“Hngh—!” With his lower body restrained, Lanoras naturally tried to break free and escape at once. But just as he was about to succeed, more than a dozen enormous tentacles suddenly thrust out from the Great Sage’s body—split cleanly in two—and pierced straight through Lanoras.
“Squelch, squelch—!”
Lanoras was pierced clean through. The Great Sage’s tentacles then coiled around him and tried to pull him closer, while countless tiny tentacles sprouted from the wounds. Judging by their appearance, they seemed intent on dragging Lanoras into the Great Sage’s body.
“Explode for me!” At the critical moment, Lanoras hurled the blood-red greatsword in his hand at the Great Sage and decisively detonated his own weapon.
“Rumble—!”
The blood-red greatsword exploded, instantly severing the Great Sage’s tentacles. The two halves of his body were shattered even further, sending chunks of flesh flying everywhere. Lanoras used the force of the blast to rapidly pull away, tearing out all the tentacles that had pierced his body. Naturally, a great deal of blood came pouring out with them.
But Lanoras didn’t even have time to celebrate. The ground beneath his feet suddenly caved in, and a massive, fleshy maw swallowed him whole. Just as he tried to fight back, countless tentacles emerged from inside the maw and wrapped around him. Many tiny mouths, shaped like suction cups, also sprouted forth and bit into his body, frantically siphoning away his strength.
“How long are you going to keep watching, sir?” Lanoras roared. “That old bastard won’t spare anyone, either. Even if you manage to escape, everyone in this world will still die!”
“Whoosh!” A streak of black light shot out from space and plunged straight into the ground. The blood-red maw instantly shattered into countless pieces. Though it looked like a single attack, it had shattered the surrounding space and brought the force of that spatial rupture down upon the entire maw.
“Who?!” The Great Sage was startled. He hadn’t even noticed that someone had been hiding nearby. His gaze snapped toward the direction from which the black light had come.
“As expected of a master and disciple—you really are two of a kind!” Bexia stepped out of space and spoke.
“Thank you, sir!” Lanoras crouched on the ground, panting. It might have lasted only a moment, but the Great Sage had absorbed a great deal of his strength. By now, Lanoras looked as though he had withered away by an entire size.
“You must have come from the outside world, right?” Although Bexia’s aura didn’t feel particularly strong, he had evaded the Great Sage’s perception without being detected at all. He was clearly no ordinary person!
“That’s right.” Bexia nodded.
“You and I have no conflict between us. Why don’t we talk? Whatever you need, I’ll do my best to satisfy you!” The Great Sage had only a single head, making his words seem especially bizarre.
“Is that so? You can really satisfy me?” Bexia gave him a playful smile.
“Of course!” The Great Sage smiled back with an extremely “sincere” expression.
“Sir, don’t waste time talking to him. He’s recovering his strength!” Lanoras suddenly sensed that the formation he had arranged was beginning to collapse. He immediately turned toward Bexia.
“Hahahaha!” The Great Sage burst into laughter. “You’re only realizing it now? It’s already too late!”
As the Great Sage’s voice fell, the dried-up blood pool began to churn, surging with tremendous amounts of blood-red energy. A giant resembling Lanoras in his transformed troll form climbed out of it. Aside from its vivid blood-red color, it was exactly the same as Lanoras!
“Boom!” The moment this new fleshy giant appeared, it swung a devastating punch at Bexia without the slightest hesitation.
“We may not know each other, but what you’ve done makes me sick!” Bexia dodged the fleshy giant’s punch and quickly retreated.
“Power is the foundation. No one cares about the process!” the Great Sage proclaimed his deranged doctrine. Meanwhile, deep within the Sea of Knowledge below, a crystal-clear body was rapidly taking shape, on the verge of reaching perfection.
“Go play with my pet for a while!” The Great Sage laughed and plunged into the blood pool. His head instantly shattered, leaving behind only a faint glimmer that shot rapidly into the newly formed body.
“You want to play? Then I’ll play with you properly!” Bexia revealed an malicious smile and softly spoke a few words.
“Breath of the Ages!”
The moment Bexia’s voice faded, it was as though the river of time and space had been stirred into a frenzy. Then the Great Sage, who had just burrowed into the body, let out a terrified cry.
“What did you do to me?!”
“I merely left something nice for you on the Grail of Power.” Bexia smiled.
As Bexia’s voice fell, the body the Great Sage had just formed began to turn into sand bit by bit, like an old stone weathered by countless years. In the end, it crumbled into a heap of yellow sand.
“Aaaah!” The Great Sage’s soul escaped from the body, but it was clearly even more transparent than before. If the Grail of Power hadn’t protected him, that single force of time would have been enough to annihilate his soul as well.
“You deserve to die! All of you deserve to die!”
The Great Sage screamed himself hoarse. Using the Grail of Power as its core, he gathered up all the remaining power in the blood pool and transformed it into a gigantic, twisted monster.
“Die! Die! Die!”
The gigantic monster extended dozens of enormous tentacles. Countless arms could be seen along each one, and in the palms of those hands were rows upon rows of eyes. The sight was so densely packed that it made one’s scalp crawl. Countless resentments coiled around them as well. An ordinary person would be haunted by those resentments from the slightest touch, and would ultimately either turn into a vengeful ghost or die a horrible death beneath them.
