The moment the words fell, a sickly green light erupted from the deep, bone-deep wound on the chest of the duplicate—the final vessel of the evil god.
The body mimicking Ophelia’s form disintegrated from the inside out, inch by inch. It did not turn into fragments, but rather into the purest, most malicious flood of energy. The sickly green light condensed into a precise ray that ignored space and distance—even ignoring the blade Ophelia raised to parry—and slammed into her body with reckless, desperate force!
“Ugh!”
Ophelia let out a muffled groan, her entire body trembling violently in mid-air.
The evil god had discarded its final existence, burning everything that remained to condense its power into a primitive curse, all for the sake of igniting the seed that had long been buried within her.
Klein’s pupils shrank.
He had already performed multiple rounds of suppression and treatment. The pollution on Ophelia’s left arm had been reduced to a mere trace, nearly cured completely.
But now, under the suicidal detonation of the evil god, that tiny spark had been doused in a whole barrel of fuel!
“Ah—!”
Ophelia could no longer maintain her flight, and her body fell uncontrollably. Beneath her scorching dragon scale armor, something was surging frantically under the surface of her skin.
Black scales!
They weren't spreading from her left hand; instead, they were surfacing simultaneously across her entire body!
It was no longer a slow erosion. They were acting as if they were a natural part of her, attempting to burst forth from deep within her flesh and blood!
“Get... back!”
A terrifying golden light exploded from Ophelia’s eyes. Her golden battle qi surged through her body without reservation, attempting to suppress the black foreign objects.
Two powers engaged in a brutal tug-of-war within her body.
Pfft!
A palm-sized black scale, trailing dripping flesh, forced its way through the dual obstacles of her skin and battle qi on her right shoulder, exposing itself to the air. Then came her abdomen, her thighs, and her back!
The scales tore through her flesh, only to be forcibly stripped away by the violent battle qi.
The agonizing pain of being torn apart caused Ophelia’s body to spasm repeatedly, and blood instantly stained the gaps in the armor beneath her.
But she did not scream. She simply grit her teeth, using every ounce of her will to fight the mutation coming from the depths of her soul.
Could Klein have failed to anticipate this?
The evil god’s final struggle would inevitably be aimed at its only point of connection—Ophelia.
How could he not have calculated for this!
At the exact moment the green light shot out, Klein had already moved. He showed no trace of panic; his extreme focus made his face appear somewhat cold.
On his left wrist, a wristguard crafted from a single silver dragon scale suddenly lit up.
The inscriptions on the wristguard were not alchemical runes, but rather a type of ancient, desolate script. They lit up one by one, emitting a blue glow that shared the same source as the array on the sea.
Simultaneously, the silver wedding ring on Ophelia’s left ring finger also erupted with unprecedented light!
“Ophelia!”
Klein shouted.
Ophelia, who was locked in a life-and-death struggle with the pollution, suddenly felt a gentle yet irresistible traction coming from the ring on her left hand.
The flood of pollution that was rampaging through her body, trying to transform her into another entity, seemed to find a new, more attractive outlet. It suddenly shifted direction, surging through her meridians toward her left hand!
Through that ring, the power of pollution was being continuously drawn out!
The pressure on Ophelia plummeted. She took the opportunity to mobilize her battle qi, beginning to repair her damaged body and purge the remaining black scales.
However, her gaze turned toward Klein in horror.
She saw that the purest deep-sea pollution being drawn from her body was flowing steadily into Klein through the resonance between the ring and the silver dragon scale wristguard!
“Klein! Stop!”
Ophelia cried out in shock.
She knew better than anyone how terrifying this pollution was. Even with her tempered battle qi, she had been tortured to the point of near collapse. Klein was just a mage; how could his body possibly withstand it!
Doing this was no different from suicide!
Under normal circumstances, Klein indeed had no resistance. Using his own body to take on this pollution would change nothing; it would only result in an additional sacrifice.
But!
Klein ignored Ophelia’s cry. He didn't even look at his own arm, which was currently being eroded. He simply raised his right hand and tore a pendant from his neck.
That, too, was carved from a dragon scale, and it was inscribed with a complex array.
“Now.”
He whispered, his right hand suddenly exerting force.
Snap!
The dragon scale pendant was crushed by him!
The miniature array hidden within was completely activated the moment it shattered!
A silver pillar of light shot into the sky from Klein’s hand, like a command—a supreme order!
Boom—!!!
The entire sea responded to it.
The eleven blue light nodes originally used to dismantle and guide the evil god’s fragments were, at this moment, given a brand-new mission. The blue lines connecting them expanded and multiplied frantically, transforming from a flat, giant net into an incredibly massive three-dimensional array that covered the entire sea!
The light pierced the clouds, making the sea as bright as day.
The evil god fragments that had been dragged far away were now locked onto by a new command. The dismantling force suddenly reversed, turning into an extreme extraction force!
The energy of all the fragments, the energy within the monsters being attacked by Augustus’s fleet, and even the chaotic mana that had lain dormant in the depths of this ocean for thousands of years were forcibly mobilized by this frantically expanding array, converging toward a single center!
The center of the array was not any of the nodes.
It was Klein!
“You...”
Even as someone as close to him as Ophelia, she did not know what he was trying to do.
Ophelia’s heart nearly leapt out of her chest. She watched the man floating above the silver dragon, one hand bearing the malice of the deep sea, the other wielding the great power of heaven and earth, enveloped in two completely different lights.
On that face, which was pale from pain and overextended mental energy, there was a faint, almost insane smile.
He was about to do something unprecedented, something destined to never be repeated.
Klein spread his arms, allowing the flood of energy capable of tearing even a god apart to pour into his body, only to be guided and reconstructed by the silver dragon beneath his feet and the array behind him.
Then, he lowered his head and looked down at everything, his eyes holding the entire sea.
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