63 — Chapter 63

Blaine detonated a flame spell, Flare, and used his movement skill. If he had only relied on the movement skill, he wouldn’t have escaped Hexi’s attack. But the shockwave from Flare’s explosion gave him extra acceleration, letting him barely slip past the strike.

Other players nearby weren’t so lucky. Unable to dodge in time, they were knocked into a combat-disabled state.

If they wanted those fallen players to revive, Hexi’s attacks had to be drawn elsewhere. Theo and Aslan quickly read the situation and made their decision. Both of them shouted Blaine’s name, waving him over.

When Blaine changed direction and ran toward them, the two of them charged forward to cover him from Hexi’s relentless pursuit. Aslan barked out orders for their teammates to shield Blaine, and several players moved swiftly to follow.

With defenses and counterattacks now focused around him, Blaine cast a wind spell on himself so he wouldn’t become a burden. Mana whirled around him like turbulent air currents, boosting his agility.

Dodging, countering, and retaliating, Blaine fought within the protection of allies, while Theo kept his eyes on Hexi. The enemy’s attention was fixed solely on Blaine.

Pretending to assist Blaine, Theo slowly shifted his position. He was aiming for the farthest distance his bow could reach. When Hexi finally came into range, Theo loosed a Chain Arrow. It shot through Hexi’s right hand, the one clutching the orb.

Startled by the sudden strike, Hexi paused and glanced at its hand before snapping its gaze toward where the arrow had come from. Theo yanked on the chain wrapped around Hexi’s hand, and without resistance, the orb slipped free.

At the same time, the manifestation looming behind Hexi shrank in size.

Hexi’s expression wavered with the first sign of panic. It glanced up at the weakened manifestation, then tightened its grip, trying to reclaim the orb.

Theo wound the chain around his left arm several more times to secure it, then swung his bow like a blade. Sword Aura manifested in the air, slashing toward Hexi one strike after another.

With its hand pierced, Hexi couldn’t dodge. The Sword Aura ripped through it, and it let out a scream of agony. Thanks to Theo, Hexi faltered, and everyone poured on their attacks at once.

Hexi’s head vanished under a storm of tiered Actions raining down from all directions. Effects stacked, bright and blinding, until Hexi was no longer visible. But with auto-targeting active, continuing the assault was no problem—at least until the target itself disappeared.

Then, all at once, the barrage stopped. Players still tried to use Actions, but nothing triggered. Bewildered, they quickly realized why. The only marker they had—the target—was gone.

The chain wrapped around Theo’s arm went slack. As the last lingering effects faded, all that remained was a broken length of chain lying on the floor. Hexi was nowhere in sight.

Confusion swept through the room as everyone searched for their foe. But no matter where they looked, Hexi wasn’t there. Hastily, they tightened their formations and raised their guards.

A tense silence pressed down on the group. Then, above their heads, something massive shifted in the air.

Several players snapped their gazes upward at once—Theo and Aslan among them. Something impossibly large was passing overhead, too vast to take in all at once.

Those who sensed it first and those who noticed later all thought the same thing: What is that?

It was clearly Hexi’s manifested power, but it wasn’t the form they had seen before. With its shape unclear, no one could guess what it was.

As Theo stared blankly upward, a surge of killing intent rushed at him from behind. He spun around in haste—but by then, the impact had already struck his back.

With a loud thud, Theo was flung across the floor, tumbling in a mess. The edges of his vision flushed red in an instant. If he hadn’t instinctively blocked with his bow in that split second, he would’ve been knocked out and left rolling helplessly.

Groaning from the searing pain coursing through his body, he tried to push himself up—only for the light above him to vanish. A chill ran down his spine. He hurriedly lifted his head and saw a massive palm descending to crush him.

“Damn it!”

The curse slipped out on its own. If his health had been full, he might’ve just grit his teeth and taken the hit, but not now. Theo forced himself up and activated a movement Action, slipping away by the narrowest margin.

When he turned back after dodging, Hexi’s form finally became clear. The previous half-body shape was gone. From the orb, four enormous arms stretched out. Two braced against the ground, while the other two held Hexi protectively in its grasp.

Instead of legs, those arms served as both shield and locomotion, letting Hexi crawl across the floor or hang from the ceiling with terrifying freedom.

Moving between ceiling and ground, Hexi scattered attacks everywhere. A few players with gravity magic tried to pull it down the way Blaine had, but it was useless. If anything, it only highlighted how desperately they needed Blaine’s gravity spells again—yet there was no solution at hand.

The only way to drag Hexi down was to exhaust its mana. If its mana ran dry, the manifestation would collapse and drop it. It was the tried-and-true method for clearing Hexi’s Phase 2, but right now it felt maddeningly tedious.

Without coordinated orders, attacks rained down haphazardly. Yet even in that chaos, Hexi’s mana continued to dwindle bit by bit.

The manifestation shrank slightly, and then one of the arms disappeared, leaving the body dangling awkwardly from the ceiling. Unable to hang with just one arm, the manifestation withdrew one of the protective hands. Hexi’s once-impenetrable guard loosened.

Theo seized the opening without hesitation. Out of auto-targeting range, he manually aimed a Chain Arrow at Hexi’s hand and fired.

He wasn’t the only one. Perhaps remembering Theo’s earlier strike, every player who had chain arrows readied fired at the same time.

Dozens of arrows from all directions pierced Hexi’s hand. Hexi let out a shriek, curling up in agony. Players immediately yanked on their chains, trying to rip it away from the orb. But Hexi had already fallen for that trick once. This time, it clung to the orb with desperate strength.

Blood streamed from the punctured wounds in its hand, soaking the orb and running down the taut chains.

Shaking violently, Hexi tightened its trembling grip and commanded the manifestation to attack the chains. Hanging by a single arm, the monstrous limbs lashed out, striking the countless chains tethered to it. Players were jerked around violently, dragged across the floor, but the chains didn’t snap easily—and Hexi refused to let go of the orb..

Theo tightened his grip on the chain wrapped around his hand and leaned back with all his weight. If he could just keep pulling, Hexi wouldn’t be able to hold on forever. But with the manifestation thrashing violently, it was nearly impossible to anchor himself properly.

For a long moment, the struggle dragged on. Then came the sharp clang of snapping metal, followed by a cascade of rattling steel. Someone’s chain had broken. The sound echoed again and again as more chains snapped, and players went tumbling backward from the recoil.

Is it hopeless?

Theo considered releasing his chain and just going back to spamming attacks when a sudden flare of crimson lit up the edge of his vision. He glanced toward it—and froze. Blaine stood atop a blazing red magic circle.

A magic circle drawn beneath the caster’s feet. A focus spell, channeling everything into a single target.

The magic circle seethed with so much mana it looked like a wildfire erupting under Blaine. The explosion of power stirred up roaring winds and deafening thunder as the spell surged forward through the Via Lactea staff in his hands, streaking straight at Hexi. Layer after layer of magic circles overlapped, unleashing an endless barrage.

Each spell slammed into Hexi with a detonation like thunder splitting the sky. The ground shook beneath their feet, and the echoes reverberated in their bones. Some players flinched and clamped their hands over their ears.

His mana should’ve been drained by now, but the circle under Blaine’s feet didn’t fade. Its color didn’t weaken; it only burned brighter, an even deeper red. Everyone stared, dumbfounded, until someone gasped aloud.

Because Blaine wasn’t done. He raised an orb into the air, and yet another magic circle unfurled beneath him. A second attribute joined the first, the spells weaving together as they tore toward Hexi from every angle.

It looked like a machine gun—reckless, overwhelming, merciless.

Pinned under the sheer weight of Blaine’s assault, everyone could only gape at him. What finally snapped them back to reality was the rattling sound of chains.

Theo and the other bow users felt their chains loosen. They hadn’t snapped—Hexi had let go. All eyes swung to it in unison. Even Blaine halted his barrage when he saw the chains cascading down.

From the haze of residual effects, something fell. It was the orb Hexi had been clutching. Stained with blood, the golden sphere crashed to the ground and shattered into useless fragments.

At that moment, one of the supporting pillars in the chamber lit up with a second relic. From the ceiling to the floor, a massive chain thrust down at a diagonal, embedding itself in the ground with a resounding crash.