Lin Gui charged out of the mine. With a lead of his staff, his figure completely merged into the 【Shroud of the Gloomy Night】 as he ascended, vanishing into the night sky.
Immediately after, he forcefully scattered the nearly one thousand clay dolls mixed with the Saintess's blood toward every direction of the wilderness!
Under the fine manipulation of his max-level 【Levitation】 and the temporary attachment of his 【Shroud of the Gloomy Night】,
these clay dolls hurtled and dispersed throughout the vast wilderness.
In an instant, within Caleb's soul perception,
the entire sky seemed to be filled with countless "Saintesses."
Dense and overwhelming, it was a dizzying sight.
"Hmph, a final struggle,"
Caleb stood at the entrance of the mine and let out a cold snort.
However, a flicker of doubt crossed his mind: Where did that boy get so much of the Saintess's blood?
He suppressed his suspicion.
With a thought, the 【Soul-Slaying Blade】 stuck by the hourglass in the mine let out a hum and flew into his hand as a blood-red stream of light.
Without even a second look, he casually tossed this murderous blade into the sky!
Hum!
The blood-red light of the 【Soul-Slaying Blade】 flared brilliantly.
Red lightning crisscrossed frantically in the air.
Wherever it passed, those clay dolls were instantly crushed into dust as if by an invisible, massive force.
Even the faint soul fluctuations contained within them were completely swallowed and annihilated.
In just a few breaths, the sky full of "soul starlight" was swept clean, and the night sky returned to its former silence.
A hint of the pride of someone in total control appeared on Caleb's face.
The time remaining was one minute and thirty seconds.
"The game is over," he whispered.
All decoys had been cleared.
Next, he would drag out that little mouse hiding in the shadows, as well as... the real body of the Saintess.
However, the curve of his mouth had only just begun to rise when it suddenly froze.
Beneath that night sky just purged by the 【Soul-Slaying Blade】, a new change occurred!
That soul dust that should have been completely annihilated
was forcibly gathered by an invisible hand,
condensing and reorganizing in the air, transforming back into hundreds of soul spheres in the blink of an eye!
"This... how is this possible?!"
Caleb's dim, old eyes truly widened for the first time, filled with disbelief.
【Levitation】 could indeed manipulate objects, but it had a maximum distance.
Furthermore, to simultaneously manipulate so many falling fragments
and accurately reorganize them? What kind of subtle and majestic control over mana did this require?
High in the sky, hidden under the 【Shroud of the Gloomy Night】, Lin Gui
was currently surrounded by a black energy that was distinctly different from mana, carrying a faint sense of tyranny.
It was precisely the Novice Demon Magic, 【Enchantment】.
With the boost from 【Enchantment】,
he felt that his control over 【Levitation】 had reached an unprecedented level.
The original maximum control distance of nearly a hundred meters had actually been forcibly extended by more than double!
Novice Demon Magic, and its amplification effect is actually no less than a Transcendent spell...
Lin Gui's heart trembled.
Rather than calling it the effect of a magic boost, it was more like an essential elevation brought by this energy called "demon energy."
He did not dare to be careless, focusing all his effort on manipulating those hundreds of re-aggregated clumps of soil.
He turned them around, flying toward the massive mine area.
He knew very well that this simple reorganization of decoys could no longer deceive Caleb.
The other party was bound to be certain that the Saintess's true body was not among them.
According to common sense, if the Saintess were dead, her soul would have already returned to the Netherworld Sea.
It was absolutely impossible to leave behind so many soul remnants.
Sure enough, Caleb only gave a cold glance at those clumps of soil flying toward the mine and ignored them.
His target was clear.
The "true body" inside the mine that was covered by the 【Shroud of the Gloomy Night】 and whose soul fluctuations were so weak they were nearly extinguished!
With a shift of his figure, he was about to return to the mine for the final cleanup.
However, at the very moment he turned,
Whish!
A soul fluctuation with an exceptionally "massive" volume and remarkable speed
suddenly shot out from another exit of the mine, fleeing toward the depths of the wilderness away from the mine area.
Its intensity far surpassed any of the previous clay dolls, and it was even larger than the Saintess's true soul that Caleb had seen earlier?
"???"
A strange feeling of being deceived surged into his heart.
A cold light flashed in Caleb's eyes, and without hesitation,
his High-tier Legendary power erupted, and his figure chased after it as if tearing through space.
His speed was fast to the extreme, closing the distance in an instant.
However, when he caught up to the target and saw the true form of that so-called "Saintess,"
a surge of rage from being toyed with instantly rushed into his mind.
That wasn't the Saintess at all.
It was just a large bag of plasma emitting dense soul fluctuations, being carried at high speed by an arrow!
It was that half-demon ranger who had already left!
Caleb jerked his head around, looking toward the mine mountain.
He saw that currently, atop the entire massive mountain,
hundreds of soul spheres with a volume equal to the Saintess
were quietly suspended like a field of stars, enveloping the entire area.
Caleb stood where he was, looking at the mountain that had once again been flooded by decoys.
After a moment of silence, he finally let out a long breath.
There were thirty seconds remaining, but in this three-minute game... he had lost.
...
Five minutes passed.
Caleb leaned against the cold rock wall, his dim old eyes looking not far away.
Saintess Eve slumped at his feet, her face as white as paper, her breathing so faint it was nearly unnoticeable.
Excessive blood loss had already brought her to the brink of death.
Although blood could carry the aura of the soul for a short time, it could not last.
It couldn't endure for half a year like a lock of hair could.
In just five minutes, those soul decoys Lin Gui had painstakingly created
saw their soul fluctuations dissipate one after another like candles in the wind.
With all interference gone, Caleb's soul perception once again clearly locked onto the depth of the mine.
He found that true soul source that was slightly stronger than the hair imprint yet still incredibly weak.
This time, there were no more fancy tricks.
He spent almost no effort to find the Saintess.
He brought the dying Saintess here.
The air rippled slightly as Lin Gui appeared nearby.
He looked at the dying Saintess and the composed Caleb, his face devoid of expression.
He had won the three-minute bet.
But he never believed that the killing intent of a High-tier Legendary assassin would dissipate so easily because of a game.
"Kid," Caleb spoke hoarsely.
"I don't want to violate the bet I made with you."
Lin Gui said indifferently,
"Can you tell me why you must kill her?"
Caleb remained silent and didn't answer, the gaze in his dim old eyes deep as an abyss.
Lin Gui tentatively whispered,
"Is it because of... the Tomb of Catriona?"
In an instant, killing intent burst from Caleb's eyes, causing the surrounding air to freeze.
Lin Gui understood in his heart and continued.
"You're afraid the Saintess will use Prophecy to find the location of the Tomb of Catriona, so you intend to kill her to eliminate the problem once and for all."
Prophecy might have a large deviation when targeting individual fates.
But when it involved specific geographical locations, the accuracy was often astonishingly high.
This was also why Lin Gui had believed the Saintess without hesitation when she said she knew the location of Avalon.
It seems this Tomb of Catriona is even more complicated than I thought.
Lin Gui mused.
However, his system task was complete.
The 【Eyes of the Netherworld】 were in his hands.
No matter what massive secret was hidden in the tomb, it had nothing to do with him, nor did he want to get involved.
"How about this," Lin Gui proposed.
"I can supervise the Saintess for you and ensure she doesn't use Prophecy on the Tomb of Catriona."
Caleb remained silent, but he didn't immediately object.
Lin Gui pressed the advantage.
"I will take her away, and we will no longer step into the Royal Capital."
"As long as she doesn't get close to the target location, even the Great Prophecy won't be able to determine the specific coordinates."
Caleb's eyelids twitched, and he finally looked up, his sharp gaze shooting toward Lin Gui.
"I need to use her heart's blood to set a soul mark."
Lin Gui felt a slight sense of relief.
A willingness to negotiate meant there was a chance for a turn of events.
A heart's blood mark, using the heart's refined blood as a medium, would be implanted deep within the soul.
Once planted, no matter where the Saintess went, Caleb would eventually be able to find her.
It was just like... the Hall of Heroic Spirits of the Holy Church of Light.
It could be said that from the moment the mark was completed,
the Saintess's life was entirely in Caleb's hands.
And Lin Gui also understood that this was the maximum concession this Legendary assassin was willing to make.
Presumably, the Saintess would not refuse.
After all, she already had an even more exaggerated soul mark planted on her.
Under the vision of the Eyes of the Netherworld, a clearly visible soul thread stretched out from the location of the Saintess's heart,
extending all the way up into the sky.
"Deal," Lin Gui nodded in agreement.
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