"O Mother Goddess..." An old Amons warrior knelt in the mud, his hands clawing at the earth beneath him as if searching for something. "Why have you forsaken us..."
A jade-green Flying Leaf pierced through the back of his neck and erupted from his throat.
The old warrior collapsed while still in his kneeling position, pale blue blood gushing from the wound in his neck and soaking into the mud beneath his feet.
In the sky, the rain of blood continued to fall.
This was the blood of the Amons World's Third-Tier lifeforms. Every drop contained immense energy, and as it hit the ground, it corroded holes so deep they seemed bottomless.
The rain of blood mixed with bone ash drifted down from the high altitudes, staining the entire battlefield in an eerie pattern of pale gold and grayish-white.
Inside the War Fortress command center, the green sections on the battlefield map across the ceiling were shrinking at a visible rate.
Massive swaths of green were being swallowed by blue. The front lines were surging forward frantically as the Amons' defensive lines collapsed one after another.
Wizard Thousand Eyes stood before the circular command console, his graying hair shimmering under the light of the ceiling's crystals.
On the light screen before him, the combat logs were refreshing at a frantic pace.
Every line of text represented the annihilation of a high-value Amons target; every set of data declared the overwhelming superiority of the Wizard World.
The corner of his mouth twitched slightly.
"Everyone, close the net."
...
"The calculations of wizards are truly insane."
Ethan withdrew his gaze from the sky.
Those White Wizards sat in the fortress, pointing at light screens, and they had calculated the movements of the Amons' top combatants to a tee.
No, that wasn't quite right.
In truth, the way the White Wizards operated shouldn't even be called calculation.
It was more like crushing them with raw power.
Despite both being Third-Tier lifeforms, the natives of the Amons World were completely unable to withstand the wizards' combat power, even in one-on-one or one-on-many scenarios.
If they weren't killed by a wizard in a few moves, they couldn't hold out for very long regardless.
Is this the power of a wizard?
Is this the confidence that allows wizards to plunder ten thousand worlds?
It's truly monstrous.
After his moment of reflection, Ethan stretched his neck.
Time to get to work.
Emerald light surged from his palm, transforming into hundreds of Flying Leaves that shot out in all directions.
The retreating Amons warriors fell in droves, their pale blue blood blossoming into new flowers of gore upon the muddy ground.
His battle merit points jumped frantically in his consciousness.
Ethan glanced at the Battle Merit Ranking.
The names of Malfoy Broken-Blade and Ella Gray-Spear were still in second and third, though their rate of growth had slowed considerably. The winged unlucky fellow from before had already dropped to ninth.
"Heh, looks like your cheats aren't as powerful as mine."
With a kick of his feet, he crossed dozens of meters in a single bound, landing directly in front of a squad of retreating soldiers.
Time flew by in a blur of slaughter.
Two and a half hours later, Ethan stood atop the ruins of a small, leveled fortress, treading upon a mountain of corpses.
【Current Life Energy: 2,201,741.】
That's enough.
"Unlock passive."
【Consume 2,097,152 Life Energy to unlock the 22nd passive?】
"Confirm."
【Energy deducted: 2,097,152 points. Current energy: 104,589 points.】
【Generating passive...】
【Generation complete. Acquired passive: The One and Only True Self.】
【The One and Only True Self: Under any circumstances, the definitions of your appearance, soul, cognition, and existence cannot be changed by any external force. However, you may choose whether the effect applies based on the category of the technique received. (Can be deactivated at any time.)】
Ethan stared at the line of text on the panel, his pupils shrinking slightly.
Any external force.
Appearance, soul, cognition, and existence—none of it could be changed.
This meant that Polymorph was useless against him, Soul Curses were useless against him, cognitive pollution was useless against him, and even attacks that erased existence were equally ineffective.
Especially that part in the parentheses: "can be deactivated at any time."
This cheat was no longer a matter of being merely absurd.
The system was far too cunning.
"Hehe, I'm just glad I'm the one using it. It's good to have a cheat."
Ethan closed the panel, exerted force through his legs, and continued to chase after the retreating soldiers.
The Amons on the battlefield had completely broken down.
The Third-Tier lifeforms had been slaughtered into disarray by the wizards, and once the High Priest's aura vanished, even their last shred of will to resist collapsed.
The retreating soldiers fled across the hills and fields. Some threw away their weapons and dove into the forests; some knelt on the ground and recited prayers to the heavens; others simply lay flat on the ground and waited for death.
Ethan tore through a group of retreating soldiers.
Flying Leaves poured from his fingertips, and the Amons warriors on both sides fell like harvested wheat.
His battle merit surged frantically in his consciousness, already breaking five million.
After killing for a short while longer, Ethan was forced to stop.
A massive crater appeared on the horizon ahead.
The crater was over ten thousand meters in diameter, its edges as smooth as if they had been sliced by a blade.
The bottom was deep and invisible, containing only pure darkness.
The soil at the edges of the crater was still sliding down, and the sound of falling rocks could not be heard as they tumbled into the dark.
Ethan stood at the edge of the pit and glanced down.
The darkness was bottomless, without a single sliver of light.
"Impressive."
He muttered to himself and turned to go around it.
He had only taken two steps when he suddenly paused.
There was something at the bottom of the crater.
The plant roots buried deep in the soil of the crater walls were transmitting an instinctive, primal fear.
It wasn't the "something is coming" warning he felt when encountering a Holy Beast; it was something much deeper.
It was as if... the entire earth was trembling.
Ethan spun around abruptly.
The darkness at the bottom of the crater began to twist.
That patch of pure black was churning, rotating, and collapsing inward. At the center of the collapse, a sliver of emerald-green light emerged.
The light was as thin as a hair, so weak it was almost invisible, with tiny green specks of light constantly dissipating from its edges.
Then, the light exploded.
A thick pillar of emerald light erupted from the bottom of the pit, its diameter exceeding a thousand meters.
The pillar of light shot straight into the clouds, piercing through the cloud layer and vanishing into the depths of the heavens.
Densely packed runic patterns flowed across the surface of the light pillar, every rune frantically devouring the surrounding energy particles.
The wood-element energy particles in the air were seized as if by an invisible giant hand, rushing toward the light pillar in a frenzy.
The ground around the crater began to shake violently.
Soil churned and rocks shattered. The remains of the fortresses that had been overturned by the main cannon's shockwave disintegrated further in the tremors.
The soil beneath Ethan's feet split open, and thick tree roots emerged from the cracks.
The soil beneath Ethan's feet split open, and thick tree roots emerged from the cracks.
Each of those roots was as thick as a man's waist, their surfaces covered in dark brown bark carved with intricate emerald-green patterns.
The roots were growing at a frantic speed.
They burst through the ground at the edge of the crater, spreading out in all directions.
Some dug deep into the soil, some climbed onto the surrounding ruins, and some bored directly into the corpses scattered about.
The moment the roots entered a corpse, it shriveled up at a visible rate. Flesh, bone, and internal organs—everything was sucked dry by the roots.
Inside the pillar of light, a figure was slowly ascending.
Rate on N.U.
