Chapter 98: Closing In

Chapter 98: Chapter 98: Closing In

Aina charged forward to close in on Lucius; every strike unleashed carried an extremely decisive murderous intent.

Her magic realm was one tier higher than Lucius’s; this absolute discrepancy caused even someone possessing bizarre skills like him to begin showing signs of being outmatched. Under the continuous pressure, the silver-haired young man’s figure was gradually forced back closer to the edge of the marble arena...

Noticing his teammate at a disadvantage, Leon immediately accelerated. His firm muscles gathered force, powerfully launching the twin crescent chakrams Crescent Blades, tearing through the wind straight toward the remaining four members of the Begonia Team. Sze’s expression changed, hastily gliding his body to form an afterimage, blocking right in front of his three teammates, bracing himself to use his twin blades to deflect Leon’s explosive attack.

He gritted his teeth, turning his head to roar: "Hurry up!"

"Understood!" The three being covered behind immediately got the message. They also shared the same mindset: must fight fast and destroy cleanly, absolutely not allowing long nights fraught with dreams.

The dense black fog carrying a crowd-control effect from Lucius’s skill surged and spread once again. Davion instantly planted his heavy sword into the ground, establishing a hemispherical isolation barrier to block the mist’s corrosion.

In the backline, Vivian frantically swung her scepter, scattering buffing strips that clung straight onto Aina and Sze’s bodies. Upon finishing the support process, these two immediately obeyed the captain’s order precisely, draining the remaining reserved magic power in their seas of consciousness, pouring it straight into Helyn.

Receiving a massive influx of support, Helyn’s magic power, which had bottomed out, suddenly erupted once again. She squeezed her eyes shut, beginning to chant a large-scale summoning grand magic; the intensity of the radiating energy was enough to sweep and encompass the entire area of the arena.

The explosive magic power formed visible shockwaves; a massive, brilliantly glowing summoning runic matrix was gradually taking shape in mid-air.

Below, Leon and Lucius were being doggedly pursued by Aina and Sze without letting go, completely pinned down. Meanwhile, the remaining three core members of the Lunar Eclipse Team were still lying motionless, showing no signs of breaking through the binding silk cocoons of the Puppet Butterflies. The situation on the chessboard seemed settled; all developments were pointing straight to one conclusion: The laurel wreath of this match was firmly grasped in the palm of the Begonia Team.

Thinking of soon trampling these monsters under their heels, the corners of Davion and Vivian’s lips couldn’t hide their gloating.

However, before their smug smiles could fully bloom, an anomaly descended. Helyn, immersed in her chanting state, suddenly paused, her pupils contracting as she acutely detected a completely unfamiliar, freezing magic power fluctuation that had just appeared right behind her back.

Not only her, but Vivian standing nearby also sensed the oppressive murderous intent. She panicked and was about to turn her head, but before she could make any defensive action, an icy purple Scythe of Death, radiating sky-high death aura, rested accurately against the aorta on her neck.

Simultaneously, from beneath their ankles, sections of blue-green thorny vines—something that logically could not possibly exist in this area—had suddenly burst from the ground, tightly wrapping around their flesh like snakes constricting prey. The sharp thorns from the vines plunged into their blood vessels, directly injecting a highly toxic poison carrying a nerve-paralyzing effect into the opponents’ bodies while they were in a completely unshielded state.

Even more terrifyingly, these vines were exactly like a living, parasitic dividing organism. They were frantically proliferating at an explosive speed. In just the blink of an eye, the shackles that had only clung to their ankles had spread, tightening all the way up to their waists.

Vivian’s body froze stiff, the expression on her face entirely one of shock to the point of contortion. The owner of the scythe resting against her neck, even using her toes to guess, she knew perfectly well who it was! But why? Why did the ruthless captain of the Lunar Eclipse Team suddenly appear at this exact coordinate?!

Furthermore, this vine skill was glaringly the destined ability of the expressionless female student named Evelyn. Weren’t they all sealed into cocoons by the butterfly silk, having lost the ability to resist a long time ago?

Vivian completely fell into a state of bewilderment. What the hell... was this absurd magic trick?!

Helyn and Davion also realized death was at their necks. But the tightening of the vines happened too fast, completely paralyzing their motor nervous systems, rendering them utterly powerless to launch a counterattack.

Waiting until Aina - who was busy deadlocked with Lucius, and Sze - who was being slaughtered by Leon until his eyes went blurry, discovered the fatal fluctuation in the backline, everything was already too late.

Jeremy gave a cold snort, his muscular arm grabbing Vivian’s collar, violently throwing her straight out of the arena’s red boundary line. One person eliminated! Simultaneously, the spine of the scythe’s blade struck down heavily, forcibly interrupting Helyn’s ongoing chanting process of the large-scale summoning magic. The massive runic matrix in mid-air lost its core, instantly shattering into streams of blinding light.

Davion - acting as a defensive warrior - had poured all his strength to erupt his magic power, laboriously tearing through the vines’ bindings. But the aftershocks of the paralyzing toxin made his reflex speed as sluggish as rusted machinery, fundamentally unable to compare with Jeremy’s lightning speed.

As for Helyn, before the binding vine layer on her could even dissipate, from beneath the shadows, a barrage of pitch-black tentacles carrying Phoenix’s death aura burst from the ground, sealing and tying her up completely into a mummy.

"!" Aina’s pupils contracted to the extreme. She wanted to instantly turn around and accelerate back to rescue the backline, but that very fatal distraction created a loophole.

"Smack!"

Lucius’s metal Fang of Abyss chain swung over exactly like a python, striking and sinking its razor-sharp links deep into her right shoulder. The agonizing pain of tearing flesh shot straight to her brain incredibly clearly.

"You damn brat...!" The curse that had just rushed up to her throat was swallowed back down by Aina. Fury mixed with ultimate terror caused the hand gripping her flute to tremble violently.

She gritted her teeth until they bled, raising her left hand to grab the chain section full of triangular sharp spikes, roughly yanking it out of her own flesh. Fresh blood poured out, but she had no time to care. The flute transformed into a sword; the unleashed moves carried a treacherous intent to claim lives.

Razor-sharp magic power morphed into invisible blades slashing straight forward. Forcing Lucius to step back and dodge, Aina instantly roared, summoning a violent tornado that completely blew away the layer of black fog covering the arena.

With her vision just restored, her gaze swiftly darted towards the corner of the arena - where the butterfly silk cocoons were supposed to be.

What met her eyes was a naked truth: Phoenix’s copied illusion had completely vanished, while the real Phoenix’s true body had torn through the binding silk layer since who knows when, currently standing in a safe corner, calmly controlling the shadow tentacles constricting Helyn.

Even more terrifyingly, at the coordinate she was firmly convinced Jeremy was imprisoned... since what moment had it been swapped with a humanoid puppet crudely constructed from dry roots and vines. A soulless wooden puppet with merely a rough silhouette; no matter how you looked at it, it was far from a flesh-and-blood human. Its coordinate coincidentally landed exactly in Aina’s visual blind spot.

She was pinned down by Lucius on the other half of the arena so she didn’t notice, but her four teammates standing in the backline, with such clear overarching vision, why were they fooled by such a cheap, crude camouflage trick? Even blind to the point of letting the opponent close in and press a blade right to their necks before startlingly realizing it? Aina bit her lower lip, her head a chaotic mess of incomprehensible confusion.

Suddenly, the green vine cocoon mass in the corner of the arena trembled slightly, then actively parted and retracted. The self-imprisoning barrier dissipated; Evelyn, with a flat, indifferent demeanor, leisurely stepped outside. Her appearance was completely neat; it was glaringly obvious that she had shredded the Puppet Butterflies’ crowd control a long time ago.

Not only did a complex magic runic matrix appear deep within her blue pupils, but enveloping her body was also radiating the brilliant halo characteristic of spiritual runes. This meant... she had successfully and secretly cast her Holy Covenant exclusive skill since God knows when.

Could it be... from the very first moment they encountered the toxic butterfly swarm, this bunch of monsters had intentionally faked weakness, putting on an act of being sealed to beat them at their own game? This terrifying thought had just flashed through her brain when Aina immediately gritted her teeth, self-denying her own judgment. Absolutely impossible!

She dared to bet her life that the Puppet Butterfly swarm had definitely touched and tightly wrapped around the flesh of those three. After all, she herself had reversely absorbed a portion of actual magic power from their bodies through the skill’s transmission channel.

The only catch was, the magic power absorption quota of this skill was capped by a limit, so she was completely unable to continuously track the energy flow to know exactly at what specific moment they broke the binding barrier...

On this side, Lucius naturally had no hobby of distributing time for the enemy to stand dazed in thought. The metal Fang of Abyss chain glittering with murderous intent tore through the wind once again. Being doggedly entangled by someone bearing a Covenant with a realm inferior to hers was a humiliating disgrace for a proud genius like Aina.

Irritated, she gathered her explosive magic power into the flute in her hand, swinging her arm to bat away the incoming tip of the chain. Aina narrowed her eyes, throwing Lucius a cold, resentful glare: "Hmph, it seems your teammate’s exclusive skill belongs to the illusion manipulation system. No wonder you went through so much effort and exhaustion, gritting your teeth going all out acting a play to lure and drag me so far away from the central area."

Lucius tilted his head slightly, his narrow, elongated phoenix eyes skimming over her twisted expression. The corners of his lips curled into a radiant smile, but the radiating oppression was as cold as an ice cellar: "Compared to standing there analyzing a few meaningless words to salvage some face, you might as well obediently tilt your neck back and loudly beg for surrender." He clicked his tongue, intentionally drawing out the final syllable:

"Tsk, carrying the reputation of high-tier Holy Covenants, but you people... are much more trashy and weak than I imagined."

"..."

The razor-sharp words stabbed straight into Aina’s self-esteem. This was not just a mere provocation, but a slap to the face, a blatant mockery trampling over the pride of the entire Begonia Team.

Fury surged straight to her brain; the green veins on Aina’s forehead twitched incessantly. Driven to a dead end, she completely threw away all calculations about consequences or magic power depletion. Both her hands frantically formed seals, condensing a massive amount of energy, morphing into tens of thousands of ice spikes carrying absolute zero temperatures. In just a blink of an eye, the rain of ice spikes tore through Lucius’s magic defensive shield, lunging straight toward his chest.

Facing the explosive killer move, Lucius lowered his eyes, a profound, utterly dull boredom rising in his heart. Should he dodge? Or just stand still and take this blow head-on to be done with it? The thought of decisively trading his body for a one-for-one life exchange at the extreme limit to end this trashy, tedious match early had just flashed through his head, when the corner of his eye unexpectedly caught a figure bearing brilliant red hair. Jeremy was hoisting his blade, accelerating and flying towards this area.

"..."

Lucius’s movement slightly halted in mid-air. Deep within his phoenix eyes, an extremely bizarre calculating glint flashed. He quietly adjusted his muscles, intentionally making his own evasion reflex... slow down exactly one fatal beat.

Thwack!

The freezing ice spike leading the vanguard grazed straight past his pale cheek. Fresh blood seeped out, creating a glaringly contrasting red streak.

However, contrary to his usual extreme personality and mysophobia, Lucius at this moment did not display any irritation or impatience.

In fact, on that flawlessly masculine face, not even half a speck of bloodthirsty hostility was revealed.