Free Web NovelChapter 191: Chapter 189: Alchemy Magic Plants
Samael wasted no more words. He suddenly raised his hands, making a grasping motion in front of his chest.
"Grip of Death!"
The space around Ian instantly solidified. An immense, invisible force pressed in from all directions, as if trying to crush him.
Ian snorted. He pushed his Furnace Body Tempering Skill to its limits, and the Jade-like Radiance under his skin flared brightly.
With a low roar, he forcefully pushed his arms outward!
CRACK!
With a sound like shattering glass, the invisible, crushing force was brutally pried open.
Ian kicked off the ground, shooting sideways like a cannonball. At the same time, he swung his right hand backward.
A dark, fist-sized sphere, the light within it collapsing slightly, flew silently toward Samael.
The Gravity Collapse Ball!
The hairs on Samael’s arms stood on end. He had inspected the scene of Cold Crow’s death and knew one of Ian’s Witchcraft techniques was incredibly powerful. He didn’t dare to take it head-on.
His body twisted strangely, and he slid several meters away as if he had no bones.
The small black ball grazed the corner of his robe and hit a massive tree behind him, one that would take several people to encircle.
PFFT.
A perfectly round hole, two meters in diameter, silently appeared in the center of the massive tree’s trunk. Its edges were as smooth as a mirror. The upper half of the treetop came crashing down.
Samael’s gaze grew colder. ’He really does have some skill.’
His hands rapidly formed a Sealing Technique as he chanted an obscure Spell.
The ground trembled. Seven or eight pale, decaying, skeletal hands burst from the earth, grabbing for Ian’s feet.
At the same time, Samael opened his mouth and spat. A bolt of gray-black smoke shot toward Ian’s face like an arrow.
Wherever the smoke passed, the air made a SIZZLING, corrosive sound.
Ian didn’t break stride. He dispatched half of his Floating Crystal Guards, which shot toward the underground Bone Hands like flying shuttles.
BANG! BANG! BANG! The Bone Hands were smashed to pieces by the Crystal Guards.
Facing the smoky arrow, Ian neither dodged nor evaded. The Ring of Overlapping Peaks on his left wrist flashed, and a thick Light Shield materialized.
SIZZLE!
The smoky arrow struck the Light Shield and began to corrode it rapidly. The shield thinned at a visible rate.
But in the brief moment it was blocked, Ian had already completed his next move.
He brought his right index and middle fingers together. An extreme, frosty-white chill gathered at his fingertips, and he pointed at Samael from a distance.
A full-power Frost Ash Beam!
A beam of frosty-white light, condensed to its absolute limit, tore through the air. It carried a chill that could freeze the Soul and arrived in an instant!
Samael’s expression changed slightly. His gray robes billowed without any wind.
A layer of viscous, constantly churning gray-black Protective Spiritual Light rose around him.
The frosty-white beam hit the Spiritual Light, immediately followed by the rapid CRACKLE of freezing.
A layer of frost quickly spread across the surface of the gray-black Spiritual Light and began to eat its way inward.
"Hmph!" Samael grunted, clearly in discomfort.
But his combat experience was immense. Even as he was injured, he secretly flicked something with his left hand.
A nearly invisible gray glint shot out, hugging the ground as it streaked like lightning toward Ian’s Shadow.
Ian had been keeping part of his attention on guard, and his Spiritual Power’s Perception picked up the anomaly.
Without a second thought, he activated the effect of his Invisibility Technique!
Mimicry instantly made his body semi-transparent, its color and texture rapidly assimilating with the surrounding environment.
Not only was he hard to distinguish visually, but even his aura was almost perfectly concealed.
The gray glint lost its target. It passed through the spot where he had been standing and struck a Stone behind him, which rapidly weathered into a pile of Ashes.
Samael froze.
In that moment of distraction, Ian had already appeared like a phantom ten meters to his left!
He reappeared, raised his hand, and blasted another Gravity Collapse Ball at close range!
Alarms blared in Samael’s mind. At this life-or-death moment, he bit his tongue and spat out a mouthful of Essence Blood.
The Essence Blood transformed into a small, dark-red shield inscribed with twisted Runes, which blocked his path.
BOOM!
The Collapse Ball collided with the small shield.
The dark-red shield let out a strained whine. The Runes on its surface flickered wildly before it exploded with a BANG.
Samael was thrown back by the aftershock of the explosion, only stopping after breaking two large trees.
Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. His gray robe was torn, revealing a suit of pitch-black Soft Armor underneath.
His expression had completely changed. Greed and contempt were replaced by shock and anger, along with a trace of... incredulous fear.
’This New Wizard... his physical body is absurdly strong, and his Witchcraft is immensely powerful.’
’And that strange invisibility, not to mention his terrifyingly sharp combat instincts.’
’I can’t hold back anymore!’
Samael roared. He raised his hands high, and a dense wave of Death Energy erupted from him. The surrounding plants instantly Withered and died.
He was about to use his killing move!
At that very moment.
"GAA!!!"
A shrill crow’s cry rang out.
From the shadows above Samael’s head, Gaga suddenly appeared.
Its wingspan stretched to nearly twenty meters, blotting out the sun. Its feathers stood on end, and an eerie light flashed in its eyes!
Omen Eye, at full Power!
Samael’s vision blurred as countless twisted, terrifying illusions flooded his mind. The wails of lost souls echoed in his ears, and his consciousness plunged into Chaos.
Although his Spiritual Power was formidable and he almost instantly broke free, that brief interruption was enough!
Ian seized the fleeting opportunity, a cold glint flashing in his eyes.
In the core of his Sea of Spirit, the specks of light tinged with pale gold surged wildly.
He forcibly extracted a strand of formless, intangible "Power"—condensed to its absolute limit—and focused it in his eyes.
He looked at Samael.
His gaze was like a needle.
HISS!
Samael’s body went rigid.
He felt as if his Soul had been viciously stabbed by a red-hot ice needle!
Agony! An agony that struck the very depths of his Soul!
The killing move he was halfway through preparing instantly collapsed. The backlash from the Death Energy made him spit out another mouthful of black blood.
"Crys... Crystal Silk Threads?!"
Samael let out a terrified, despairing shriek, his voice cracking.
"Impossible! You’re only Level One..."
Ian wouldn’t give him a chance to breathe.
At the same time he used that sliver of the Crystallization Attribute to attack, he was already charging forward.
At full speed, the powerful physical body granted by his Furnace Body Tempering Skill made him seem like a humanoid Fierce Beast.
His Soul damaged, Samael’s reaction was half a beat too slow.
He had just raised his hand when Ian’s fist arrived.
This punch was completely unadorned. It concentrated all of his physical strength, the Jade-like Radiance beneath his skin almost bursting through his body.
BOOM!!!
It landed squarely on the pitch-black Soft Armor on Samael’s chest.
The Soft Armor let out a piercing groan and caved inward.
A distinct cracking sound came from Samael’s sternum, and his entire body was sent flying backward like a broken sack.
He slammed into a large tree and slid limply to the ground.
He lay slumped on the ground, coughing up mouthfuls of blood mixed with organ fragments. The light in his eyes faded rapidly.
Ian walked over, his face devoid of expression.
Samael struggled to lift his eyelids. He looked at Ian, his lips moving.
"The Curse Bearers... won’t... let you go..."
Ian didn’t wait for him to finish. He pressed his right hand to Samael’s forehead.
He activated the Bloodline Purification Technique, and its Limit-Breaking Effect, Spirit Devourer, engaged!
It not only extracted his blood qi but also directly devoured his remaining Spiritual Power and Soul Origin!
"Urgh!" Samael let out one last, short scream. His body convulsed violently a few times, then went completely still.
His skin rapidly shriveled and turned ashen, transforming him into a withered corpse.
A cool stream of energy, far purer than any before, flowed into Ian’s body.
He closed his eyes to feel it. His Spiritual Power had increased by a fraction, and his Furnace Body Tempering Skill had also faintly improved.
He put away the Blood Essence and looked at Samael’s corpse with an icy gaze.
’Since you wanted to devour me, it’s only fair that I devour you.’
The captain of the Curse of the Dead Squad, a master at the Peak of Liquefaction, was dead just like that.
He shook his wrist; his knuckles were a little numb from that last punch. ’That Soft Armor’s defense was quite good.’
"Gaga!" Gaga flew down and landed on his shoulder.
Its small eyes looked at Samael’s ashen remains, then back at Ian. "Took care of it, ga?"
"Yeah," Ian replied, immediately turning to look in the direction of the small silver tree.
The patch of silver-gray soil was now completely empty.
All that remained was a bowl-sized, bottomless hole in the ground. The soil at the edge was still faintly squirming as it quickly settled.
’It ran?’ Ian frowned and immediately rushed to the edge of the hole.
He extended his Spiritual Power into the hole, but it was blocked by a chaotic Force Field less than ten meters down, preventing him from probing further.
However, his sharp Perception detected a faint, unique Energy fluctuation lingering deep within the hole.
It shared the same origin as the small silver tree, but it was more obscure, more... "concentrated," as if it had shrunk into a small core.
"After it!"
Ian didn’t hesitate for a second. He let out a low command to Gaga, and his body began to shrink rapidly.
The Mimicry effect could not only simulate the environment but also, to some extent, change his own shape and size.
He controlled his body, shrinking it to less than a meter tall, and glanced at the bowl-sized hole.
He gritted his teeth and jumped straight in.
Gaga was startled but quickly shrank as well, becoming the size of a fist.
WHOOSH! It dove into the hole, following close behind.
The tunnel wasn’t a straight drop but twisted and wound like a passage dug by some creature. The walls were smooth and still held a faint, silvery fluorescence.
Ian, with his body shrunken, moved quickly through the tunnel, relying entirely on his senses to track that faint fluctuation.
The passage was extremely deep and had numerous forks, like a maze.
Not daring to lose the trail, Ian pushed his Spiritual Power to its limit, locking onto that wisp of a fluctuation.
After about ten minutes of pursuit, the space ahead suddenly opened up.
He slid out of an opening and landed in a dimly lit space.
Gaga flew out right behind him and landed on his shoulder.
Ian stabilized himself and warily scanned his surroundings.
It seemed to be a dilapidated Laboratory.
The area wasn’t large, less than fifty square meters. It was littered with collapsed stone shelves, shattered Crystal vessels, and decaying Scrolls and Metal parts scattered across the floor.
The air was filled with dust and a stale smell, a mixture of potions and Metal.
In the center of the Laboratory was a stone platform.
On the platform sat a silver-gray, basketball-sized gelatinous clump of mud. Its surface squirmed slowly, as if it were alive.
Inside the clump, one could faintly see fine, silvery roots intertwined.
A faint wave of consciousness emanated from its core—the very fluctuation Ian had been tracking.
And the small silver tree from before was now huddled on top of the clump, only palm-sized. Its branches and leaves were curled up, and it was trembling like a frightened little animal.
The few silver fruits were also gone, their whereabouts unknown.
’Is this... its "root"? Or maybe, its "brain"?’
Ian took a few steps closer but didn’t touch it rashly.
His gaze fell on the area around the stone platform, where several relatively intact Metal plates and Crystal Plates were scattered.
Ancient text and patterns were carved on them.
Ian crouched down, carefully picked up a relatively complete Metal plate, and wiped the dust off it.
The text was in Ancient Wizard Language. He could barely make out some of it.
