Chapter 345: Capture
Every strike from the nearly three-hundred-meter-tall Mud Giant Bear landed like a landslide. It seemed to realize it had to escape quickly. Roaring with all its might, ripples of vibration shuddered through its body. The mud swamp instantly collapsed, then expanded violently.
Karim’s magic power was draining rapidly with every passing second. His muscles bulged, and his expression turned slightly ferocious as he poured out massive amounts of magic power, stitching the cracks in the prison back together bit by bit.
Practically squeezing the words out of his throat, he said in a weak voice, “Quick, Aleias!”
Aleias threw a mirror into the sky. It hovered in mid-air, its golden light shining down on the Mud Giant Bear.
Thump-thump! Thump-thump!
A loud heartbeat echoed. It was the heartbeat of the Mud Giant Bear. Through some magical means, the mirror had locked onto the location of its heart.
Aleias leaped fiercely, muttering arcane words. The mottled rust on the “Life-Hunting Arrow” in her hand gradually faded. A faint golden light flashed and vanished, replaced by an interweaving of red and black, carrying a power close to the level of rules.
Ace’s eyes widened to their limit. Layered rune structures derived silently. These eyes, capable of seeing through Karim’s authority, couldn’t see through the changes in the “Life-Hunting Arrow” at this moment.
“Aleias said this arrow was Level 2, but my eyes tell me its mystery level definitely exceeds Level 2 or Level 2.5. This is a terrifying wondrous item of at least Level 3, possessing a mystery level similar to a Quasi-Noble Phantasm.”
Ace muttered. At this moment, Karim was failing, and Aleias was occupied. It was the perfect time to strike, but Ace chose not to.
The mysterious transformation of the “Life-Hunting Arrow” was the variable he felt most uncertain about. He wanted to observe the arrow’s changes before deciding on the final moment to act.
Karim unleashed his remaining magic power, constricting the entire prison into the shape of the giant bear and opening a small hole at the heart’s location. Then, he gasped heavily for air.
Aleias leaped in, landing directly above the Mud Giant Bear’s heart. She plunged the black-and-red intertwined arrow straight into the location of the bear’s heart. The black and red colors spiraled violently, exploding into a massive vortex with a boom.
The giant bear howled in agony. The black and red spiral expanded continuously, turning its body into thick black-and-red ichor as it died in despair.
The black and red colors gradually condensed back into the “Life-Hunting Arrow.” The rust was gone. Now speckled with blood and sheen, it emitted an eerie and ominous aura.
Suddenly, invisible dream mist spread rapidly. Turion and the five Heroes fell unconscious without realizing it. Aleias suddenly felt her eyelids grow heavy, as if she would fall asleep in the next second.
Just then, a gemstone on her chest shattered, scattering like stardust powder, instantly jerking her awake.
A palm-sized portal suddenly opened. An ordinary-looking male hand reached out, grabbed the “Life-Hunting Arrow,” and vanished.
Karim didn’t have time to react. Just as he was about to roar in anger, his internal power nearly exhausted, he leaped forward, intending to grab Aleias and flee immediately.
Suddenly, a person-sized portal appeared right in front of him. Karim couldn’t react in time and jumped straight into it.
On the other side of the portal was Ace. He had already activated the derivative spell of the 3-Ring Six-Element Ring: “Four-Element Pulverize Disc.”
Karim couldn’t dodge. With his legs forward and body leaning back, his legs were ground to dust by the magical “pulverize disc” composed of earth, fire, wind, and water elements on the other side of the portal.
A bloodied Karim struggled to crawl away, roaring, “Dark Raven Devil! How can you be this strong?”
Ace manipulated the Portal spell to shrink and disintegrate rapidly, severing Karim at the waist. His bloodied lower half tumbled down, dissolved by the Four-Element Pulverize Disc.
Dressed in black magic robes, wearing a wizard hat, black leather boots, and a 3-Ring Hexagram Badge on his chest, Ace once again activated the 3-Ring Portal spell from his Mental Imagery World. A person-sized portal appeared in front of him and in front of Karim.
A disdainful smile played on Ace’s lips. Karim’s power had been exhausted long ago. Dealing with an utterly exhausted Karim brought no sense of accomplishment; it was all just a deduction from the fate phantom.
Ace stepped out, bringing the Four-Element Pulverize Disc through the portal. Hooking the disc with his foot, he stomped it onto the head of the exhausted Karim.
In his dying moments, Karim seemed to see his cute little grandson. Because he had left in a hurry, afraid of waking the sleeping child, he hadn’t even hugged him.
Kalutu, I really want to hug you one last time. With this final thought, Karim Milne died.
Ace spoke softly with indifference, “You are no longer worthy to know.”
Stepping over Karim’s bisected corpse, Ace took off his hat and bowed elegantly. “Elemental Disjunction” activated instantly. Magic power disturbed violently, lunging straight at Aleias, the descendant of the God of Craftsmanship who was laden with wondrous items.
After six consecutive “Elemental Disjunctions,” all of Aleias’s wondrous items disintegrated into elements. She was left completely naked. Her lithe, fit body and flushed, beautiful face were filled with panic. In her eyes, the elegant Ace looked like a demon.
Invisible dream mist enveloped Aleias. Her panicked gaze gradually turned peaceful and drowsy, and she fell heavily to the ground.
With the aid of the Six-Element Ring, Ace floated slowly, standing in the air above the swamp. His Mental Imagery World gradually manifested, overlaying reality and dragging Aleias into it.
Aleias had fallen into a dream. Ace’s eyes flickered. He waved his arm gently, and several chains inscribed with sealing runes flew out of the void in the manifested dream world, stringing Aleias up.
“I don’t have time to study this precious experimental subject right now. I’ll seal her first. But since she’s come to my world, I might as well conduct another experiment.”
Ace spoke softly. The suspended Aleias was covered in ice and snow. A moment later, she turned into an ice sculpture, with only the faint vitality within her body indicating she was still alive.
She had fallen into a deep sleep. Ace manipulated the dream world to extract Aleias’s dream. It was a nightmare where she was chased by giant beasts and devoured in despair.
Ace tossed her dream into his own mental imagery dream world. The dream turned into a wisp of smoke and fire, reincarnating into a fetus within the mental imagery dream world.
This was Ace’s latest experiment. having experienced being a Supreme God in the Pocket World, Ace had developed a keen interest in tiny lives with significantly lower life levels than reality.
He absorbed the Level 2 Runes related to humans from the Pocket World and created a group of humans living authentically within the dream world. These humans worshiped him as a god, providing faith.
Surprisingly, they could provide faint human racial aura and the power of faith, fueling Ace’s interest in constructing a much lower-level pseudo-world within his Mental Imagery World.
Ace’s dream world wasn’t qualified to be a pseudo-world yet; too many “rules” (Level 2 Runes) were missing. What he had created so far was merely a semi-finished product.
In this semi-finished product, time flowed extremely fast, but this wasn’t based on the Fixed-Time Manipulation Rune Group he had just analyzed.
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