Chapter 322: Chainsaw Roaring, Giant Dragon Impact!

Pitch-black energy erupted from behind Wang Yu without a moment’s hesitation, striking him squarely between the shoulder blades. It ignored the alchemical alloy armor covering his torso, piercing straight through his body; once triggered at such close range, such ray-based spells are virtually impossible to dodge or evade.

Invisible, corrosive substances converged from all directions, gradually encircling Wang Yu. The armor, cobbled together from alchemical alloys, proved pathetically fragile against the Corrupt Dragon’s breath, melting and rotting away in rapid, peeling layers.

Valma’s previously agitated mind finally tasted a hint of satisfaction. The entity obstructing her mission to hunt the heretical dragon was about to perish on the spot, leaving not even a bone behind, paying with his life for the loss of the true dragon form she would never obtain.

"!"

Silent and formless, a power beyond Valma’s comprehension rippled outward. The corrosive substances gathering from all sides were forcibly manipulated, drawn toward a single point far away from Wang Yu.

The knight, his body pierced by the Finger of Death, turned his head. His current state was baffling: thick, black vapor billowed from the top of his helmet, as if something inside were ablaze, pouring out plumes of dark smoke.

"You!?"

Valma let out a sound of incredulous confusion. Had he died from the Finger of Death, she could have accepted it; at the very least, he should have been crippled and unable to move. Instead, he simply had black smoke rising from his head—what kind of situation was this? This was a seventh-tier spell of ultimate destruction, targeting both flesh and soul.

No one was obligated to explain anything to Valma. Wang Yu turned, extending a hand toward the revealed form of Valma. His armor shrank by half in an instant; the parts eroded and weakened by the corruption flew off, transformed by the Power of the Chariot into sheets of iron shackles.

The flying shackles clamped onto the joints of Valma, who had exhausted her internal undead mana to cast the Finger of Death. With a sharp tug, Wang Yu hauled her toward him.

The Perfect Fractal Lens above his eye socket whirred incessantly. Both the Power of the Chariot and the lens alerted Wang Yu that Valma’s body was coated in a layer of hardened "skin" made of undead mana; without shattering this, he could not harm her.

With Wang Yu’s raw destructive power, breaking this in a short time was difficult. Below the legendary rank, a knight’s destructive potential always lacks the edge of a mage or warlock. But then again, he was not alone.

"Zzz, hummmmm!"

A spatial rift opened at Wang Yu’s right hand, and an object tumbled out, roaring with the heart-pounding rumble of an engine. A massive circular saw blade spun at breakneck speed, wreathed in leaping arcs of lightning that flashed with blinding brilliance.

Transmitting objects is always simpler than transmitting people. On the other side, Avia had finished neutralizing the Cinder Rain during the time Wang Yu and Valma were locked in close-quarters combat.

Using the data captured by the Perfect Fractal Lens and their unspoken rapport, the girl tossed a tool from the Eden Seed space to Wang Yu.

It was an alchemical cutter, stored in the Eden Seed space for processing materials in Wang Yu’s absence, typically used for dismantling sturdy alchemical shells or segmenting ores.

And this top-tier cutter, purchased in the Sky Mechanical City, had an extra feature: inserting magic crystals of different attributes allowed the blade to carry corresponding elemental effects. It was designed for special materials, but now, it was perfect for dealing with Valma.

Lifting the cutter, now stuffed with lightning-attribute magic crystals, Wang Yu—his frame massive under the heavy armor—raised the industrial tool that usually required a stand. He brought the furiously sparking, high-speed saw blade down toward the stunned Valma.

"Zzzzzzzzz!"

A deafening screech of friction erupted. The saw blade, embedded with top-grade Ohe steel, tore violently through the sturdy shield on Valma’s surface under the brutal output of the power core.

Pure physical destruction was not particularly effective against the resilient necromantic shield, but the lightning element saturating the blade helped immensely, counteracting the undead mana and stripping away its toughness and regenerative capacity.

"Bang!"

With the crisp sound of a solid object cracking, the violent blade shattered the sturdy shield in barely two seconds. Using such heavy industrial equipment against a person was, after all, quite absurd.

Wang Yu would not let this golden opportunity slip. He pressed the cutter down, carving into her body; regardless of what kind of undead creature Valma was, she would be much easier to handle once reduced to slag.

[Heart]

The reminder came from Avia; the Perfect Fractal spell had captured an abnormal flow of mana on Valma’s body.

By recording and comparing the frequency of mana flows across various parts of her body, the girl immediately discovered that no matter how the mana shifted elsewhere, it never vanished from the heart. Thus, her core must be there!

Wang Yu’s eyes narrowed. While pressing the cutter deeper, the Power of the Chariot summoned the Shattered Meteorite Blade, which struck precisely at Valma’s heart. Whatever was inside, he would break it.

The blade descended, the saw roared, and in an instant, the tide of battle turned. Valma, who had lured Wang Yu into a lethal trap, was now the one in mortal peril.

"Get lost!"

A furious shriek rang out. Before the blade could pierce her heart or the saw could touch her flesh, the "Valma" before him exploded.

The energy shockwave, carrying the stench of rot, blasted Wang Yu away at point-blank range. The cutter, less durable than Wang Yu, shattered into a pile of scrap.

Valma had chosen to use Corpse Explosion on her own body. Her combat instincts were terrifyingly high; indeed, no one who reached the realm of a high-tier Archmage was weak.

"Zzz, crack."

The alloy armor on Wang Yu, already thinned, was blown through. Large amounts of corrosive material infected his muscles and skin, exposing gruesome, bloody tissue and shards of bone, leaving him looking wretched.

Yet, he began prying off the armor fused to his flesh by the corrosion. Rotting skin and ruined plating fell away, revealing shocking gashes.

Blood manifested from thin air, filling the gaps to repair muscle and skin, reshaping the armor to wrap around him. It looked terrifying, but as long as he didn't die, these were mere scratches. Above his head, black smoke continued to rise—all of it undead mana.

"What in the hell is this thing..."

Floating in the air, surrounded by necromantic mist, Valma stared at Wang Yu, who was being covered by blood-armor while black smoke billowed from his head. She felt a sense of disgust. He was barely a mid-tier Great Knight, so why was he so difficult to kill?

She understood now why the Finger of Death had been so ineffective, but that only made her feel more certain that this thing before her was no human.

Corpse Explosion not only used corrosive substances to destroy flesh, but the massive amount of undead mana would also infiltrate the body through every pore. Yet, most of the mana that invaded Wang Yu’s body simply dissipated as black smoke.

The reason lay in the three potions Wang Yu had consumed before the fight: one for energy, one for physical reinforcement, and one to nullify spellcasting and mana. Yes, one of the potions he drank was a mana-blocker designed to completely extinguish a mage’s ability to cast...

A mage drinking this would die on the spot, or at best, suffer a shattered mana-core, never to cast again. A knight drinking it would generally be poisoned, as the toxic substances wandering through the bloodstream would be enough to fell even a hardy warrior.

The problem was that Wang Yu was such a freak. He wasn't truly afraid of poison; the Power of the Chariot combined with the Bloody Gale Knight secret technique was enough for him to control those harmful substances. Thus, saturated with mana-blocking agents, he had achieved magic immunity under specific conditions.

Fireballs would still blow him up, but magic that required infiltration to function was largely useless. The soul-destroying Finger of Death was ignored, and the energy assault meant to shatter his body was drastically weakened and then endured.

"A troublesome fellow. The conservative approach was wrong. I shouldn't have split my attention between two people; dealing with one first is the correct path."

No longer dwelling on Wang Yu’s chaotic traits, Valma forced herself to think calmly. Her physical body was shattered, and her phylactery was exposed. She was in her most vulnerable state, yet also her most powerful.

A decisive choice. Wang Yu’s attack on her heart made her realize the phylactery was exposed, so there was no need to hide this known weakness. Attack as defense, and exert full power.

"Hoo!"

Freed from the "shackles" of her physical body, the phylactery resonated with the undead mana of this realm, surging like a mountain-collapsing tide at Valma’s will.

Undead mana from a vast range within the Void Spirit Realm converged, forming a gray-black tornado that reached the heavens—a manifestation of highly concentrated necromantic energy.

"Boom!"

A massive, pitch-black arm tore through the tornado, smashing down toward the alert Wang Yu. The violent force shook the earth, creating a massive crater where Wang Yu had stood. It was hard to imagine this was power a mage could wield.

Valma had made up her mind: since this guy had so many incomprehensible traits, she would stop trying to understand them. With the purest force and the most terrifying destructive power, she would crush Wang Yu into powder and scatter his ashes.

With a legendary rank foundation, though her strength had dropped to a high-tier Archmage due to the loss of her original body, Valma could do it. She released the mana stored in her phylactery without reservation, enhancing the sixth-tier necromancy spell: Transcendence of the Ages.

An eight-armed, headless, pitch-black giant tore out of the tornado. One fist fell, and the remaining seven followed in a relentless barrage.

Fists fell like rain, winds howled, and peerless force crushed the enemy. The giant made of undead mana swung its eight arms, raining blows downward. There was no technique; it relied solely on the massive coverage and terrifying power to envelop Wang Yu.

Charging and sprinting, his face behind the visor remained expressionless, devoid of any unnecessary thought. Wang Yu poured all his energy into evasion, the Power of the Chariot fully engaged, tracking the trajectory of the falling fists and dodging with all his might.

The giant shadows crashed down, each time grazing Wang Yu’s frame. The shockwaves from the fists hitting the ground inevitably jolted him into the air.

Blow after blow, time after time, Valma deliberately compressed Wang Yu’s range of movement, making his evasion increasingly difficult.

Finally, after sliding out from under one crashing fist, Wang Yu was surrounded by three fists descending almost simultaneously, leaving him nowhere to run.

"Boom!"

The three fists struck, landing squarely on Wang Yu’s body as he guarded his chest with both hands, slamming him mercilessly into the ground, dust and debris...

Stones sprayed and the earth shuddered, a testament to the staggering force at play.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

The remaining arms hammered down in succession, pulverizing the spot where Wang Yu had stood into a gaping crater; as the dust settled, his form was nowhere to be seen—was he utterly annihilated?

No, Varma soon caught sight of a figure clad in armor shattered to smithereens, now clinging to the first arm that had struck him by driving his broken meteorite blade into its flesh, moving in rhythm with its rise and fall; only the initial blow had truly connected, while he had narrowly evaded the rest.

This raw, destructive power had indeed driven Wang Yu to the brink; had his bones not been tempered by dragon blood, and had the earth not absorbed the impact of that first strike by yielding beneath him, he would have perished instantly.

Yet, another blow would surely be his undoing, so he had unleashed his full strength to anchor himself to that colossal limb, narrowly escaping the subsequent barrage.

"Trying to hide? Hah, keep dreaming."

Varma sneered; a commendable will to survive, but futile—these arms were merely constructs of magical energy, and shaking off a parasite was child's play.

The arm abruptly dissolved into drifting mana, and the surrounding fists converged, raining down upon Wang Yu, who now hung suspended in the void with nowhere to cling.

"Bang!"

A fist caught him mid-air with a thunderous roar, shattering his blood-stained armor, snapping fragile bones, and tearing his flesh and muscle; Wang Yu was sent hurtling backward like a blurred shadow, while the following fists pursued, intent on grinding him into a pulp!

"Hum!"

A spatial rift manifested behind him, swallowing the rapidly retreating Wang Yu just as the pursuing giant fists struck nothing but air.

Avia had intervened once more; she could have acted sooner, but doing so might have rendered the time Wang Yu had bought with his life meaningless. The girl had spent every ounce of her resolve to suppress the urge to rescue him, but it was worth it.

Wang Yu tumbled from the portal, skidding over ten meters before coming to a halt right beside Avia; he feebly raised an arm to give her a thumbs-up—the plan was complete.

Heart aching, Avia channeled her secret arts to mend his wounds as best she could; this was the most grievous injury he had sustained since leaving the Royal City.

Lifting her head, the girl fixed a gaze of murderous intent upon the eight-armed titan charging toward them, as a massive spatial rift tore open before her. Leveraging the Void’s formidable processing power and the time Wang Yu had secured, her analysis of the Ethereal Realm’s fabric was complete, allowing the Phase Gate to manifest a rift.

A figure surged from the fissure, rapidly shifting form; a colossal dragon, draped in strange, obsidian matter, radiated a terrifying pressure as it collided with the eight-armed titan, unleashing the true, transcendent might of a legend!