"You already knew about our plan?"
Looking at her side completely surrounded, Miya's face was exceedingly grim.
The combat prowess of advanced warlocks was beyond question, especially those like Leilin and Yulian, who could nearly rival ordinary crystallized wizards.
The Blood Snake Warlock Corps was no pushover either—they were the elite force of the Frey clan, and now they had been deployed in full, led by Frey herself, who had already reached the crystallized stage!
Because of the amplification from their bloodline power, warlocks were inherently a notch above ordinary wizards. Once their opponents advanced to crystallization, they could immediately match the peak of the crystallization stage—like themselves.
It would have been strange if Miya's face *wasn't* grim.
"You've been causing trouble near our Ouroboros Ring's territory all along! How could we possibly let you rats escape!"
Frey wore a fitted hunter's outfit, and now her entire bearing radiated a vigorous, heroic air—if one ignored her baby-faced, voluptuous figure.
"The theft at the Ogu River warehouse, the extermination of the Nonolifa clan, Baron Octa's disappearance—who's behind it all?"
Frey fixed her gaze on those three wizards, and a wave of extremely dangerous feeling surged from her.
To subdue and command these three vicious, highly dangerous crystallized wizards was something no ordinary force could accomplish. Combined with the string of recent events, Frey had a very ominous premonition.
"Just your Ouroboros Ring?"
All three wizards—Miya and the others—wore expressions of contempt.
"Not good! Watch out for them—" Seeing those smiles, Leilin's pupils contracted sharply, and he couldn't help but shout a warning.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Three more streaks of black light, like lightning, tore through the ranks of the Blood Snake Warlock Corps, shattered through every layer of resistance, and arrived before Miya and the other three wizards.
"Three more... crystallized!"
Frey clenched her teeth, her voice tinged with bitterness.
She had never imagined that the enemy would have reinforcements as well—they were clearly prepared for her plan too. With her current strength, taking down the enemy's three crystallized wizards was already the absolute limit. If three more showed up?
Frey felt her heart sinking bit by bit.
"Well? If you don't want your clan's elite forces to die here, let us leave!"
Smugness laced Miya's voice.
"That's not enough! We need to keep *him*!" The three newly arrived crystallized wizards pointed at Leilin.
"Oh? Why's that?" Leilin rubbed his nose.
"The losses you've caused us are far too great—only the Monster Hunter lord's bounty can compensate!" Hill glanced at Leilin, then turned his gaze to Frey.
"He's not your clan's warlock, so I'm sure Lady Frey wouldn't declare war on us over a mere fellow member of the same organization?"
Leilin secretly rolled his eyes. The most basic attempt at sowing discord like this would be miraculous if it worked, but the moment anything involved interests, things became troublesome.
Fortunately, Leilin had never planned to entrust his safety to anyone else, and he had long been prepared.
"The Monster Hunter?" Frey murmured. She had heard rumors that Leilin and his companions had offended this Morning Star wizard. In that case, if all these crystallized wizards were wanted fugitives taken in by the other side, it made sense.
More than a few warlocks reached the same conclusion. After hearing those words, many of the warlocks began looking at Leilin with changed expressions.
Even the camaraderie within the same organization, and their previous dealings, could not make them unhesitatingly offend a Morning Star wizard on Leilin's behalf!
On the Central Continent, Morning Star wizards were the supreme sovereigns! Their dignity was inviolable!
Even though the two organizations were in a state of hostility, they had not yet completely torn off the mask of civility. Therefore, in many warlock members' eyes, sacrificing Leilin and a few others to win the goodwill of Monster Hunter Ganlier was still very much worth it.
Several warlocks immediately distanced themselves from Leilin, including even Yulian, who had been fighting side by side with him until now.
Frey's expression shifted repeatedly as she looked at the many clan warlocks. She gritted her teeth.
"Leilin is a marquis of our organization. He will absolutely not be handed over!"
"Clan Head!" "My lady!"
The assembled warlocks clamored loudly. In their view, the clan should not go this far for an outsider.
"My mind is made up! Get out of my territory immediately, or you will regret it!"
Frey said through gritted teeth.
"*You'll* be the one regretting it!" Miya pouted angrily. She and the five figures behind her turned to leave.
"Wait!" Just as the Blood Snake Warlock Corps parted to let them through, an ill-timed voice suddenly cut in, making both sides look toward its source.
"Leilin! Don't do anything foolish!" Frey's voice grew urgent.
Even among the blood-kin brothers of the Ouroboros Ring, there were many factions and rivalries. She had already gone to the limit for Leilin. If he rashly went out to provoke the enemy again, Frey feared she wouldn't risk her clan's destruction to follow him.
Frey watched Leilin's figure, biting her lip.
"What's this, boy? You got lucky today, hiding behind a woman's skirts. You won't be so lucky next time!"
Miya held up her massive iron hammer and issued her threat.
"Three lying in ambush, plus three more on standby—that should be the full extent of your forces!"
A blue glow flickered in Leilin's eyes. He let out a sigh. "Don't use the Monster Hunter as a scarecrow. He doesn't deserve it."
"Hm?!" "What did you say?"
A flash of startled fury appeared on several of the crystallized wizards' faces.
"I'm saying! Today, you all must stay here. Even bringing out a Morning Star wizard won't stop me!"
Leilin's voice was soft, but as if to underscore his words, a terrifying pressure—vast as a mountain range—erupted from his body without restraint.
"Cryst... crystallized! How long has it been?!" Frey clapped a hand over her lips, her shock reaching an indescribable peak.
The Komoin Giant Serpent warlocks usually had to rely on the accumulation of time, aided by their bloodline power, to break through. The fact that she herself had advanced to crystallization already made her a genius.
And Leilin? He was barely two hundred years old, wasn't he? He had already broken through the crystallization bottleneck?
Then Frey immediately grasped the tactical impact of the strength Leilin had just revealed.
The enemy had a total of six crystallized wizards. On Frey's side, she counted as one, Leilin as one, and Yulian—assisted by the Blood Snake Warlock Corps—could at most hold off three more under a fierce assault. Overall strength was still inferior to the enemy.
Of course, this meant the enemy's confidence in inflicting heavy losses and forcing Frey to back down had diminished considerably.
When both sides were roughly equal, and both feared mutual destruction, ordinary threats lost their effectiveness.
"Leave those three crystallized ones to me! You can handle the rest, right?"
By now, Leilin had fully dropped his Mimicry Spell disguise. His powerful field radiated outward without any restraint. He pointed at Miya and the other two who had appeared first.
"No problem!" With Frey's own crystallized strength, plus the Blood Snake Warlock Corps and Yulian's support, wiping out the enemy's three remaining wizards was merely a matter of time.
"But... can you really handle it?" Frey shot Leilin a glance, one that couldn't conceal her worry—the enemy was also a crystallized warlock, after all.
"Haha... don't worry..."
Leilin laughed heartily. Swarms of black flames shot out like arrows, trapping Miya, Hill, and Fein within.
He intended to single-handedly take on three warlocks of the same rank simultaneously.
"Ask for death, and I'll oblige! My Bloodthirsty Hammer has been lacking the wailing soul of a crystallized wizard!"
Miya sneered, charging forward with her iron hammer raised.
*BOOM!* The massive hammer, trailing terrifying waves of energy, blasted a huge crater into the ground.
"All brawn and no brain! I've been讨厌这种 creatures lately!"
Leilin's figure blurred, seemingly dissolving into a streak of light as he swiftly closed in on Miya.
"I may not be able to do anything to the others, but dealing with you is more than enough!"
Leilin's eyes were filled with cold detachment. A point of black light slowly materialized in his hand.
"Finger of
A beam of black death energy pierced through the double defenses of the hammer and Miya's innate warlock art. Like black lightning, it burst through Miya's forehead, pierced out through the back of her skull, and trailed a spray of blood and brain matter.
*Thud!* It wasn't until Miya's corpse hit the ground that Hill and Fein reacted.
What had they just witnessed? A warlock who had advanced to crystallization years ago and had even reached the peak of the Third Tier—a warlock with a fearsome reputation known as the Iron Forger, Miya—killed just like that? And the exchange had lasted barely a few seconds.
"Could it be... he's already advanced to Morning Star?"
Suddenly, a thought so staggering it left them both frozen shot through their minds, turning their limbs to ice on the spot.
Leilin himself hadn't expected his ambush to work so well.
He had already reached the Third Tier crystallized stage. His bloodline power was exceedingly dense, and with the assistance of the Snake Woman's finger bone, it had been cultivated to its current limit.
Now, not only was his spiritual power terrifying, but all his other statistics far surpassed those of ordinary crystallized wizards by a wide margin.
His comprehensive combat strength was monstrous, and on top of that, he had the high-powered warlock art custom-tailored for him by the Chip—the Finger of Death!
All these factors combined—perhaps再加上 Miya's underestimation of him—had produced such a tremendous result that even Leilin himself marveled at his own absurd luck.
"With my current strength, below the Morning Star realm, there should be very few who can rival me!"
Leilin looked at the arena that had gone silent in an instant because of him, and quietly exhaled.
"What are you waiting for?"
Frey only froze for a moment before immediately ordering the Blood Snake Warlock Corps to close in. Leilin's terrifying eruption had given her the hope of wiping out the enemy entirely here!
Recalling the humiliation she had just endured, the adventurer's blood running through this female warlock's veins was now fully ignited.