Chapter 690: Wooden Sanctuary
Glory, hatred, power—every dark impulse clawed at his mind. All he needed was to slay this dragon, and everything would be his. The promise of violence shimmered in the air, intoxicating and absolute.
Leon’s gaze turned utterly cold, his eyes hollowed by resolve. In that moment, mercy was a luxury he could no longer afford.
"I didn’t want to start a conflict with you, but now it seems I have no choice but to teach you a painful lesson!" Leon raised the Doombringer Staff, its ominous weight promising retribution.
Leon raised the Doombringer Staff. The violet hatchling dragon magic artifact shot out, transforming into a massive violet dragon that coiled behind him. Torrents of magical power surged from Leon, spreading outward like a storm.
The mere surge of magic alone carried the force of a first- or second-tier spell—his aura, amplified by the Doombringer Staff, radiated pure menace.
Such overwhelming pressure—far beyond what a Ninth-level Magus should possess—descended, making Jeremy and Elsa feel as if a heavy stone pressed on their hearts. The presence of the Doombringer Staff and the power behind Leon’s spells rivaled that of a Five-Colored Dragon.
"Quick, kill him! Kill him!" Jeremy roared, a sense of dread flooding his mind.
Leon simply swung the Doombringer Staff. With a series of thunderous booms, the Fivefold Gate of Eskrym—each ten meters tall, six meters wide, and nearly two meters thick—descended from the sky.
The Fivefold Gate of Eskrym slammed down, making the leafy continent beneath their feet shudder violently.
Every spell from the front was blocked by the five layers of defense.
Behind them, Seth glanced at Xuban, whose knees were trembling. Remembering how Xuban had just tried to protect him, Seth couldn’t help but ask, "Are you alright?"
Xuban shrank his neck, looking at Leon’s back, and shot a sympathetic glance toward the distant Dark Elves.
"Archmage Leon is angry..."
With the power of the purple hatchling dragon, Leon’s spellcasting rivaled that of a true dragon—his magic was amplified far beyond normal limits.
The Fivefold Gate of Eskrym blocked every frenzied attack from the enemy.
Five whole seconds—more than enough time for Leon to do a lot.
The rapid, guttural chanting ceased. Leon raised the Doombringer Staff and swept it toward the sky, his silhouette framed by gathering storm clouds.
Then, all the Dark Elves witnessed a scene that filled them with terror—the sky itself seemed to tremble, and a mournful wailing echoed from above.
In an instant, it all turned into a thunderous roar.
Hundreds of flaming meteors, trailing long plumes of black smoke, plummeted from the sky. The barrage covered an area hundreds of meters across, engulfing the entire region where the Dark Elves stood.
There was no time to dodge. The terrified Dark Elves frantically cast runic spells and fired attacks at the sky—some even tried to erect 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 incantations from the Spellbook of Ages, Leon mimicked the Falling Stars and created this composite spell, summoning a swarm of meteors in one devastating attack.
With the power of the Doombringer Staff and spellcasting on par with a Five-Colored Dragon, this sixth-tier spell unleashed the destructive force of a top-tier seventh-level area attack.
Countless meteors, each several meters across, crashed down. Only a handful were destroyed by the Dark Elves’ magic—the rest came too fast to stop.
Boom—
The first meteor struck. All the defensive spells crumbled instantly, and three Dark Elves below were crushed before they could even scream—the sheer force pulverized them.
Then, a swarm of meteors crashed down. Within hundreds of meters ahead, the air was compressed by relentless explosions—the roar of impact and detonations drowned out every scream from the Dark Elves.
The thunderous rumbling lasted for over ten seconds, flames and ash rampaging through the devastated battlefield.
Countless flashes of magic lit up the darkness.
Only a few scattered runic spells shot toward Leon, but they were blocked dozens of meters away.
With the alchemical golems and Andefa unleashing torrents of spells, the Dark Elves—shrouded in smoke and dust—couldn’t even escape.
The nightmare wasn’t over for the Dark Elves. Leon raised the Doombringer Staff again, his high, resonant chant sounding like a death knell to his foes.
After a full ten seconds of chanting, a massive phantom—over ten meters tall—appeared before Leon. The blurry apparition raised a great bow and shot a dazzling arrow of light skyward.
The arrow vanished into the sky, and the phantom faded away as well.
In the next instant, countless points of light flickered above the Dark Elves. In less than a second, everyone realized they weren’t just lights—they were a rain of arrows, too many to count!
A torrent of radiant arrows fell like rain, and the screams rose again, so loud they drowned out the dust, flames, and smoke.
Now everyone saw it—at least two hundred Dark Elves were pierced by arrows of light, some riddled so thoroughly they looked like sieves.
Bodies littered the ground. With the previous spell included, at least four hundred Dark Elves lay dead...
Seth, who’d been staring blankly at Leon, finally muttered in disbelief, "Radiant Arrowstorm? Damn, isn’t that an eighth-tier spell? No, wait—the power’s way lower..."
A Radiant Arrowstorm weakened tenfold—Leon had modified it into a sixth-tier spell using incantations from the Spellbook of Ages. Empowered by the purple dragon phantom, it grew much larger and deadlier.
In barely half a minute, it was as if the Dark Elves had been cast into hell...
In less than thirty seconds, over four hundred Dark Elves had fallen, and many survivors were wounded.
Jeremy and Elsa stared into the distance, faces twisted with pain and despair. The sight of Leon, wreathed in the violet dragon’s phantom—so unexpectedly powerful—left them feeling as if hope itself had been snuffed out.
Dark Elves died in droves. Elsa, wracked with grief, fought to repel Leon’s relentless spells while desperately trying to shield her kin; Jeremy, meanwhile, was caught in the jaws of terror, his instinct to flee overwhelming every other thought.
The remaining five or six hundred Dark Elves had utterly lost their will to fight. The icy glare of the violet dragon phantom behind Leon was a living nightmare, dredging up childhood terrors and the ancient, primal fear of dragons that haunted their race.
As children, many Dark Elves had been so frightened by stories of dragons that they couldn’t even muster the courage to cry. That old fear now returned, raw and suffocating.
In the chronicles of the Dark Elves, dragons were monsters—merciless, invincible, the stuff of nightmares. Every Dark Elf carried that dread like a shadow stitched to their soul.
Now, that terror was no longer buried. It surged up from the depths, choking them, impossible to ignore.
When they saw Leon raise the Doombringer Staff once more...
The Dark Elves finally broke—some fled in panic, while the rest lost all will to fight.
Two or three hundred empowered Explosive Fireballs rained from the sky. With the alchemical golems and Andefa, the Dark Elves were utterly crushed, unable to mount any counterattack.
A torrent of spells swept through, countless empowered Explosive Fireballs detonating. The Dark Elves could only huddle together, desperately casting defensive spells.
As the water curtain conjured by everyone began to fail, Elsa gritted her teeth, the runes on her forehead glowing brightly.
Thick branches rose from the ground—dry and gnarled, like ancient tree limbs and roots.
A mass of withered branches writhed and merged into a dome over twenty meters wide, sheltering all the Dark Elves inside.
This was Elsa’s final line of defense—a fifth-level Limit Spell: Wooden Sanctuary.
Casting this meant all hope of counterattack was lost.
This rare plant-element Limit Spell, when cast atop the Tree of Wisdom, was even more potent and enduring.
Leon led his group close to the Wooden Sanctuary. Waves of spells battered the barrier, sending splinters of wood flying.
Inside, Jeremy’s face was twisted in terror—his pallor deepened, and he was at a total loss, unable to respond at all.
Elsa’s face was just as pale, exhaustion etched deep into her sickly features. Maintaining the Wooden Sanctuary was like holding back a flood with trembling hands—each second drained her closer to collapse.
The remaining hundreds of Dark Elves were shattered—many of the women sobbed in despair, their cries like the last echoes before oblivion. Some had already steeled themselves for a final, futile act of defiance.
The tide of battle had shifted too quickly. Elsa was the first to understand: Leon had never truly meant to kill them. He could have crushed them from the very beginning, but chose restraint—a mercy most of them would never recognize.
But the Dark Elves had mistaken these outsiders for weak prey. Their pride had convinced them the Dark Elf mage legion was invincible—so long as their foes weren’t Sky-ranked, they believed themselves untouchable. Now, that arrogance was their undoing.
Leon looked like a mere Ninth-level Magus, but the magic he wielded was stronger than a fifth-level Title Magus. His combat power rivaled the strongest eighth-level Title Magi, and with his powerful magic artifacts, only the Dark Elves’ own ninth-level Title Magi could face him head-on.
The Frost Dragon, too, was level thirty-eight. The Dark Elves knew all too well that, without high-level Limit Spells or advanced runes, most of them were no match for a dragon of equal rank.
That ugly alchemical golem, patched all over, could instantly cast fifth- and sixth-level spells—even faster than the Dark Elves. Alone, it could unleash a flood of high-level magic.
Even the intricate wheel artifact, wielded by a strange magical avatar, could cast spells faster than anyone else—one person rivaled a hundred elite Dark Elf mages.
Even the orc could swing his weapon and meet a barrage of spells head-on. Struck by dozens of attacks, he suffered barely any injuries—just a few miserable screams...
They had underestimated these outsiders far too much—a fatal error, paid for in blood and shattered pride.