Boulder stared in utter disbelief. “You... Genos...”
Ethan brushed off some non-existent dust from his sleeve. “Prince, let me reintroduce myself. I am Ethan Leo, a First-Tier Wizard of Blood Bone Tower. I am not Genos Bezos.”
Boulder’s eyes suddenly widened.
On that round face, the rationality that had been scattered by alcohol and excitement finally coalesced once more.
He remembered the seven Second-Tier wizardry models he had personally handed over. He remembered the knowledge crystal containing the fist-sized Spirit-Deceiving Array diagram. He remembered putting his arm around this wizard’s shoulder and saying, “A thousand cups of wine are too few when shared with a true friend.”
He remembered thumping his chest and promising, “Once we reach the deep sea, I’ll take you into the Dragon Abyss Forbidden Land.”
This human wizard had been acting from the very beginning.
The self-detonation was an act.
The bargaining was an act.
The drinking and laughing were an act.
Even that phrase, “The Prince is right,” was an act.
“You... you son of a...”
A low growl squeezed out of Boulder’s throat.
He tried to stand up, wanting to roar in fury. But the moment he moved, his broken ribs punctured his lungs, and deep blue blood surged from the corners of his mouth.
Ethan looked down at him from above.
“Prince, your Ten-Thousand-Year Plan is indeed quite intimidating. Unfortunately, your vision was too grand—so grand that you couldn’t even see the person standing right in front of you.”
Boulder’s lips trembled violently.
He remembered the respectful expression on Ethan’s face when he said, “I am impressed by such a vision.”
He remembered the moved tone in Ethan’s voice when he said, “In all my years at Blood Bone Tower, no one has ever been this generous to me.”
At the time, Boulder had even slammed the table and called him a “soulmate.”
Soulmate.
Boulder snapped his head up, his pale blue pupils swirling with a humiliation and rage so intense they seemed ready to overflow.
“This Prince... This Prince...”
“Prince,” Ethan interrupted him, the arc of his smirk widening a bit more. “Those bottles of Coral Brew were actually quite good. I’ll talk to the academy’s logistics department later and see if we can mass-produce a replica. I’ve already thought of a name: ‘Sucker’s Special.’”
An inhuman low growl erupted from Boulder’s throat.
Blood Fury stood to the side as his massive, blood-red giant dog form began to shrink.
His bones crackled and popped, the dark red mane receded, and his muscles reshaped themselves. In the span of a few breaths, the staggeringly large beast transformed back into the square-jawed, middle-aged man.
He cracked his neck, his cervical vertebrae making a sharp snapping sound.
“You’ve got a wicked tongue, kid.”
Ethan bowed slightly. “The Dean taught me well.”
“Bullshit,” Blood Fury barked a laugh. “I never taught you how to con people.”
Wizard Dark Stream raised his hand, shooting several grayish-white threads from his fingertips.
The threads extended silently, winding toward Boulder’s limbs. It was time to take him back for interrogation.
Suddenly, Dark Stream’s pupils constricted violently.
He abruptly retracted all his threads and grabbed Ethan’s shoulder with his right hand, yanking him behind his back. The movement was so fast that Ethan didn’t even have time to react.
Blood Fury’s reaction was almost simultaneous.
His body expanded, deformed, and shot upward in an instant. In less than half a breath, the staggeringly large blood-red giant dog reappeared in the center of the altar, planting its four paws on the ground to shield Ethan and Dark Stream beneath its belly.
In the next second, endless blue energy erupted from within Boulder.
Boulder’s body was at the center of the blue light. His skin, scales, bones, and blood—everything disintegrated into the purest energy particles at the same instant.
A blue light ring expanded outward from Boulder’s position.
Wherever the ring passed, the stone slabs of the altar turned silently into powder, the stone pillars crumbled into fine sand, and the crystal fragments evaporated into gas.
The ring continued to expand.
Horn Mountain began to collapse from the inside out, its dark red rock layers dissolving layer by layer within the blue light.
Blood Fury’s four claws dug deep into the ground. Scarlet energy surged from the roots of his mane, condensing into a translucent blood-colored light wall in front of the giant dog.
The moment the blue light ring struck the wall, Blood Fury’s limbs sank downward, his claws plowing four deep trenches into the ground.
Countless cracks exploded across the surface of the light wall, but it held firm.
Dark Stream formed a hand seal with one hand, and a grayish-white water curtain rose from the ground, forming a circular barrier around the three of them.
Densely packed runic patterns appeared on the inner side of the water curtain, every rune flashing frantically as they bore the continuous impact of the blue light ring.
Ethan stood between Blood Fury’s belly and Dark Stream’s water curtain. Through the gaps in the two layers of protection, he watched as Horn Mountain vanished.
The mountain’s rock, soil, and mineral veins—everything was decomposing in the blue light.
The bare summit was the first to disintegrate, followed by the mountainside, then the base, and finally the rocky slope below the mountain.
The blue light swallowed everything.
Ethan felt violent tremors beneath his feet. The ground felt as if it were being struck from below by an invisible giant hand, and the entire mountain structure let out a muffled roar as it disintegrated.
Ethan could feel the stone slabs beneath his feet shattering, the cracks spreading outward from the edges of Blood Fury’s claws.
The runes on the outside of the water curtain began to break apart.
One by one, they crumbled from the edges toward the center. The grayish-white runic fragments were decomposed into nothingness by the blue light before they could even hit the ground.
Dark Stream’s brow furrowed. He formed another seal with his left hand, and a second layer of water curtain rose from the inner side of the first, filling the gaps left by the disintegrating parts.
The roaring continued for about three seconds.
When the blue light finally dissipated, the ground beneath Ethan’s feet had completely shattered.
The three of them were now standing on a grayish-white light membrane.
Blood Fury retracted his light wall, and his massive body slowly shrank, returning to his human form.
Ethan looked up.
Horn Mountain was gone.
Everything within a hundred-kilometer radius had vanished.
The mountain, the rocky slopes, the shrubs, and the winding river in the distance had all been turned into powder.
In their place remained only a massive crater, a thousand meters deep.
The walls of the pit were as smooth as mirrors, the rock layers compressed into something denser than steel, shimmering with a dark gray metallic luster under the light.
“That little sea dragon was quite fierce. He actually chose to self-detonate?” Blood Fury’s voice echoed at the edge of the empty crater, sounding somewhat incredulous. He glanced down at his arm; his sleeve had been shredded until only a few strips of cloth hung from his shoulder, and several smoking scorch marks had appeared on his forearm. Blood Fury wiped them casually, and the burns began to heal at a pace visible to the naked eye.
Dark Stream shook his head. He raised his right hand and pointed his index finger into the void.
Countless arrays expanded from his fingertip. Grayish-white array patterns spread out in layers through the air, extending from the edge of the crater to the bottom, then crawling along the walls to cover the entire sunken area.
Each array was only the size of a palm, with intricate runic patterns flowing along the edges.
The arrays nested, intertwined, and overlapped with one another, densely covering every inch of space within the massive crater.
Dark Stream closed his eyes, and the cluster of arrays activated simultaneously.
Grayish-white light flowed through the array patterns, converging from the edges toward the center before radiating back out from the center to the edges.
Rate on N.U.
