Meanwhile, outside Horn Mountain, on the gravelly slopes.
Wizard Dark Stream suddenly felt something moving in the cracks of the gravel beneath his feet.
He looked down.
A tender green vine as thin as a hair poked out from a crack, winding and growing across the stone ground beneath his feet at a visible rate.
The tip of the vine twisted and bent, spelling out two crooked words next to his feet: “Act, now.”
Dark Stream's eye twitched.
Beside him, another vine poked out from beneath Wizard Blood Fury's feet, spelling out three crooked words: “Play, the, traitor.”
Blood Fury's lip twitched. “This kid...”
Dark Stream lowered his hand and turned to look at Blood Fury. “He wants us to play along.”
“Dammit,” Blood Fury muttered under his breath. “This kid is playing that Sea Dragon like an absolute fool.”
“So we don't?”
“Play! Along!”
Inside the altar,
Boulder toyed with the coral cup in his hand, his gaze shifting back and forth over Ethan.
Ethan kept his head lowered, his fingers unconsciously picking at the edge of the low table.
His lips parted several times, as if he wanted to say something, but he forced himself to swallow the words back down each time.
“Genos,” Boulder spoke, a trace of impatience creeping into his voice. “This prince doesn't mind waiting a moment, but don't drag it out too long.”
Ethan looked up.
His eyes were slightly bloodshot, filled with red veins.
The expression on his face shifted from struggle to resolve, and then from resolve to an indescribably complex mix of emotions.
“Your Highness, I've made up my mind.”
Boulder set down his cup and leaned forward slightly.
Right at that moment,
a deafening, muffled boom resounded from the ceiling of the altar.
“Boom!”
The ceiling of the altar was torn apart in an instant.
The entire ceiling exploded outward from the center, sending shattered stone blocks and crystal fragments raining down in all directions like a torrential storm.
Dust and smoke poured in from the breach, mixed with rubble and an even heavier pressure, completely crushing the remaining water-light reflections inside the altar.
Boulder suddenly looked up.
At the exact same instant, the two pale gold young horns on either side of his forehead burst with blinding light, and his right hand pressed down on the storage device at his waist.
Two figures emerged from the smoke and dust.
One was tall and thin, his gray robe fluttering wildly in the shockwave.
The other was robust, his crimson eyes glowing through the dust like two burning flames of blood.
Boulder's pupils shrank to pinpricks. Second-Tier Wizards. Two of them.
The tall, thin figure spoke, his voice squeezed from the depths of his throat as he gritted his teeth. “Genos Bezos! You traitor!”
The robust figure chimed in, his crimson eyes locked onto Ethan. “You dare betray the academy? Today, I'll chop you and this Sea Race scum to pieces together!”
The moment Blood Fury's voice fell, he vanished from where he stood.
The stone slab he had been standing on shattered into a two-meter-wide crater, with spiderweb-like cracks spreading in all directions.
In the next second, his figure appeared right in front of Boulder, his right fist wrapped in a layer of energy as thick as blood plasma, smashing down toward Boulder's face.
Boulder crossed his arms in front of him.
The moment the fist slammed into his forearms, a layer of aqua-blue, scale-like light patterns emerged from his skin.
With a muffled boom, the stone slab beneath Boulder's feet exploded. He was knocked backward by the punch, his feet plowing two half-foot-deep trenches into the stone floor.
Wizard Dark Stream didn't give Boulder any breathing room.
He opened the five fingers of his right hand, shooting five grayish-white, liquid-like threads from his fingertips.
The threads were as thin as hair, extending silently through the air as they wrapped toward Boulder's limbs and neck.
Ethan's reaction was also swift; he raised his hand and shot three Wood Pillars in a triangular formation toward Blood Fury.
Blood Fury didn't even turn his head, backhanding his left hand.
As his arm swung, it swelled and deformed, dark red fur appearing on his skin as his fingers turned into sharp claws.
The moment those three Wood Pillars hit his claws, they exploded simultaneously, sending wood splinters and shockwaves bursting into a ball of dark green fire at the tips of Blood Fury's claws.
Blood Fury's claws were completely unharmed. “Little brat, I'll deal with you in a moment.”
Boulder used this brief window to stabilize his stance.
He pulled out a fist-sized deep blue bead from his storage device and crushed it.
The moment the bead shattered, a ring-shaped water wall rose from beneath his feet, blocking all five of Dark Stream's grayish-white threads.
The threads hit the water wall, making a sizzling sound. Five fine indentations were corroded into the surface of the water wall, but they failed to penetrate.
“Genos!” Boulder growled. “Stay back! This isn't a battle you can get involved in!”
Ethan didn't try to be a hero.
Vines shot out from beneath his feet, catapulting him backward toward the edge of the altar.
But Blood Fury clearly didn't intend to let him off.
The robust figure blurred, appearing at Ethan's side in the next second.
Blood Fury swept his right leg, the wind from his kick blowing away all the shattered crystal fragments at the edge of the altar.
Ethan crossed his arms in front of him. The dark green plates condensed by his Wood Armor had barely covered his forearms when the kick arrived.
Bang!
Ethan felt as if he had been hit by a mountain.
The Wood Armor plates on his arms shattered instantly upon contact, fragments shooting backward.
He was sent flying by the kick, his back slamming into the stone wall of the altar and leaving a human-shaped crater in the stone. He slid down to one knee, a trace of blood spilling from the corner of his mouth.
Seeing this, Blood Fury didn't pursue him, turning back to lunge at Boulder instead.
Boulder had already pulled out a third Wizardry Tool from his storage device.
It was a palm-sized golden scale, its surface covered in dense runic lines.
He tossed the scale into the air. It exploded, turning into a set of translucent golden scale armor that covered his entire body.
The scale armor had just formed when Blood Fury's fist arrived.
The fist, as large as a sandbag, slammed directly into Boulder's chest.
A visible shockwave exploded from the surface of the golden scale armor, and all the crystals on the altar walls that hadn't completely shattered turned to dust at the same instant.
Boulder was lifted off his feet by the punch, flying backward.
His back broke three stone pillars, rubble and dust covering half his body.
Fortunately, this Wizardry Tool was incredibly powerful, and he managed to stay on his feet.
The indentation on the chest of the scale armor restored to its original shape at a visible rate.
Boulder wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, his gaze turning completely cold.
Wizard Dark Stream's figure silently emerged from the left side of the altar.
He had already circled to Boulder's flank, his hands forming a complex hand seal in front of him.
The moment the hand seal was formed, the stone ground beneath Boulder's feet suddenly liquefied, turning into a pool of grayish-white swamp.
Dozens of large hands condensed from the gray liquid reached out from the swamp, grabbing Boulder's ankles and calves to drag him down.
Boulder snorted coldly, a ring of aqua-blue light exploding beneath his feet.
Wherever the light ring spread, those gray hands were frozen into ice sculptures and then shattered.
He pulled his legs out of the swamp, backhanding three water blades toward Dark Stream.
The water blades were crescent-shaped, their edges gleaming with a pale gold cold light. They constantly absorbed moisture from the air as they flew, growing larger and larger as they went.
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