Chapter 409: Severing an Arm to Survive

Chapter 409: Amputating to Survive

The spatial mage Roger deliberately attacked the illusionist's phantom clone.

To confuse the illusionist.

At the moment the void chains shattered the illusory body, he manipulated them to strike toward the true location.

The illusionist was somewhat surprised and startled.

He hadn't expected the opponent to have already discovered his real position.

Caught off guard by the sudden assault, the illusionist barely reacted in time.

He nearly got caught by the void chains.

Once caught, it would essentially mean the end of the battle.

Roger could directly teleport the illusionist out of the arena.

Leaving the arena meant failing the challenge.

Unable to challenge again for twelve hours.

In this critical moment, the illusionist Macaron split himself into three.

Three figures appeared simultaneously before Roger.

Roger hesitated for a moment, giving Macaron the chance to escape.

Whoosh!

The void chains pierced through Macaron's body.

Roger's eyes changed slightly. "It's fake."

Rushed into choosing one out of three, he chose wrong.

Roger thought he had made the wrong choice.

In reality, no matter which one he chose, they were all real and all fake.

Macaron could switch positions at will, transforming between solid and ethereal.

This was his extraordinary trait—truthful falsehood.

Combined with illusion magic, it maximized the power of his supernatural ability.

Macaron's eyes focused as he cast his illusion—Terror Gaze.

Buzz!

The instant their eyes met, Roger's pupils dilated and his gaze became vacant.

His hands and feet trembled slightly, seemingly trapped in boundless terror.

Just as Macaron was about to act,

he found his legs going weak.

A shock ran through his heart as he suddenly realized.

The Roger before him had actually transformed into his own appearance.

Roger revealed a triumphant smile.

"Reflective Mirror!"

The power of Terror Gaze was reflected back onto Macaron himself.

He had fallen victim to his own spell.

Roger seized the opportunity to use void chains to wrap around Macaron's body.

"Spatial Teleportation!"

Buzz!

A flash of silver light, and Macaron vanished from the spot.

Appearing outside the arena.

Thud!

Macaron fell to the ground, staggering a few steps nearly falling.

He raised his head looking at Roger, frowning.

When he realized he had been controlled by Terror Gaze, Macaron had already reacted, dispelling the Terror Gaze spell.

But it was too late.

He had been teleported beyond the arena's boundary.

He had failed the challenge.

Unable to enter the arena to initiate another challenge within twelve hours.

Macaron glanced at Roger and turned to leave.

Staying longer served no purpose; better to just go.

Roger looked at the remaining two people, laughed, and asked, "Do you also want to challenge me?"

The alchemist glanced at him and turned away.

He had no confidence in dealing with Roger's void chains.

Going up would only be a waste of time.

Li Wei pondered for a moment and walked toward the arena.

"Oh, I didn't expect anyone else to dare challenge me. You must be very confident." Roger raised his eyebrows looking at Li Wei.

Li Wei entered the arena's range.

The magical formation activated, locking space.

He gazed at Roger, who quietly observed him.

They stared at each other for a long while.

Roger asked, "Aren't you going to make a move?"

Li Wei smiled and said, "You're right. As the challenger, I should attack first."

Roger showed a smile. "That's more like it."

Li Wei had already figured out most of Roger's techniques.

Watching from the sidelines, he had seen through seven or eight tenths of them.

Li Wei raised his right hand, a fireball appearing in his palm. He threw it at Roger.

Roger showed a puzzled expression.

"Just this?"

He didn't even bother to defend.

He let the fireball fly straight toward him. Crash!

The blazing sphere was intercepted by an invisible barrier of space.

It was Roget's spatial shield.

He shook his head, a dismissive smirk on his lips. "You test me with this? What mage couldn't withstand such a paltry trial?"

With those words, he launched his assault upon Levi.

"Gravity Reversal!"

The ground beneath Levi's feet suddenly lost its hold, and he felt his entire body beginning to float.

Indeed, he was drifting upward.

In the small pocket of the world where Levi stood, the very direction of gravity had inverted.

The sensation was profoundly disorienting, leaving him with the jarring impression that the sky was now beneath his feet.

Seizing the moment, Roget summoned the void chains to entangle his airborne foe.

Banishing Levi from the arena ring was, after all, the path of least resistance.

Clatter! Clatter!

Like an agile, striking serpent, the void chain shot through the air straight toward Levi.

Yet Levi neither dodged nor deflected; instead, he reached out, grasping for the oncoming links.

He looked precisely like a drowning man clutching desperately at a final straw.

A flicker of astonishment crossed Roget's face.

Without a moment's hesitation, he commanded the void chain to surge forward, tightly binding Levi's arm.

"Spatial Teleportation!"

Smack!

A severed arm materialized abruptly outside the boundaries of the arena.

But before the limb could even strike the stone, it dissolved into wisps of flame, drifting back toward the stage.

Roget stared, utterly dumbfounded.

A gecko shedding its tail to survive?

Levi offered a faint, knowing smile.

Clatter! Clatter!

The identical metallic rattling echoed, this time from directly behind Roget.

Roget, still caught in his daze of disbelief, failed to react entirely.

It was not until Levi's void chain coiled around his waist that he realized he was under attack.

He cast his gaze downward at the dark links wrapping around his midsection.

Looking back, he saw the far end of the chain vanishing into the empty air.

Turning back toward Levi, he saw the man's remaining hand gripping the tail end of that very chain.

The returning embers coalesced, reforming into Levi's missing arm.

With a violent tug, Levi pulled.

"Void Imprisonment!"

He unleashed the latent power harbored within the void chain.

The surrounding fabric of space froze instantly into a state of absolute stasis.

Dragged by the relentless links, Roget was pulled rapidly toward Levi.

Roget strained to wrench himself free from the chain, but stripped of his ability to cast spatial spells, he was reduced to a raw contest of physical strength, playing a desperate game of tug-of-war.

Evidently, his physical might paled in comparison to Levi's.

With a casual yank from Levi, a tremendous force seized Roget, launching him directly through the air toward his opponent.

"Flame Serpents!"

Levi raised his right arm—now composed entirely of living fire—and splayed his five fingers wide.

Each digit transformed into a fiery viper, shooting forth toward the oncoming Roget.

Roget's reflexes, however, remained sharp.

Realizing the chain was inescapable, he understood that a brutal, direct clash was now his only recourse.

Without a shred of hesitation, he countered with his own strike.

An offense to match an offense.

"Dimensional Slash!"

The spatial rift swallowed two of the fiery serpents whole.

Levi executed a fluid, mid-air flip, easily evading the jagged tear in space left by the dimensional slash.

He even found the leisure to guide the remaining three flame serpents to press the attack.

Levi activated his core arcane technique.

The volume of the three fiery vipers swelled drastically, their power ascending to an entirely different echelon.

In an instant, the tiny snakes transformed into monstrous pythons.

The blazing serpents slammed into Roget, only to be deflected by his spatial shield.

Yet the three pythons coiled around Roget, relentlessly searing the spatial shield and boiling the surrounding air.

Even though a mere ten-thousandth of the ambient heat managed to bleed through the barrier,

it was enough to make Roget feel the air around him growing unbearably scalding.

Each breath he drew felt like inhaling liquid fire.

Horror struck Roget's heart; just how high was the temperature of these flame serpents?

He was no elementalist, much less a master of the flame.

His capacity to endure extreme heat was severely limited.

It was scarcely any better than that of an ordinary mortal.

If this persisted, he would likely be baked alive within the very confines of his own spatial shield.