The fire shield vibrated violently.
The runic patterns on the surface of the shield flashed frantically, and dark red flames rolled outward from the point of impact, carbonizing and stripping away the wooden fibers at the tip of the Wood Pillar layer by layer.
Before the carbonized debris could even hit the ground, it was swallowed by the flames, leaving not even ash behind.
The old woman tapped her cane once more.
The fire shield suddenly expanded, growing from two meters to three meters wide.
A hideous fire-elemental face emerged from the center of the shield. Opening its mouth, the face spat a pillar of incandescent fire toward the Wood Pillar.
The pillar of fire collided with the tip of the Wood Pillar.
The Wood Pillar finally began to disintegrate.
Starting from the tip, the wooden fibers carbonized and shattered at a visible rate under the searing heat of the incandescent flames.
Swept up by the flames, the shattered wood splinters flew backward, drawing dark red arcs in the air.
The pillar of fire bored a hole right through the center of the one-meter-radius Wood Pillar, and the wooden fibers around the edges of the hole continuously peeled away in the extreme heat.
But the Wood Pillar was simply too massive.
It was a hundred and thirty-six overlapping layers, with a radius of one meter and a length of over ten meters.
Although the pillar of fire had burned through the front half, the rear half continued to surge forward.
The old woman tapped her foot against the ground and floated backward.
She retreated quickly, but the Wood Pillar pursued her even faster.
Boom!
The fire shield finally could not hold out any longer.
The fire-elemental face on the shield let out a sharp screech as the entire fire shield exploded from its center, sending dark red flaming shards scattering in all directions.
The Wood Pillar pierced through the flaming shards, charging straight for the old woman's chest.
The old woman thrust her withered left hand out from her sleeve, her fingers splayed wide.
A bone-white amulet hanging from her wrist suddenly lit up, conjuring a translucent gray barrier in front of her.
The Wood Pillar slammed into the gray barrier.
Crack.
A dense network of cracks webbed across the surface of the barrier, spreading outward from the point of impact to the edges.
Pushed by the sheer force of the impact, the old woman slid backward, her feet plowing two deep trenches in the sand.
She had barely stabilized her footing and had no time to catch her breath before Ethan's second Wood Pillar arrived.
This one was even thicker than the last.
A radius of 1.2 meters.
Two hundred overlapping layers.
A flash of shock crossed the old woman's eyes.
The tip of her cane lit up once more, but this time, she abandoned all defense.
Dark red flames erupted from the tip of the cane, condensing into an equally massive pillar of fire in front of her.
The pillar of fire charged toward the Wood Pillar.
The two forces collided in midair.
Boom!!!!!
The blast of the explosion blew away all the sand within a hundred-meter radius.
A shallow crater twenty meters in diameter was blasted into the ground, the sand at the bottom melting into a pool of dark red lava under the extreme temperature.
A mushroom cloud of intermingling dark red and emerald green billowed from the center of the explosion, and the shockwave rippled outward, toppling several distant rock piles.
Ethan charged out from the smoke and dust of the explosion.
His Wood Armor was covered in sand and ash, but the Wood Shield on his left forearm was completely intact.
He rushed past the edge of the lava pool, his soles leaving charred footprints on the scorching ground.
Emerald-green light surged from his entire body, and then the ground exploded.
The sand within a hundred-meter radius churned simultaneously.
Wood Pillars, vines, Flying Leaves, and thorns—a fourfold assault surged toward the old woman from different directions, angles, and heights all at once.
Wood Pillars erupted from the ground, sealing off her lower body.
Vines wrapped around from both sides, locking down her space to dodge.
Flying Leaves poured down from above, blocking the sky.
Thorns shot out from the crevices of the shattered rocks, aiming straight for her back.
The old woman swung her cane in a wide arc in front of her.
A ring of fire exploded from beneath her feet, expanding outward violently.
Wherever the ring of fire swept, Wood Pillars carbonized, vines turned to ash, Flying Leaves disintegrated, and thorns shattered.
The fourfold assault crumbled completely in less than a single breath before the ring of fire.
But this was precisely the moment Ethan had been waiting for.
The moment the ring of fire expanded, a hair-thin vine drilled out of the sand three paces behind the old woman.
This vine was entirely different from the grand, thunderous attacks from earlier; it possessed no light, no runic patterns, and even its wooden fibers retained their most primitive dark brown color.
It emerged only after the ring of fire had swept past, silently creeping along the ground to wrap around the old woman's left ankle.
The old woman looked down.
The vine had already dug into her flesh.
For the first time, her expression truly changed.
It was not because of pain; no matter how tightly the vine bound her, it was merely a superficial wound.
The reason her expression changed was the location where this vine had emerged.
It was the blind spot when her ring of fire expanded—the sole gap in her defensive system.
It had taken her four hundred years and a life-and-death struggle to discover this blind spot, and she had deliberately concealed it ever since.
How did this Third-Tier Apprentice find it?
She had no time to think.
The moment the vine tightened, Ethan lunged at her from the front.
He splayed the fingers of his right hand, condensing a fist-sized, emerald-green light orb in his palm.
Dense runic patterns flowed within the light orb as its glow continuously drew inward, compressing again and again.
The old woman stamped her right foot hard against the ground.
Flames exploded from beneath her foot, burning the vine on her ankle to ash.
She pointed her cane forward, and a dark red line of fire shot from its tip. The line of fire was only as thick as a pinky finger, moving so fast its trajectory was nearly invisible.
Ethan leaned slightly to the side.
The line of fire grazed his left shoulder.
Ripples spread across the surface of his Wood Armor, and the wooden plates on his left shoulder blackened and carbonized at a visible rate.
His mana surged, and new plates grew to cover his exposed shoulder once more.
Without pausing his turn for even a fraction of a second, his right hand pressed the light orb straight toward the old woman's face.
The second amulet on the old woman's left wrist lit up.
An earthy-yellow light shield materialized in front of her.
The light orb collided with the earthy-yellow light shield, exploding into a burst of emerald-green flames.
The light shield vibrated violently, fine cracks webbing across its surface, but it did not shatter.
Using the recoil to float backward, she tapped her cane three times in front of her.
Three walls of fire rose from the ground.
The walls of fire were five meters high and ten meters wide, their dark red flames licking the air, completely sealing off Ethan's pursuit route.
With a fierce look, Ethan crashed straight through the three walls of fire.
The runic patterns on the surface of his Wood Armor flashed frantically in the extreme heat as the wooden plates carbonized and peeled away layer by layer, only to regrow under the infusion of his mana.
When he burst from the final wall of fire, his entire body was wrapped in a layer of dark red embers, looking like a meteorite hurtling out of a sea of fire.
The old woman's pupils contracted sharply.
Twisting her right hand, she caused the tip of her cane to light up with an unprecedented, blinding glare.
Right at that moment, the ground beneath her feet flipped entirely.
The sandy ground within a fifty-meter radius was lifted from its edges like a carpet, folding inward to crush down toward the center.
Soil, shattered rocks, snapped roots, and carbonized vine remnants all collapsed toward the old woman's position.
The old woman's reaction was incredibly swift. Tapping her toes against the ground, she shot upward into the sky.
She slashed her cane downward, unleashing a dark red, crescent-shaped fire blade from its tip that cut toward the folding ground.
The fire blade split the folding sand and soil down the middle.
Sand and shattered rocks churned to both sides, revealing a narrow gap in the middle.
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