Dispersed

When Klein’s voice reached her ears, Ophelia was just sweeping past beneath the evil god’s third pair of wings.

The rhythm of her breathing changed.

Every inhale felt bottomless, and every exhale carried away the last traces of impurities from her body.

The glow of the runic inscriptions on her dragon scale armor climbed steadily, shifting from a cold blue to a piercing, pure white.

That “field” originating from the depths of her bone marrow was actively and completely channeled out by her for the first time.

It was no longer passive resonance.

It was active utilization.

Golden battle qi surged forth, and after being filtered and amplified by the dragon scale armor, its purity reached a realm she had never touched before.

The light on the blade was no longer an arc.

It was a line.

A straight golden line without any curvature, extending over thirty meters from the tip of the sword.

The evil god’s six heads turned toward her simultaneously.

Too late.

All the battle qi, the entire “field,” and all the amplification the dragon scale armor could provide—

At the moment of contact with the target, it was all compressed into a single point at the tip of the blade.

Then, it was released.

The sword light pierced through the evil god’s body from top to bottom.

A vertical pillar of light entered through the evil god’s abdomen and burst out from the top of its head, shooting straight into the sky.

The pillar of light was barely two meters in diameter.

But every bit of matter it passed through—membranes, anchor points, flesh, bone, those twisted heads, and tentacles—was instantly vaporized.

No residue.

No fragments.

Only a smooth-edged circular tunnel remained, piercing through the entity.

The evil god’s body froze.

The movements of its six heads ceased, its tentacles went limp, and the flapping of its wing membranes came to a dead stop.

The massive composite body hung in mid-air, a hole glowing with golden embers carved through its center.

Ophelia did not stop.

Her sword edge cut outward from the inside of the tunnel. She spun her entire body within that two-meter-wide hole, her blade raking across the inner walls.

Golden battle qi burst from the cuts.

Not just one, but dozens.

Fine sword qi exploded violently inside the evil god like a golden firework, each strand precisely cutting into the connection points of the different components.

The suture lines between the Siren scales and the Kraken tentacles—severed.

The nerve bundles between the sea serpent’s spine and the ray’s head—severed.

The coordination and cooperation it had just established were completely shredded from the inside at this moment.

Ophelia flew out from the other side of the evil god’s body.

She exhaled a breath of scorching air.

On the surface of the burning-hot dragon scale armor, the heat dissipation runes emitted a high-frequency hum.

Her palms were slick with sweat, yet she gripped the hilt even tighter.

She ignored her own condition.

She was watching the evil god.

The body she had shredded from the inside was disintegrating.

The six heads detached from the main body, each drifting away with its own mangled remains.

The tentacles broke into a dozen segments, each wriggling independently.

The three pairs of wings peeled off from the spine, their tattered membranes floating in the air.

But it wasn't dead.

Those fragments were still moving, still reorganizing.

Every piece of mangled flesh and every severed limb was trying to reconnect with the other fragments around it.

They were huddling back together.

If given time, it would piece itself back together.

It might even assemble into more than one.

Ophelia tightened her grip on her sword.

Do it again?

She still had enough stamina. The amplification from the dragon scale armor meant she was far from her limit; the full-power burst just now, which would have exhausted her in the past, had only left her drenched in hot sweat.

But she did not move.

Because the sea lit up.

Blue light shone up from beneath the water—not in one place, but everywhere.

The sea surface for dozens of nautical miles glowed with fluorescence simultaneously. The light spread along a rhythmic path, outlining a giant net that covered the entire battlefield.

Eleven nodes, activated at once.

Klein’s array.

Ophelia landed back on the dragon’s back and glanced at him.

Klein’s hands were flat on the dragon scales, his eyes closed. Sweat beaded on his temples, and his lips moved slightly.

She saw an expression of ultimate focus on his profile.

Ophelia did not make a sound to disturb him. She turned back and continued to stare at the wriggling fragments ahead.

Three seconds later, Klein opened his eyes.

The array was active.

The blue light in the seawater suddenly surged, and the lines connecting the eleven nodes transformed from a flat plane into a three-dimensional structure.

Pillars of light rose from the sea surface, weaving into a cage around the area where the evil god’s fragments were gathering.

Then, traction force appeared.

The fragments that were in the process of aggregating were forcibly jerked to a halt.

Each component, based on its source, was locked onto by a node of a corresponding frequency and dragged in a different direction.

The evil god struggled.

The cluster of fragments tried to resist, tried to continue huddling toward the center.

Some fragments were deformed, elongated, and stretched thin under the pull of the two opposing forces.

But the strength of the array continued to increase.

The output power of the eleven nodes was still climbing, and the blue light on the sea grew brighter and brighter, as if the entire sea territory had been set ablaze.

The first fragment broke away from the aggregate body.

It was the head covered in teeth.

It was jerked out of the cluster by the traction force of the third node, trailing a thick strand of flesh as it flew toward the southwest.

The strand of flesh stretched thinner and thinner.

It snapped.

Then the second piece.

The third.

More and more fragments were peeled away from the aggregate body, scattering in their respective directions.

The evil god’s reassembly was completely disrupted.

It was a dismantling in the physical sense.

The distance between the fragments grew further and further, until the connection signals between them decayed and they could no longer reach each other.

Klein stared at all this, his tense shoulders finally slumping.

His mental energy was still maintaining the array’s operation, but the most difficult calibration was finished. The array would handle the rest on its own.

“It’s done.”

Ophelia sheathed her sword.

The crisp sound of metal sliding into the scabbard was exceptionally clear on the now-quiet battlefield.

She walked to Klein’s side and sat down on the dragon’s back, her shoulder touching his.

The scorching dragon scale armor transmitted an incredible temperature through her clothes.

“What next?” she asked.

Klein watched the fragments being dragged in all directions by the array and narrowed his eyes.

“After being separated, they will still continue to change.”

He paused, his voice carrying a hint of exhaustion but mostly the relief of the dust finally settling.

“But without the energy replenishment from the other parts, none of them will last long.”

“Moreover, they will become different individuals... I doubt every one of them is eager to fight us.”

Ophelia’s breathing was light, but Klein could feel her hot shoulder armor pressed against him like a red-hot iron.

The traction force of the array did not weaken in the slightest. Those fragments of flesh peeled from the main body were being dragged by the blue net of light toward eleven different coordinates.

It was like a grand and eerie meteor shower, only the direction was scattering rather than converging.

Klein didn't look well. The dizziness brought on by the excessive consumption of mental energy rose in waves, and he had to lean against Ophelia to barely steady himself.

The Silver Dragon emitted a low vibration from its throat; it could feel that every one of those dragged fragments was still alive.

“Is that it?” Ophelia’s voice held a hint of doubt. She didn't believe it would be this simple.

Klein shook his head, his gaze piercing through the crisscrossing blue net of light toward the very center of the battlefield.

There, the position where the evil god had once been perched was empty.

The churning flesh, the twisted limbs, the screaming heads—they were all gone. Only that relatively calm patch of sea at the core of the array remained.

But above that calm—

“What is that?” Ophelia’s pupils contracted.

A silhouette.

The silhouette... of a person.

That figure hung quietly in mid-air, illuminated by the blue light of the array like a lost statue. It lacked the massive scale of the evil god and the chaotic sense that forced cognitive dissonance.

It was simply the form of a person.