Chapter 130: The Feast of the Crying Moon

At that moment, the gray spear was less than a centimeter from Lia’s carotid artery.

The icy breath of death stung her skin even before the tip struck.

Lia’s pupils reflected the apostle crawling out of the shadows; the man’s face was devoid of expression, his eyes leaking nothing but pure killing intent.

In that split second, Lia’s body simply could not keep up with the reaction speed of her thoughts.

She could only watch helplessly as the spear representing her end thrust downward.

Ding!

A crisp clashing sound rang out within the narrow space.

Lia felt the pendant on her chest suddenly grow scalding hot, and immediately following that, a silver-white curtain of light appeared out of thin air, expanding instantly with her as the center.

The gray spear struck the curtain of light, unable to advance even a fraction of an inch.

The movements of the ambushing apostle stalled.

A massive counter-force conducted back through the spear, causing the arm holding the weapon to twist in an unnatural distortion.

Countless complex runes flowed across the silver light curtain, emitting heart-stopping fluctuations of high-tier magic.

It was the Heart of the Guardian.

An absolute defense capable of withstanding the full-force attack of an Eighth-Circle mage for ten minutes.

Lia stared at the thin curtain of light before her; her taut nerves relaxed for a fleeting second before tightening again instantly.

The apostle was still right in front of her.

The opponent clearly hadn’t expected this development, and a moment of blank confusion flickered through his deathly eyes alongside the killing intent.

This was the chance.

Lia’s brain began to whirl at high speeds.

Her current mana was still relatively plentiful, but her spiritual power was in a weakened state after being overextended.

Setting aside the difficulty of releasing a high-circle spell capable of killing the opponent, in her current mental state, she might not even be able to handle a low-circle minor spell properly.

But that did not mean she was defenseless.

Knowledge was power.

Lia fixed her gaze on the gray spear pressed against the light curtain.

It was a high-density aggregate of energy.

As long as it was energy, it had a structure.

And as long as it had a structure, it could be dismantled.

Lia raised her hand.

She didn’t need to mobilize a vast amount of elements for a bombardment; she only needed to find the fulcrum and give it a gentle push.

Across the light curtain, her fingertip pointed into the air at the pressure point of the spear.

She forcibly squeezed out her remaining spiritual power, constructing a streamlined formula in her mind.

She wanted to perform a reverse calculation—specifically, a reverse interference against the frequency of this gray energy fluctuation.

Element Decomposition.

Invisible spiritual ripples penetrated the light curtain, striking precisely at the structural nodes within the gray spear.

The originally extremely stable gray energy instantly fell into disorder.

The apostle sensed something was wrong and tried to pull back the spear, but it was already too late.

The collapse of the energy structure was a chain reaction.

Snap.

A soft sound rang out.

The gray spear exploded in the air, turning into countless runaway energy currents.

The explosion happened right in front of the apostle.

He had no time to set up a defense and was hit head-on by this turbulent torrent of energy.

Large patches of his originally solidified body began to dissipate, and gray mist poured frantically from his wounds.

The apostle opened his mouth, letting out a silent roar, as his body staggered backward and fell once again into the shadows of the floor, vanishing from sight.

Lia withdrew her hand, leaning against the ice wall and panting heavily.

Cold sweat drenched her back.

This time, she was truly overextended; her head throbbed with a pain like someone was using a saw on her brain.

But she had won.

***

Outside the ice wall.

Ella had been watching the movements inside.

She had originally expected to see the girl’s bloodied corpse, which was the key link in crushing the Eighth-Circle mage’s psychological defenses.

However, that flare of silver light stung her eyes.

That unique arrangement of runes, that domineering rule of absolute exclusion of external interference.

The composure on Ella’s face developed a crack.

‘That is the handiwork of a Ninth-Circle mage!’

An unexpected loophole had appeared in her originally perfect script.

In that very instant of her distraction.

Klein, who had been on the defensive, moved.

He had been waiting.

Waiting for a flaw.

The moment the silver light flared on Lia’s side, he knew she would be fine.

Since he no longer had any worries, the time that followed was for pure aggression.

Klein dispelled the defensive arrays maintained around his body.

Every drop of mana was converted into offensive output at this moment.

Ella’s gaze was drawn by that silver light—this was exactly the moment he needed.

Klein took a step forward.

This step crossed the distance of space itself.

The nine apostles besieging him launched their attacks simultaneously; countless gray rays and black mists sealed off all his paths of entry and retreat.

But Klein had no intention of dodging.

There were no emotional fluctuations in his blue eyes, only cold calculation.

Spatial Folding.

The attacks that seemed certain to hit all slid into another dimension of space the moment before they touched his body.

He simply weathered the storm of attacks and charged straight at Ella.

Blocking his path were two exceptionally tall apostles.

They raised their massive shields, attempting to halt the man’s charge.

Klein raised his right hand, fingers splayed, and then suddenly clenched his fist.

Spatial Compression.

In the area where those two apostles stood, space collapsed inward instantly.

Their bodies, along with the giant shields in their hands, were twisted into meat-spheres no larger than a fist within a thousandth of a second.

Blood and bone shards were squeezed out by the high pressure, spraying in all directions.

Klein’s silhouette passed through the mist of blood, his speed not slowing in the slightest.

The remaining seven apostles tried to come to her aid, but their speed appeared far too sluggish in the face of spatial magic.

Klein took another step.

His figure flickered.

This time, he appeared directly in front of Ella.

The distance between them was less than half a meter.

Ella’s pupils dilated.

She saw Klein’s blue eyes, which reflected her own startled face.

Too fast.

From the moment the silver shield lit up to Klein breaking the encirclement and reaching her, the entire process had taken less than two seconds.

This representative of the Crying Moon finally realized a serious problem.

She had underestimated the explosive power of an Eighth-Circle mage.

She had also underestimated this man’s determination to kill her.

Ella instinctively wanted to retreat, wanted to recall the ten apostles for defense, even wanted to trigger the arrays underground.

But Klein gave her no opportunity.

His right hand was already raised, a heart-stopping magical brilliance converging at his fingertips.

It was an extremely compressed Spatial Fissure Ray.

At such close range, even a god would have a chunk of flesh torn away.

“It’s over.”

Klein’s voice was soft, yet clearly audible over the noisy battlefield.

His finger pointed toward the center of Ella’s brow.

The “Crying Moon” emblem on Ella’s chest vibrated frantically, releasing layers of gray barriers in an attempt to block him.

But in the face of Klein’s long-premeditated killing blow, these hurried defenses were as fragile as paper.

The gray barriers shattered layer by layer.

Klein’s finger penetrated those obstacles without hindrance.

The shadow of death enveloped Ella.

She could feel that destructive power tearing through her skin and drilling into her marrow.

Just then.

The fingers of Count Valerius, lying not far away, twitched slightly.

No one noticed this detail.

Everyone’s attention was focused on this life-and-death clash.

Across the ice wall and the silver light curtain, Lia stared fixedly at the battlefield outside.

She saw Klein’s unstoppable charge and the terror on Ella’s face.

‘Is it a win?’

The thought had just surfaced.

A sudden mutation occurred.

Ella did not close her eyes and wait for death.

At the final moment, the terrified expression on her face vanished, replaced by a bizarre look of resolve.

Since she couldn’t defend against it, she wouldn’t bother defending.

Not only did she not retreat, but she also took an active step forward.

She allowed Klein’s finger to strike her forehead.

Puchi.

A small bloody hole appeared between her brows.

Blue light pierced through her skull, shooting out from the back of her head and pinning itself into the wall behind.

However, this was not a fatal wound.

Because the instant the light pierced through, Ella’s body transformed into a pool of flowing gray liquid.

‘Is that some kind of body-swap spell?’

‘No, wait.’

Klein sensed the anomaly immediately.

That wasn’t a decoy; that was definitely her original body.

It was just that her life-form had completely changed.

That pool of gray liquid did not scatter across the floor; instead, it rapidly climbed up Klein’s arm.

Like living asphalt, it tightly coiled around Klein’s right hand.

At the same time, the bodies of the ten apostles left behind disintegrated into the same liquid.

Eleven gray torrents converged in the catacomb.

Their goal was not to attack Klein.

It was to trap him.

“You thought you could kill me?!”