52: Die!

"As expected of a reserve apprentice, it's fortunate you aren't under my mentor's tutelage..."

Red Star's voice came from the puppet's mouth, "If I had known, I shouldn't have let that orc escape in the first place."

"You were the one who lured that Four-legged Creature to attack us?!"

Ash Leaf cried out in surprise; when they were attacked, they hadn't noticed anyone else at all.

"Humph, consider yourselves lucky. This Calamity Beast seems to have a special fondness for human souls..."

"Perhaps that's exactly why the Void Spirit is so interested in it."

"Calamity Beast? Void Spirit?"

Ronan watched the Second Young Master, who was regenerating its severed limbs, and casually sliced off its head again with a Ray. He then looked toward the Phantasm on the Altar and asked,

"Is all of this your doing?"

"It's all just my mentor's projects..."

Red Star's voice had long lost its usual humble and polite tone.

"And you all are nothing more than waves of consumables."

"It seems you've lured in quite a few people." Ronan caught the implication.

"You have time to chat with me here, but aren't you afraid that Polluter will rush over and kill your teammates?"

Red Star reminded him, "The three of us here find it extremely difficult to even move right now."

Inside the Secret Formation, Evil Axe and the Vice Commander turned their heads with difficulty, glaring at him fiercely.

Currently, they were weak all over; even gathering the strength to curse was a struggle.

"If they die, won't your Secret Formation be finished too?" Ronan countered.

"You're mistaken about that. The Secret Formation only needs flesh and blood essence. Once they've stepped inside..." Red Star said recklessly, "it doesn't matter if they're dead or alive."

Swish, swish, swish.

During their conversation, three Ice Arrows quietly bypassed the puppet from the side and headed straight for the Fake Zuan Shu.

Taking advantage of the gap in conversation, Ronan quietly took out ice from his bag and converted his Black Flame Arrows into Ice Arrows.

The Fake Zuan Shu had just recovered from the Fireball strike when the three incoming Ice Arrows blocked off three directions of its movement.

No matter how it dodged, it would have to take one hit head-on.

However, when the Ice Arrows were only halfway there, they were intercepted by a Fireball from the side.

Under Red Star's control, the artificial puppet Faros quickly launched a fast and accurate Fireball.

The Fireball hit two Ice Arrows, achieving a two-for-one trade.

The remaining one was affected by the impact, and its direction veered off slightly.

"You didn't think I wouldn't see that, did you?" Red Star mocked.

The stealth performance of the Ice Arrows is still too poor... Ronan sighed inwardly.

Fortunately, however, after being affected, the last Ice Arrow miraculously shot toward the ground beside the Fake Zuan Shu.

In an instant, an ice flower seemed to bloom on the ground. Because the Fake Zuan Shu was too close, its limbs were also covered in ice.

It kept knocking off the ice, but the ice kept condensing on its body.

Seeing that the Fake Zuan Shu was temporarily frozen, energy gathered at Ronan's fingertips as he prepared to launch an oversized Scorching Ray to annihilate the entire Polluter in one go.

Since he couldn't find a weak point, he would treat the whole thing as a weak point and conduct an all-out strike.

To his surprise, before he could act, a Fireball shot toward him.

Ronan had to stop the Ray first and exert all his effort to activate his Magic Shield to block the Fireball's impact.

He suddenly discovered a deficiency in his combat—he couldn't cast multiple spells simultaneously.

In other words, he couldn't use a Ray with his left hand and an Ice Arrow with his right to attack the enemy at the same time.

Although the Magic Shield existed continuously around his body, without the input of Spiritual Power, its defensive strength was only at an average level and couldn't reach its peak.

Facing the puppet's Fireball, he felt the average level wasn't quite enough.

However, Ronan had clearly overthought it.

Although Faros's Fireball was fast and accurate, its power wasn't as great as he had imagined.

Judging by the Fireball's lethality, even without boosting the shield, he could easily block it with just average defensive strength.

The Fake Zuan Shu had now broken free from the frozen state; he couldn't let it reach Evil Axe.

Ronan simply ignored the puppet's attack, raised his hand, and fired a Ray directly at the newly freed Fake Zuan Shu.

But at that moment, a Fireball appeared in the Ray's path, blocking the attack for the Fake Zuan Shu.

Seeing that attacking Ronan was ineffective, the puppet changed its strategy, using Fireballs to block the Ray.

Hmm?

Ronan wasn't questioning whether the Fireball could accurately predict the Ray's path.

Rather, he was surprised that an average-powered Fireball could stop a Ray several times more powerful than itself.

He increased the intensity of the Scorching Ray and tried a few more shots, but the result remained the same.

There must be some principle involved that he didn't know about, but Ronan had no time to worry about that now.

Meanwhile, the Fake Zuan Shu was already waving its daggers and rushing toward the three people in the Secret Formation.

The three people inside the Secret Formation were unable to move their bodies.

Red Star seemed prepared; he cast a spell on himself, and his entire being vanished from everyone's sight.

This spell likely achieved invisibility by manipulating light.

Within the perception of Ronan's Spiritual Power net, Red Star was still standing in the same spot.

The Mercenary Vice Commander saw the void black hole in the center of the Secret Formation growing larger while his life force was constantly draining. A Polluter was rushing over with daggers... He simply gritted his teeth and forcibly reversed his breathing technique, causing raging Black Flames to ignite around him.

These Black Flames enveloped him without causing him any harm, but they abruptly raised the surrounding temperature significantly, serving as a means of self-preservation.

In the blink of an eye, among the three in the formation, only Evil Axe was left without any defensive measures, like a lamb waiting to be slaughtered on a chopping block.

Ash Leaf had already started running toward Evil Axe when Ronan was tied up by the puppet.

The three people inside the Secret Formation were unable to act independently because they had responded to the formation; this was a restriction within the array.

If interfered with by other factors, such as being kicked away, it would be easy to break free.

Of course, suddenly breaking away from the Secret Formation would easily lead to a backlash... but between dying on the spot and ending up half-dead later, obviously no one would make the wrong choice.

What Ash Leaf had to do was very simple: ignore everything else and just kick Evil Axe out of the circle.

However, she realized halfway there that not only was she further from Evil Axe, but her speed also couldn't match the Fake Zuan Shu's.

It's too late!

The Fake Zuan Shu didn't dare approach the Mercenary Vice Commander, who was covered in Black Flames, so it could only turn its murderous gaze toward Evil Axe.

Seeing that the Ray couldn't break through the Fireball blockade, an impulse welled up in Ronan's heart.

He released the restrictions on the Scorching Ray and poured all his Spiritual Power into the Ray's magic construct.

All along, whenever he cast this spell, he had a faint impulse to go all-in with his Spiritual Power.

So recently, Ronan always tried his best to control the amount of Spiritual Power he put into the Ray to suppress this inexplicable urge.

Now, in this life-or-death crisis, impulse finally triumphed over reason.

His Spiritual Power was no longer what it used to be.

The Scorching Ray cast at full power was unimaginably large in both range and power.

He couldn't attack the Fake Zuan Shu directly... otherwise, it would definitely affect the three people in the Secret Formation.

Ronan understood.

Thus, he locked his attack target directly onto the artificial puppet that had been hounding him.

"Die!"

Boom.

A dazzling Ray with a radius of two meters blasted toward the artificial puppet.

A second before being hit, a Magic Shield also appeared on the puppet; this was likely its final self-preservation mechanism.

But it served no purpose.

White light that seemed to blot out the sky struck, carrying massive kinetic energy and extreme heat, instantly blasting this expensive magical creation into powder without leaving a single trace.

Ronan's Spiritual Power immediately bottomed out, and his whole body went limp.

Squeezing out his last bit of Spiritual Power, his finger rose and fell, but he ultimately couldn't cast one last spell.

Pfft.

Inside an empty circle within the Secret Formation, a spray of blood suddenly erupted from thin air.

The invisible Red Star suffered a backlash because the puppet was destroyed.

But at this moment, no one was paying attention to his situation.

Ash Leaf was still some distance from Evil Axe, while the Fake Zuan Shu had already arrived in front of him.

It leaped up, its dagger ruthlessly stabbing toward Evil Axe's neck.

"Evil Axe!"