The first stake slammed into the light shield.
Ripples spread across the surface of the shield as the stake shattered from the point of impact, wood chips flying everywhere and sliding off both sides of the barrier.
A second, a third, and a fourth.
The stakes continued to batter the shield.
The ripples grew more frequent, and the emerald-green light began to flicker.
Zhuoya gritted her teeth.
She gripped the short staff with her left hand as well, exerting force with both hands simultaneously.
The light of the shield stabilized once more, deflecting the subsequent stakes one by one.
However, she no longer had any strength left to counterattack.
Ethan's hands rose and fell repeatedly.
Stakes erupted from the ground one after another, like an unceasing tide.
The shield trembled violently under the constant bombardment of the wooden stakes.
Zhuoya's hands began to shake, the skin between her thumbs and index fingers splitting open. Pale green blood trickled down the length of the staff.
The emerald-green light grew dimmer and dimmer, and fine cracks began to appear on the surface of the shield.
Another stake slammed into it.
The cracks widened.
Another one.
The shield shook convulsively.
And another.
The shield shattered.
Fragments scattered into the air, dissolving into countless tiny specks of emerald-green light.
The stake passed through the light specks, striking Zhuoya squarely in the abdomen.
Her body was sent flying backward by the impact. The short staff slipped from her hands, flipping several times in the air before clattering onto the stone floor.
Zhuoya crashed to the ground, sliding seven or eight meters before coming to a stop.
Her dark green robes were torn in several places, and pale green blood welled from the corners of her mouth. She tried to push herself up with her hands, but her arms shook like reeds in the wind. She made it halfway up before collapsing back down.
At that moment, Leah had just reached the outside of her family's house.
"Old hag."
Ethan raised his right hand.
Emerald-green light erupted from his palm.
Flying Leaves poured out from his hand like an emerald downpour, cascading toward Zhuoya.
Zhuoya looked up.
Her amber eyes reflected the emerald storm.
She opened her mouth, wanting to say something.
The first leaf slit her throat.
The second pierced her left eye.
The third, the fourth, the fifth.
Hundreds of leaves fell simultaneously.
Three seconds later, Zhuoya's body went completely still.
【Life Energy +48,888. Current Life Energy: 52,492.】
"Damn, that much?" Ethan raised an eyebrow. "Impressive."
With a wave of his right hand, vines reached out from the ground, coiled around Zhuoya's corpse, and stuffed it into his storage ring.
He turned around and sprinted in Leah's direction.
Without slowing his pace, Ethan opened his system interface in his mind.
"Unlock passive."
【Consume 32,768 Life Energy to unlock the 16th passive?】
"Confirm."
【Energy deducted: 32,768 points. Current Energy: 19,724 points.】
【Generating passive...】
【Generation complete. Acquired passive: Goddess of Wisdom's Infatuation.】
【Goddess of Wisdom's Infatuation: Restores 10% of maximum mana per second. Reduces the consumption rate of any action that uses mental power or mana by 90%.】
Ethan nearly stumbled.
To Ethan, reducing mana consumption and restoring mana was just... fine. He wouldn't say it was useless, but it was close to it.
However, a 90% reduction in mental power consumption was a different story entirely.
Mental power was not a simple thing.
For a Wizard, the importance of mental power far exceeded any other tangible or intangible asset.
"This cheat..."
His mouth twitched.
Before he could dwell on it, the seven-story main house loomed large in his vision.
Ethan charged into the building.
The hall was empty.
Without stopping, Ethan crossed the hall and rushed into a side wing.
The side wing was also deserted.
He moved through three consecutive rooms, each one hollow and silent.
"She runs fast."
Ethan placed his hand on a green plant in the corridor.
"Which way did she go?"
The plant's leaves tilted slightly to the left.
Ethan let go and sprinted in that direction.
He pressed his hand against a second plant.
"Keep going."
The leaves tilted toward the front-left.
A third plant.
The tilt was even more pronounced.
A fourth.
Ethan's pace quickened, the corridor blurring past him.
The eighteenth plant.
"It's right ahead, the entrance to the secret room."
The tendrils at the end of a vine pointed toward the wall at the end of the corridor.
Ethan released his grip and exerted force through his legs, cracking the stone floor as he shot toward the end of the hallway like an arrow from a bow.
It was a stone wall.
The gray-white stone slabs were carved with vine patterns, appearing no different from the other walls in the corridor.
Ethan took two steps forward and delivered a powerful kick.
BOOM.
Stone fragments sprayed everywhere as a two-meter-high breach was blasted into the wall.
Behind the breach was a downward slope. Pale green crystals were embedded in the stone walls on either side every few steps, emitting a faint glow.
Ethan didn't slow down, charging down the slope.
After running for about two minutes, the space ahead suddenly opened up.
It was a massive underground cavern.
The ceiling hung high, at least twenty meters up, with a dense network of tree roots hanging down, interwoven into a giant web.
The four walls were exposed rock, covered in thick, dark green moss that looked greasy under the faint light of the crystals.
The floor was paved with smooth stone slabs carved with runic patterns. The grooves were filled with emerald-green crystal powder, which emitted a soft light.
In the center of the space, a circular magic array about ten meters in diameter was active.
Seven stone pillars stood around the edge of the array, with a fist-sized emerald crystal floating atop each one.
The crystals rotated slowly, and emerald-green beams of light shot from them, converging in the center of the array to form a pillar of light that shot upward.
The pillar of light pierced through the ceiling and disappeared into the depths of the rock layers.
Leah was kneeling on the ground at the edge of the array.
Her hands were pressed into the runic grooves at the array's perimeter.
Hearing the noise, she snapped her head up.
Her amber eyes reflected Ethan's figure as he charged out from the slope.
On her pale green face, terror and despair intertwined, twisting her features into a mask of agony.
"No..."
Ethan raised his right hand.
The stone floor shattered, and a wooden stake slammed into Leah, sending her body flying backward.
She tumbled through the air three times before crashing into one of the stone pillars at the edge of the array.
Her body then slid down the pillar and crumpled onto the stone floor.
Pale green blood poured from her mouth, ears, and nose.
Leah struggled to lift her head, her amber eyes looking toward the pillar of light in the center of the array, and then toward Ethan.
Her lips moved, but she only managed to cough up a mouthful of pale green blood.
Ethan raised his right hand.
Emerald-green light condensed in his palm.
At that moment, an endless green radiance erupted from Leah's body.
The light was emerald-green, even denser and purer than the pillar of light from the array.
It gushed from Leah's skin, eyes, mouth, and nose, forming a spherical shield of light two meters in diameter around her.
Ethan's Flying Leaves struck the green radiance.
Hundreds of leaves hit one after another.
The green light didn't budge.
There were no ripples, no tremors, and no reaction whatsoever.
The Flying Leaves were like waves crashing against an immovable wall, shattering into fine points of light on the surface of the green radiance before dissipating into the air.
Rate on N.U.
