This time, even more phantoms surged out—a full fifteen of them—and their target was still the major.
The female leader of Team One, the one with the scar on her brow bone, had already disposed of countless phantoms.
She was almost out of Silver-Lead Bullets for her rifle and had switched to Enchanted Bullets.
Meanwhile, the Team Two leader was protecting Xiaoma, firing as he retreated.
"Xiaoma, stay close to me!" the Team Two leader shouted. "Don’t fall behind!"
Just then, the Answering Head cast another Silencing Technique.
This time, the zone of Silence descended upon the Team Two leader and Xiaoma.
Xiaoma, being closer, felt his hand tremble violently as he raised his weapon. The flintlock gun slipped from his grasp.
As for the Team Two leader, the Silence struck the very instant he pulled the trigger, brutally disrupting his Breathing rhythm.
His Technique failed.
The signature Marvel embedded in his rifle—the Dark Silver Gemstone.
It should have unleashed a silver light upon firing, slicing apart the phantom lunging at him.
But the gemstone didn’t glow.
The phantom slammed into the Team Two leader’s chest.
The Team Two leader instinctively tried to block it with the butt of his rifle.
But before he could raise his rifle, the phantom had already bored into his chest.
Richard saw it all with perfect clarity through his Hidden Spiritual Vision.
Once the phantom bored into the Team Two leader’s chest, it completely severed the man’s Ether Loop, which had already been disrupted by the Silence.
It all happened in the blink of an eye, so fast that not even Major Aud had time to intervene.
The Team Two leader stumbled to a halt.
He looked down at his chest.
The man looked bewildered, yet to comprehend what had just happened.
"What happened..."
He muttered, then collapsed forward.
"Team Two Leader!" Xiaoma lunged toward him.
He tried to catch the collapsing Team Two leader.
But the phantom that had bored into his chest reemerged and lunged at Xiaoma.
"Xiaoma, get down!" the Team One leader yelled from across the way.
A belated Qi Bullet struck the phantom in mid-air, blasting it to dust.
"Pull that kid back!" the major roared.
The Team One leader charged over, seized Xiaoma by the back of his collar, and forcefully dragged him away from the Team Two leader’s side.
Xiaoma stumbled from the force of the pull, his hand still death-gripping a torn piece of cloth.
Meanwhile, Richard couldn’t spare a glance for anyone else; his eyes were fixed on the conduit in the Answering Head’s hand.
It was a length of something black, woven from an unknown material and clutched tightly in the Answering Head’s right hand.
His gaze fell to the Answering Head’s feet.
The entire inverted core area wasn’t completely pitch-black.
The five activated stone rings glowed with steady halos of light.
’Where there is light, there are shadows.’
’Shadow Armor.’
Following his modified design, Richard reversed the Ether flow from inward to outward, concentrating all the technique’s weight onto the shadow of the Answering Head’s right hand.
The Answering Head was already lunging forward, but in the instant he was airborne, his right hand clutching the conduit suddenly sank.
The weight wasn’t extreme for someone of his tier, but the pressure made his hand instinctively loosen.
The black conduit slipped from between his fingers.
The sudden weight on his right hand threw off his center of gravity, pulling him off balance.
"Gray Eyes! Get back!"
Mr. Hutton’s voice boomed through the cavern.
Richard only then realized that while casting Shadow Armor, he had unconsciously stepped outside the protective range of the Light Locks.
He immediately withdrew the Technique and retreated to the innermost circle of the Lamp Array.
Several Light Locks enveloped him once more.
He relied on the silver ring from Lady Mary that hung around his neck, maximizing its ability to shield him from being noticed.
This ensured the Answering Head had paid him no mind from start to finish.
Richard stood silently within the innermost circle, his gaze locked on the Answering Head.
The battle in the outer circle had reached its most brutal stage.
The Answering Head had missed his lunge for the center of the core. Thrown off, his rhythm was broken, and his chanting faltered for the first time.
Yet the phantoms he had summoned continued to pour out unabated.
The Answering Head snatched up the fallen conduit and began advancing on the center of the core once more.
Mr. Hutton’s recitation of the Judgment was now faltering.
The old man braced himself against the Inscription Platform, his entire body trembling.
As for Mrs. MacNeil’s Seven Spirits, the Wolf Spirit’s Golden Silk Net was mostly destroyed, and the Weaving Woman’s threads were on the verge of snapping.
After being steadied by that injection, Winterworth had circled to the flank.
But his burst of strength was spent; he couldn’t manage a second full-power charge.
Phantoms continued to flood the area.
The entire situation had reached a tipping point.
Richard’s gaze swept over to Mrs. MacNeil.
The Spirit Medium stood just inside the second circle of Light Locks, clutching her Spirit Lodging Artifact.
Her gaze was fixed on the major.
That night in Whitcomb, at the most critical moment, the Spirit Medium had summoned the Spirit of her teacher, Lady Mary, from the Bone Bracelet.
By all rights, the current situation was even more perilous than that night in Whitcomb.
’The Bone Bracelet in the Spirit Medium’s hand shouldn’t remain dormant now.’
But Mrs. MacNeil’s left hand only rested on the Bone Bracelet at her belt, unmoving.
He remembered the "trump card" Mr. Hutton had mentioned before and waited in silence.
Major Aud stood in the outer circle.
The time had finally come to play the trump card he had been holding back.
The major glanced at the Team Two leader lying on the ground, then at Xiaoma, who had been dragged back and was now kneeling.
"Everyone shut up. For what comes next, no one is to respond."
The major slowly raised his steel prosthesis toward the reflected Star Sea overhead.

Comments

Loading...