Dodd’s magic stone mine was the destination, where Ivan and his party arrived hurriedly. They were immediately spotted by the stationed guards, and it happened to be the turn of the Seventh Battle Squad of the Rockhound Brigade to be on duty there.
“Is there anything unusual?”
“Lord Ivan, there have been no abnormalities recently.”
Hearing the battle squad leader Beck’s response, Ivan glanced at the peaceful area outside the mine and nodded slightly.
It seemed that only the inside of the mine had issues.
“Captain Beck, see you later.”
“Please.”
Watching Ivan’s receding figure, Beck secretly admired him. Truly deserving of his worldwide fame, his presence grew stronger with each encounter, leaving others in the dust.
On the other hand, Ivan and his group passed through the stone tunnel and arrived in front of the hefty defensive barrier of the magic stone mine.
There was nothing unusual about the defensive barrier either.
“Sorcerer Ivan, let me take the lead. I guarantee that I’ll grind those thieves into dust,” Locke volunteered, eager to demonstrate his strength after his recent defeat to someone.
“I’ll cover for him,” Jenny added immediately.
In fact, before leaving Rapid Wood Tower, there had been a disagreement among them, as they all wanted to come and rid the area of these thieves.
Ivan considered one point: knowing that the Dodd magic stone mine had an owner and still daring to sneak in, these thieves must be extremely wicked people. He decided to come personally and brought along Locke, Jenny, and others.
“I don’t need you to cover for me,” Locke retorted.
“Humph,” Jenny snorted twice, her gaze becoming mysteriously threatening.
Feeling challenged in front of everyone, Locke’s cheeks twitched twice, and he felt quite unhappy, yet he was relatively at a loss for words—he couldn’t win against her, so what else could he do?
Ivan ignored the two who were constantly bickering and took out the earth stone command, connecting with the earth stone formation that protected the magic stone mine, delicately sensing the area. A disgusting aura emerged within his perception.
“So it’s a Spiritual Body causing mischief.”
“I-I-I am the most skilled at dealing with Spiritual Bodies,” Locke’s eyes lit up upon hearing Ivan’s words and volunteered again.
Fate is indeed on my side!
Locke eagerly awaited Ivan’s consent.
“Fine, you lead the way with the swamp ant forefront, and let Jenny cover for you two,” content with Locke’s enthusiasm, Ivan gladly let him take charge and immediately opened a passageway leading into the mine.
Locke rushed in first, followed closely by the others, with Ivan being the last to step into the passageway.
As they went deeper into the cave, Locke sensed a nauseating odor—the problematic area must be the same convergence point for the Spiritual Bodies as last time, where the unique forces could regenerate repeatedly and ultimately had to be sealed.
With that in mind, Locke quickened his pace.
Soon, he was the first to arrive at the rock cavern. Compared to their last visit, it had obviously been expanded: the original stone palace had vanished, and the ground was now covered in numerous complex and ominously dark cyan patterns.
And there was a wisp of black, red, and cyan energy fog hovering in the air.
“Ha-ha-ha, the prey has arrived,” the mist transformed into a large and bloated figure.
“Prey? With something that is neither Spiritual Body nor wild beast like you? Heh, heh,” Locke scoffed coldly.
“I smell it, I smell that despicable sorcerer’s scent,” Olli, upon sensing something, became restless, and then he noticed something else, staring at Locke in deep anguish: Continue reading at My Virtual Library Empire
“It’s you, you’ve become a betrayer, a despicable betrayer—you shouldn’t have betrayed us!”
“Kill, the despicable sorcerer should be killed, and so should the betrayer!”
As his speech grew more intense, the black and red smog around his body churned violently, like a great demon descended upon the mortal realm.
“Swamp ant, stay still for now. There’s a myriad of traps in there, and this guy is covered in curses. Your frame surely can’t handle it, let me deal with this.”
Locke, not noticing anything amiss with the patterns on the ground, stopped talking. With a curved knife in hand, he lunged at the enemy.
The curved knife had been specially made by Ivan, a product of his mastery over spatial networks and his proficiency in spatial cutting.
In Locke’s grasp, the blade emitted an unusual white gleam, and as he got closer, he sliced open a long wound on Olli’s body, from which dark cyan, almost black, vile blood gushed and splattered on the ground.
It was clear that the vile blood contained a malicious curse, one should not come in contact with it.
Locke, as if immune, continued with ‘spatial acceleration’, skillfully dodging the enemy’s attacks, and occasionally stabbing at him.
“Argh, you traitor, if you’re capable, stop hiding,” Olli could not match Locke’s speed and agility, and could only suffer slashes, screaming in rage.
“Bastard, if you’re capable, then keep moving,” Locke silently cursed. The bastard had mutated to such an extent, with astonishing regenerative abilities, and was truly difficult to kill.
The two tangled together, with Olli’s clumsiness being even more pronounced next to Locke, clearly at a disadvantage in the fight.
The more Olli fought, the more outraged he became, and the more suffocated he felt inside.
After all the sacrifices he made, the vast power he accumulated, and the careful planning and trapping, he ended up facing this traitor. His most potent methods were ignored, and he was restrained at every turn—
While these thoughts passed, Ivan had already reached the entrance to the rock cavern.
“Something’s not right,” Jenny observed, looking at the ground.
“Indeed, that looks like a formation, and as the blood drips onto it, something is brewing there,” Ivan glanced and immediately noticed the trickery within the cavern.
The entire cavern was enveloped by an ominous special energy field, filled with illusions that even made him somewhat wary.
Only someone like Locke could outright ignore it.
“Then let’s make it quick,” Jenny continued.
Seeing no objection from Ivan, she raised her left hand, and a sharp root extended from her palm, piercing the sinister energy field with the force of a lightning strike and hitting the burly figure accurately.
The body of the burly figure was immediately shattered, and whatever blood there was dissipated into ash.
“No, this is my—!” Locke panicked at the sight.
“We need to be quick about it,” Jenny said indifferently. “If I were you, I wouldn’t get distracted during a fight.”
“You—bastard! How dare you launch a sneak attack when you’re at this level,” Locke regained his composure, quickly dodged the enemy’s surprise attack, and turned his spearhead towards the jerk in front of him.
Fearing that the kill would be stolen from him, Locke grew ruthless, the white glow of his curved blade intensifying.
In the end, with their combined efforts, Ollie was killed with a heart full of reluctance.
“I got the last hit.” After the enemy was slain, Locke was somewhat proud, walking towards the outside of the cavern at a leisurely pace. “Also, are you sure you’re okay with this? Don’t accidentally get cursed, or else—”
“Just take care of yourself,” Jenny said. “If you dawdle any longer, you might just get sacrificed.”
“Hey—forget it; I won’t argue with you.” Locke sensed something off under his feet and leaped out of the cavern in a few steps.
At this moment, the formation on the ground of the cavern did not stop operating, but rather, with Ollie’s death, it seemed to activate fully, with a different kind of energy field filling the space.
Seeing that his clones had left no aftermath during the recent fight, Ivan shifted his attention to the changes within the cavern.
As time passed, the presence of spiritual bodies grew stronger, making the cavern increasingly oppressive and causing a subtle sense of unease.
“Jenny, swamp ant, I have a task for you two,” Ivan said. “Use your power to manipulate rock and soil to move the array dais I left here before closer to us and do it quickly.”
Ivan gripped the earth stone command and tried a few times to use the power of the defensive barrier to halt the operation of the formations within the cavern, but to no avail. He then issued an instruction.
The last time he visited Dodd, he had constructed nine Black Magic Wind Fire Arrays, one large and eight small. When he left, he had only moved a few critical components and buried them in place.
He hadn’t expected them to come in handy so soon again.
Hearing his command, Jenny and the swamp ant hurried off.
“Boss, is it really necessary to go through all this trouble?” Locke asked, puzzled. In his view, their group’s strength was already more than sufficient, and there was no need to go to such lengths.
“Let me ask you, can you destroy this formation?”
“No, but—”
“You talk too much. Even when a lion fights a rabbit, it uses all its strength, much less when facing an unknown situation. Later, you keep watch here, and if anything happens, you hold them off with all you’ve got first.”
“Alright.”
Locke sheepishly agreed, knowing that it was just a joke from the boss and that if he talked back, the boss might really get angry.
Wherever Jenny and the swamp ant went, the surrounding soil became soft and fluid, quickly bringing over the larger Black Magic Wind Fire Array Dais to block the entrance of the cavern.
As per Ivan’s directions, they also moved the other eight smaller array daises around the perimeter.
The Silkworm Queen, with her troops, brought over a large quantity of magic stones in preparation for any contingencies.
Moments later, Ivan completed the array dais and expertly inscribed several rudimentary runes to connect the large and eight small daises. While the resulting power was not as refined as his meticulous work, it was still sufficient.
A face-off between formations was established.
“Boss, they’re coming,” Locke warned.
Shadowy figures began to emerge from the ground of the cavern.
One after another, they popped up like bubbles.
Once the shadows stabilized, they transformed into spiritual bodies, and at this rate, their numbers could become immeasurable.
“Make way.”
As Locke moved aside, a pillar of Black Magic Fire surged towards the cavern, and the energy field within the cavern began to crackle immediately.
The wind stoked the flames, and more Black Magic Fire flooded into the cavern.
Seeing the resistance within the cavern was not weak, Ivan waved his hand, and nine pearls flew out, turning into magic copper spheres in the blink of an eye. The largest landed in the center of the array dais, while the remaining eight wrapped in flames broke into the cavern from the outside, enclosing the special energy field within.
With the pull of the Black Magic Wind Fire Pearl, the Black Magic Fire turned the inside of the cavern into a sea of flames in a moment, transforming the cavern into a furnace, searing hot as if made of iron and copper walls.
“The boss is truly the boss, with fierce tactics. Those spiritual bodies are doomed,” Locke sighed to himself, comparing it with his own efforts of hacking away.
No sooner had the words left his mouth than the Black Magic Fire burned through the energy field’s resistance and surged into the center of the cavern, consuming everything within.
The shrill screams of the spiritual bodies echoed through the cavern.
Under Ivan’s command, the Black Magic Wind Fire Array was already designed to target spiritual bodies. Surrounded by the Black Magic Fire like this, the emerging spiritual bodies were certainly doomed, a scene of almost certain death.
Before long, the screams began to fade, indicating that only a few more spiritual bodies would emerge.
“Everyone, be careful.”
On the main array dais of the Black Magic Wind Fire Array, Ivan frowned. He sensed an abnormal and massive fluctuation from within the cavern, guessing that an even more ferocious spiritual body was coming, prompting him to remain cautious.