No hesitation, no discussion, and no wasted words.

In that instant, facing those little suns rising into the air, everyone, in unspoken unison, roused their mana and battle aura and launched their strongest attacks toward the charging hellhounds as they gathered power.

If they stood there gawking and let those hellhounds actually unleash that terrifying combined spell, even if they could barely withstand it, after holding out they would likely be in no condition to face the rush of the other hellhounds.

There were simply too many hellhounds; the ones casting now were only a portion. In the darkness behind, more hellhounds were pouring in without end.

And when facing an enemy whose numbers far exceeded their own, choosing to retreat amounted to willingly becoming fish laid upon the chopping block, to be butchered at will.

Therefore, taking the initiative to attack was absolutely a better choice than passively waiting to die on the defensive.

Only that way could they fight for a glimmer of hope!

In a heartbeat, boundless mana and battle aura surged; resplendent spells and martial countless soared, outshining those little suns and evolving into a searing flood of destruction.

Earthfire gushed, thunder exploded, gales howled, and ice spikes rained down.

Amid the roaring, countless brilliant streams of light tore open the darkness and completely engulfed the hellhounds.

Moen, having turned his head, felt a stab of pain in his eyes and could only vaguely make out scores of hellhounds being torn apart within the destructive torrent. Yet there were still stragglers that slipped through the net and successfully cast their spells; stream crashed against stream, and the entire space felt as though Little Boy and Fat Man had paid a cheerful visit.

Moen, not skilled in magic or high-powered moves, did not rush forward to foolishly hack away with a blade, but he did casually hurl quite a few of the high-power magical items he had purchased earlier.

At a time like this, no one could keep anything private; besides, to him, those items weren’t that big a deal.

“Shame the storage ring from before was lost.”

Moen couldn’t help a soft sigh.

Otherwise, with those few new-model military magic cannons and alchemical bombs he’d stowed inside, as long as he saturated the only stairway entrance with fire, if this space was sturdy enough, he could have forced the hellhounds to be unable to rush in for at least a dozen minutes.

“This should buy us a little time.”

Faye kicked away the flying hellhound remains, eyes flickering as she calculated the hellhounds’ losses.

“How long can we hold out? Be precise.”

Anne’s face was gloomy.

Amid the earlier chaos, several people had been grazed by the streams of light the hellhounds fired, triggering their teleportation scrolls and eliminating them from the fray. The next wave would likely be even harder to withstand.

“Three minutes,” Faye gave a number.

“Maybe even less.”

Margarita added:

“Those hellhounds may have been revived, but they aren’t truly living beings. Never mind whether they feel pain; from what I’ve observed, they certainly don’t possess anything like fear.”

The others’ faces changed.

They hadn’t noticed this issue earlier, but it was obvious that for the present situation, this was extremely bad.

“In other words, we have to find a way to deal with this damned thing in three minutes, or even less?”

Moen looked at the prisoner, who was wobbling as he rose from the ground, and let out a quiet sigh:

“Sounds a bit like asking the impossible.”

The two rounds of offense just now had indeed probed some of this damned thing’s properties, but that only made it feel all the more thorny.

Attacks were useless; its body was incomparably hard, impervious to blade and spear. Even if you managed to strike a vital spot, it seemed to have no effect on him whatsoever.

He didn’t look like a person; more like...

“An alchemical device.”

Suddenly, a gentle voice like a spring breeze sounded. Freya, her expression saintly, appeared at Moen’s side at some point, with Bryan behind her no longer merged into the shadows, and said softly:

“This person has indeed been refined into an alchemical device.”

“I thought you were going to keep watching from the sidelines.”

Moen gave Freya an impassive glance.

“Mr. Moen is always so biased against me; it’s truly heartbreaking.”

With a pitiful look, Freya added, “I wasn’t slacking off, you know.”

“Perhaps.”

Time was pressing, and Moen had no time to bandy words with her; he got straight to the point and asked:

“What do you mean by an alchemical device?”

“Exactly what it sounds like.”

Freya took out the eye-like orb—a replica of the Eye of Omniscience—aimed it at the prisoner, and gave it a gentle shake.

In an instant, countless golden runes surfaced on the prisoner’s body and burrowed back and forth like densely packed tadpoles.

With the appearance of those golden tadpoles, Anne’s face changed drastically; for the first time, the proud lolicon lost her composure:

“It really is alchemy?”

“Is that so unbelievable?”

Moen frowned and asked.

“Of course it’s unbelievable!”

Anne’s eyes glittered, as if her entire worldview had been shaken:

“This is alchemy! At its core it’s the mutual transmutation of matter! But the conversion between life and death isn’t among it! This touches the very foundations of alchemy...”

“Don’t forget the hellhounds.”

Moen said mildly.

“...”

Anne froze, opened and closed her mouth, and couldn’t get the next words out.

Everything before their eyes was indeed extraordinary.

But divine power is precisely that unreasonable.

Changing certain rules humans hold to is but a flip of the hand.

“The prisoner before us has been completely turned into an alchemical device. From what just happened, he seems to be one with those hellhounds. Put simply, he’s the key that controls them.”

Toying with the Eye of Omniscience replica in her hand, Freya said:

“In short, there’s no way around this thing; we can only confront it head-on.”

“Cut the useless chatter. I only want to know—do we have a way?”

The hellhounds had already launched another assault. Though everyone strove to stop them, the numerical disparity was far more than a little; some hellhounds had already crossed the defensive line and were charging the few by the door.

With a casual wave of Faye’s slender hand, a gigantic black serpent materialized and swallowed a hellhound in one bite.

“There’s no time left to delay.”

Everyone fell silent, all sinking into thought.

Freya said no more.

Knowing the nature of this damned thing hadn’t made the situation any better—if anything, it made it more troublesome.

If it were an enemy you could kill outright, fine; but how do you deal with a mere tool?

“Monster.”

Suddenly, Lea—who hadn’t spoken again since the beginning—tugged at Moen’s sleeve, as though she had discovered something:

“Those monsters.”

“What?”

“Don’t you think so, Moen? This person... is very much like those twisted monsters we encountered before.”

“Monster?”

Moen was taken aback.

Though the prisoner before them looked utterly miserable, he felt that this thing and those earlier monsters could by no means be equated.

They were plainly two different things.

“No, the same. The feeling their souls give is the same.”

Lea stared fixedly at the prisoner, speaking almost to herself:

“In pain—terrible pain. His soul, like the monsters we met before, is weeping in agony. Haven’t you heard it? He’s calling for help. Just like those souls before, he too is calling for help.”

“Lea, what exactly are you trying to say?”

“Purification!”

Lea raised her voice:

“The way we dealt with those monsters before—Purification! purifying the soul!”

“Purifying the soul...”

Moen frowned:

“But... when we faced those monsters before, didn’t we have to kill them before we could purify them?”

And the problem now was that attacks were useless against this damned thing—that’s what was truly maddening...

“Why kill him?”

Looking into Moen’s eyes, Lea suddenly said:

“But isn’t he... already dead?”