Next came the most valuable haul of this entire venture.
Leilin stared at the items laid out before him, lost in thought.
Spread before him were several battered objects: a dagger broken in half, a damaged silver palm, and half a length of silver chain that still crackled with the occasional spark.
The three apprentices who had died at Leilin's hands were all wizard seedlings from the opposing academy. How could they not carry Magical Items?
Unfortunately, the half-dagger he had obtained from the blonde female apprentice seemed only capable of summoning an abyssal aura, and Leilin had yet to discover any other use for it.
As for Silver Claw Sorin, he was a complete pervert—he had fully fused his Magical Item into his own palm.
In the end, Leilin had been forced to hack the entire hand off, intending to attempt separating the Magical Item from it at a later time.
Then there was Torexas from earlier. His Magical Item had been destroyed in his self-detonation, which was the only reason he had been able to unleash an attack reaching as high as sixteen degrees.
Exploring Magical Items was an exceedingly dangerous endeavor. Without more information, Leilin did not dare to rashly use any of these items.
Moreover, these Magical Items might very well carry hidden traps left behind by their original owners. Leilin felt he needed to inspect them carefully.
If any problems were discovered, Leilin would have no choice but to discard these incomplete Magical Items inside the secret realm, no matter how reluctant he was.
After all, he had no desire to be targeted by an official
"In truth, there was one more Magical Item at the scene that could have been taken without any trouble at all—that green vine badge on Jiamen!"
Leilin had seen Jiamen use this Magical Item aboard the airship, when he had subdued
But this badge had been bestowed upon Jiamen by his mentor,
And Duolote was an official instructor at the Black Bone Forest Academy. As long as Leilin kept to the academy after seizing an enemy's Magical Item, he would likely be fine. But if he took Jiamen's, he would never be able to show his face at the Black Bone Forest Academy again.
Sabotaging a fellow student during the academy's darkest hour—if that reputation ever got out, Leilin would become a pariah in the wizard world.
He was not so foolish as to lose his reason over such a small gain.
"And there's this!"
Leilin flipped his hand, and two badges of different designs appeared in his palm.
These were the badges of Sorin and the blonde female apprentice. Though they were less valuable than the one from the Thunderbolt Thrower, they were still worth twenty to thirty contribution points each.
"I'll hold onto them for now. As long as I can find other badges later, I won't need to use these!"
These two badges were Leilin's insurance. If he could collect other badges during the Blood Battle and assemble fifty contribution points, he would not have to use them.
But if his contribution points fell short, Leilin would have no choice but to surrender one or both of them.
As for the earlier Torexas, Leilin figured that with his strength, the academy must have placed great importance on him. His mentor had undoubtedly invested tremendous effort in him, so it was best not to provoke that.
...
Two days passed in the blink of an eye.
The wasteland outside the secret realm stretched out in a vast expanse of bright yellow as far as the eye could see, with gusts of sand and wind sweeping across from time to time. The creatures on the ground gave this area a wide berth—even moles and ants were no exception.
The entrance to the secret realm was steadily contracting, pulsating like a living thing.
Outside the entrance, the deans and instructors from the three academies watched as various lights flickered across the shrinking portal, each wearing a different expression.
Slai glanced at the silver hourglass floating in midair. Golden grains of sand were still trickling down from the upper chamber, with only a thin layer remaining.
Drip!!! As time ran out, the last grain of golden sand fell.
"
"Anxious, are we?" Gulu cackled from the side. "Every extra minute means another Black Bone Forest apprentice dies inside the secret realm. Their heads will hang above our gates as trophies of the Gothic Sage's Cottage's glory..."
"By now, there might not be a single Black Bone Forest apprentice left in there. We both know that once the apprentices from two academies band together, the Black Bone Forest lot become nothing more than meat on the chopping block—lambs put up more of a fight..."
The blonde woman on the other side wore a smile, though it looked rather ghastly.
"Ligula, can you still not let it go?" A flicker of something finally crossed Slai's face—was it guilt?
"The past? I've long forgotten it!" The blonde woman, Ligula, kept her face blank, as though coated in a layer of frost.
"But whatever grudge you hold against me for what happened back then, I'll accept it. The moment you try to destroy the academy I inherited from my mentor, you become my eternal enemy!"
Slai's expression hardened in turn.
"Ha... ha... You're still as proud as ever, believing you're the protagonist of some novel, that the whole world must revolve around you!"
"But that look on your face just makes me want to vomit!" Flames seemed to blaze in the blonde woman's eyes.
"I'm going to destroy the life's work you've built. I'm going to destroy the Black Bone Forest Academy. Even if the Dark Night Lighthouse intervenes this time, there will be a next time..."
"Enough!" Gulu cut Ligula off.
"Aren't you the one who was stopping me and Slai from fighting earlier? What happened to your patience?"
"The only reason I stopped you was because I intend to do this myself!" The madness in Ligula's eyes grew more intense.
"All of you, enough!" Thick, dark black descended, instantly blotting out the sky.
Within the darkness, a point of bright yellow light opened up a void, and within it floated a figure shrouded entirely in black robes.
"My Lord!" The three deans bowed in unison.
They were merely second-rank Wizards, but the person before them was a genuine third-rank Wizard! The gap between each rank of Wizard was as vast as the distance between earth and sky.
It was this very person who had single-handedly suppressed all three of them, forcibly ending their war.
"Since the Dark Night Lighthouse has intervened and you have signed the covenant, any conflict within the valid period shall be considered a provocation against the Dark Night Lighthouse."
The black-robed figure had a pair of emerald-green eyes. Under that gaze, whether it was Slai or the other two deans, all of them felt a chill sweep through their bodies, as though surrounded by some terrible magical beast.
This sensation of imminent death finally snapped the blonde Ligula out of her frenzy.
"Now—activate the magical array and retrieve the apprentices from the secret realm!"
"As you command, my Lord!"
Boom!!!
A burst of flame erupted outward, incinerating the several apprentices chasing behind Leilin into charred husks.
Leilin did not break stride, sprinting away at full speed.
"That's him! He killed Site, Guoke, and Laoying—don't let him escape!"
Behind him, joint squads from the Gothic Sage's Cottage and White Forest Castle had formed into standard seven-member formations and were pressing the pursuit relentlessly.
The gap between the pursuers and Leilin was closing rapidly.
Boom!!! Leilin flung his hand back again, hurling two Explosive Potions. Flames surged behind him, spreading rapidly.
The apprentices shouted and screamed as Leilin opened up the distance once more.
"Damn it!" Leilin's expression was grim.
After killing those three enemy apprentices earlier, Leilin had resumed his solo hunting operation.
At first, everything had gone smoothly. He had collected yet another Third-rank Apprentice badge. This time, he had specifically targeted apprentices who were well advanced in age, lacked powerful items, showed no hope of advancing further, and had no backing to speak of.
But after most of the second day had passed, all of the enemy apprentices had completed their assembly, organizing themselves into coordinated magical arrays!
Arrays composed entirely of Third-rank or Second-rank Apprentices—with enough participants, even a First-rank official Wizard would be forced to temporarily retreat.
Leilin had no choice but to lie low and halt his hunting.
Relying on the Chip's detection capabilities, he managed to stay hidden until today.
And just as he had predicted, once the enemy apprentices finished consolidating, they launched a methodical, squad-based sweep of the secret realm—a full extermination campaign.
Many Black Bone Forest apprentices were dragged out and killed. Under the enemy's overwhelming suppression, they could not even mount resistance.
Leilin had even witnessed a Third-rank Apprentice carrying a Magical Item who managed to hold out only a few minutes longer under the enemy's magical array before being torn to shreds by an overwhelming barrage of Zero-level Spells. Even his Magical Item was claimed as a spoil of war.
As for this apprentice's fate, all Leilin could do was express his deepest sympathy—and conceal himself even more thoroughly.
Fortunately, wizards' methods were varied and unpredictable, and since the enemy consisted of two academies that could not achieve complete unity, it afforded the Black Bone Forest apprentices some slim chance of survival!
When Leilin estimated that time was running short, he still lacked one badge and had no choice but to take a desperate gamble—ambushing one of the enemy's small squads.
By his estimation, once he finished off the enemy, time should be up, and he would be transported straight out without having to face a siege.
"Blast it! Being late is going to get me killed!"
Leilin could never have guessed that the personal grudges between the deans had directly caused a delay in the extraction time, throwing his calculations off.
After killing one of the enemy's Third-rank Apprentices, he was immediately surrounded!
"The Falling Star Pendant ran out of energy after last time and hasn't been recharged—otherwise, I would have escaped long ago!"
Leilin gritted his teeth and issued a command: "Chip, scan the surrounding terrain and calculate the optimal retreat route!"
"Task established!"
Following the Chip's prompts, Leilin began executing a series of improbable dodging maneuvers through the dense undergrowth, gradually widening the gap between himself and the pursuing apprentices.
"Finally escaped!"
Leilin had just covered a dozen li when, having shaken off the pursuers behind him, a wave of dizziness suddenly washed over him. The badge on his chest began to flicker with a pale glow.
"Now you decide to activate?!"