"Chip! Gravity Magical Array, full power!!!"
Leilin screamed inwardly.
At the same time, his muscles bulged, and fine black scales spread across his entire body.
His eyes had completely turned amber, with vertical pupils like those of a beast.
The Scales of Komo Yin!!! And the Petrifying Gaze!!!
In this life-or-death crisis, Leilin activated both of his innate wizardries at once!
Leilin's vertical pupils did not lock onto the Gegewu. Instead, he kept staring intently at the tentacle shackles binding his hands.
This Gegewu was at least a second-rank
Even if Leilin used it on the Gegewu right now, the only result would be a spiritual backlash!!!
Snap snap snap!!!
Under the gaze of the Petrifying Gaze, the tentacle chains restraining Leilin all turned a pale, stony grey.
Leilin exerted force in his arms, and the chains binding him immediately shattered apart, stone dust scattering across the ground.
At the same time, on his clothing, an inverted "l"-shaped symbol lit up.
An overwhelming gravitational force instantly acted upon Leilin's body, yanking him backward at tremendous speed.
This velocity was four or five times faster than when he had used wizardries to flee earlier.
The old witch and Jay only saw a flash of black light before Leilin vanished completely from before their eyes.
"No…" the old witch let out a hoarse, desperate scream.
Jay's expression was complicated — part disappointment, part relief.
"Substitution item lost. Ritual has begun and cannot be interrupted. Commencing with alternative ingredients…"
The Gegewu merely stared from afar at the spot where Leilin had escaped, but did not pursue. Instead, it spoke words that drained the color from the old witch and her daughter's faces.
"No…"
As the wizardry energy continued to dissipate, a piercing, agonized shriek tore through the entire White Bone Mountain.
……
Boom!!!
A tremendous explosion rang out, and the magical array on the bare ground of the garden detonated completely.
At the same time, a dark figure was wrenched through the air by the immense gravitational pull and slammed into the ground, carving out a deep crater.
"Cough cough…"
At the bottom of the pit, Leilin spat out the grit and sand in his mouth, looking at his right arm, which was already badly twisted and deformed. He gave a bitter smile.
"The Gravity Magical Array that the Chip reconstructed from ancient sources was only partial. Using it rashly like this — problems were inevitable. If I hadn't activated my innate wizardries beforehand and sacrificed my right arm, the injuries would have been even worse…"
Despite the bitter smile, Leilin's movements were anything but slow. He scrambled out of the pit in a few leaps and surveyed his surroundings. This was the very place where he had fought the Wraith Abomination and set up his magical array earlier.
"This Gravity Magical Array — setting it up here was the right call after all!"
Leilin murmured with some emotion, then immediately issued a command. "Chip! Pull up the map and find the optimal exit route from the Secret Realm!"
Back on the Soul Altar, Leilin had seen something resembling a map of the Secret Realm.
Acting out of caution, he had immediately instructed the Chip to record it and cross-reference it with the route maps he had collected before. As expected, the map he obtained turned out to be a map of the entire Secret Realm!!!
And the Gravity Magical Array set up here was an ancient formation that Leilin had modified himself.
He had only seen the prototype of this array in an ancient text in the
Even with the Chip's calculations, he had only managed to reconstruct a portion of it, achieving perhaps thirty to forty percent of the array's true effect.
But even that thirty to forty percent was enough to thrill Leilin, and he had immediately treasured it away as a trump card.
The function of this Gravity Magical Array was to emit an overwhelming gravitational pull, forcibly dragging any object or creature bearing the subsidiary array to the location where the main Gravity Magical Array had been deployed!
Because it utilized many ancient techniques, the pulling force was immensely powerful, and its speed was incredibly fast! Not even a second-rank Wizard could resist it!
If Leilin's previous chances of escaping alive from a second-rank Wizard had been ten percent, then after setting up the Gravity Magical Array, those odds would absolutely skyrocket to forty percent, perhaps even higher!
"Map loading! Optimal route selected!"
The Chip whirred at full speed, projecting the entire map of the Secret Realm before Leilin's eyes and marking a red line that stretched from his current position all the way back to the original oil painting entrance.
"Kekeke!!!" That bizarre, ear-splitting sound he had heard from the Gegewu rang out once more. A black silhouette grew larger and larger, swelling until it filled the sky.
Crack!!! The sky of the entire Secret Realm seemed to be torn open, revealing a vast, pitch-black maw. Bolts of blood-red lightning struck directly down upon the dark figure.
The figure wore a bizarre devil-skull mask and roared continuously as it clashed with the crimson lightning.
The shockwaves of the battle reduced everything they touched to powder, and the battlefield continued to expand, slowly creeping toward Leilin's position.
"Run!"
Confronted with this nearly apocalyptic spectacle, Leilin didn't hesitate for a moment. He turned and bolted.
Along the way, the ground cracked open. Support beams and stone statues toppled everywhere — a scene straight out of the end of the world.
Leilin's feet moved at blinding speed, the Scales of Komo Yin shrouding him constantly. At high velocity, his entire body resembled a distorted, elongated shadow.
Swoosh!!!
Leilin streaked through a metal tunnel. Ahead lay a dead end — thick metal sealed the passage completely.
But Leilin's expression didn't change at all. After a few flickering movements, his fingers tapped several points on the wall.
Rumble!!! With the heavy sound of mechanisms, the metal before Leilin split open automatically, revealing a silver corridor.
On one side of the corridor, inscriptions in the Ancient Byron Language read: "Emergency Escape Passage — Authorized Personnel Only!"
A blue flash flickered in Leilin's eyes, and without hesitation, he charged inside.
The silver corridor blurred past him.
Then, a notification from the Chip made Leilin halt.
"Hidden compartment detected. Not recorded on the previous map. Continue?"
"A hidden compartment? One that wasn't even on the Soul Altar's map. The security level here must be extremely high!"
Leilin cast an anxious glance back down the corridor, then kicked at the wall. A small door suddenly appeared on the silver surface.
Inside was a cramped space — just a few square meters — and at its center sat an ancient and peculiar wizard array.
The array was constructed entirely from a type of black stone, its surface covered with symbols that Leilin couldn't decipher. Tall stone pillars stood at each corner of the formation.
Leaning against one of the pillars was a skeleton.
The skeleton wore black robes of exquisite, lavish craftsmanship. More remarkably, after so much time, the surface of the fabric still gleamed with a brilliant luster!
"A figure of great importance!" Looking at the remains, a thought suddenly flashed through Leilin's mind.
"Chip! Record the wizard array model!" Leilin issued the command, then crouched down and began searching the skeleton's remains.
Miscellaneous items and a tattered sheepskin diary ended up in Leilin's pockets.
"Wizard array model and runes have been fully recorded!"
The moment the Chip's notification sounded, Leilin left the compartment without hesitation. The entire process took less than fifteen seconds.
Leilin casually tapped the wall of the hidden door, then resumed running at full speed.
Behind him, with a low rumble, the compartment's hidden door sealed itself once more. The entire corridor gleamed with silver light, its walls seamless, without the slightest trace of an opening.
……
A slant of bright sunlight fell.
The small town had entered daytime. But all the ordinary townspeople, drugged by the old witch's potion, remained in a deep slumber.
This anomaly had been noticed by surrounding villagers and was spreading quickly.
Of course, due to the limited transportation conditions and the passage of time, the news had not yet reached even a single Wizard Apprentice.
At this moment, inside the haunted house that had long earned a fearsome reputation in the town — At the end of the corridor, an oil painting suddenly emitted silver light. The glow grew brighter and brighter until it took the shape of a doorway.
Swoosh!!!
A dark figure burst through the doorway, looking thoroughly bedraggled.
Leilin wiped the cold sweat from his brow with his left hand and turned to look at the Secret Realm entrance one more time.
"That was close!!! If that black Gegewu hadn't triggered the failsafe left behind by the ancient Soul Slaughter Cult wizards, I might not have made it out…"
The Gegewu's power was beyond question. The current Leilin was no match for it whatsoever.
Moreover, this kind of aggregate of evil thoughts was notoriously unpredictable and prone to violent mood swings. Leilin wanted absolutely nothing to do with such a terrifying and dangerous entity.
"Shadow Fireball!"
After one final look at the Secret Realm entrance behind him, a flash of resolve crossed Leilin's eyes. A black fireball shot forward and obliterated the entrance entirely.
Though there were certainly still treasures to be found inside the Secret Realm, when weighed against his own life, Leilin knew perfectly well which choice to make.
Compared to the Gegewu that could come杀ing out at any moment, everything else inside this Secret Realm was utterly expendable.
Leilin took a brief look around, erased any traces he had left, and departed without a moment's hesitation.
Destroying the entrance to the Secret Realm didn't necessarily mean the Gegewu inside couldn't get out.
Leilin estimated that given the Gegewu's ferocity and uncanny abilities, it would eventually discover the Secret Realm's weak point and tear its way out directly!
But by that time, Leilin would be long gone, somewhere far beyond reach. And what would that have to do with him?
Besides, the wizard world of the entire South Coast didn't consist of Leilin alone. Someone like the Night Lighthouse Leader, whom he had encountered before, certainly had the power to suppress this Gegewu!