"I’ve changed my mind," Jude muttered, "I’m going to capture you..."
The vines entwined around him were ripped away from his side in an instant, as if gripped by a brutish invisible force.
It was as though invisible telekinesis clamped down on these vines—
These soft yet tenacious vines struggled fiercely, but to no avail. The stray child immediately sensed that the weak connection between his heart and the vines was severed by something in an instant.
The next moment, their shape also changed.
The color and material remained the same, but the tips of the vines were now bundled up by an invisible force into straight dark green vine spears.
Jude didn’t even raise his hand.
He just looked at the stray child—the hovering spears by his side shot towards the child in unison!
A great sense of crisis instantly gripped the child’s heart.
Without thinking, he immediately retreated to the side.
At the same time, he pointed the slender blade toward the ground and flicked upwards.
With a thunderous roar, a wall about five fingers wide burst forth from the ground along with rising dust.
—— Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom!
It was an unbelievably huge sound.
The earthen wall, pelted by countless vine-made spears, was covered in cracks in the blink of an eye and then collapsed to pieces. The vines that collided head-on with the wall also turned into mush—but this didn’t matter at all.
Because Jude had retracted the tails of the vines. They continued to harden and turn into new spear tips...
A chill crept into the stray child’s heart.
...Is this the level of a silver-rank Wizard?
Which school does he belong to?
Transmutation? Or... shapeshifting?
These vine spears could easily break through the standard earthen wall created by the stray child—a wall that could even withstand a full-force blow from Jiu’er wielding the axe handle without crumbling too much.
According to previous calculations by players, it was roughly equivalent to the damage that a target with ten points of constitution in leather armor could sustain.
Yet, it couldn’t withstand the vines for even a moment.
In other words, if just one of these vine spears hit him, he would be left with only a sliver of health. If two hit him, he’d drop dead instantly...
—— WTF, am I playing a new entry in the Souls series?
The stray child didn’t hesitate.
He swung his elven rapier repeatedly.
One wall after another sprung up from the ground like a labyrinth, while countless vines climbed and linked them together.
It was only during full-fledged combat that the stray child finally realized the extent of his combat abilities.
Perhaps... he could easily crush the charge of a cavalry squad.
Although it also blocked his sight... it equally obscured Jude’s vision.
After all, the child was not a Wizard.
Using this kind of swordplay would only exhaust his physical strength.
And if he couldn’t escape after revival... his stamina would instantly recover.
He refused to believe that the opponent’s one-man-dragon-cavalry system wouldn’t use up mana.
As long as it consumed mana... trading his own physical strength for the opponent’s mana might actually lead to a successful counter-kill!
He created a dozen or so earth walls each over two meters high and linked them with vines, momentarily exhausting his physical strength.
A strong sense of emptiness came from his lower back, his legs went weak, and he nearly knelt to the ground.
...But there was no rush.
In a dense forest environment, his stamina recovered quite quickly.
These walls should hold up for a few waves...
The ground around him began to shake.
It wasn’t the thunderous rumbling of an earthquake... but rather, like a collapsing sponge cake, it started trembling and melting away quietly.
Caught off guard, the child’s feet sank into the melting mire.
It wasn’t clay... if anything, it resembled freshly laid cement.
But this "cement" was too deep, without any ground beneath, and he couldn’t exert any force.
The excessively soft touch was even somewhat nauseating for the child.
And those earthen walls that sealed him off behind began to melt like candle wax without any warning as the ground beneath his feet collapsed, turning into mush in the blink of an eye and returning to earth.
The next moment, a dim glow spread across the ground.
The stray child’s eyes widened slightly.
This time he saw it clearly—
A faint, expanding, gray magical rune had emerged on the ground!
It had a diameter of about twenty meters... a not-so-large area.
But it was already too late.
The wandering child clearly sensed that after the halo passed, the ground beneath his feet suddenly solidified. The part of him below the knees was directly sealed into the earth...
If he exerted force at this moment, he might even tear off the skin on his legs.
Jude said in a low, emotionless voice, "I advise you not to move... You can’t hurt me."
Upon hearing this, the wandering child clenched his teeth tightly and breathed heavily.
The dozen or so earthen walls he had prepared, entwined with vines, were completely useless. He was confident that he could withstand several rounds of bombardment from a ship’s main cannon.
But unexpectedly, this wizard didn’t play by the rules... The earthen walls had melted away in less than a second.
It was like having saved up two or three waves of troops, planning to push the enemy’s high ground in one go... only to have all of them wiped out by an opponent’s mage with an AOE spell.
"...A Transfiguration Wizard, huh."
Annan murmured to himself as he watched this scene through the live stream, "This is the profession that counters you..."
What he had just seen... was the very same moment he had perceived in the ritual, the "fragment from the future"!
The child could borrow the power of nature, controlling the earth, rivers, and vines. But his attacks were almost meaningless against Transfiguration Wizards skilled in changing the shape of objects.
When he reached the silver rank, he might be able to check the opponent to some extent.
But under the suppression of ranks, the child couldn’t compete for control over each vine, each earthen wall.
As soon as the Transfiguration Wizard’s spell passed over, the "natural terrain" he had created would become part of the opponent’s power.
It was also because the opponent wanted to capture him alive.
Otherwise... All it would take was for the earthen walls and the ground beneath the child to sprout sharp stone spikes, and he could have killed the child instantly.
And this spell that melted the ground...
Jude’s mastery of it wasn’t very impressive either.
Annan had seen this move before.
In the Nightmare: White Tower, the pirate captain who went by the name Miss Clare, Karl Mathieu, was a silver-ranked Transfiguration Wizard.
He could turn the walls of the Wizard’s Tower into heavy mud in a breath, control tens of tons of mud flowing freely around him, transforming it into walls or capturing enemies; he could extract someone’s blood in the blink of an eye, turning it into freely flying sharp blades; he could even instantly reshape his own body, changing himself into a completely different person with different height, physique, appearance, skin, and even change his clothes and voice.
Compared to Captain Karl... this man named Jude’s mastery over transfiguration spells was far inferior.
In his shaping process, you could see clear traces of spellcasting. The magic circle wasn’t concealed, and there was a significant preparation time. He couldn’t even control two different shaping elements simultaneously... The vines he pulled up into sharp spears were only a dozen or so.
And most importantly—his spellcasting range was too short.
He could only shape objects within a twenty-meter radius around himself.
Annan smacked his lips.
If he himself were present, perhaps he could have taken Jude down directly... as long as the opponent didn’t use magical objects or took drugs.
First, he could freeze the ground and vines solid with the Frostveil Field, making their surface brittle; the Wheel of Frost could pick off the opponent directly, forcing the opponent to dodge or intercept... and whenever the opponent ran, attacked, dodged, or got attacked, the Frostveil Field would instantly inflict damage on him.
The invisible Wall of Stagnation could completely block the opponent’s attacks. The bone strippers he continually threw could not be converted into power by the opponent. The freezing of the Frostveil Field could bypass cover as well...
Although Jude completely countered the child, he was also completely countered by Annan.
With his range of spellcasting, Annan could almost determine that his sensory attributes might not even be as high as his own...
...Could it be that I’m actually very strong?
Annan fell into deep thought.
His wizard profession was already at the full level of the bronze rank. It was not likely to be much different from his in terms of professional level... and he had certainly faced more nightmares than him.
It would be better if this guy just killed the four of them and then entered the ruins. That sort of trash, Annan could advance or retreat, attack or defend; he was free to come and go, able to fight or avoid as he pleased.
Even if he decided to capture the child like Jiumozhi did and keep him at his side, it wouldn’t matter. The child could become a movable scout, and Annan could follow behind and take everything he wanted.
What Annan was most worried about now was that he would canister the child and Xitan Pulan directly and bring them back to the Black Tower...
That would be very troublesome.
Who knows whether wizards have any sealing abilities. Annan also didn’t want to write to his senior to ask for help over something . It just seemed too embarrassing...
An unexpected development stunned Annan:
Just as Jude approached the child, a whistling sound came through.
Jude, alert, turned his head, but saw only a wildcat pouncing toward him.
The vine spears swirling around him darted out in the blink of an eye, but were nimbly avoided by the dodging wildcat.
As one vine spear moved aside, an arrow shot from the dense forest without any sound just happened to arrive—the vine spear that hovered next to him had previously blocked Jude’s view; and the sound of the spear whizzing through the air had covered the whistle of the arrow flying at high speed.
It pierced accurately from Jude’s left brain and exited through the right!
With the inertia of the arrow, Jude’s head was jerked sharply to the right, and his body fell over due to the inertia...
In just an instant, he had lost his life.