousness, automatically converting into meanings he could understand.
"I will!" Leilin bowed deeply, though he had no idea whether the creature could truly understand him. His surface courtesies had always been impeccable.
The Corruption Bird nodded with startlingly human-like mannerisms, then let out a long, piercing cry.
Amid the horrifying shriek, its body detonated, dissolving into wisps of grey fog.
The fog's color faded rapidly until it vanished entirely into the air.
At the same time, Leilin sensed that the chaotic force — which had enveloped this area ever since he opened the vial — had also dissipated.
The Eye of Judgment was an existence on the same level as the Corruption Bird! If the initial solution hadn't automatically released a wave of chaotic energy to blanket and isolate the entire area, shielding it from the Eye of Judgment's detection and the transmission of the phantom's information on Leilin's body, the Eye of Judgment would have been drawn here long ago.
But now, after the Corruption Bird disappeared, Leilin probed with his senses.
His contract with the Four Seasons Garden had been completely destroyed. Traces of the old contract's power still lingered, but they seemed to have forgotten everything that had just happened — there was no reaction at all.
"The power of chaos! Truly terrifying! The ancient Corruption Bird — worthy nemesis of the Eye of Judgment! But how on earth did the Dark
On the South Coast, the Eye of Judgment's contracts were extremely common and carried exceptional credibility — there was virtually no precedent for one being broken.
Meanwhile, the feathers of the ancient Corruption Bird had been extinct on the South Coast for over a thousand years!
Therefore, even Leano would never have imagined that Leilin could use this to throw off the Eye of Judgment's contractual influence.
"This kind of power! Truly terrifying!"
To be able to gather such a long-extinct solution, Leilin couldn't help but mentally raise his assessment of the Thousand Leaf Hand's capabilities as a Dark Wizard organization.
"Still! Even within that organization, this sort of thing certainly can't be too plentiful…" Leilin was quite certain; otherwise, the Thousand Leaf Hand would have used it to stir up enormous waves on the South Coast by now.
…
Night fell. Though they were inside a secret realm, the moonlight overhead was just as bright and indistinguishable from the outside world.
At this hour, a black-robed figure with a hood drawn low over their face slipped quietly out of the Four Seasons Garden's compound, moving steadily toward the outer perimeter.
"Creak!"
Before a magical flowerwood tree with three peculiar forks in its trunk, the dark figure stopped and ignited a wisp of blood-red flame in their palm.
"You've finally come!"
The surface of the flowerwood tree rippled, and a man's face materialized on the trunk. It suddenly opened its mouth and spoke to the wizard: "Come down through here!"
With a tearing sound, as soon as the wooden face finished speaking, a gaping maw split open at the base of the tree, revealing a deep, dark passage.
The wizard nodded and descended quickly.
Thud! Once the figure disappeared into the passage, the entrance snapped shut. The face on the tree cast a wary glance around the surroundings before slowly sinking back into the bark.
The area returned to its former calm, as though nothing had ever happened.
The passage was long. The wizard walked for over ten minutes before reaching the end.
At the terminus lay a spacious underground chamber, ringed by faint, earth-yellow magical glows that flickered intermittently — clearly a recent excavation.
Inside the broad chamber stood only a single blurred giant figure wreathed in dense green mist. Upon seeing the wizard, the giant seemed to smile. "You came!"
"Mm." The wizard nodded, pulled back the hood, and revealed a handsome young face.
Black hair, refined features, fair skin — and within the pupils, an eerie, sinister light seemed to radiate.
He simply stood there in silence, his entire presence exuding a strange, compelling charm.
The newcomer was none other than Leilin. At the moment, his brow was furrowed. The giant summoning him here at this hour certainly couldn't mean anything good.
At the same time, Leilin's nose twitched slightly.
"You've hosted quite a few people here recently, haven't you? I seem to sense the auras of several 'familiar acquaintances'…"
The giant glanced at Leilin with some surprise. "Indeed! They're all our companions from the Thousand Leaf Hand. I was certain I had erased all traces of them… yet you could still detect them. It seems the rumors outside aren't wrong — you've truly reached the peak of first-rank Wizard strength…"
The giant looked at Leilin, a look of wariness surfacing in his eyes. "It appears the leader made the right decision in recruiting you!"
Leilin merely offered an enigmatic smile.
After his bloodline's second leap, he had increasingly felt his physical constitution strengthening. Even his various organs seemed to have awakened from dormancy, granting him a host of peculiar minor abilities.
Though they didn't much aid his combat power, they often produced unexpectedly useful effects in certain situations.
"It seems you're planning something big." Leilin gave the giant a long, appraising look.
From the information he had sensed, the giant had summoned every elite member of the Thousand Leaf Hand.
Combined with the enormous price the giant had paid to plant Leilin inside the Four Seasons Garden, it wasn't hard to guess what he intended.
"Heh heh heh! This isn't my plan! It's the will of the lord behind us!" The giant once again alluded to the second-rank Dark Wizard backing the Thousand Leaf Hand.
"How was it? That Corruption Bird feather solution — did it work well?" the giant asked.
"I've already used it." Leilin raised an eyebrow. "If you have something to say, say it."
"Good! Our target this time is the Four Seasons Garden's resource vault in the Ganges Secret Realm!" The giant declared the plan's objective with bracing candor.
"This time, not only will our Thousand Leaf Hand go all out, but even the lord behind us will intervene at the appropriate moment…"
At this news, Leilin's expression shifted for just an instant before settling back into calm acceptance.
After all, the Four Seasons Garden had at least one second-rank Wizard — Leano — stationed here. Without a same-level opponent to draw fire, no amount of Dark Wizards thrown in would amount to anything but death.
"Mm. And what's my role?" Leilin asked.
"Direct!" The giant gave a thumbs-up. "Your task is very simple. We've set our attack time for seven o'clock tomorrow evening. That's when Leano will be receiving you, correct?"
The giant spoke casually, but those words sent a chill through Leilin's heart.
To know even this — the Thousand Leaf Hand's spy inside the Four Seasons Garden was certainly not limited to him!
But! Overplaying your hand has exposed your identity! A cold laugh surfaced in Leilin's mind.
The giant failed to notice Leilin's subtle reaction and continued speaking: "At that time, we'll be responsible for drawing Leano away! Your task is to pass through a magical array inside his office and deploy this spell formula…"
As he spoke, the giant tossed a fist-sized red crystal to Leilin.
Smack! Leilin caught the red crystal firmly.
"What kind of spell formula is this?" Inside the red crystal, dense and intricate runes were packed tightly together. Numerous runes combined into what looked like golden threads, flowing ceaselessly through the crystal's interior.
The Chip had no record of any of these runes, but Leilin could be certain this was a specialized formula designed for a particular magical array or artifact.
And whatever was placed inside Leano's office — guarded personally by a second-rank Wizard — could hardly be anything ordinary.
"Just an ordinary unsealing formula." The giant clearly had no intention of elaborating.
"…" Leilin stared at the giant in silence. After a long moment, he spoke slowly: "You want me to make my move in the most heavily guarded part of the Four Seasons Garden, targeting something inside a second-rank Wizard's office? Are you trying to get me killed?"
As Leilin spoke, his eyes瞬间 turned amber.
A massive wave of Spiritual Power, carrying profound darkness, descended upon the chamber in an instant!
Bloody. Terrifying! The spiritual force, steeped in dense Negative Energy Particles, coalesced into the phantom of a massive black serpent that coiled around the giant, its serpentine pupils fixed on the giant as though searching for a place to strike.
"This kind of aura! And this bloodlust — how many people has he killed?!"
The giant's heart lurched. He was no saint himself — lives ended by his hand were too numerous to count — but in terms of that cold, blood-soaked detachment, he was actually a shade inferior to the other party!
What alarmed the giant even more was that Leilin's Spiritual Power had firmly reached the level of a peak first-rank Wizard, possibly even exceeding him by a head!
"He would actually dare to strike!"
Watching the cold light in Leilin's eyes, the giant felt a sudden chill, as though every secret he harbored had been laid bare.