At the very instant the little boy's head seemed to burst open like a watermelon, the green mist suddenly rippled and thinned dramatically, revealing the figure of a hulking man over two meters tall and bristling with muscle. A brief moment of stunned blankness crossed the man's face before he clutched his head, his eyes gradually turning red as threads of blood began to surface across them.
"You dare… you dare kill him…"
The giant roared, as if the little boy had been vitally important to him. After witnessing Lei Lin ruthlessly deploy his killing trump card, the giant was instantly teetering on the edge of a berserk frenzy.
Wisps of green mist coalesced into the shapes of moths and bees, surging toward Lei Lin like great billowing clouds.
Hiss hiss! Thin green veins, like small serpents, crawled across every inch of the giant's bulging muscles. His frame surged in size once more, instantly exceeding three meters. Every strand of his hair bristled straight upward, rigid as needles pointed at the sky.
"Growing anxious? Growing afraid?"
Lei Lin sneered. Then, thick black smoke began pouring off his body, rising into the air above and spreading outward ceaselessly.
Tendrils of black gas intertwined, coalescing into the forms of countless small black serpents.
These serpents bore fine, dark scales, and their tiny eyes — no bigger than mung beans — glowed with an eerie crimson light. Their hissing filled the air as they surged forward to meet the swarm of green bees and moths.
Boom!
In an instant, the vast cloud of green mist and the swarm of black serpents crashed together. A cacophony of biting, tearing, and hissing erupted from within the churning fog.
"Aaagh!!! I'll kill you! I swear it! I'll crush every last bone in your body and make you regret the day you were born!!!"
The giant roared and stomped his foot down!
Boom! A deep crater instantly cratered the ground. Dirt and stones flew outward like bullets, sparking against the air from the sheer friction.
Channeling that momentum, the giant's massive body rocketed toward Lei Lin like a missile.
"Localized Serpent Transformation!" Black scales immediately covered Lei Lin's hands in a fine, dense layer, and rings of dark luminescence rippled outward across their surface. Rich, inky blackness continued to saturate the scales, gradually forming patterns that resembled arcane runes!
Then, the muscles in Lei Lin's arms bulged as his strength — a towering 20.1 — exploded outward in a single instant!
Boom!
The green and black figures collided head-on, and a thunderous shockwave of compressed air erupted between them.
Two shadows flickered and clashed in a blur, and everything caught even slightly by the aftershock of their battle — whether rock or tree — was blown apart into countless fragments.
Boom! Lei Lin caught the giant's fist with his left hand, while his right hand clawed forward, blood-red flames igniting along his fingers as he raked toward the giant's chest — straight for the heart! His speed was like lightning.
At this moment, the giant's hands were both pinned by Lei Lin, and at such close range, the ambush was impossible to dodge.
The giant's face twisted with ruthlessness. He shifted his posture just slightly and evoked a lethal claw strike aimed at his chest. But his right pectoral was still caught hard by Lei Lin's Scarlet Hand, tearing a huge chunk of flesh free.
"Bone Spike Spell!!!" the giant roared. Then, spreading both arms wide without any attempt to dodge, he lunged forward to embrace Lei Lin.
Shink! Shink! Shink! Shink!
A ring of grotesque white bone spurs burst through the giant's muscles like bamboo shoots after rain, erupting from his entire body.
Crack! Lei Lin's right hand was the first to be struck by the bone spurs.
The twisted spurs had spiral patterns etched along their surfaces, and upon impact they carried a piercing, drilling force.
The spinning bone spurs first broke through the blood flames, then slammed into the Comorin scales on the surface of Lei Lin's right hand.
An excruciating metallic scraping sound rang out — almost like a woman's shriek. Lei Lin frowned and retreated rapidly.
"Haha! Now you want to leave? Too late!"
The giant laughed, paying no attention to the blood streaming from his body. He spread his arms wide in a bear-hug stance, hands closing in as if to turn Lei Lin into a pincushion!
"At this range… Shadow Lurk!!!"
Black scales flashed across Lei Lin's body in a wide halo of light, and then he vanished entirely into the air.
"You think I wouldn't guard against that trick???"
After losing sight of Lei Lin, the giant scanned his surroundings, then suddenly let out a thunderous shout. He drew in a deep breath.
Two streams of white air, visible to the naked eye, surged into his nostrils like twin dragons, and the giant's chest hollowed inward to a degree plainly visible.
Then the giant let out a piercing howl: "Awooooo!!!"
The ear-splitting sound radiated outward in all directions. Within the air itself, tangible ripples — like waves on water — spread outward from the giant in every direction.
The ground was being peeled away layer by layer by the sound waves, while the green mist moths and bees that had been tangled in midair, along with
The mist was continuously pushed and carried by the sound waves, its tremors propagated ever further into the distance, until it vanished completely.
As the giant's pitch grew ever higher, several insects and moles in the vicinity actually detonated in midair, bursting into fine rings of blood mist.
Buzz!
The void rippled, a flash of black light flickered, and Leylin's figure materialized directly.
"Found you! Damned bug!" the giant roared, the bone spines covering its body growing ever denser, spinning ceaselessly like a humanoid killing machine as it charged through everything in its path — any trees or boulders that stood in its way were instantly reduced to powder.
"Shadow Fireball!" Leylin swept both hands forward, and countless black fireballs coalesced, merging into a single massive black fireball.
At this moment, empowered by Leylin's mental elemental transformation, the Shadow Fireball had reached a power of 57 degrees! The absolute limit for a first-rank
The instant the black fireball appeared, the surrounding air temperature soared, and the soil on the ground melted away in waves — some of it even vaporized directly into black smoke.
"Go!"
Leylin pointed a finger at the giant, and the black fireball stretched and elongated, transforming into a raging serpent of black flame.
Wisdom gleamed in the serpent's eyes as it writhed with fluid agility, occasionally flicking tongues of flame-like fire, blocking the giant's path of advance.
The giant stared at the flame serpent that moved as if alive, wariness deepening across its features. To manipulate a spell of such power with such fine precision spoke to Leylin's extraordinary talent in spell control — the speed of his growth had far exceeded anything the giant had anticipated.
"Hiss!"
The black flame serpent hissed and coiled itself around the giant's body.
Crack! The black flame, carrying searing heat and extreme temperature, smashed violently into the white bone-spine armor!
Boom! Raging flames surged upward, ultimately coalescing into an enormous black torch.
At the very heart of that torch, the giant's spine-covered silhouette stood motionless, a sliver of white still visible.
The air warped continuously, contracting inward as though forming a black hole that voraciously devoured all surrounding matter, shrinking ceaselessly.
BOOM!!!
Immediately, a massive black mushroom cloud rose slowly into the air from the open ground.
The colossal shockwave of energy continued to radiate outward in all directions — even the Wizards battling at the
"Two Second-Rank Wizards! They've already fought their way here?"
A young White Wizard stopped what he was doing. "What should we do? Should we go watch? Those are Second-Rank Wizards! I've never seen them fight before!"
Crack!
The back of his head was immediately slapped hard. The young White Wizard turned around, looking at the white-bearded Wizard beside him with a very innocent expression. "Master! Did I say something wrong?"
The old Wizard's face was covered in wrinkles, but his eyes gleamed with wisdom. Without a moment's hesitation, he slapped the young Wizard on the head again.
"What are you standing there for? Get out of here right now!!! The aftershock of a Second-Rank Wizard's battle alone would be enough to leave not even a speck of dust of you!!!"
The old Wizard was clearly deep in wisdom and rich with life experience, knowing that battles between such high-ranking Wizards were nothing short of a catastrophic disaster — comparable to a natural calamity — for ordinary people and even low-rank Wizards like themselves!!!
"Huh? What?"
The young White Wizard still hadn't processed what was happening.
"Look!" The old Wizard grabbed his head and aimed it toward the battlefield on the other side.
At that moment, the young Wizard was stunned to discover that the Black Wizards and White Wizards who had been fighting moments ago had now tacitly ceased hostilities, all moving steadily in the opposite direction from where the mushroom cloud had risen.
"See that? Only a rookie like you would want to go watch a Second-Rank Wizard fight…"
The old Wizard lectured as he pulled the young Wizard along, a teal hurricane flickering beneath their feet. An invisible force of wind acted upon him and his student, instantly sending them flying a great distance away.
……
At the center of the black mushroom cloud.
The earlier explosion had carved a massive crater over ten meters deep into the ground. At the very center of the crater was a pitch-black hole of unfathomable depth, radiating a dark, lustrous sheen, as though it extended straight down to the earth's core.
BOOM!
A white figure wreathed in green mist was sent hurtling backward through the air, fine bone spur fragments continuously scattering and falling to the ground below.
Crack! The giant slammed into the ground, carving a long ballistic trail across the surface.
His condition at this moment looked utterly wretched. Most of the bone spurs on his body had been snapped off, his entire right arm had vanished without a trace, and numerous places across his body were riddled with severe burn injuries.
Whoosh!
A black figure materialized before him in an instant, and what followed was a pair of colossal spectral claws wreathed in blood-red flames!
"Crimson Hand!" Ralin's body, by contrast, was completely unscathed. He was extremely satisfied with the full power of the Shadow Concealed Fireball he had unleashed.
His face was devoid of either grief or joy, utterly calm, as he delivered the fatal blow to the giant!
The giant struggled to crawl a few paces away, but the spectral blood claws tore savagely into both of his thighs.
Crack!
Both of the giant's legs snapped clean off at the break, and blood-red flames continued to billow upward from the severed ends.