The Flame Throne was actually quite wary of Merlinda and Leilin, the only two remaining.
Setting aside their earlier scheming, the moment she saw Leilin launch over a dozen crystal spheres—as if preparing to cast some Wizard spell—the Flame Throne felt an inexplicable unease stir within her.
This kind of prescient ability was quite common among high-level Wizards, but for something to carry such an intense warning for the Flame Throne herself was exceedingly rare.
Therefore, she struck in an instant. Golden soul force swept outward, and flames of law spread across the void.
However, her power had absolutely no effect on that dark-red mist. No matter how fiercely the golden flames burned, those dark-red currents continued to drift back and forth through the void as though untouched.
"Damn it! Solar Eclipse!"
The Flame Throne raised her sword once more. The black dots of light expanded even further, and an aura far more terrifying than before radiated outward.
"This time, I've released half of all the dream power I've accumulated!"
Leilin couldn't help but feel a pang of distress. The technique for storing dream power already had inherent limitations, and it required containers from the Dream World—which meant he'd had to expend quite a few of the specimens he'd obtained from that realm.
In other words, to create this environment, he had already invested more than half of his haul from the Dream World.
But such a heavy investment produced extraordinary results.
In Leilin's perception, dense dream power began to spread outward in every direction. Even a hint of a dazed, unfocused look flickered through Merlinda's eyes.
Dream power was a force in no way inferior to the power of law, which meant the Flame Throne's searing flames had very little impact on it.
After all, she had not yet fully mastered the law of fire. Otherwise, she would have long since advanced to the seventh level, rather than remaining perpetually stuck at the sixth.
【Ding! Dream power release complete. Criteria for Dream Wizard spell casting have been met!】
At that moment, the Chip also projected its scan results directly before Leilin's eyes.
"I've defeated sixth-level powerhouses before, you know."
A faint smile curved the corner of Leilin's mouth. Then, a complex and phantasmal wizardry template—shimmering with prismatic light—was activated in an instant.
Dream power converged, forming endless surging tides across his body.
"Level Five Dream Wizardry — Luminous Moon Dream Mirage!" Leilin's eyes seemed to grow hazy as invisible ripples instantly enveloped the entire Flame Throne.
"What is this..." A look of bewilderment flickered in the Flame Throne's eyes, yet the energy fluctuations across her body had inexplicably ceased.
Luminous Moon Dream Mirage! A Level Five Dream Wizardry! It targeted a Wizard's true spirit directly, carrying a ninety-percent chance of ensnaring even a Radiance-level Wizard, leaving them powerless over their own life and death.
Even against a sixth-level Dawn Throne, Luminous Moon Dream Mirage still boasted a success rate of over fifty percent!
With her true spirit lost and plunged into a dream, the Flame Throne had already lost all capacity for action. Only the instinctive circulation of her power remained, maintaining a defensive effect.
"Hurry! I can only hold this for three seconds!"
Leilin roared at Melinda.
"I didn't expect you to actually have a card like this up your sleeve!" Melinda's severed head cast a meaningful glance at Leilin, then a layer of flame ignited, incinerating every last shred of remaining flesh and tissue.
And within those flames, a pure-white soul manifestation suddenly burst into view.
"Although I'd have preferred to drive out the other party's will completely before returning to the body, there's no time for that now!"
The soul manifestation instantly breached the boundaries of space and time, arriving before the Flame Throne. At that moment, the latter was still in a dazed state, and her instinctive defenses proved utterly ineffective against Melinda, allowing the soul manifestation to sink straight into the Flame Throne's forehead with absolute smoothness.
"Damn it! Get out of my head!"
The power of the dream dissipated rapidly, and the Flame Throne regained her clarity once more. But by now, her expression kept shifting, and even her muscles were trembling uncontrollably.
Her right hand shot upward as if trying to pull something from her forehead, yet her left hand eerily seized the right, as though two people were now locked in a battle within a single body.
"As expected — when backed into a corner, Melinda ultimately chose to return to her original body!"
A faint smile traced the corner of Leilin's lips as he watched the scene unfold.
For Melinda, she was nothing more than a remnant soul, while the Flame Throne possessed the original body, tempered over thousands of years, wielding an immense reservoir of soul power. A direct confrontation was doomed to fail.
Her true plan all along had likely been to exploit the Flame Throne's weakened state, using Leilin and the others to grievously wound the Flame Throne — or even obliterate her soul outright — before stepping in herself to claim the body.
But unfortunately, the Flame Throne possessed a secret technique to suppress her own soul injuries, frustrating Melinda's plans at every turn. Fortunately, the Sky Throne had intervened from the shadows, and Joanna and Leilin had proven to be unexpected wild cards, pushing the situation to where it now stood.
And whether it was Leilin or Melinda, both were now approaching the very end of their ropes. Of escaping with their lives under pursuit by a sixth-level Dawn Throne, Leilin might still have had a chance — but Melinda was as good as dead.
As a split soul of the other party who had awakened free will and sworn to destroy the original — the kind that would never rest until the job was done — she would absolutely be hunted down without mercy by the Flame Throne for eternity.