Chapter 910: Gravity Rune
At this moment, the Skysteel Stones at the rear had already crashed to the ground. At a height of one hundred and thirty meters, even with an endless army of rock giants stalling for time, that Skysteel Stone could only be held back for barely a second.
Wagner was doomed, without a doubt...
Faced with this Skysteel Stone, utterly unresponsive to magic or elemental attacks and weighing at least two hundred thousand pounds, no shield or spell could possibly withstand its impact. Being smashed into pulp was inevitable.
Wagner was still frantically blinking away, but Leon had already calculated the outcome in an instant: Wagner could, at best, escape to the position of the last Skysteel Stone before being crushed to death...
This terrifying, pure weight—Leon had no good way to resist it. Even sending Hubert, a monster of brute strength, would only end with him getting crushed as well.
There was no time to think. Leon raised the Doombringer Staff, his entire body surging with magic power as if boiling over. Waves of mana erupted, and he rapidly chanted an awkward incantation.
A vortex filled with ominous and evil energy appeared beneath the last Skysteel Stone. Thick hellish aura surged forth, and within the swirl, a terrifying presence began to seep out.
In an instant, a massive arm nearly two meters thick shot out from the Hellgate, forcefully bracing the falling Skysteel Stone.
"Gahaha, no one can stop me from coming into this world..."
The sinister language echoed through the Hellgate. The giant hand braced the Skysteel Stone, but couldn't stop its descent. Runes surged across the demonic, azure claw, trying to amplify its strength—yet they had no effect on the Skysteel Stone.
"Damn it, Skysteel Stone..."
The Skysteel Stone only slowed for a moment before relentlessly pressing down. From within the Hellgate came the demon's furious roar.
Yet thanks to the demon's help, Wagner managed to escape the passage.
A second later, the demon's arm was forcibly crushed back into the Hellgate by the Skysteel Stone. The stone smashed into the Hellgate, instantly destroying it.
Anderson watched Leon with a heart full of dread.
"Damn, Merlin, you really went too far this time—opening a Hellgate, and summoning a Hellgate Demon Lord at that. You're done for; he'll definitely remember your magical signature..."
Leon let out a cold laugh.
What a joke. In a situation like this, what could be better than opening a Hellgate and summoning a demon lord desperate to enter this world?
When you open a Hellgate, depending on how much mana you pour in, some hellish creature will always respond. But hellish beings have one fatal flaw: once they're out, their first move is always to attack the summoner.
Because if they kill the summoner, they can stay in this world forever, never having to return to the hellish environment they came from.
Only when they can't defeat the summoner do hellish beings consider serving them.
The mana Leon burned in that instant just now was equivalent to the total magical power of a ninth-rank Title Archmage.
Opening a Hellgate is sure to draw a Sky Rank demon, but I never imagined it would be a demon lord...
And so, that poor demon lord managed to hold back the Skysteel Stone for just over a second, only to be brutally smashed back into hell...
As for the magical signature, Leon just scoffed. The mana used to open the Hellgate hadn't contained a shred of his own—it was all triggered with Mana Elixir.
The aura in that Mana Elixir...
It belonged to a Primordial...
The mana produced in the demi-plane, influenced by the soul fragments of Primordials—Leon seriously doubted that demon lord failed to sense the Primordial aura within.
Even if it's just a descendant of a Primordial, it's not someone that demon lord would dare provoke.
So, he was just used as a laborer by Leon Merlin for a moment, and now back in hell, he still has to worry about whether some powerful Primordial descendant might target him...
Anderson's eyes flickered as he figured it out, looking at Leon Merlin with newfound respect.
Leon Merlin, you're getting almost as clever as me—using a demon lord from Hellgate like that...
Leon Merlin ignored Anderson and instead checked on Wagner, who was sitting on the ground, panting and looking utterly disheveled. He seemed shaken, but not physically harmed.
If Leon Merlin hadn't decisively opened a Hellgate and used a demon lord to hold up that Skysteel Stone, Wagner would have been crushed into pulp.
Staring at the Skysteel Stone blocking the passage, Leon Merlin realized they had no choice but to press forward. Countless dangers likely awaited them, but there was no turning back.
As Bill George's greatest masterpiece, the entire base was an alchemical golem. Even Sky Rank mages could die here if they weren't careful.
Fortunately, this massive alchemical golem wasn't some powerful war golem. Bill George probably never expected anyone to enter the base, so it hadn't become a deathtrap at every step.
After a brief rest, Leon Merlin led the group onward. Not far ahead, dense runes suddenly appeared on the walls, and the ceiling was covered in solidified runes. The ground below slowly split open, retracting into the walls, revealing rows of sharp spikes.
The ground gradually transformed into a visible trap that kept expanding, and behind the group, a square Skysteel Stone pillar crashed down, blocking the way back.
Seeing the ground beneath their feet about to retract into the wall, Leon Merlin frowned and unleashed a flurry of runes from his hand. The runes turned into chains, trapping the panels underfoot and buying the group a little time.
Bzzzz...
A deep, muffled hum slowly echoed, and all the runes on the walls and ceiling lit up. The air itself seemed to shudder violently.
Everyone felt the gravity increase wildly. In just two or three seconds, it doubled—and kept rising.
The air above the passage began to sink, while the pressure below shot up. Soon, the difference in pressure created a raging wind that howled in circles, swirling and shrieking through each layer.
Now they had only one option—to cross a trap spanning more than a hundred meters.
Leon Merlin raised a mana shield, but the ever-increasing gravity warped its shape.
"We have to hurry. The walls are covered with gravity runes, and as time passes, gravity will keep increasing. Eventually, we'll all be crushed into the trap."
Leon Merlin murmured instructions. The spikes rising from the trap below were forged from the hardest metal and inscribed with anti-magic and annihilation runes—ordinary spells couldn't break them. At the bottom of the pit, a layer of black water flowed; Leon recognized it as hell's most common poison, able to contaminate mana with just a touch.
Leon Merlin spat out several runes, instantly conjuring an ice wall before him. The moment it appeared, gravity tore it down.
The spikes pierced the ice wall as easily as a hot knife through butter. Before it even hit the bottom of the pit, the wall shattered under the immense gravity.
The farther down, the stronger the gravity became—and it kept increasing. If things went as expected, gravity here would reach at least ten times normal, and at the pit's bottom, it could be twenty or thirty times.
No shield spell could withstand such terrifying gravity. Once the shield broke, unable to block most of the force, death would be gruesome.
Gravity is unlike any other force—it acts on every cell in your body. Without magical protection, your heart, stomach, brain—everything—would be crushed by the sudden increase.
Gravity would force blood away from your head, pushing it into your lower body. Even your bones could shatter under your own weight.
Except for Hubert, whose brain is practically muscle, no one could survive this kind of force with sheer physical strength.
Leon Merlin frowned, instantly understanding why the trap was so blatant: it was a pure test of strength. If you weren't strong enough, you'd never make it. If you were too slow, gravity would tear you down into the pit, crushing you under your own weight.
At the peak of Northend World's development, there were planes few dared to conquer—pure elemental planes among them.
In the top-tier Fire Elemental Plane, the deepest flame lords released fire so destructive even flame elementals couldn't withstand it—a fire that could incinerate fire itself.
In the Earth Elemental Plane, the closer you got to the center, the stronger the gravity. Only special swordsmen and physically powerful races could survive there, but no one had ever reached the center—it was so intense, space itself collapsed.
Not even light could escape the crushing gravity there—the rays would be dragged back and twisted into a massive ring.
The most notorious punishment in the peak era was to throw someone into the center of the Earth Elemental Plane. No matter how strong, nobody ever returned.