Chapter 681: Wooden Sanctuary
Glory, hatred, power—everything can be claimed by slaying this dragon!
Leon’s eyes turned utterly cold.
"I didn't want to fight you, but now, you clearly need a harsh lesson!"
Leon raised the Doombringer Staff. The violet dragon phantom—artifact spirit—burst forth, transforming into a massive violet dragon that coiled behind him. Torrents of magical energy surged from Leon, spreading outwards like a tempest.
Even the mere flow of mana held the destructive force of a first- or second-tier spell!
Such overwhelming pressure—something no Ninth Archmage should possess—descended, making Jeremy and Elsa feel as if a boulder was crushing their hearts.
"Quick, kill him! Kill him!" Jeremy roared, a sense of dread enveloping his mind.
All the Dark Elves converged, unleashing a barrage of spells upon Leon.
Leon simply swung the Doombringer Staff. With a series of thunderous booms, five colossal Gates of Eskrym—each ten meters tall, six meters wide, and nearly two meters thick—descended from the sky.
The fivefold Gates of Eskrym slammed down, making the leaf-covered continent tremble violently beneath them.
Every spell cast from the front was blocked by the layered defenses.
Behind them, Seth glanced at Hubert, whose legs were shaking a little. Remembering that Hubert had just protected him, Seth couldn't help but ask, "What's wrong with you?"
Hubert shrank his neck, watching Leon's back, then cast a sympathetic glance at the distant Dark Elves.
"Lord Leon is angry..."
With the violet dragon phantom's empowerment, Leon's spellcasting rivaled a true dragon's, and his magic's destructive force soared.
The fivefold Gates of Eskrym blocked every frenzied attack from the enemy.
Five whole seconds—more than enough for Leon to do a lot.
The rapid, guttural chanting ceased. Leon raised the Doombringer Staff and swept it toward the sky.
Then, all the Dark Elves witnessed a scene that filled them with dread—the sky itself seemed to tremble, and mournful wails echoed from above.
In an instant, the sky erupted into thunderous, earth-shaking roars.
Hundreds of flaming meteors, trailing long plumes of black smoke, plummeted from the heavens. The meteor shower covered a radius of several hundred meters, engulfing the entire area where the Dark Elves stood.
Dodging was no longer possible. The terrified Dark Elves desperately cast runic spells, launching attacks at the sky, and some tried to conjure defensive barriers.
But it was all futile...
The spell itself was only sixth-tier, but Leon had pieced it together from several incantations found in the Spellbook of Ages.
Using the Spellbook's formulas, Leon mimicked the Falling Stars spell, creating this composite magic to summon a barrage of meteors in a single cast.
With the Doombringer Staff's power and spellcasting boosted to rival a Chromatic Dragon, this sixth-tier spell unleashed the destructive force of a top-tier seventh-tier area attack.
Countless meteors, each several meters across, rained down. Only a few were destroyed by the Dark Elves' magic—the rest, they simply didn't have time to deal with.
Boom...
The first meteor crashed down, shattering every defense spell with ease. Three Dark Elves below were struck instantly—obliterated by the sheer force before they could even scream.
Then, a barrage of meteors crashed down. Within hundreds of meters ahead, the air was compressed by relentless explosions, the impact drowning out even the Dark Elves' screams.
The thunderous roar persisted for over ten seconds, with waves of fire and ash rampaging across the battlefield.
Countless bursts of magical light flickered incessantly.
Only a few stray runic spells managed to shoot toward Leon, but they were blocked firmly dozens of meters away.
With the alchemical golems and Anderson unleashing torrents of spells, the Dark Elves shrouded in smoke and dust couldn't even flee.
The nightmare wasn't over for the Dark Elves. Leon raised the Doombringer Staff once more, his soaring chant sounding like a death knell to his enemies.
After a full ten seconds of chanting, a towering phantom—over ten meters tall—materialized before Leon. As his incantation continued, the hazy apparition lifted a massive bow and fired a radiant arrow skyward.
The arrow vanished into the sky, and the phantom dissipated with it.
A moment later, countless points of light appeared above the Dark Elves' heads. In less than a second, everyone realized they weren't mere lights—they were an endless rain of radiant arrows!
The radiant arrows fell like a torrential downpour, and screams erupted anew, the storm of arrows suppressing even the dust, fire, and smoke.
Only now did everyone realize—over two hundred Dark Elves had been pierced by the radiant arrows, some even riddled like sieves.
Corpses littered the ground. Combined with the previous spell, at least four hundred Dark Elves lay dead...
Seth, who'd been staring blankly at Leon, finally muttered in confusion and disbelief, "Radiant Arrowstorm? Damn, isn't that an eighth-tier spell? Wait—the power's been weakened a lot..."
A Radiant Arrowstorm, weakened more than tenfold, was another sixth-tier spell Leon had modified using the Spellbook of Ages. Empowered by the violet dragon phantom, its scale was vastly amplified.
In barely half a minute, the Dark Elves were plunged into hell...
In less than thirty seconds, over four hundred Dark Elves were lost, and many survivors were wounded.
Jeremy and Elsa stared into the distance, faces twisted in pain and despair. Seeing Leon with the violet dragon phantom behind him—unexpectedly powerful, overwhelmingly so—filled them with hopelessness.
As the Dark Elves fell in droves, Elsa was wracked with agony, forced to defend against Leon's spells while helping those who couldn't withstand the onslaught. Jeremy, meanwhile, was terrified and desperate to flee.
The remaining five or six hundred Dark Elves had completely lost their will to fight. Especially with the cold-eyed violet dragon phantom looming behind Leon, all were reminded of their lifelong fear of dragons.
Some Dark Elves, as children, had been so terrified by tales of dragons that they couldn't even cry.
The Dark Elves' records spoke of dragons' brutality and power, instilling a deep-rooted dread and fear in every one of them.
Now, that fear had been fully unearthed...
When they saw Leon raise the Doombringer Staff again...
The Dark Elves finally broke. Some fled in terror, while the rest lost all will to fight back.
Two or three hundred enhanced Explosive Fireballs rained down, and with the alchemical golems and Anderson, the Dark Elves were utterly crushed, unable to muster any resistance.
A torrent of spells swept over them, countless enhanced Explosive Fireballs detonating. All the Dark Elves could do was huddle together, desperately casting defensive magic.
As the water curtain conjured by everyone faltered, Elsa gritted her teeth, the runes on her forehead glowing.
Thick branches rose from the ground—like withered limbs, like desiccated roots.
A mass of withered branches writhed, weaving together into a hemispherical dome over twenty meters wide, shielding all the Dark Elves within. Leon watched coldly as the barrier formed.
This was Elsa's final line of defense—the fifth-level Limit Spell, Wooden Sanctuary.
Casting this spell meant they'd lost all chance of striking back.
This Limit Spell was a rare plant element spell. When cast atop the Tree of Wisdom, its power and duration would be further enhanced.
Leon led his group to a spot near the Wooden Sanctuary, bombarding it with spells until splinters of wood exploded outward.
Inside the barrier, Jeremy's face was twisted with terror—already pale, now ghostly white, utterly lost and helpless.
Elsa, too, looked deathly pale, fatigue etched deep in her features. Maintaining the Wooden Sanctuary was draining her rapidly...
The remaining hundreds of Dark Elves were terrified—many of the women sobbing in despair, others steeling themselves for a heroic last stand...
The battle had shifted too quickly. Elsa was the first to realize—Leon had never intended to kill them. He could have crushed them from the start.
But they'd all thought Lin Yun and his outsiders were easy prey. The pride of the Dark Elves convinced them their mage legion was invincible—at least against anyone below the Heavenly rank.
He looked like a mere Ninth-rank Magister, but the mana pouring from him surpassed even Fifth-rank Title Magisters. His combat strength rivaled the strongest Eighth-rank Title Magisters, and with his powerful artifact, only the Dark Elves' Ninth-rank Title Magisters could hope to fight him head-on.
That Frost Dragon was actually level thirty-eight. The Dark Elves knew full well that without mastering advanced Limit Spells or high-level magic runes, most couldn't stand against a dragon of equal rank.
Even that ugly alchemical golem, patched all over, could instant-cast fifth- and sixth-tier spells—faster than the Dark Elves themselves. Alone, it could unleash a torrent of advanced magic. Leon watched, his eyes cold and calculating.
And that intricate wheel artifact, wielded by a strange artifact spirit, could cast spells at lightning speed—alone, it matched the output of a hundred or two elite Dark Elf legion mages.
Even the orc could swing his weapon and clash with spells head-on. Hit by dozens of spells, he barely suffered any real wounds—just let out a few miserable screams...
They had sorely underestimated these outsiders...