In an instant, Elg, who attempted to forcibly probe Ian’s soul, faced a backlash he had never encountered before — his consciousness was swept away by a massive soul force nearly ten times the usual computational power of a typical Third Power Level, plunging his vision into darkness, where only two towering presences slowly emerged from the shadows.
These were two incredible Heart Light Body phantasms.
One was constructed of countless corpses and twisted flesh, cruel like death; the other surrounded by thousands of chants and prayers, as majestic as a deity.
"Impossible... Two Heart Light Bodies? Is he schizophrenic?!"
The scholar, eyes bleeding, gritted his teeth, enduring the dizziness caused by Spirit Energy backlash as he stood in place.
"Hm? This Elg... isn’t the same as the ’Elg’ I encountered before?"
By operating the Heart Light Body to isolate Elg’s mental probing, Ian noticed something strange — the opponent was not a derivative of the Thousand-Star Beast but rather Human... No matter, they are surely all part of the same group, and those who dare to ambush him must be taught a lesson.
At this moment, Gaer attacked once more!
Just now, while Ian dealt with Elg and the Necrocaller, severely wounding these two Spirit Energy Users, others had already conducted a rapid exchange via Aina’s Light Spirit network.
[Can’t we really breach his defense?] Gaer roared: [He doesn’t have any special abilities, only absurdly great strength and impenetrable defense—there are simply no weaknesses, the elemental advantage of wind over earth doesn’t apply to him at all, he has only pure physical power!]
[There’s always a way] Aina replied: [The Unyielding Fortress is designed to pursue pure strength as an inheritance; we can’t confront him directly, but we aren’t without trump cards... Initially, meant for use against each other, the ultimate trump cards given by our elders and forces must be brought out now!]
[Leave it to me] Golan said, for some reason her tone became steady: [I’ll give it a try, you all coordinate with me]
Everything happened in an instant.
In the next moment, Gaer’s armor formed from a storm of thunder over his body emerged again, and battle patterns resembling sharp claws appeared on his forehead. Having taken the Royal Court Secret Medicine, the young Lupeanus, with his strength pushed to fifteen-fold, wielded a longsword bursting with electric arcs in his hand. The light at the tip quivered, tearing into a whirlpool reminiscent of an eye, as if intending to devour the world with the eyes of a ravenous wolf.
He leaped forward, erupted, and with a long howl, Gaer’s saber shattered, and the incredibly dazzling lightning and whirlwind erupted, propelling the shards of the sharp saber, transforming into thousands of blades, mixed with the thunderous torrent, all slashing towards the chest of the Knight of the Secluded Valley - Mahdi!
In this instant, Gaer was wielding not a blade but a wave constructed of destruction, ruin, and death!
While the knight merely stepped toward the raging torrent blade wave surging at him.
He lifted his right leg, stomping onto the ground heavily, then plunged the Heavy Abyss Iron Sword into the earth!
Thus, the earth responded to his summon.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Layer upon layer of rocky cliffs resembling sharp swords rose like walls before the knight, extending towards Gaer’s direction, and the torrent blade wave shredded through four layers of rock walls amidst violent roars but failed to persist beyond.
Yet, the cliff blades continued to protrude from the ground amidst roaring, mercilessly striking the unprepared Gaer, launching him fifteen hundred meters into the sky, where a delayed explosion occurred.
This was Ian’s first display of the ’Martial Techniques’ from the Unyielding Fortress lineage... a significant show of respect, for in his plan, as long as this group of hidden-power talents from great forces didn’t use their true trump cards, he wouldn’t use techniques either.
Needless to say, he was well aware that within Emperor Aina’s imperial grandson, lay a force of the Heartlight Entity from Crown Prince Carlos... a force capable of erupting with nearly Fourth Power Level strength!
"Rather than endure severe injuries using elders’ powers to face enemies... Gaer, interesting, you are indeed worthy of me using techniques."
Ian pulled his longsword from the stone, paying no mind to the slowly descending Gaer, turning his head towards Aina and the others, who were filled with fear.
Among the Silver Fairy group.
"Captain, Captain! Why aren’t you joining the battle?"
Hearing the innocent yet inherently incendiary voice of his teammates, Silene Tegmine retorted unkindly: "Are you stupid? We are the observers of this exploration action, not participants in the treasure contest — you see, the True Dragon next door isn’t joining the fray either, she’s even cheering for the Unyielding Fortress!"
Speaking of this, Silver Salt nodded slightly; she remarked: "Dragon Island indeed had a good relationship with the First Knight back then, after all, those capable of slaying those mad dragons are truly few..."
"Captain, you must be scared!" Yet the other Silver Fae didn’t care about Silver Salt’s sentiment. Before their captain could finish speaking, they continued to cheer decisively: "Scared! Scared! You’re scared! Captain, your eyes betray what you feel!"
"Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish!" Silver Salt, indignant and furious, turned her head in reprimand: "So what if I’m scared? That guy is not normal at all, all right? He’s definitely not just a simple Unyielding Fortress. We Silver Fae were once asked for help by that kid Yinaiga; a true Unyielding Fortress isn’t as hard and strong as that!"