Chapter 996: Meteorite
But just as the Red Flame Fire Fox was fully focused on dealing with Leon, it failed to notice that the battlefield had gradually shifted. The forest within several kilometers had been utterly destroyed, and the sky was filled with drifting ash...
"Now!"
Leon spared no expense in burning through his mana, just waiting for that arrogant Red Flame Fire Fox to destroy the Black Cloud himself!
Seeing this, Anderson, standing in the distance, wore a worried expression on all three of his faces.
"Damn it, can Merlin's method really work? The Red Flame Fire Fox's bloodline isn't much, but it's still Sky Rank—and it's awakened the Foxfire, too..."
Even with doubts, Anderson and the Patchwork Golem still followed Leon's orders. The moment the Red Flame Fire Fox spat out that destructive energy orb, they cast a spell with all their might.
On both sides of the Red Flame Fire Fox, the earth suddenly trembled. Two brown whirlpools appeared in midair, spewing endless mud that instantly covered the area around the beast.
The mud surged like a flood; as it crashed into the ground, the earth shook violently, and thick cracks appeared, rapidly spreading outward...
Mud Elementals dwelling in that sludge were summoned, and the spatial gate was held open, letting the mud pour forth.
As the mud surged out, the air grew oppressively heavy; gravity in the area spiked in an instant.
The Red Flame Fire Fox was caught off guard, its four paws sinking into the sludge, but it suffered no real harm...
The sudden increase in gravity made the Red Flame Fire Fox uncomfortable. In that fleeting moment, Leon, hovering in the sky, rapidly spat out a string of runes, and his Doombringer Staff flared with blinding light.
The mud covering the Red Flame Fire Fox seemed to come alive, swiftly coalescing into four massive hands that seized the beast's limbs.
The Red Flame Fire Fox roared in fury, Foxfire spreading out as it tried to ignite the mud, but the effect was minimal. The mud burned slowly, and more of it rapidly solidified, forming a solid mass hundreds of meters wide.
Yet as the Red Flame Fire Fox struggled, cracks began to spider across the surface of the hardened mud. It wouldn't be long before the beast broke free...
Its three flaming tails lashed the earth, shaking the ground. The land for kilometers around trembled under the terrifying force...
Leon floated in midair, watching the frenzied Red Flame Fire Fox below with a cold gaze, chanting spells at breakneck speed, burning through mana without even glancing at the beast.
By now, the Mage Legion had finished assembling the alchemical array. Using the United Chanting Formation, they pooled their mana and gathered fire elements, unleashing a crimson-gold spear over sixty meters long...
The colossal spear plummeted from the heavens, slanting toward the earth like a falling meteorite, crashing into the Red Flame Fire Fox from the side.
The Red Flame Fire Fox bared its fangs, face twisted and fierce. It conjured another destructive energy orb, seven or eight meters wide, to shatter the massive spear...
Terrifying power exploded in midair, while on the ground, the Red Flame Fire Fox was nearly free of its restraints.
Just then, a blue light emerged from the swirling ash and smoke, piercing through the haze and sinking beneath the Red Flame Fire Fox's feet...
In an instant, endless frost spread beneath the beast. The cracked stone hands and fractured mud slabs were frozen solid, and the ice crept up the Red Flame Fire Fox's limbs toward its body...
Unfortunately, when the frost reached halfway up the Red Flame Fire Fox's limbs, it was forcefully suppressed by Foxfire. The frozen paws slowly began to thaw...
Reina's Absolute Zero Breath couldn't freeze the Red Flame Fire Fox, but it was enough to freeze the four crumbling stone hands...
Five seconds—five whole seconds passed before Leon in the sky finished chanting his spell and unleashed its power.
Using the Spellbook of Ages, Leon altered the incantation, extending its length and causing mana consumption to skyrocket tenfold.
He burned through all his mana, even draining most of the energy from both Alchemical Vortexes, before finally succeeding in casting the spell.
A spark of fire appeared in the sky, growing rapidly as it descended from the endless heights—until everyone saw it for what it was: a massive meteorite.
As the meteorite, trailing a tail thousands of meters long, plummeted downward, everyone could see it clearly—it was a super-meteorite, at least several hundred meters across...
The meteorite fell in a blaze, accelerating as gravity on the ground continued to pull it downward, making it drop faster and faster...
Its speed kept increasing, and the meteorite itself began to shrink under the strain. By the time it neared the ground, it had shrunk to just over thirty meters, and when it struck the Red Flame Fire Fox's head, it was barely more than ten meters across...
Yet even this ten-meter meteorite seemed to suppress all the air around it, pressing every magical element down into the earth.
Behind the meteorite, a string of spatial ripples twisted the air—evidence of power and speed warping space itself...
The Red Flame Fire Fox let out a despairing roar, trying to conjure another destructive energy orb, but it had cast them too often—there simply wasn't time to form another...
In the end, the meteorite—now less than ten meters wide—smashed into the Red Flame Fire Fox's body with terrifying force.
The beast's three flaming tails and Foxfire—none of it could stop the blow...
Boom...
A deep, muffled sound reverberated—like a giant hand squeezing everyone's heart, thunder exploding inside their skulls.
The Red Flame Fire Fox's body was slammed flat against the earth, a shockwave sweeping across kilometers. The Patchwork Golem and Hubert, standing afar, were sent flying by the blast...
Even that terrifying power swept up the superheavy sludge summoned from the Earth Elemental Plane, flinging it into the air...
As the dust settled, everyone looked to the center—the Red Flame Fire Fox was dead beyond doubt.
Its three tails were blown off, neck twisted at an unnatural angle, pale bone shards piercing through the skin, its head barely hanging by a thread...
Leon let out a long breath, his mind briefly drifting—he hadn't expected the spell he'd reconstructed from the Spellbook of Ages to wield such destructive force. The aftermath left him with a strange sense of awe and exhaustion, the weight of power lingering in the air.
This wasn't a typical meteorite summoning spell, where the meteorite is simply condensed from elemental energy.
This spell was true meteorite summoning—calling forth a real meteorite from the endless starry sky.
Leon knew all too well how fast those meteorites traveled in the void. Summoning one with mana meant the target had to be fixed from the very start.
The speed was so great, no one could alter the meteorite's landing point—only at the moment of casting could the destination be set.
And with such a long casting time and immense mana cost, no mage below Sky Rank could ever hope to cast this spell.
Leon’s own mana reserves rivaled a Sky Rank mage, and with two Alchemical Vortexes, his stores were tripled.
Even so, casting this meteorite spell had drained more than half of that triple reserve...
The summoned meteorite was originally over a thousand meters wide, but as it fell from the sky, it burned away, leaving less than ten meters when it struck the ground...
But that terrifying speed brought unthinkable destructive force—on par with a true transcendent spell...
Ignoring all its flaws—its impracticality in battle—this spell was truly transcendent...
Leon’s thoughts lingered: a real meteorite, if it struck the earth and was even a bit larger, its destructive power would multiply—exponentially, catastrophically. The world itself would tremble beneath its impact.
If a meteorite several hundred meters wide landed, the continent of this plane might shift violently...
After it landed, Leon had Theo devour the remaining Foxfire clinging to the Red Flame Fire Fox's corpse. That stuff was a real headache—without dealing with it, there was no way to handle the beast's remains...
Theo quickly consumed the Foxfire, and the others gathered around. Hubert grinned, ready to dissect the Red Flame Fire Fox's corpse...
Anderson stared at the Red Flame Fire Fox’s broken neck, still wearing an expression of disbelief.
"Damn, a single meteorite can do all that?"
The fallen meteorite was shattered, and everyone could see its essence: just ordinary metals, black iron and a bit of fine gold—materials fit only for low-grade swords, not even suitable for decent magical artifacts.
Yet those worthless materials had killed a true transcendent magical beast...
Leon didn’t bother explaining—it was only because the transcendent beast was so strong. If the meteorite had hit the ground directly, everyone within several kilometers would have been wiped out.
Just a single meteorite, two hundred meters across and containing special substances, summoned from the endless void—could destroy this entire plane...
Regret flickered through Leon’s mind. The meteorites he could summon never reached the speed needed for true annihilation. Those world-ending meteors moved far beyond his reach—just attempting to call one would drain his mana, his life, maybe even his soul, leaving nothing behind but emptiness...
Once Theo had devoured the last of the Foxfire from the Red Flame Fire Fox’s corpse, the group prepared to harvest its remains...