Chapter 1015: Golden Flame Shield
Whether it was a fireball or an icicle, once wrapped in mud, it would disperse into its most basic elemental energy and vanish. And when the mud exploded, it merely split into smaller clumps.
This is the most troublesome thing about Mud Lizards. They know few spells, but their spit—those clumps of mud—are the most disgusting. No matter what touches it, once stuck, it's nearly impossible to break free. On the ground, getting hit by their mud is like falling into a swamp; escape is almost hopeless.
Once you're dragged down, the Mud Lizard charges in to swallow its prey whole. Even stronger enemies can be torn to pieces if they get caught at the wrong moment.
Leon darted through the air like a nimble kingfisher, constantly dodging those mud clumps that shot out like cannonballs. In less than three seconds, he closed in to within a hundred meters of a Mud Lizard.
Frost runes flew from his left hand, while fire runes burst from his right. Both sets of runes exploded in midair, each forming a vortex over ten meters wide. Endless frost magic and fire magic spewed forth from the swirling maelstroms.
The left half of the Mud Lizard's body was transformed into a world of frost—every inch of space covered in icy crystals and swirling snow, the mud freezing rapidly into solid blocks. Meanwhile, the right half was engulfed in a sea of flames, moisture evaporating in an instant and the mud drying into hard, brittle chunks.
The temperature difference on both sides caused a roaring wind to howl. Where extreme heat met extreme cold, elemental currents surged wildly, the concentrated energy slicing across the Mud Lizard’s back like thousands of tiny knives, frantically shredding its muddy armor.
As these extreme conditions collided and merged, just as expected, the Mud Lizard’s magical flow became chaotic. Its spellcasting weakened rapidly, movements slowing to a crawl.
This shift made the Mud Lizard even more furious. Layers of mud churned across its body, constantly replenishing the armor stripped away by magic. After withstanding hundreds of spells, the Mud Lizard was still hardly harmed; its hide was covered with at least two meters of muddy armor, its defenses terrifyingly strong.
After creating environments of extreme heat and cold, Leon condensed a deep blue ice orb the size of a human head in his left hand, and a similarly sized dark red fire orb in his right.
He threw both orbs simultaneously; it was as if there was a special connection between them, like an ice-fire shield, each orb spinning around the other as they descended.
The aura between flame and frost churned endlessly, mutually restraining yet seemingly attracted to each other. The orbs spun faster and faster, eventually merging into a single mass of red and blue light.
These two orbs, at most third-rank spells, were completely ignored by the Mud Lizard. Such attacks, no matter how many, couldn’t break through its muddy armor.
But when the two orbs, spinning rapidly, collided with the Mud Lizard’s body, the forces of ice and fire were forcibly compressed together by that terrifying rotational power.
Extremely cold ice elements collided with violently hot fire elements—of equal strength, mutual annihilation was inevitable.
Especially with the compressive force of their rotation, the clash between ice and fire couldn’t explode; every element seemed to be forcibly pressed together in collision.
In an instant, both ice and fire orbs vanished, leaving behind a pure, pitch-black sphere. It grew from fist-sized to head-sized, and finally to half a meter across.
That damned bastard—how is he so strong? He can suppress a Mud Lizard alone, easily? What a joke! These beasts may be pseudo Sky Rank, but they’re still level forty monsters!
Damn, I get it now—this guy really planned to wait for those six Mud Lizards to wipe us out first, then clean up the six himself…
They really can handle six Mud Lizards…
Morgan’s face was stiff as he glanced around, cold sweat pouring down his forehead. Beside him, Arno was just as pale and drenched in sweat. It wasn’t just Leon’s terrifying combat power—they were stunned by the supposedly injured, mana-depleted subordinates as well.
“Are these really a bunch of wounded, mana-exhausted mages?”
Morgan muttered, his hands trembling.
Of the two Mud Lizards lured away by Leon’s group, Leon took on one alone, while the fifty-member mage legion launched their attack on the other.
The mage legion became a cloud of fire drifting in midair, their gathered elemental flames covering a range of four or five hundred meters. The group, transformed into fire elementals, moved as one—occasionally flickering within the sea of fire. Towering shields, ten meters wide and burning with golden-red flames, floated amid the inferno, blocking all the mud projectiles spat by the Mud Lizard.
The highly adhesive mud struck the Golden Flame Shields, evaporating within a second and turning into piles of dry dirt.
The fifty legion mages now resembled Caucasus battle mages, charging madly at the Mud Lizard. Waves of fire spells became a flaming waterfall, pouring down from the sky and burning away layer after layer of the Mud Lizard’s muddy armor.
When they reached fifty meters above the Mud Lizard’s head, the mage legion finally stopped, splitting into five squads. Threads of golden-red flame linked the mages together.
Each squad was led by a Second-Rank Title Archmage, with First-Rank Title Archmages and those who hadn’t yet advanced evenly distributed among the five teams.
Ten mages linked together—each squad performed a group blink, instantly transforming from a single cluster into five overlapping fireballs.
All five squads began forming joint chanting arrays, chanting spells in unison. The frontmost squad finished their chant fastest; in just over a second, ten mages completed a spell through the joint array.
A golden-red shield, twenty meters wide, appeared beneath the squad, blocking the Mud Lizard’s attack. Blazing flames incinerated everything; mud projectiles struck the shield, sending ripples of fire, but couldn’t destroy it in one hit.
After successfully casting a Golden Flame Shield, the squad didn’t stop. They continued using the joint chanting array, compressing casting time to the limit, and kept releasing Golden Flame Shields.
The other four squads chanted in chorus, casting identical spells.
The spell for Hellfire, boosted by the joint chanting array and split among ten mages, reduced casting time to three seconds…
Three seconds passed in a flash. The ground beneath the Mud Lizard trembled, golden-red magical glyphs appeared beneath its four claws, exploding into a massive formation over ten meters wide.
Boom…
The earth shuddered and the temperature soared; the next moment, four massive golden-red flames, each over ten meters thick, shot up from the ground.
The aura of Hellfire rapidly filled the space, warping the surroundings. The Mud Lizard’s four claws were engulfed by Hellfire; the flames struck the airborne mage legion, thinning the Golden Flame Shields, which now showed signs of being burned away…
With Hellfire successfully cast, the four rear squads continued releasing Golden Flame Shields; a dozen shields, each over ten meters wide, appeared.
This pure black sphere had no magical fluctuations at all. Wherever it passed, even magical waves were erased; all elemental energy was completely annihilated.
The Mud Lizard’s armor was annihilated the instant it touched the black sphere. Ripples spread out from the sphere, and within several meters, the muddy armor seemed to melt away, layer after layer vanishing rapidly.
In less than two seconds, a huge pit appeared on the Mud Lizard’s back—two meters of muddy armor wiped away, and even the thick hide beneath couldn’t resist the annihilating force. Silently, a nearly two-meter-wide bloody hole appeared, spraying blue blood everywhere as the Mud Lizard howled in agony.
With a small annihilation space forming, the Mud Lizard’s magical flow grew even more chaotic. Its spells lost at least half their power, and its movements became sluggish, as if a mountain pressed down on it. Whether claw or tail, its strikes were as weak as if hit by hundreds of debilitation curses—barely cracking the earth.
Leon remained calm, using a vortex of fire on one side and frost on the other to suppress the Mud Lizard with these extreme environments, weakening its strength. Meanwhile, he continued breaking through its thick armor with the mutually annihilating forces of frost and fire.
This fighting style would be like tickling a true Sky Rank beast, but for these pseudo Sky Rank monsters, it was more terrifying than any powerful warlock’s debilitation curse. Even a Sky Rank curse warlock couldn’t weaken a Sky Rank beast by half this much.
Leon fought with effortless ease, not wasting mana on flashy spells. Yet anyone could see that the Mud Lizard, covered in wounds, wouldn’t last much longer.
As soon as Leon and his team arrived, they lured away two Mud Lizards. Instantly, the Henry Family felt much relief; with only four attacking, their defenses finally held strong.
When six attacked at once, defending was nearly impossible. Any lapse could let these beasts break into the valley. Now, with only four, defense was manageable—even allowing a bit of counterattack.
Morgan thought luring away two would keep Leon’s team busy for a long, hard fight. But now, seeing Leon at the front, single-handedly suppressing a Mud Lizard, leaving it battered in less than half a minute, Morgan was stunned—he forgot to cast spells, staring in disbelief…