Something was very wrong, thought the Seventh Elder.

The tension was clear on his face, and the man before him let out a mocking laugh.

“Are you curious about who I am?”

The man slowly approached the Elder, his voice calm but carrying a weight of authority that seemed to crush those who heard it.

The man’s eyes, mostly black with small pupils, showed no trace of human emotion. They were cold and indifferent.

“There’s no need to wonder. It won’t change anything. You came here, and whether you know or not, the outcome will be the same.”

The air around the man began to ripple as mana gathered at an alarming rate, then quickly absorbed into his body.

The Seventh Elder clenched his teeth and pushed his mana to its limit, determination flickering in his eyes.

Cold energy surged from the Elder’s body, tiny particles of light orbiting him, shimmering in the air.

Thousands of small ice crystals floated, illuminating the space.

At that moment, the black-haired man suddenly charged toward the Seventh Elder.

As he entered the zone filled with light particles, the blood mage’s clothes began to freeze. Normally, this freezing magic would hinder an enemy’s movements, but it wasn’t enough to slow someone with superhuman abilities.

Seeing the man approach at such speed, the Seventh Elder clenched his fist tightly.

“Haap!”

With his shout, the particles of light expanded, and thousands of ice spikes shot out in all directions.

The spikes formed a dense net across the space, enveloping the blood mage.

Clang!

But the ice spikes shattered upon contact with the man’s body. They disintegrated the moment they touched him.

In that brief moment, the blood mage reached the Elder and swung his hand.

The magic circle on the Elder’s robe activated, forming a shield, but it wasn’t enough.

The red mana surrounding the blood mage’s hand obliterated the shield in an instant and struck the Elder.

Crash!

The Elder’s body shattered into ice fragments.

It wasn’t his real body.

“Hah,” the blood mage smirked, noticing his clothes were now completely frozen.

With a casual shrug, he shook off the ice that had formed on his body, the shards falling to the ground.

“Was he just a rat running away the whole time?”

“You thought I’d engage you head-on? You’re mistaken...”

The blood mage, still standing where the Elder’s ice fragments lay, seemed unbothered. He could already sense that the Elder was preparing a much stronger spell nearby.

The Seventh Elder emerged from a shadowy corner behind the blood mage.

The blood mage lazily turned his head to look at him and spoke.

“What happens if you use grand magic here? What will become of your allies?”

“...”

The Elder said nothing, only gritting his teeth and drawing more mana.

At that moment, the grand magic he had been preparing, Frozen Storm Barrage, activated.

A tremendous chill spread across the area.

The altar, the walls, and the corridors—everything, including the passageway the Elder had flown through, instantly froze. A freezing gale roared through the space.

Yet, the blood mage didn’t bother to resist. The red mana surrounding him simply deflected the cold, keeping him unharmed.

The Seventh Elder bit his lip and extended his hand forward.

“Die!”

It wasn’t a chant but a desperate, furious scream.

A storm of ice, cold enough to freeze flesh at the slightest touch, engulfed the blood mage.

Finally, the blood mage clasped his hands together.

The red mana that had been merely blocking the cold began to take on form.

The mana, now turning into blood, flowed down from his body, pooling at his feet.

From that blood pool, a dark crimson magic circle began to glow. The energy emanating from it was a mix of death and blood, an ominous, foreboding power.

A massive entity, seemingly made of blood and resembling a monstrous amalgamation of countless souls, began to take shape from the magic circle.

The sight of the creature caused the Elder’s face to tighten with concern.

“Necromancy?”

The magic was a fusion of blood magic and dark magic.

The creature, now towering over the blood mage, swung its grotesque fist.

Boom!

The fist collided with the storm, sending shockwaves throughout the cave, causing the entire structure to tremble.

“Urgh!” The Elder swallowed the blood rising in his throat as he struggled against the backlash of mana. The blood mage’s power was far greater than his own.

“Consider it an honor to die by my hand. This death will be eternal,” the blood mage said, his voice oozing with contempt.

The force of the blood mage’s power was overwhelming, and the Elder was being pushed back. Compared to the blood mage’s might, the Elder’s own strength was insignificant.

Then, something strange happened.

The tremendous clash of power caused the various magic circles embedded in the walls and ground of the hideout to react erratically, activating without control.

The magic circles on the ground and walls began to flicker wildly.

As the ground shook violently, the Elder realized this was not in his favor.

Suddenly, the floor collapsed.

The corridor floor caved in.

This wasn’t due to the shockwave. It was caused by magical manipulation.

The Elder realized this when his attempt to use levitation magic failed—his feet were stuck to the collapsing ground, preventing him from lifting off.

As he was about to be sucked into the darkness below, someone grabbed him by the collar.

It was Leon, riding atop Kito’s head. The protective barrier Kito had generated shielded them from the Elder’s freezing magic.

Leon pulled the Elder onto Kito’s back.

“You...”

“There’s no time to explain,” Leon cut him off, his expression calm but urgent.

The Elder, surprised by Leon’s sudden appearance, was left momentarily stunned. Before he could feel gratitude, confusion took over—it was the last person he had expected to see.

“Hmph...”

Kito didn’t seem too pleased about having the Elder on her head, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, green mana began to radiate from her body.

The blood mage, who had been hovering calmly in the air, scowled as he saw Kito.

“A beast?”

Kito’s green mana transformed into a poisonous mist, spreading out across the space.

The blood mage, his expression hardening, evaded the mist and descended into the darkness below.

“We have to catch him,” Leon said, and Kito followed his command, descending after the blood mage.

As they descended, the sight that greeted them made Leon instinctively cover his mouth.

“Ugh...”

It was a horrifying scene.

The vast chamber was filled to the brim with human corpses, leaving no room to step.

The walls were covered with drawings, seemingly depicting the order of some kind of religious ritual.

At the center of the pile of corpses was another altar.

This altar bore a unique symbol: a circle with three equilateral triangles meeting at the center, and within the circle, a single rune was inscribed.

The rune for resurrection (蘇生).

Leon, having studied runes, recognized the symbol’s meaning immediately.

His face twisted in disgust.

He thought he had become accustomed to the stench of death, but this was far worse. Every breath felt like it was rotting his lungs.

Floating above the altar was the blood mage.

From three blood pools surrounding him, monsters began to rise.

The creatures quickly rushed toward Kito, but they melted upon touching the poisonous mist surrounding her.

The mist was so toxic that even the blood itself disintegrated upon contact.

The blood mage, as if expecting this, casually waved his hand.

The blood pools began to spread, flooding the entire chamber with blood.

The blood seeped between the corpses and coated the walls.

The once grim space was now a blood-drenched nightmare.

“Crimson Spirit Heaven’s Curse (赤靈天呪),” the blood mage murmured with satisfaction, watching as the space fell completely under his control.

“...”

Kito’s eyes, now those of a massive bird, glowed with a green light. Her mouth slowly opened, gathering an immense amount of mana inside.

Realizing that Kito was preparing to unleash her breath attack, the blood mage raised his index and middle fingers.

In response, thousands of thin, sharp blood spikes emerged from the surrounding pools, shooting toward Kito at incredible speed.

The blood spikes were so fast that they reached Kito’s barrier before the poisonous mist could dissolve them.

Thousands of spikes collided with Kito’s shield, only to be dissolved by the poison, but more kept coming.

Kito’s barrier began to waver under the relentless pressure, and she furrowed her brow in frustration.

The continuous assault made it impossible for her to fully charge her breath attack.

Kito didn’t say anything, but Leon knew what was happening.

She was holding back to protect him. Even when they had faced the Witch, Kito had warned that Leon would need to withstand the fallout from her full power.

Leon, shielded within Kito’s barrier, suddenly had an idea.

He floated his wooden sword out of the barrier and into the poisonous mist.

The sword wasn’t dissolved by the poison, nor was it pierced by the blood spikes.

Leon used the sword to block a few of the blood spikes before calling it back. He then wiped the blood from the sword with his finger.

“Corrupt.”

Activating the Curse of the Black Night, the blood on the sword began to darken, turning into a murky shadow.

“Hm?”

The blood mage noticed a faint sting, tilting his head in confusion.

The pain was minor, barely noticeable due to the vast difference in their power levels.

For the pain to grow into extreme agony and ultimately lead to the curse of oblivion, it would take an enormous amount of time.

Leon, clutching an orb he had hidden in his robe, suddenly disappeared.

The blood mage, watching the scene with casual amusement, raised an eyebrow in surprise.

Even the Seventh Elder, watching from behind, was confused by Leon’s sudden vanishing act.

“Hm... Did he run away?”