The steel tree, towering like a bridge to the heavens, burst forth from the ground—
The body of the Soul Eater was completely sealed by the solidified steel, with the entire weight of the solid steel column pressing down upon the Soul Eater at the very bottom.
"...It’s over, senior,"
Annan reached out to support Salvatore’s headless shoulder, signaling him to cease that terrifying forbidden alchemy.
He did not know what spell it was.
But just by looking at the special effects while he was casting the spell, he could tell that it was definitely not a move with no consumption or weak power...
After all, they had co to defend, not to demolish...
But Salvatore was still hesitant, still murmuring the incantation under his breath, not daring to move.
The demon-like shadow, on the other hand, imdiately realized what Annan ant.
"—Let what is above return to above, the heavy to fall back below."
She chanted an extrely short ritual cancellation spell, causing the sphere that shone with a brilliant golden glow to rapidly collapse and extinguish.
Then, she directly retracted that oil-like arm back into Salvatore’s body.
As the ritual was canceled halfway through, there was naturally no need for Salvatore to continue reciting.
"...Wait, why cancel it?"
Salvatore imdiately asked Annan, "I only have three minutes... It’s almost too late to start over!"
"We’ve already won, senior,"
Annan said softly, looking at the tower of steel.
Salvatore followed his gaze and was still hesitant, "But this Soul Eater seems to be capable of instantaneous movent..."
"That is not spatial teleportation, but stealth within The Void World, you fool. Your mory is really getting worse,"
A deep and hoarse voice with a reverberating echo ca from the head on the other shoulder of Salvatore, "Think about it, if it were teleportation, why would it need to close its third eyelid?"
Salvatore opened his mouth, about to speak, but then hesitated.
The head turned to Annan and explained, "The Soul Eater’s first eyelid is used to adjust focus, so as not to lose sight of the enemy at too close a distance—an average hunt for the Soul Eater involves piercing enemies with ’Spear of Silence’ from eight hundred to a thousand ters away. This also makes them unable to see clearly when they approach within thirty ters, requiring the adjustnt of the eyelid’s focal length for close combat.
"The second eyelid is for protection against wind and pressure. They sprint faster than sound and need a harder eyelid to protect the sensitive and significant first eyelid."
"What about the third eyelid?"
Annan asked curiously.
"You... you’re quite good,"
The shadow praised in a deep and hoarse voice, "You don’t understand the abilities of a Soul Eater, yet you guessed its weakness.
"The third eyelid’s purpose is to completely block out light. If it can’t block out light, intense dizziness is inevitable when traversing worlds, known as ’Dizziness of the Worlds.’ That’s also why one can only enter the world of nightmares in a sleeping state."
But then, the shadow questioned, "How did you guess that my attack could seal it?"
"...Because I guessed that its instantaneous movent has a traceable trajectory,"
Annan smiled, "I noticed that the Soul Eater tends to attack the back. Yet, in several instances of instantaneous movent earlier, it didn’t move directly behind its target but to a blind spot not far from its previous position.
"After realizing this, through your coercion, I observed several unnatural landing points during its movents. Clearly, those spots weren’t optimal for attack or within its habitual range, but just ’the nearest safe points.’
"So, I surmised there were only two possibilities—either the total distance of its instantaneous movent was limited, so it had to conserve usage; or it wasn’t a real instantaneous movent but a special form of high-speed movent that could conceal its form.
"Finally, I observed that after using this movent ability, it wouldn’t observe the surroundings at its landing point but would imdiately launch an attack. But what truly convinced was when it saw your attack after I intercepted it. Instead of instantly moving, it tried to continue walking forward—"
No matter the principle, the Soul Eater’s instantaneous movent had to rely on "walking" to trigger it.
"...You focus on summarizing the appearance rather than probing into the principle,"
The shadow chuckled lowly, emitting an ominously malicious chuckle, "Fine, that’s a way of thinking, but it’s not for .
"Let introduce myself—you can call ’Vatore.’ Or you may call Shadow."
Speaking of which, a sticky, jointed, and pointed demon’s hand like that of oil erged from Saul’s abdon and stretched out towards Annan, "I’ve been watching you for a long ti... Annan."
The stunned Salvatore beside them, only then realized sothing.
He couldn’t help but scold, "Get back inside! Don’t bother him!"
But faced with the shadow that sohow obtained a body, he was completely powerless to resist... and even less able to control the other’s actions.
He could only reach out, grabbing the demon’s forearm that extended from the abdon, trying to pull it back in.
However, his strength was so feeble compared to the demon’s.
Even with all his might, he couldn’t budge the extended arm in the slightest.
"Ah, wait a mont,"
Annan was not very concerned.
He simply tore off his pair of elf leather gloves like peeling off a long-stuck plaster, making even his hands appear much paler...
Salvatore caught a glimpse of a layer of fuzzy, pink, wriggling flesh budding on the inside of the gloves, slowly retracting inwards.
Annan placed the gloves into the bamboo cylinder at his waist and then freely extended his right hand to shake hands with the Shadow.
"Annan Winter, hello."
Feeling the sowhat cautious force, Annan couldn’t help but smile, "We might not be eting for the first ti, so let’s skip the pleasantries. I’ve roughly guessed your relationship, so there’s no need to explain anything to for now..."
This thing, since it appeared after Salvatore beca a Gold-ranked spellcaster.
It indicates that she is inherently a core aspect of Salvatore’s abilities.
Considering Salvatore’s inconsistant performance, his unexplained feelings of inferiority, and that inexplicable thod of crafting the Philosopher’s Stone he himself couldn’t clearly describe, Annan roughly guessed the truth...
An external thought circuit, huh.
Probably a portable hard drive—the senior’s mory obviously isn’t that good either.
But, if the shadow’s talent and strength are both so formidable...
Why then is it the senior who controls the body?
What does the senior use to control her?
And what exactly is the senior’s own talent?
Many questions flashed through Annan’s mind.
But he knew his priorities.
"You don’t have much ti left... no, you guys don’t have much ti left."
Annan answered promptly, "If you have anything to say, say it quickly. I’m going to send that Soul Eater back."
Better to do it now than risk changes later and have sothing strange happen that might let the Soul Eater escape...
After all, Annan had no quarrel with the Soul Eater, but neither did he have one with experience points, right?
Without hesitation, he stepped forward and took out his bone-carving knife—directly employing the Frost Sword Technique.
Elental attacks are true damage to enemies below the Gold rank who do not possess Elental Power.
The Frost Sword Technique, endowed with the elent of frost, naturally was the sa.
Against the Soul Eater, immobilized and completely unable to defend or evade, Annan opted for a more gentle approach to attack—chopping twice then resting a bit to ensure his health didn’t drop too much.
It wasn’t until he had chopped eight tis that a system notification finally appeared before his eyes.
[For dispersing the silver-ranked Summon "Soul Eater" in combat, you receive 1500 public experience points.]
...So much experience!
Enough for a whole level!
Annan’s eyes lit up at once.
In that mont, a wicked thought crossed his mind—
...Could I summon a Soul Eater myself and then kill it?
But he quickly controlled his greed.
Doing that might draw the attention of Lady Silence.
—It would have to be others who did the summoning.
He decided, in the future when encountering False God followers looking to cause trouble, if there was enough ti, he’d force them to summon sothing before killing it...
The three minutes passed quickly, the shadow retreated back into Salvatore’s body, and the black curse tattoos on him also withdrew back into their container.
Suddenly, Salvatore curled up on the ground, hugging his knees and shivering.
...It seed that part of his suffering was due to the cold?
"Are you very cold?"
Annan crouched down and asked with so concern.
"Not too bad..."
Salvatore answered with so effort, "But after this... I probably won’t have much combat ability left..."
"It should basically be over now."
Annan asked Lin Yiyi, who had been resurrected five tis in three minutes, and the Delicious Wind Goose next to her who hadn’t even lost any health, "How’s the situation over there?"
"They... are almost done. Everything’s going smoothly, sir,"
Lin Yiyi, who had died and co back to life without any psychological pressure, just bounced up from the ground, happily fondled the solid steel rod she had just acquired, glanced at the forum, and answered nonchalantly.
She planned to paint the steel rod when she got back. It was as if she had bought a new weapon skin.
Or maybe... paint the middle red, and gold-plate the sides?
Just then.
Annan suddenly heard a loud and clear cry of a baby echoing from all directions—
The child... had been born.
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