"Giant, when you used me to destroy the seal back then, did you ever think things would turn out like this?"
Leilin walked forward slowly, a strange glint circling in his eyes.
He calmly raised his blood-red right hand, about to unleash another magical attack!
Whoosh! In that very instant, a figure separated itself from the Giant's body—its fluctuations clearly at the peak of the first rank! It lunged toward Leilin at incredible speed.
"Illusion Eye!" With a cold shout, a phantom vertical eye materialized behind the figure.
The phantom eye radiated a hazy gray luminescence, with various colors flickering through it. Anyone who laid eyes on it would feel dizzy and disoriented, overcome with vertigo.
At the same time, two black magical item daggers appeared in his hands, slithering toward Leilin's vitals like venomous snakes!
The attack was so sudden, and the opponent such an ambush-specialized peak first-rank wizard—even someone like Marbu would have suffered a serious blow!
But strangely, not only was there no trace of alarm on Leilin's face, a smile of satisfaction actually appeared.
"So you've finally shown yourself?"
Immediately, the dark red cross-shaped pendant around his neck erupted in a burst of dark red light, and fine scales instantly covered his body.
At the same time, Leilin's eyes transformed into amber vertical pupils, and two beams of petrifying light shot from his eyes, piercing straight into the phantom vertical eye.
"Ah!" The gray-white petrifying light slashed through the phantom vertical eye like a sword, and rings of petrification spread continuously across the dark figure, drawing out agonized screams.
"Crimson Hand!" Three layers of defense materialized over Leilin's hands—the innermost was the black Komo'yin Scales, the middle was the dark red phantom armor of the Falling Star Pendant, and the outermost was the blood-flame defense of the Crimson Hand.
These three different layers of radiance flickered in alternation on Leilin's hands.
Then, both hands met the two black daggers thrusting toward him.
Bang! Bang!
Although the black daggers emanated the energy fluctuations of mid-grade magical items, they were still knocked flying by Leilin.
Leilin's Crimson Hand then struck the dark figure's chest without a moment's hesitation.
Boom!
The dark figure's chest visibly caved in, and it was sent hurtling backward with the sickening sound of cracking bones.
Thud! The dark figure crashed heavily to the ground, revealing the form of a wizard very familiar to Leilin.
"Team Leader Xishan, why are you here? And why did you appear in such a strange manner? Care to explain?"
Leilin walked up to Xishan and asked coolly.
From his tone alone, one could tell he was not the least bit surprised by Xishan's appearance.
"Cough, cough..." The dark figure who had ambushed Leilin was indeed Xishan.
But he looked rather wretched now—not only was he continuously coughing up bloody foam, his complexion had turned a deathly gray, and around the third vertical eye in the middle of his forehead, a ring of gray-white stone was spreading, the lingering effect of the Petrifying Eye from moments ago, still continuously expanding outward.
"You... when did you figure it out?" Xishan didn't answer Leilin's question, instead asking his own.
"I knew from the very beginning! Honestly, I have to admire you—practicing such a dangerous ancient secret technique as 'Three Spirits as One,' and actually succeeding in splitting your soul into three parts!"
A look of genuine admiration appeared on Leilin's face.
After the Chip had deduced Xishan's trump card, Leilin had immediately studied everything he could find about this ancient secret technique.
This technique, even in ancient times, belonged to the most dangerous category—aside from madmen, very few chose to cultivate it, because its effect was to forcibly split a wizard's soul into three parts, each with its own independent consciousness, which could then choose to separate or merge at critical moments.
Specifically, it turned one person into three, and as long as one survived, the other two could be reborn by expending certain resources.
It was truly a heaven-defying secret technique, but the cost was the fragmentation of mind and personality—even Leilin would never choose to practice it.
The situation now was already quite clear.
Xishan, the Giant, and the little boy were all different avatars formed by the same wizard practicing "Three Spirits as One"! And Xishan was the deepest mole and contingency that Thousand Leaf Hand had planted inside Four Seasons Garden!
Leilin had always found it odd that Thousand Leaf Hand's understanding of Four Seasons Garden was far too detailed and precise—even the self-destruction arrays and defensive diagrams for the sealed core consciousness entity had been obtained.
Now it all made sense, with Team Leader Xishan serving as the inside man.
Xishan smiled bitterly: "It's far from complete. Originally, if the little boy had also reached the peak of the first rank, I could have used the fusion effect of 'Three Spirits as One' to break through to Second-Rank! But unfortunately..."
As he spoke, a ring of gray-white stone crust had been spreading outward from Xishan's vertical eye on both sides, already reaching his nose.
"You deliberately lured us out? What for?"
Xishan lay half-reclined on the ground, not raising a shred of defense. He knew full well that under Leilin's hand, he stood no chance whatsoever, and saw no point in humbling himself further.