"No! No matter what, I must get 'that' back!"
The old man pulled out a pale yellow notebook and opened it. Immediately, numerous maps and small black dots materialized on its surface.
"Find him! Tear him apart! Bring everything back!"
With the old man's roar, wisps of crystalline light flashed within the crystal chamber. Several semi-transparent puppets abruptly opened their blood-red eyes.
As if they understood the old man's words, they quickly tore through the void and vanished without a trace.
……
"What's going on? I suddenly have a very bad feeling!"
Leilin furrowed his brow. In truth, ever since he had just emerged from the Path of Perplexity, he had been plagued by a deeply uncomfortable sensation—as if someone were watching him from the shadows. But both his spiritual power and the Chip's scans had turned up nothing.
And now, that uncomfortable feeling had suddenly intensified, turning into outright unease.
"This malice suffusing the air around me?" Leilin closed his eyes and quickly opened them again. By now, his pupils had transformed into a pair of amber-colored vertical slits, with a thin blood-red line flickering through them.
"BOOM!!!"
As if the sky were collapsing and the earth splitting apart, countless magical runes flashed, and multicolored light surged skyward, coalescing into a massive ice cage that trapped Leilin within.
"What? I definitely didn't trigger any trap... Unless..."
Leilin narrowed his eyes slightly. Under these circumstances, he actually became more clear-headed.
"Ha ha... With control over the entire Core Chamber, I am invincible within the Crimson Arc Moon!"
In the Core Control Room, the old wizard's face was lit with gleam. In his hands, he tightly clutched a red gemstone, its tip connected to a mass of thin crystal filaments.
Complex strings of commands were continuously transmitted through the gemstone in his hands.
Crack! Crack! Within the trap, countless crystalline hexagonal snowflakes abruptly condensed into a mass of ice swords and blades—along with shields, axes, and the like—that crashed down upon Leilin's head.
"Komoin's Scales!" "Blood Flame!"
With a single thought from Leilin, his body was immediately enveloped in a layer of fine black snake scales. Blood-red flames blazed overhead, directly vaporizing the mass of ice.
Sizzle! As if provoked, the countless ice formations suddenly solidified further. A streak of blue ran through their center, more crystalline than before, brimming with bone-piercing cold.
The blue-covered ice endured the blood flame's assault, unleashing vast quantities of freezing energy. It actually broke through the blood flame's barrier and shot toward Leilin, who frowned and smashed it to pieces with his fist.
The razor-sharp ice blades sliced across his body, producing only thin trails of sparks without even breaking through his outermost energy barrier.
"Absolute Zero!" Leilin's pupils contracted, the earlier look of ease vanishing from his face entirely.
"As expected of ruins laid out by ancient wizards. This kind of array that integrates all the magical runes of an entire region—an ordinary Morning Star wizard would find it nearly impossible to withstand... But it seems it hasn't been activated at full power. If that's the case..."
On the surface, Leilin was locked in a stalemate with the massive ice magical array. But inwardly, he was rapidly calculating something.
Whoosh! At that moment, the void suddenly twisted, and several streaks of white light appeared to breach the boundaries of space, arriving directly in front of Leilin.
The hilt of a sharp broken sword was already at the edge of Leilin's chest.
"So fast!" This speed left Leilin barely able to react. All he could do was push his Komoin's Scales defense to the absolute limit.
Unlike other forms of magic, a wizard's innate spell was triggered entirely by thought, making it inconceivably fast. It was the shared lifesaving trump card of all wizards.
Crack!
A broken sword that appeared to be forged from pure crystal painstakingly pierced through the energy membrane and runic defenses outside the black scales, making direct contact with the scales themselves.
Pop! As if something had been punctured, Leilin's brow furrowed. Behind him, a massive phantom of a six-armed alien being suddenly materialized, dark green energy covering his entire body.
"Hah!" The muscles on his right arm bulged as he hammered his fist into the opponent, sending the semi-transparent figure hurtling backward.
Only after the figure had retreated some distance did Leilin look down at his own chest with a grim expression.
There, a bright white arc was clearly etched into his Komoin scales, leaving a deep groove. Several small scales had already been sheared away.
"Puppets?!" Once Leilin got a clear look at the figures that had ambushed him, he exclaimed in surprise.
Before him stood several semi-transparent figures, clad in tight-fitting white magical robes. Their hands were equipped with an array of mechanical tools, including the crystal broken sword from before.
"Puppets capable of breaking through my Komoin's Scales defense... At this level... Only ancient wizards could have crafted them..."
Leilin looked at the blood-eyed puppets before him, further confirming his suspicion.
"There must be someone controlling these things!"
"So this is what a Morning Star can do? He actually survived even the 'Void Assassins'!" In the Core Control Room, the old man's face was filled with solemnity, then he gritted his teeth hard.
"Forget it! I have the magical array's control core and the puppets in hand. Even if it costs extra energy, I will bring him down!"
At his command, the hand sections of the Void Assassins surrounding Leilin shifted and transformed. Short swords, daggers, and even weapons resembling chain saws materialized. All of these weapons were semi-transparent, seemingly crafted from crystal, with numerous golden runes constantly flickering across their surfaces.
The void twisted again, and the Void Assassins melted back into space, like venomous snakes concealed in the shadows, ready to deliver a lethal strike at any moment!
With these menacing enemies lurking nearby and the pressure of the entire ice magical array bearing down from above, an ordinary Morning Star wizard would surely have been gravely wounded.
"Too bad! You've run into me!" A cold smile played at the corner of Leilin's lips. When it came to void concealment and such, what could surpass a Komoin serpent whose very nature was shadow? He himself had often used shadow-dwelling spells to hide in the void and launch attacks, so he knew the fluctuations and weaknesses of such magic inside and out.
And while the ancient magical array was troublesome, it was clear the opponent couldn't fully control it—and that gave him his opening.
"Still..."
Leilin smirked, a sharp glint flashing in his eyes.
Whoosh! A semi-transparent figure shot out of the void, the dagger in its hand stabbing viciously toward Leilin's eye.
Leilin's expression didn't change. His wrist shot forward and retracted in a flash. When it stilled again, one of the puppet's arms was already in his grasp.
Rumble! A massive blue iceberg, its base engulfed in roaring flames, crashed down directly. At the same instant, sharp killing intents shot out from three other directions!
"Good! Soon, that thing will belong to me entirely..."
In the control room, the old man looked at Leilin—his face pale, wounds even appearing on his body—and couldn't help but break into a satisfied grin.
"Ha ha... So what if he's a Morning Star? Inside these ruins, I am the sole king!"
The old man spread his arms in triumph, but his voice cut off abruptly, as if someone had seized him by the throat.
In its place came a furious roar: "How did he get out?!"
On the control room's projection, Leilin's situation had already deteriorated to the absolute extreme—drenched in blood, as if he might fall at any moment. But whenever a killing blow was about to land, various forms of coordination or the Void Assassins' teamwork would develop small problems, allowing Leilin to "luckily" dodge them. At least, that was how the old man saw it.
But during that final, most desperate moment, the lucky wizard had actually discovered a flaw in the magical array and torn his way straight through space to escape.
Bang! The old man roared in fury, slamming his fist onto the control room's console.
"If I knew all the control incantations and had the highest authority, never mind a Morning Star—even a Radiant Moon wizard wouldn't escape from here!"
After his fury subsided, all that remained on the old man's face was helplessness.
Although he had the map, had reached the control room, and had followed his ancestor's notes to safely obtain partial authorization, his ancestor hadn't held a particularly high position back then, so naturally there was no method for gaining complete control over this place.
With the authorization level he currently possessed, deploying a magical array of that magnitude was his absolute limit—he couldn't push it any further.
As for the Void Assassins, he owed their obedience to the fact that their creator had been his ancestor, who had left behind a hidden backdoor for controlling them.
"Damn it! Damn it! Damn it all!" The old man's face was filled with unwilling resentment. "Even though the Void Assassins alone make this trip worthwhile, I still haven't gotten the most important thing. And what's more, this place will certainly be monopolized by major powers afterward, and there won't be any share left for me..."
He subconsciously glanced at the other black dots. They were already approaching the critical zones. In particular, the black dot representing the Morning Star was virtually unstoppable, charging forward in a straight line and sweeping through several minor resource nodes already—each one making the old wizard wince inwardly.
This longing, coupled with his fierce unwillingness, drove the wizard to make a decision: "One more try—whether I succeed or not, I have to leave after this!"
He turned to another screen and pressed his finger hard against the gemstone!
Boom! A massive blaze erupted, forming a towering fire giant that blocked Leilin's path.
"Ice followed by fire, is it? But the intensity is the same as before..." Leilin shook his head, his confidence in his own assessment growing.
"Seize him! Seize him!"
The old wizard clutched the gemstone with both hands, his eyes brimming with excitement and desire.
But at that moment, Leilin on the screen suddenly looked up and smiled directly at the display—sending a chill down the wizard's spine that made every hair on his body stand on end.