"I don't know which faction you're from, but I can hand it over directly!"
A glint flashed through Xiling's eyes.
"No chance! If this had been before the Joint Council, I might have considered it, but now..."
Her very last shred of hope struck down, Xiling was now in utter despair.
"Do it!" She closed her beautiful eyes and tilted her pale neck upward.
"Where is Sgrily?" Gus asked one final time, a mass of twisted energy crackling with terrifying power already forming in his hand.
"I don't know! Lei Lin interrogated him personally!"
"Then you're no longer useful!"
Gus's expression was cold as he released the twisted energy from his hand.
Whoosh! A black, scaled shield materialized out of thin air in front of Xiling, blocking the explosive blast of energy.
When the smoke cleared, a Wizard in black robes was already standing in front of Xiling.
"Lei Lin!!!" Gus's pupils contracted as he called out the name with undisguised dread.
"Well then! How would you like to die?" A bright smile spread across Lei Lin's face.
"Attack! Now!!"
Gus's face flushed crimson as he roared the command.
"Double! Remember—double!" The hawk-nosed old man beside him erupted with a torrent of elemental halos that wove together into a bronze ring inscribed with mysterious runes across its surface.
Even as he cast his spell, he did not forget to turn back and remind Gus.
Grey mist instantly condensed. The grey fog giant from last time reappeared, but unlike before, beams of light resembling starfire shot out from every Wizard present. They latched onto the giant, driving its aura to a terrifying level.
The bronze ring snapped around the giant's waist in an instant, cinching tight!
"ROARRR!!!"
The giant roared, its lower body rapidly condensing while the mist composing its upper half solidified once more, forming muscles as hard as granite.
"A Combination Spell!"
Xiling, standing behind Linley, cried out in shock. At this moment, even her breathing had grown faintly labored.
"The enemy has two peak first-tier Wizards, plus more than a dozen Wizard elders working together. Linley he…"
The thought had not even finished forming in Xiling's mind before she froze, her mouth falling wide open.
Silver!
A faint trace of silver appeared over Linley's body in a flash!
In that instant, the very void seemed to halt, and a tremendous, oppressive pressure descended upon the scene without warning!!!
"Materialized Spiritual Power!! A second-tier Wizard!!!!"
The hawk-nosed old man let out a shrill cry. Blood was still streaming from his mouth and nose, but he ruthlessly retracted his spell and retreated without hesitation—even suffering the backlash of a dispelled spell, he had to get away immediately.
It was too late!
A streak of silver light tore across the sky and arrived above the old man in the blink of an eye.
"No!" The old man bellowed in fury. A small, battered talisman around his neck shattered, and a massive burst of dark crimson flame erupted forth.
But the next moment, the old man stumbled, nearly collapsing to the ground.
He could clearly feel it—the peak elemental Spiritual Power suffusing the flames had been instantly shattered under the assault of the silver materialized Spiritual particles.
As the controlling Spiritual Power dissipated, the dark crimson flames lost their target and scattered in all directions.
The silver Spiritual Power plunged downward, stretching and reshaping itself continuously until it took the form of a silver Cross Sword that pierced the old man straight through the chest!
Drip! Drip!
Drop after drop of red blood fell ceaselessly to the ground. The old man's mouth was still buzzing, but he couldn't stir a single energy particle.
The Spiritual Power of a second-tier Wizard was qualitatively far beyond the elementalized Spiritual Power of lower-tier Wizards. The Spiritual Power inside this old man's sea of consciousness was simply no match for the silver Spiritual Power — it had been shattered in a single blow and completely sealed off.
The principle behind this was remarkably similar to the scene back on the White Bone Mountain when Gegewu had imprisoned Lei Lin.
Now that he had fully restored the might of a second-tier Sorcerer, even a peak first-tier Wizard was nothing more than a slightly larger ant before Lei Lin's eyes!
"Him! Him! Him!"
This sight immediately left the Wizards of the Misty Forest at a complete loss.
In a single strike, a peak first-tier Wizard had been gravely wounded and left on the verge of death! This kind of terrifying power was something they had only ever heard about in legends.
Gus's expression shifted from ghastly pallor to despair, and finally twisted into a savage snarl!
"ROAR ROAR! !" The enormous fog giant, under his control, came crashing toward Lei Lin with devastating force.
And in his hands, an ancient scroll was slowly unfurling, terrifying waves of energy radiating outward from it.
"Blazing Touch!" A pinch of red powder scattered into the air, and two narrow beams of energy shot from Lei Lin's hands in an instant, carrying the tremendous destructive power of a second-tier spell. The gray fog giant was instantly burned through, two gaping holes torn through its massive form.
BOOM! ! A vast cloud of gray fog dispersed, and the Wizards who had been maintaining their connection to the giant collapsed to the ground one after another.
Lei Lin's figure flickered, and he appeared before Gus in the blink of an eye.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
As he moved, over a dozen snow-white frost arrows shot outward with savage force.
Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!
Beneath the frost arrows, the innate defensive barriers of the first-tier Wizards were torn through as easily as paper, and moments later, the heads of numerous Wizards burst apart like watermelons.
"You…"
Even Gus, who was in the middle of casting a spell, couldn't help but feel his eyes nearly splitting from the horror of it all.
So many first-tier Wizards — that had been the greater part of the Misty Forest's strength! And now they had been wiped out in an instant! Decades of painstaking effort, lost in a flash — seventy to eighty percent of it, gone in the blink of an eye!
But he had no more time to think about such things, because
"Guardian of the Andes!!" Gus screamed desperately. A swarm of black ants crawled out from his face, clothes, and boots, assembling into a bizarre black shield.
"Useless!" Leylin's expression was indifferent as he extended his right hand.
A layer of black luminescence instantly covered his palm. Fine black scales surfaced across its entirety. "Scales of the Komodo Snake! Partial Snake Transformation!"
Boom!
Leylin's palm, carrying tremendous force, pierced straight through the shield. The ants on its surface gnawed voraciously at the scales, producing sounds that set one's teeth on edge. Yet they could never break through.
"So a scroll preserving a second-tier Wizard spell was your final trump card? Truly disappointing!"
Silver light blazed within Leylin's eyes as his right hand seized directly onto Gus's wrist.
Crack! The scroll, which had already been more than half activated, instantly lost all its radiance, revealing its true form—something resembling a tattered piece of sheepskin parchment—and fell to the ground.
"Any last words?"
Leylin sealed Gus's Spiritual Power and asked mildly.
"You will be sanctioned by the Joint Council, I swear it!" Gus's eyes turned red.
Crack! Then his head exploded, sending white brain matter and blood splattering in every direction.
"Is that all? How boring!"
Leylin retracted his right hand.
Immediately after, he walked over to the eagle-nosed old man and placed his right hand atop the old man's head, where the faintest trace of breath still lingered.
"Submit or die?"
The old man, who had lost a vast amount of blood and was on the verge of death, struggled to speak at this moment: "I... I am willing to submit to you, my lord!"
"Then swear a contract and surrender a sliver of your soul essence! Otherwise, your fate will be the same as theirs!"
Leylin's tone was perfectly calm, but the corpses littering the ground left the old man not daring to disobey in the slightest.
"I! Yilun, am willing to submit at your feet! To become your most humble servant! Henceforth, your will shall be my lifelong mission!"
The old man, though his vision was blurred, struggled to speak these words.
A faint fluctuation rippled between the two of them.
"Very good!" Leylin withdrew the silver Spiritual Power that had been restraining the old man.
"My lord!" Yilun knelt and bowed, the wounds on his body having already stopped bleeding and now beginning to heal on their own.
Earlier, Leylin's Spiritual Power had restrained him, stripping away his ability to self-heal. But once freedom was restored, Wizards had far too many methods to mend themselves.
"Please accept your servant's loyalty!" Though he had regained his freedom, the old Yilun did not dare resist in the slightest — he had been thoroughly terrified by Leylin.
And at the sound of Yilun's words, a wisp of luminous soul essence drifted out from his forehead and floated into Leylin's hand.
After losing this wisp of essence, Yilun's face turned deathly pale, and beads of sweat rolled down his cheeks like beans.
Leylin, meanwhile, carefully stored the soul essence away.
A Wizard's soul essence was extremely important to them. If Leylin were to destroy the essence in his hand, Yilun would immediately suffer grievous harm — or even die on the spot. The best outcome would be complete mental madness!
In other words, having grasped the soul essence, Leylin now held Yilun's very life in his hands.
"Good! It's all settled!" Leylin clapped his hands together.
This utterly crushing display and the jaw-dropping reversal had nearly short-circuited Xiling's mind.
"My lord! You..." Xiling didn't even know what to say anymore.
"Have you... already advanced to the second rank?" she asked carefully after hesitating for a long while.
"Mm!" Leylin beamed with genuine delight. "This injury actually allowed me to unexpectedly break through the shackles of my Meditation Method and advance to the second rank..."
This was actually a lie, but Xiling didn't dare press the matter.
A second-rank Wizard! That was already the pinnacle of a major academy's strength! With such an overwhelming gap in power, no matter what Leylin said, Xiling had no choice but to accept it.
"Also, wake up a few apprentices and come with me!"
Leylin pointed at the apprentices on the ground, among whom were Obo and Ilya.
"Hmm? What for?" Xiling's face was filled with confusion.
"To give them a hearty return, of course!"
A cold smile appeared on Leylin's face. "They've been so enthusiastic as to come knocking. How could we not offer a proper reply?"
"But... the Council..."
Xiling started to speak, but immediately swallowed her words. At a time like this, she had no choice but to comply.