Roya reached for the knife and fork several times, only to set them down midway, a look of agonized pain spreading across his face.
He collapsed onto the table, teeth clenched tight.
The ringing was extremely brief, ending in barely thirty seconds.
Crack!
It was as though an invisible maw had clamped down out of thin air. Roya let out a muffled scream.
A large chunk of flesh near his right ear was gone—his entire ear along with it. From the side of his face, white teeth gleamed through the wound. It was ghastly.
A flash of white light flickered through the void, and before one of the shadowy figures, a bloody ear materialized—the flesh still twitching involuntarily.
"Ugh..."
After several rounds, Robin and Roya did indeed look like corpses, but the bear barbarian shaman across from them finally broke, collapsing onto the table.
Hum!
As if triggered by some signal, the bear barbarian shaman was immediately transferred to the vacant thirteenth chair. The shadowy figures pounced upon him.
"Ahhh..." The bear barbarian shaman screamed without cease. Piece by piece, fur vanished from his body, then muscle, blood vessels—not even the bones were spared.
"Uuuuh..."
This bear barbarian shaman—a being who had reached the crystallization stage—had not even the slightest power to resist before vanishing into the gaping maws of the shadowy figures.
From the look in his eyes, in the very last moment before life left him, his consciousness had been utterly clear.
After devouring the bear barbarian shaman, the shadowy figures dissipated one by one into the air. Roya could feel that the powerful restraining force had finally vanished.
"It's finally over..." Roya sighed, then collapsed to the ground and began retching—practically vomiting up bile.
"I swear, I'm not eating anything for at least three months..."
Roya grimaced, but the injuries on his body were already healing at a remarkable speed.
Robin's gaze burned with intensity as he stared at a particular spot in the void. As far as Roya could sense, some ineffable presence had already descended upon this place.
"What reward do you want?"
A voice, nameless and strange, echoed within their minds.
"I want..." Robin's voice was low, trembling with barely restrained excitement...
At that same moment, Leilin and Tanesha were walking out of the ecology garden and onto the Illusory Causeway Corridor from before.
"Master! According to our research, we only need to pass through three more spatial nodes and we'll be out!" Tanesha's condition looked considerably improved. Even the arm she had previously lost had regenerated with the help of potions.
"Good." Leilin nodded.
"Once we're out, stay in the Land of Oblivion for the time being. Find an opportunity to slip out and meet up with me! Are you under any restrictions from the organization?"
"None! I'm one of the leaders of the Exile Alliance—I haven't signed any soul contracts or anything of the sort."
Tanesha answered quickly. With her strength as a crystallization-stage wizard, this was indeed the case.
"Good..." Leilin nodded. Just as he was about to say something more, his expression suddenly shifted, and he shot Tanesha a meaningful glance.
Tanesha nodded, ripples of water emanating from her body as she vanished completely.
According to the Chip's detection, wizard fluctuations had been detected ahead. Tanesha was Leilin's hidden trump card—she could not appear before outsiders lightly.
Leilin smiled toward where Tanesha had concealed herself, then rounded a corner.
There, he saw a warlock in black robes lying on the ground, a pool of dark blood spreading ever wider. This warlock was very familiar to Leilin—one of Kasha's subordinates. His name was Akzi.
"Akzi! Wake up!"
Leilin turned Akzi over and immediately saw the crisscrossing wounds across his chest, dark blood gushing ceaselessly from each one.
"Curse energy!" Leilin's expression darkened. From those slender wounds, he could feel an immensely powerful curse force.
As a wizard, he had studied curses to some extent. The Book of the Great Serpent left behind by the Crimson Grand
But the deeper his research went, the more clearly he understood how insidious and troublesome this kind of force could be.
Especially those curses inherited from ancient times—those were things he was still unwilling to touch lightly.
But it seemed the Quicksand Fortress also harbored terrifying curse energy, and it had already found Kasha and her group.
"Today really is your lucky day!" Leilin looked at the still-unconscious Akzi, whose face was faintly marked with dark energy coalescing into rune-like brands, and smiled. He produced a test tube filled with green solution from his leather pouch.
Drop by drop, Leilin applied the green liquid onto Akzi's wounds.
Sizzle! The green liquid immediately underwent a bizarre transformation, condensing into tiny green worms that settled upon Akzi's skin—a sight both disgusting and terrifying.
Then, the multitude of green worms lunged at the dark energy around the wounds, devouring the black curse force like creatures feeding.
Gradually, the dark energy on Akzi's face dwindled, and he opened his eyes.
"Lord Leilin! Thank you for saving me!" Understanding his situation immediately, Akzi struggled to bow, but Leilin held him down.
"Senior Kasha and the others—are they in trouble?"
Leilin's voice was perfectly calm, tinged with wisdom.
"Y-yes! After we entered the Quicksand Fortress, we were attacked!" Akzi's lips were pale and cracked, a trace of lingering fear in his voice.
"It was a terrifying humanoid monster—both magic and physical attacks were useless against it. The wounds caused by the scissors in its hands couldn't heal, and it had terrifying phasing and regeneration abilities!"
"My lord! Please, save my mistress!" Akzi's face was filled with desperate pleading.
"Rest assured! We are blood brothers of the same organization, and Kasha is my senior. I won't leave her to die!" Leilin nodded.
"As for you..."
"I'm fine! I can leave on my own!" Akzi knew perfectly well that he was nothing but dead weight right now, and made the wisest decision possible.
"Good! We're already close to the exit. Just avoid the wizards outside, and then leave the secret realm immediately!"
Leilin nodded, watching Akzi limp away.
"Master, are you going to save them?" A ripple passed through the void, and Tanesha—who had been concealed the entire time—revealed herself.
"Yes." Leilin nodded.
Kasha had always treated him reasonably well, and their relationship was fairly close. He should save her.
Of course, the more important reason was that through his earlier scan of Akzi, Leilin now had a measure of preparation against this curse—at least enough to guarantee his own safety.
In that case, rescuing her while he was at it couldn't hurt.
"You don't need to get involved this time. Go on ahead!" Leilin issued the command to Tanesha.
He then handed her an enormous black box.
"Guard the contents of this box carefully. Do not open it—return it to me when we meet up later!"
"As you command, Master!" Tanesha bowed, accepted the box, and with a flash of light, it vanished.
Spatial storage items, while exceedingly rare on both the South Coast and the Dark Extreme Region, were not unheard of. As for the Central Continent, they went without saying.
Tanesha's strength had long since reached the third tier of crystallization. Finding herself a storage space naturally posed no problem.
Watching Tanesha's figure recede into the distance, Leilin chose the opposite direction and disappeared into the corridor.
...
"Haaah... haaah..."
Kasha's heaving chest rose and fell unevenly as she hid behind a massive bookshelf.
"How is it? Did the trap work?"
She asked the green-skinned barbarian wizard beside her. Both of them bore slender wounds, circles of black gas clinging to the injuries and refusing to disperse.
Both wizards had nearly exhausted their spiritual power, their conditions at their absolute worst.
"The Fog Lock Labyrinth can hold it for three minutes at most!" The green-skinned barbarian wizard's face was bitter.
"Damn it! That's nowhere near enough time for us to recover, let alone get through the Illusory Causeway Corridor!" Despair was etched on Kasha's face.
Being hunted by the man in black was bad enough, but after sustaining these particular wounds, the Illusory Causeway Corridor refused to teleport anyone carrying curse energy. After several failed attempts, she was on the verge of being trapped here to die.
By now, both wizards had been reduced to a state of utter depletion, with no strength left to fight back.
"To think that I'd end up dying here, with only you green-skinned runt for company!"
Kasha let out a mournful sigh.
"What did you say? Human woman?!" Called a runt, the green-skinned barbarian wizard immediately flew into a rage, pointing his staff at Kasha's nose. "If you hadn't barged in and slaughtered so many of our people, we never would have chased after you, and we never would have run into that thing!"
"You—" Kasha was about to retort when her expression suddenly changed. She and the green-skinned barbarian wizard darted in opposite directions.
Crack! A silver-white arc of light sliced through the air, cleaving the enormous bookshelf in two and revealing the man in the black trenchcoat, the scissors in his hand gleaming with a razor-sharp light.
"No! It broke through earlier than expected!" The green-skinned barbarian wizard's face turned an even deeper shade of green, his entire body trembling.
"Hell! I knew you green-skinned runts couldn't be trusted!" Kasha swore in desperation.
"Jsjfslkn..."
The man in the black trenchcoat let out an incomprehensible roar. His scissors clicked open and shut as his footsteps drew slowly closer.
Feeling her completely drained sea of consciousness, a bitter smile spread across Kasha's face.
But the trenchcoat man was clearly not the type to show mercy. He thrust his scissors directly toward Kasha's eyes.
"Blazing Fireball!"
A tremendous explosion erupted.
A multitude of shadows coalesced into a cage, enveloping the man in the black trenchcoat within.