"Let's see if you can keep that carefree attitude when the Kiss of
Leilin's nonchalant tone immediately enraged Rooya, who lurked in the darkness. A sinister voice drifted over from somewhere.
The voice seemed to come from every direction, making it impossible to pinpoint the caster's exact location.
"The weakness of this barrier lies in the caster himself. Once the caster is attacked, the entire barrier's stability will collapse instantly!"
Leilin maintained his lofty tone, as though critiquing Rooya's spellwork.
"So what if you know the weakness? My Cage of Appetite has been upgraded — it now possesses a fraction of Morning Star-level power! With your mere Crystallized-rank magic, you'll never see through it!"
Rooya's voice came again, this time tinged with barely concealed agitation. Anyone would be irritated seeing a supposed prisoner acting so brazenly.
At his command, a swarm of terrifying maws lunged toward Leilin, snapping and biting.
"Scale Shield!" Leilin snapped his fingers. Crystalline black shards materialized, forming a shield with a scaled surface. White teeth clamped down on it with piercing shrieks, sparks flying everywhere.
Under the relentless assault of countless jaws, the Scale Shield's defenses rapidly crumbled — it would be completely shattered within minutes.
"Haha... ha ha..." Seeing this, Rooya let out a hearty laugh.
"Even if you've seen through everything, what does it matter? You'll still be torn to shreds inside my Cage of Appetite! I've decided — I'm going to preserve your tongue carefully and savor it slowly..."
Though his mind remained lucid, Rooya was clearly showing signs of mental instability under the influence of the Gluttony Mark.
Listening to the other's victory declaration and the sounds of the Scale Shield crumbling around him, Leilin shook his head.
"If this barrier were all there was, it would be nearly unsolvable among Third-rank Wizards. Even I would have to expend enormous amounts of Spiritual Power to break out by force. But unfortunately..."
Leilin sighed, as though genuinely regretting Rooya's predicament.
"You shouldn't have allied with the Okhet Family!"
"How did you kn—" Before Rooya could finish, a terrifying ray of death pierced through every layer of the barrier's concealment and obstruction, striking him squarely where he hid in a crevice of darkness.
Finger of
Pu! Pu! Pu!
Rooya's defenses crumbled like wet paper under the Finger of Death. Even his innate magical shield shattered as easily as an eggshell before the black beam of death.
"Appetite! Appetite! Great Belusebabu! You are the master of appetite, the ruler of gluttony!"
A voice that was half-chant, half-prayer erupted from Rooya's surroundings.
And amid the prayer, the black mark on Rooya's face blazed with brilliant light. It detached from his skin of its own accord, forming a black seed that positioned itself directly in front of the Finger of Death.
"A faith artifact? Or a deity?" Leilin had always maintained a healthy wariness toward the legendary world of gods, and combined with knowledge from his previous life, he understood this kind of thing well.
Upon seeing this form, his mind immediately drew connections.
But then a cold smile crossed his face: "If Belusebabu's true body were here, or even a clone, it could crush me with a single finger! But now? A worthless seed without any Spiritual Power support from the original?"
Having conducted Astral experiments, Leilin was intimately familiar with the weaknesses of Spiritual Power seeds that descended into other worlds on their own — especially ones where the connection between both sides had been severed.
It could be said that even if the other party's true body had surpassed the Seventh Rank and reached a terrifying level of power, it couldn't lend even the slightest bit of Spiritual Power to the seed here.
Moreover, this black seed wasn't even a proper Spiritual Power seed — it was merely the spiritual contamination left behind by a destroyed divine fragment, stained with a few scattered memory fragments.
With a cold snort, the death ray slammed ruthlessly into the black seed.
Pu! After a flash of black light, the spiritual power seed fell to the ground, a hole visible on its surface. It gradually petrified into a stone rune shape.
The Finger of Death punched through Rooya's chest as despair contorted his face. Had Leilin not adjusted his aim at the last moment, Rooya's entire head would have been obliterated.
But now, Rooya lay on the ground like a dead dog, a gaping hole torn through his chest, mumbling in disbelief: "How... how could this be?"
Leilin walked up and ruthlessly destroyed his sea of consciousness, his voice cold as ice.
"Talk! When did you start colluding with the Okhet Family?"
"Seventy years ago, I went to Blue Mountain City looking for a way to fix the Cage of Appetite. It was then that the Okhet Family helped me address its flaws..."
Without the Gluttony Mark, Rooya now appeared completely hollow. With his sea of consciousness destroyed by Leilin, his mental state had fallen below that of an ordinary person. Under Leilin's Illusion magic, the truth spilled out immediately.
"Daring to collude with that family — you truly have a death wish!" Leilin had dealt with the Okhet Family once before and knew them all too well. That family's nature went without saying. In short, reaching out to them was a recipe for tragedy.
The Cage of Appetite had only been broken by Leilin so decisively because of the Okhet Family's involvement.
While the Cage of Appetite did indeed block various detection methods — even the Chip might not have been able to pierce through it — Leilin had detected faint traces of
These bugs were exceedingly rare, and there was likely some concealment magic layered over them. At first, Leilin hadn't noticed anything at all.
But when Rooya had fully unleashed his power and dragged Leilin into the Cage of Appetite, Leilin immediately activated the Chip's atomic scan.
He had originally intended to find the Cage of Appetite's weaknesses — he hadn't expected to accidentally discover the Stardust Bugs!
Leilin had already figured out how to deal with these bugs at the auction. The fact that Rooya was hosting Stardust Bug parasites was essentially like hanging several bright lanterns on his own body, completely exposing his position to Leilin.
Everything after that needed no further explanation. Leilin simply fired off a single Finger of Death, and all the trouble was resolved.
"The Okhet Family?"
"It seems the recent upheaval within the Ouroboros Ring also involves forces from Blue Mountain City!"
Leilin stroked his chin, already deciding to evacuate immediately.
He was genuinely afraid of encountering that family right now. If his previous actions were exposed, even with a Morning Star Wizard as his teacher, they would pursue him to the ends of the earth.
"Senior Robin! How about we quickly quell the riot inside the castle, then take Rooya to headquarters to answer for his crimes?"
Leilin turned to Robin and asked with apparent respect.
"Of course that's what we should do!" Robin smiled bitterly. Did he even have the option to refuse?
"Then let's—" Leilin was about to say more when his expression shifted. "Who's there?"
Numerous potions immediately materialized from his waist pouch and combined in midair to form a terrifying Third-rank spell: "Blade of Death!"
A black luminous crescent swept across the landscape, leveling everything in its path. Rocks, great trees, even small hills — all were sliced cleanly in two by the thin arc of light, leaving impossibly smooth cuts.
Several dark figures were forced out by the Blade of Death and shot toward Leilin.
"Leilin Farell! We've finally found you!"
The Wizards were all at the Crystallized rank, and the leading Wizard possessed peak Crystallized-level power — a middle-aged man with golden hair that blazed upward like flames.
The hatred in his voice sent a chill down Leilin's spine.
"Leo!" Leilin spoke the name in a low voice. The black-robed leader was none other than the patriarch of the Okhet Family. Based on his expression, he already knew Leilin had been the one behind the previous incident.
"A Divination?" Leilin was certain he had cleaned up all traces meticulously. For them to have discovered his identity, they must have used some form of Divination magic.
Although the King of Blue Mountain City himself was not a specialist in Divination, with enough resources, he could certainly hire other Wizards to perform it.
But the speed of their response and the ruthlessness of their attack still somewhat exceeded Leilin's expectations.
This time, in order to Divinate his whereabouts, the entire Okhet Family had probably bled itself dry.
But thinking about what would happen to the Okhet Family if Leilin leaked information about the Stardust Bugs, it suddenly became understandable.
"Kill!"
Sure enough, Leo wasted no words. Fearing Leilin might expose the truth, he attacked the moment he appeared, barely giving Leilin a chance to speak.
Boom! Boom!
The Crystallized Wizards flanking him erupted with terrifying waves of power. Massive black chains materialized from every direction, encircling Leilin completely.
Enormous binding force pressed down upon him.
As for Leo himself, he unfurled an ancient scroll. A wave of energy so overwhelming it made Leilin suffocate exploded from its surface.
"A Fourth-rank Wizard scroll? They really do think highly of me!"
Leilin's pupils contracted sharply. He immediately transmitted a message to Leo: "If I die here, the Stardust Bug secret will spread across the entire continent — I swear it!"