"Awooo... roarrr..."
Inside the original Black Blood Tribe, beside a central altar, numerous high-rank Beastkin priests gathered with solemn expressions, chanting hymns praising Mara.
Batches of high-ranking captives were dragged directly before the altar and slaughtered, their blood spilling into the central pool.
According to the priests' past experience, such a large-scale ritual with blood offerings would be sufficient to placate the God of the Hunt, Mara, and perhaps even bestow high-level divine grace.
But now, wave after wave of sacrifices later, the fury upon the statue at the center of the altar had not diminished in the slightest — if anything, it had grown even more violent.
This situation finally reached its peak after a mass of blazing clouds rose in the distance.
A terrifying roar erupted suddenly from the statue. The overwhelming pressure and a primal fear rooted in the depths of their souls forced the priests to prostrate themselves on the ground, praying for Mara to quell its fury as soon as possible.
But unfortunately, the God of the Hunt did not heed the prayers of its believers today.
"Awooo..."
The raging blood pool surged with towering waves, swallowing the trembling captives and priests nearby in one gulp.
A massive glow tinged with crimson flickered erratically across the statue. The void warped and twisted, gradually forming a dimensional gateway.
"It is our Lord! Our Lord's incarnation is about to descend..."
The other Beastkin priests who had fortunately avoided being caught up in it all dropped to their knees, chanting various blessings.
Amid this atmosphere, a colossal golden furred foot stepped straight through the center of the dimensional gate.
The air seemed to freeze in that instant, suffused everywhere with a suffocating sense of gravity.
The golden figure slowly emerged, allowing the believers to see its full form — a terrifyingly massive monster over ten meters tall, resembling a hybrid of ape and human, its body covered in vast patches of scales and fur, its hands ending in savage, nightmarish beast claws.
A faint golden radiance perpetually wreathed its form, making the colossal ape-like creature seem as though it were the darling of the entire world, its very core existence!
The God of the Hunt! A Lesser Deity! Protector of Beastkin and hunters! The Incarnation of the Black Blood Beast — Mara — had finally made its full descent into the Material World!!
Divine grace like the sea! Divine might like a prison!!!
Every Beastkin mind seemed to grind to a halt, their bodies still moving mechanically as they loudly chanted Mara's divine name.
Mara's incarnation did not spare the believers a single glance, as though merely facing a swarm of ants. Possessing the divine portfolios of hunting and tracking, it effortlessly located its prey through the information carried on the wind.
Whoosh!
Mara's figure vanished in an instant, pursuing those wretched little thieves who had audaciously disrupted the Legendary Blood ritual.
It had already decided — it would tear the souls of these desecrators from their bodies and cast them into its divine kingdom, letting them wail for ten thousand years!!!
……
"It's coming! Just sensing it from this distance and it already carries this kind of pressure? Truly worthy of a true god!!!"
Leilin was privately shaken by Mara's overwhelming presence as well — after all, this was merely an incarnation!
"Still, Mara's true body is a seventh-rank Rule
A glimmer of anticipation flickered in Leilin's eyes.
"Mara's incarnation has been detected — it's heading straight for you... The Transcendent Isolation Matrix is functioning well, all energy nodes are nominal!"
Lilian's voice came through. There was a thread of tension in it — after all, they were about to face a deity in combat.
Attempting to slay a god with mortal flesh!!! Only a Legendary powerhouse could pull off such a feat!!!
[Ding! Powerful energy fluctuations detected approaching rapidly! Extreme danger! Immediate evasion recommended!!!]
At that moment, the Chip also flashed a blood-red alert and provided an escape route.
"That fast!" Leilin's pupils contracted. Then his peripheral vision caught a flash of golden light and a massive silhouette: "No! When did it get out?!"
Fortunately, he had already been following the route the Chip provided, and at the very last moment managed to barely dodge one of the beast claws.
Bang! As he dodged, the multiple layers of high-rank mage armor around Leilin's body shattered directly. The wind pressure from the beast claw's swing alone had reached an intensity that even high-rank mage armor could not withstand!
"Terrifying! So this is a deity's incarnation? It's at least at the peak Dawn Throne level..."
By the time Leilin regained his bearings, he found he had been pushed back several hundred meters. Patrick stood not far away, missing an arm. Blood spurted from the wound where his limb had been torn away, and his face was deathly pale.
Clearly, the Paladin had not escaped Mara's incarnation's sudden attack — one of his arms had been torn clean off, drastically reducing his combat strength.
"Whish-whish!" "Ah!" Only at this moment did the shrieks tearing through the void, Patrick's earlier clash, and his final scream of shocked fury arrive — all jumbled together.
"Seeing the visuals first and hearing the sound after — that means it was moving faster than the speed of sound when it appeared?"
Cold sweat dotted Leilin's forehead. "That level of agility — numerically, it must exceed 40 points!!!"
As a Wizard, he understood Mara's attack on a more technical level.
It had clearly used some method to break through the limits of speed, surpassing even the speed of sound. Simply put, even if it killed Patrick, Leilin would only see Patrick's corpse first, with the actual sounds of combat arriving afterward.
"At that level of agility, any lapse in reflexes means instant death..."
Leilin sighed inwardly, gazing at the golden ape-like monster's silhouette that loomed like a mountain nearby. "So this is a deity's incarnation? And it's only a Lesser Deity?"
"What happened? What exactly just happened?"
At that moment, Lilian's voice, sharp with fury and alarm, reached Leilin and Patrick's ears.
"Patrick's been injured. We'd better activate the full plan — Mara's strength exceeds our projections!"
Leilin pressed his fingers to his temple, his voice still perfectly calm, as though he hadn't been rattled at all.
"I'm... I'm fine! Until evil is completely vanquished, I will not fall!" Patrick snorted coldly. A milky-white divine light flickered over his arm as flesh rapidly sprouted and knitted together over the wound, instantly staunching the blood.
Throughout this process, Mara's incarnation on the opposite side seemed to be savoring the pleasure of toying with its prey, and did not immediately interfere.
"Trying to toy with your opponent's mind, letting them break down before you strike? Fool! But this gives me exactly the opening I need!"
A pale blue glow flickered through Leilin's eyes. "Chip! Scan!"
[Ding! Task established! Scanning initiated!] The Chip faithfully executed Leilin's command, then projected a three-dimensional holographic model in front of him, accompanied by a wealth of data.
[God of the Hunt — Mara (Incarnation Form) Strength Estimate: 30–35 | Agility Estimate: 40–42 | Constitution Estimate: 30–31 | Spirit Estimate: 24–27 Natural Abilities: 1. Damage Reduction (Transcendent): Immune to all physical attacks below Legendary rank. 2. Spell Resistance (Transcendent): Empowered by divine power and domain protection, Mara's incarnation possesses formidable spell immunity, nullifying all spell damage below Legendary rank! (Note: Legendary arcane spells of the time-stop variety are equally ineffective!)
True Body's Divine Power: Lesser Deity | Alignment: Chaotic Evil | Domains: Hunting, Tracking, Scent | Weapon: Beast Claws (A high-grade Legendary artifact forged by Mara based on the divine artifact Beast Claws possessed by its true body, featuring terrifying armor-piercing capability!)]
"Transcendent Damage Reduction and Spell Resistance! That means any numbers game below Legendary rank is completely useless?"
Leilin drew a sharp breath at the sight of the data for the first time.
"If we can't disrupt its Transcendent Domain, our odds today are very slim..."
Leilin calculated that if he had to face Mara's incarnation alone, unless he could bring the Shadow Soul City to bear directly, his demise was all but certain.
Even with these allies and the traps they had set in advance, the odds were not favorable.
"At the final hour, even if it means exposing the Shadow Soul City, I may have to take it down..." A hard glint flashed through Leilin's eyes.
Before this, he had seized the Shadow Soul City by exploiting
And now, the moment Leilin used it, wouldn't that be a confession without being asked?
But if he were driven to desperation today, what else was there to say?
"Hold on — we're activating the matrix now, heading over to support you!"
It was clear that Lilian had no intention of letting this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity slip away either — she was prepared to go all in like a gambler who'd already lost everything!
[Ding! Transcendent Containment Matrix energy nodes activating! Estimated time to...]
The Chip's voice was still reporting, but Leilin had no attention to spare for it.
Just as Lilian and the others activated the matrix, Mara's incarnation on the other side seemed to sense the danger through its beast-like instincts, lunging directly at Leilin.
Even without employing its previous supersonic speed, it still posed an extreme threat to Leilin.
"Tsk!"
At this critical moment, Leilin was finally forced to play his smallest hidden card.
His blinding mage robe shattered, revealing a peculiar suit of Legendary dragon-leather armor. A massive red dragon staff also materialized in Leilin's hand.
— [Legendary Dragon's Breath!]
— [Dragon Soul Burn!]