Roly tapped her toes lightly on the gravel, her body shifting half a meter to the left.
A wood pillar grazed the edge of her robe as it swept past.
A second wood pillar thrust in from the right, but her body bent at a sharp angle in midair, slipping through the gap between the two pillars.
A third, a fourth, a fifth—she constantly shifted through the gaps between the wood pillars, each movement looking as if she had predicted their trajectories in advance.
Ethan's brow furrowed.
This woman had never shown this level of agility in her previous battles.
When she was suspended in midair by the vines, dragged along the ground, or pressed against the pile of corpses, she had always maintained that terrified, helpless posture of a prisoner.
It was all an act.
Ethan pressed both hands down at the same time.
The gravel ground for dozens of meters around completely flipped over.
Vines erupted from every inch of the sandy soil, some as thick as an adult's waist, others as thin as strands of hair.
They surged toward Roly from all directions, weaving into a dense, seamless green net.
No gaps were left between the vines, blocking out most of the sunlight.
Roly stood in the center of the enveloping net of vines.
She raised her right hand, spreading her fingers and pressing gently against the empty air.
With her as the center, a ring of invisible ripples spread in all directions.
Wherever the ripples passed, the wildly growing vines instantly froze.
Their dark brown bark turned grayish-white at a visible rate, and the emerald-green leaves fell from the vines, turning to dust in midair.
The thick vine trunks began to collapse, crumbling from their tips, the fragments turning into fine, sand-like powder before they even hit the ground.
The ripples spread to Ethan's feet.
He felt a force attempting to invade his mental sea.
That force was completely different from the previous silent, imperceptible influence; this time, it was a harsh, direct impact.
It tried to bypass the defenses of his mental sea and directly touch his cognitive core.
Then, it hit a wall.
【Affected by a mental supernatural ability. Cognition is being altered. Immune due to The One and Only True Self. Conform to the effect?】
The force shattered against the periphery of his mental sea.
It caused no effect whatsoever, like a wave crashing against a reef, shattering into countless tiny splashes of water.
Roly's brow furrowed slightly.
“You really are unaffected,” her voice was as ethereal as ever. “My ability is completely useless against you. This shouldn't be possible.”
Ethan did not answer.
He raised his right foot and stomped heavily on the gravel.
Boom!
Centered on his foot, the ground suddenly collapsed.
Gravel and debris plunged downward, revealing a massive pit over thirty meters in diameter.
The edges of the pit continued to expand outward, with more sandy soil sliding toward the bottom.
At the bottom of the pit, countless dense roots were growing wildly, weaving into a massive net that surged toward Roly's position.
Roly glanced down at the pit beneath her feet.
She raised her right hand again, pressing down toward the empty space below.
The invisible ripples spread once more.
The moment the wildly growing roots touched the ripples, they lost their vitality, turning yellow, crumbling, and turning to powder.
The massive net woven from roots collapsed layer by layer within the ripples, like a spiderweb consumed by fire.
But the corners of Ethan's mouth curled up.
Behind Roly, the pile of corpses moved.
The hill formed by the pile of forty thousand Amons corpses suddenly exploded.
Vines burst out from inside the pile of corpses. They were not growing in the sandy soil, but within the flesh and blood of those corpses.
When Roly's ripples swept over, these vines were encased in the flesh and bones of the Amons. The ripples identified them as the body tissue of her “clansmen” and slid right off their surfaces.
Dozens of vines erupted simultaneously behind Roly, the closest one less than half a meter from her back.
Roly spun around abruptly.
She swung her short staff horizontally, and an emerald-green blade of light shot from the tip, slicing the vine in half.
But a second one had already coiled up from her left, a third looped over her head, and a fourth and fifth wrapped toward her legs from below.
She tapped her toes against the ground, leaping upward.
The vines snapped shut beneath her feet, biting empty air.
She flipped in midair, her short staff swinging repeatedly as emerald-green blades of light severed the pursuing vines one by one.
But there were too many vines. New ones constantly surged from the pile of corpses, each covered in pale green bloodstains and shredded flesh.
She looked down at her left arm; her sleeve had been torn open by a vine, leaving a shallow scratch on her pale green skin.
A flicker of emotion passed through her eyes.
Then, her figure vanished once more.
Ethan spun around.
Roly appeared less than three meters behind him, her short staff pointing forward, the emerald-green crystal at its tip blindingly bright.
A beam of emerald-green light shot from the tip of the staff, heading straight for Ethan's face.
The beam struck his chest.
Ripples spread across the surface of his Wood Armor.
The beam shattered into a shower of light specks.
Roly's pupils contracted slightly. Ethan's right fist was already hurtling toward her.
His fist slammed into the barrier Roly had hastily conjured.
The barrier shook violently, its surface cracking all over.
Roly's body was pushed back by the impact, her feet plowing two deep ruts into the gravel.
Just as she stabilized herself, the ground exploded again.
Wood pillars thrust out from beneath her feet, vines surged from all directions, and Flying Leaves poured from Ethan's palm.
The three-pronged attack arrived at the exact same instant, sealing off all angles.
Roly's figure vanished again.
She appeared on the other side of the pit, her chest heaving slightly faster than before.
Ethan stepped down from the edge of the pit. “Your abilities are indeed impressive. Mental influence, material manipulation, and this short-range spatial teleportation.”
He kept walking, each step leaving a deep footprint in the gravel.
“But have you noticed that your abilities are useless against me? Your mental influence is ineffective, and your material manipulation cannot break my defenses. Your spatial teleportation has a limited range, and you need a brief pause after each move.”
Ethan spread the fingers of his right hand.
“And as for my mana, I still have plenty.”
An emerald-green light poured from his palm.
Hundreds of Seed Bombs emerged one by one. Each was only the size of a thumb, dark green in color, with dense runic patterns flowing across its surface.
They formed an arc around Ethan's body, hovering in midair and aiming at Roly's position.
Roly's expression shifted slightly.
She recognized the power of these seeds.
In the previous battles, she had seen with her own eyes how Ethan used these Seed Bombs to blow a squad of Amons warriors into shredded flesh.
The power of a single one was enough to blast through a Sentinel-level shield. If hundreds of them detonated at the same time, they could level everything within a hundred meters.
Roly hovered above the ruins, the dark green glow of those hundreds of Seed Bombs reflected in her amber eyes.
Her chest heaved violently a few times.
Then, she smiled.
Rate on N.U.
