18: Reasonable, reasonable, perfectly reasonable

[Wish established!]

As Shield Mountain was on the verge of death, his hunched body began to expand.

Previously, a cold, emotionless voice in his mind had informed him that the price to be paid was his entire robust physique, and that the cost would be collected immediately.

This had nearly caused him to die right before the wish took effect.

Now that the wish had been fulfilled as promised, he finally let out a massive sigh of relief.

"I am still too weak. Even when the Supreme Existence grants mercy, I still failed to grasp it properly..."

Shield Mountain took a moment to reflect on himself.

Fortunately, now that the wish had taken effect, everything would be rewritten.

Feeling the power gradually growing within him, Shield Mountain was brimming with confidence, looking at Ronan as if he were looking at an ant.

How fortunate I am to receive such divine grace!

Lowly ant, even serving as my stepping stone is an honor you've earned from your past life.

From looking levelly to looking down, Shield Mountain thoroughly enjoyed the process of displaying such a heroic posture before Ronan.

But immediately after, he noticed something was off.

The mage before him was constantly shrinking—which meant he was still growing taller?

What was going on?

Shield Mountain reached out and touched his chest, but he didn't feel the sensation he expected.

Looking down, he realized his claws were hooked on his ribs, which was why there was no... Claws?!

Ribs?!

Is this me?!

Shield Mountain instinctively waved his hand and found that the bone claws emitting a strange aura moved along with him.

Why have I turned into this ghostly shape?!

He finally saw it—his body was constantly expanding, bone matter was rapidly proliferating, and he had turned into a massive skeletal frame.

No!!!

Shield Mountain wanted to scream hysterically, but when he opened his mouth, it came out as a sharp, oppressive roar.

He had turned into a Skeleton Dragon.

When the wish took effect, after paying the price, Shield Mountain's body was almost nothing more than a skin bag held up by a skeleton.

Normally, he should have died at that point.

But the wish had forcefully kept him alive, reshaping his body based on that foundation without muscles, leaping into existence as an undead creature—a Skeleton Dragon.

This situation could only be described as a miracle.

As for Shield Mountain's wish... the wish had no specific target, and a Skeleton Dragon is still a dragon. Reasonable.

No Mutation occurred after paying the price, and Shield Mountain got the power he wanted. Reasonable.

The wish wasn't twisted, and the method of realization was fine. Very reasonable.

Ronan watched Shield Mountain's transformation throughout and decided then and there:

Before fully understanding the Godhead's wish-Bestowal function, he would absolutely never make any wishes for himself.

Shield Mountain's size was still increasing, and he could no longer maintain his original form. The orc head became a Skeleton Dragon head emitting an abyssal aura, and the two clusters of blue flames burning in the eye sockets were the essence of his soul.

The Dragon Might carried by the bone dragon scared the nearby monsters into fleeing, and the aura clinging to the bones grew denser and denser.

The panic and despair originally in Shield Mountain's heart were slowly replaced by the filling power.

With just a single movement, his massive bone claws could level trees, and with a casual breath, the dragon breath he spat out could turn the surroundings into a sea of fire.

That's right, power!

Everything else is hollow except for power; for the sake of power, one should abandon everything!

So this is the blessing the Supreme Existence has given me!

Ronan had already retreated into the distance, silently observing Shield Mountain's actions.

From the looks of it, he seemed to have fallen into some kind of hyper-excited state, with a great desire to destroy his surroundings, and he was enjoying it immensely.

To avoid being caught in the surging sea of fire, Ronan was planning to flee the area.

At that moment, brilliant Runes suddenly manifested in the sky.

More and more Runes appeared, gathering together in response to one another, sketching out an even larger Array Pattern.

This massive Array Pattern was located high in the sky, as if it had been fixed there since birth.

The complex lines of the Array Pattern lit up one by one, carrying an incomparable majesty, constantly accumulating holy white light.

Shield Mountain was in the middle of his excitement when he suddenly felt a mysterious sense of crisis, as if he were being locked onto by something.

He followed his intuition and looked up, just in time to see a beam of white light that blotted out the sky descending directly toward his position.

In an instant, everything around him, including his skeletal body, was plunged into a world of pure white.

This white light seemed to be the ultimate power of purification, cleansing all impure existences.

Shield Mountain didn't even have time to let out a roar of pain before he was completely erased from this world.

"O Supreme Existence... praise you..." Ronan even experienced an auditory hallucination in his ears. Looking up again, the sky was vast and boundless, and the Array Pattern had vanished without a trace, as if it had never appeared.

The area covered by the white light was enormous; the entire region, including the ground, had been erased, forming a bottomless pit.

"Isn't this method of erasure a bit too extreme..." Ronan sighed to himself. After organizing his thoughts, he checked the information on his Panel.

[wish power Storage: 5]

These 5 points of wish power were only added after Shield Mountain made his wish.

Currently known: When wish power storage is at 0, it triggers the Godhead's self-preservation, forcibly pulling nearby people into the Temple Space to make wishes, thereby obtaining wish power from others.

So, is there a way to actively perform this action?

Ronan pondered, looking at the information in the Authority section.

[Authority: Deprivation, Bestowal, Descent]

These authorities seemed to only be activated under special circumstances.

Huh?

Ronan suddenly discovered that his thoughts could connect with "Descent," and this connection caused the "Descent" on the Panel to slowly turn into a button.

With a touch of his mind, his soul instantly returned to that dilapidated grand hall.

Above was the boundless void, and the countless dimensions beneath his feet were condensed into layers of stairs, while he sat enthroned at the very center, like the King of a Lonely Island facing the void.

A wisp of blue smoke would drift past the hall from time to time, very conspicuous in the darkness.

He remembered that when he came here last time, he hadn't seen anything like it.

"What is that? It would be nice if I could see it closer."

As the thought flashed through his mind, unexpectedly, the entire hall seemed to boil, and an invisible great power immediately seized the wisp of blue smoke and presented it before him.

Ignoring the blue smoke for a moment, Ronan wanted to stand up and look around the hall.

To his surprise, before he even stood up, the entire hall began to rotate slowly with him as the center.

Uh, is it that my wishes come true here, or do I just have control over the hall... "Repair my Godhead."

"Repair my Godhead."

"Repair my Godhead."

...Ronan repeated this thought loudly in his mind, almost to the point of shouting it out.

Unfortunately, the temple remained motionless this time, but that wisp of blue smoke drifted over gently.

When Ronan looked at it closely, he was instantly startled.

This was no blue smoke; the upper part had a nose and eyes, looking like a person's upper body—this was clearly a human soul.

Although this wisp of soul was too thin to recognize its specific appearance for the moment.

But because it was so close, Ronan actually heard the intermittent inner voice coming from this soul:

"O Supreme Existence... praise you..."