Inside Gale Canyon.
Due to the Mother of the Earth Core and Enoxith's unexpected ambush, the entire wizard camp had descended into chaos.
The army of gods at the far end of the canyon seized the opportunity to launch an assault. Golden light blazed ceaselessly as a multitude of holy spirits resembling angels chanted sacred hymns praising the gods. Beams of purification light rained down from above, and wizard fortress after fortress fell one after another.
"Hiss hiss…"
At that very moment, the void shattered, and the phantom of a Nightmare Hydra whose colossal body blotted out the sky materialized before them.
"It's the Lord of Original Sin!" The wizards erupted in cheers, while on the other side, terror appeared in the eyes of the numerous petitioners and holy spirits.
After all, this being that had once devoured the sun was still burned into their memories. That overwhelming dread had been firmly planted deep within their hearts, and now it was suddenly taking root and sprouting forth.
"Original Sin!"
The Nightmare Hydra let out a deafening roar.
Dense black smoke immediately spread across the entire battlefield.
"Hiss hiss…" Amidst the black fog, the expressions of the holy spirits, petitioners, and even the divine realm creatures slowly twisted grotesquely. The faint stirrings of Original Sin within their hearts were amplified millions of times over, turning their eyes blood red.
"Awooo…"
Amid the roars and shrieks, a holy spirit suddenly split open down the middle, revealing another creature entirely wreathed in black, cloaked in hellish flames and bearing savage, beast-like claws.
"Servants of Original Sin! Attack!"
A vast portion of the original divine army was converted in an instant. The densely packed legions turned upon their former allies, respectfully declaring Leilin as their new master.
Under the Nightmare Hydra's command, the newly forged army of Original Sin's servants began charging in the direction their enemies had come from.
Screams and wails rang out without end. The emotions, amplified to their absolute peak, drew ecstatic cheers from all nine heads of the Nightmare Hydra.
"Lord of Original Sin, Leilin! Lord of Original Sin, Leilin!! Lord of Original Sin, Leilin!!!"
The wizards cheered in droves, their voices rising wave upon ever-higher wave.
The Nightmare Hydra was far from finished. Its slit pupils, glinting with a razor-sharp light, fixed upon another stretch of void.
Crack!
Atop the central devouring serpent head, a dark crimson nightmare vertical eye materialized. The void shattered, revealing the panicked figures of several gods.
"Stay right there!"
A flash of silver sharpness, keen as a blade, shot forth from the serpent's maw and pierced straight through the brow of one of the gods.
Thud! The god's eyes were frozen in shock and disbelief as the entire divine body toppled to the ground.
The edge of the
"
"Lathander? That Morninglord? After the sun's destruction, he actually fell to the rank of lesser divine power. What a useless waste..."
Slaying a once-powerful deity brought Leilin no great pleasure. His gaze swept sideways, and another seventh-level
"Where is the Mother of the Earth's Core being besieged?"
Facing the colossal true body of the Nightmare Hydra, even a Rule Wizard seemed saturated with terror, his words stumbling out in a stammer.
"Vi-Vortex Zone Number Three! Th-this is the map, m-my lord!"
This Rule Wizard was an old man wearing a tall pointed hat, and even his beard was trembling ceaselessly. He seemed terrified that the nine-headed hydra before him would swallow him whole in a single bite.
After all, he was merely a seventh-level Wizard, while the existence standing before him had just dispatched a lesser god without the slightest effort.
"You've done well. Leave the rest to you!"
Black smoke enveloped the map, and the Nightmare Hydra's figure vanished from before the old Wizard in an instant, plunging into the roaring Gale Canyon.
Yet the wind blades—ordinarily powerful enough to force even Rule-level existences into retreat—struck the Nightmare Hydra's scales without so much as producing a single spark.
"As expected of Leilin Farell. The most outstanding Wizard in the entire Astral Plane, a peak eighth-level existence..."
The old Wizard murmured to himself, and a sudden wave of despair spread through the depths of his heart.
……
"Cyclonic Vortex!"
After entering the canyon, the pressure grew more and more terrifying. Leilin's main body couldn't help but murmur a sigh.
Inside the Gale Canyon, cyan tornado storms were everywhere, fierce enough to swallow any existence below Rule level. A bizarre and vast region that seemed to contain numerous small planes woven throughout, like an enormous labyrinth. Even Rule-level beings could lose their way here.
Of course, Leilin had the painstakingly compiled map put together by the Wizards, so he had no need to worry about any of that. He pressed onward without hesitation, deeper and deeper.
With his current strength, there were precious few dangerous places in the world that could hold him. The Nightmare Hydra simply bulldozed straight through, crushing several small planes to fragments, carving a straight and safe path through the void behind him.
"We're here—the Number Three Vortex Zone!"
After leaping into a massive green whirlpool, a sensation of weightlessness abruptly enveloped Leilin.
It was a calm core of void at the center, ringed by terrifying storms. Thick barriers blocked all intrusion, like the eye of a colossal wind.
"It's the Earth Mother! And Enosit!"
At a single glance, Leilin spotted the two enormous figures sealed away within crystal.
Both the Earth Mother and Enosit were now encased deep inside thick World Crystals, and standing before them were several gods whose auras were terrifyingly powerful.
"Goddess
The Nightmare Hydra roared. From its nine serpent heads erupted devastating waves of destructive force. As the other gods fell back in alarm, the titanic figure rapidly compressed and condensed—transforming into Leilin's ordinary human form, the Seven Deadly Sins in hand.
"Break!"
The primal weapon, the Seven Deadly Sins—already elevated to the rank of divine artifact—screamed through the air, its razor-sharp edge slamming into the seal formed by the World Crystal.
Crack! Crack!
A web of cracks spread across the seal's surface like a spider's web, then the whole thing exploded apart.
The Earth Mother's true form—shaped like a planetary core—burst free from the crystal alongside Enosit.
"Well done, Leilin!"
The Earth Mother looked at Leilin with relief, but suddenly, her slit pupils began to fluctuate violently. "No!!!"
The very instant the Earth Mother and Enosit were freed, a layer of terrifying darkness descended over Enosit's face.
A power of distortion coalesced directly in his palm, and a spike weapon of extreme sharpness materialized, carrying the full force of an eighth-rank Wizard's laws—and plunged into Leilin's stunned chest.
"Ixel's Thorn!!!"
The Earth Mother howled, unleashing a torrent of immense earthen force that blasted Enosit away. She stared at him, her slit pupils filled with disbelief.
"Why? Enosit, why would you do this?"
"Heh heh heh… You're asking why I would do this?"
Enosit threw his head back in wild laughter, then tore the black cloak from his body, revealing the essence of the Ring of
But at this moment, those distortions had grown even more terrifying—so much so that his aura and the fluctuations of his true soul had begun to transform into those of an entirely different existence.
"Shadow of Distortion! It's you!!!"
The phantom of the Nightmare Hydra howled behind Leinl, several of its heads already withering. Leilin's hands blazed with the power of Original Sin as he ripped Ixel's Thorn from his chest, his gaze locked onto the Shadow of Distortion. "Was Enosit your clone, or did you devour him with your power of distortion?"
Leilin's words exposed a shocking secret: the seventh-rank mage Enosit, who had always existed in the Wizard World, had in fact been the Shadow of Distortion's clone all along—or had been secretly controlled by it!
"Does it matter?"
An endless mass of twisted shadow emerged—the Shadow of Distortion's true body descending. The black ring fused with it in an instant, revealing their identical nature.
"All I know is that today, all of you will perish here…"
Having absorbed Enosit, the Shadow of Distortion's aura had grown far more unfathomable, radiating the flavor of one standing at the absolute peak of the eighth rank, on the very cusp of its limit.
Previously, the Shadow of Distortion had merely been a fragmented will. Even after devouring
But now, its imposing presence had already surpassed the Earth Mother's, pressing close to the state Leilin had once held at his peak.
"Earth Mother, and Lord of Original Sin! The two supreme powers of the Wizard World… I see the omen star of your deaths rising!"
Tempus, Tyr, and under the lead of Chauntea, the Earth Mother goddess, they completely encircled Leilin and the Earth Mother.
Boom!
Amid the radiant green light, the will of the God of Nature descended in full. Silvanus arrived like the sovereign of all gods, bearing the power of the Four Elemental Planes.
Earth, Fire, Wind, Water! The Four Elemental Primordial
The terrifying Four-Element Seal formed once again — barriers and seals far more powerful than before, snipping off every last shred of hope for Leilin and the Earth Mother to escape.
"Gods!"
The Earth Mother stared at the Twisted Shadow, disbelief still etched across her face.
"This was supposed to be nothing more than a grudge between Wizards — yet you've defected to the gods' side?"
If the enmity between Leilin and the Twisted Shadow had once been an internal affair, then by switching allegiance to the divine, it had become a true, irreconcilable battle between enemy and ally — from this day forward, a war with the Wizards that would only end in death.
"My vision and greatness are far beyond what any of you could dare to fathom…"
The Twisted Shadow laughed maniacally. "Soon I shall become the God of Chaos of the gods' world, while retaining my identity as a Wizard. Only I am worthy of reaching the end of the Final Battle — and claiming eternity!!!"
The distortions swirling around the Twisted Shadow's body grew wild and frenzied, reflecting the intense agitation within.