“Do your best to find it, then throw it to me. Father said that the teleportation magic has a layer of Dark Element seals on it. Only the blood of a Light Elf can undo it.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, Leah realized what a difficult task she had dumped on them and could only briefly explain the situation.
“They are under control and will only attack me.”
“If Uncle Itheriel can share the pressure, I should be able to deal with my two uncles and buy you ten minutes. I’m counting on you.”
‘Hmm, actually, we know even more than you do.’
Winnidith did not say those words aloud to affect Leah’s mindset, instead focusing her attention on Leah’s wounds.
These were all fresh injuries, some caused by sharp blades that were still bleeding, and others left behind after being blasted by magic.
Winnidith did not doubt that Leah could hold out for 10 minutes, but it went without saying what kind of price she had to pay to secure that time.
“I understand. Itheriel, you must stall the female Elf on the left. Don’t let her magic threaten us.”
She chose not to join the fight, as her strength was truly not worth mentioning in a battle of the Ninth Tier.
But she knew where that stone wall had been placed; only she could find it the fastest and then teleport to a safe location!
“Understood.”
Itheriel nodded.
This eerie phenomenon, which felt as if he were pledging allegiance to Winnidith, made Leah unable to help but warn them.
“Once we are safe, Winnidith, you must tell me everything about what happened to Uncle Itheriel!”
“Of course.”
Click.
Cracks appeared in the mana barrier.
While they were talking, the three Elves from the Sacred Wood Monastery had never stopped their attacks.
Countless mana and Douqi blasts rained down on the mana barrier; it developed more and more cracks, already reaching the edge of shattering.
“Cancel the mana barrier! I’m going to charge out and kill them!”
As a princess of the Elves, Leah felt she had suffered enough grievances over the past two days.
Now that she finally had a trusted friend to help, she wanted to vent her frustrations on these three traitors who dared to despise the Light Elves!
“Princess Leah, I will accompany you.”
The mana barrier shattered with a roar.
Leah, wielding her long spear, and Arns each engaged one of the Ninth Tier Elves.
Leah danced with her spear in both hands, the air whistling.
Her fierce Douqi transformed into an extension of the spear blade, each strike shaking off the attacks of the red-haired Elf, who was better at assassinations than direct combat.
At the same time, prayers flowed from her lips, and countless magic spells squeezed through the gaps.
Under the double bombardment of Leah’s terrifying Douqi and magic, the red-haired Elf was actually forced into a disadvantageous position in a short amount of time.
“Glory Bulwark!”
On the other side, Arns’s situation was not as smooth as Leah’s.
His strength was weaker than his opponent’s, but he excelled in solid fundamentals.
Moreover, the Royal Knights’ specialized armor combined with the battle techniques he used to have a miraculous effect.
Although he could not get close to the male Elf under the bombardment of mana, he would not be defeated in a short time.
While Leah and Arns fought the enemies, the battle between Itheriel and the female Elf mage was even more spectacular.
Both were similar in strength, and now both had become puppets acting only according to orders.
Simultaneously, both raised their hands; rapid thunder was blocked by solid rock walls; violent flames were extinguished by surging tidal waves; extended vines were severed by sharp wind blades; and insidious dark locks were dispelled by dazzling holy light.
Countless spells, whose names even Winnidith didn’t know, collided and exploded in this underground space of just 100 meters, putting on what looked like a most magnificent performance.
“So strong.”
This scene completely dazzled Winnidith.
She was indeed an undisputed genius of magic, but a genius was not the same as a powerhouse.
Before she became a powerhouse, there were too many people who could take her life.
For the first time, Winnidith felt that her past self had been too slack.
“Now is not the time to watch a show. We must find the stone slab Leah mentioned as soon as possible.”
There was another person on the scene who was attracted by this battle—the powerless Isabella.
She glared fixedly at the scene of Douqi and mana flying everywhere, not even noticing when her nails dug into her skin, drawing beads of blood.
‘If I eat the Sacred Fruit, can I also possess such strength?’
Isabella didn’t know.
She had never possessed Douqi or mana, but that did not prevent her from fantasizing about it.
However, she was very clear about what was of the utmost importance, so she did not sink into fantasy.
She was even able to risk being hit by sharp Douqi or exploding magic to call back Winnidith, who was entranced by the fight.
“I have seen the stone wall Leah mentioned; it should be buried in those ruins. If it truly contains teleportation magic, it would not be so easy to shatter.”
Winnidith quickly found the area in her memory.
It was already covered with countless pieces of rubble, but only one piece contained the teleportation magic that could save them.
‘How am I supposed to find it in this?’
Winnidith wanted to ask Leah which part of the stone wall the magic array was hidden in, but Leah was now facing an opponent whose strength far exceeded her own.
All of her energy was being used to calculate the opponent’s movements and the structure of their spells; she couldn’t even notice the magic waves exploding right in front of her, let alone her plea for help.
Distraction at this moment would lead to defeat.
Winnidith knew this too, so she turned to try and ask the surrounding Earth Elements for help.
Unfortunately, these little guys without intelligence only expressed intimacy toward her and could not help her solve the problem at hand.
There was no other way; Winnidith had to adopt the most primitive method—picking out the pieces of rubble that belonged to the stone wall and testing them one by one!
The explosions behind her were becoming increasingly obvious, and the intensity of the mana was rising higher.
Winnidith didn’t need to look back to know that the three Elves from the Sacred Wood Monastery had begun to use their full strength.
Faster, faster!
Winnidith used her mana to split into eight arms, rapidly moving the rocks.
Her brain frantically compared the patterns on them with the mural she had seen.
Not this, not this, not this either!
Why is it none of them!
Perhaps because the oxygen in the space was gradually becoming insufficient, Winnidith found her vision beginning to blur.
The mana arms behind her also started to become transparent, as if they would dissipate at any moment.
“Calm down, Wendy.”
At the crucial moment when her vision was nearly gone, Isabella grabbed her trembling arm, her cool voice instantly calming her anxiety.
“The Elven King would not carve a magic array into just any rock. You just saw what the stone wall looked like; think back—was there anything special about it?”
Special?
Winnidith quickly flashed the scene of the stone wall through her mind and tried her best to restore it.
It should have been a calm and peaceful lake, and beside it was lush green grass full of vitality.
Male and female Elves held hands, dancing and singing around it, as if they were performing a ceremony to welcome the gods.
God?
That was it!
Before the Sacred Tree descended, the Elves treated the Sacred Spring as a god!
She had fallen into a misconception; who said the Sacred Spring couldn’t be a lake?
“It’s a lake! Bella, the magic array must be carved into a stone piece depicting the lake surface!”
A lake surface?
Isabella’s gaze quickly swept over the rubble on the ground.
Her mind remained calm, and she soon discovered a stone carved with a lake surface on a mound of dirt 3 feet away.
It was large, about half the size of a person.
When the two approached, they found there were only very fine cracks on it.
When Winnidith opened her Elemental Vision, she could also see a trace of faint Dark Elements upon it.
“This is it!”
Winnidith let out a sigh of relief.
Finding the teleportation array was equivalent to finding the door to leave, but to truly leave, they needed the key—Leah’s blood.
Winnidith looked at the battlefield again.
In the time it took her to search, the situation on the battlefield had reversed.
Except for Itheriel, who could still hold his ground, the momentum of Arns and Leah had begun to weaken, and they could only struggle to face the attacks of their opponents.
‘No, if I call Leah now, she will definitely be severely injured by the red-haired Elf.’
‘Help her?’
Winnidith picked up her staff and aimed.
In mid-air, the figures of Leah and the red-haired Elf flashed and swapped constantly.
‘No, I can’t predict the red-haired Elf’s movements.’
Winnidith felt a bit discouraged, but suddenly, she thought of a solution.
She began to gather the surrounding elements, and when she perceived that the elemental concentration was enough, she shouted at the top of her lungs.
“Leah! Found it!!!”
“Huh?”
The high-intensity combat calculations had long ago exhausted Leah’s train of thought.
She even forgot why Winnidith was here, seeing only the magic array opening toward her side.
At the same time, the puppets loyal to their orders would not be affected by Winnidith’s words.
The red-haired Elf seized the opening in Leah’s concentration, exploding with Douqi to close the distance rapidly.
Now!
Winnidith immediately began the prayer for a Seventh Tier spell, and a continuous stream of mana was transmitted from her Sea Blue Bracelet to her body.
“With dawn as the scabbard, with brilliance as the sword.”
“Darkness shall shatter beneath this blade, and what remains in this world shall be an eternal world of light!”
This was her second time casting a Seventh Tier spell, and the construction of the spell formula went exceptionally smoothly.
Accompanied by her high-speed chanting, the Light Elements became rapidly active, almost clustering her into a glowing ball of light.
“Break, Sword of Dawn!”
She aimed in front of Leah, and the golden light sword burst out from the magic array, striking the soft waist of the red-haired Elf!
With a scratch sound, the Elf’s protective Douqi was easily pierced by the Sword of Dawn.
In the blink of an eye, it severed half of her waist, struggling against the even more ferocious Douqi within her body.
It worked!
Winnidith’s face showed joy, but the scene that followed caused her joy to immediately fall into the abyss.
The red-haired Elf hit by the Sword of Dawn not only failed to be forced back by the move, but instead pushed through the injury, exploding with Douqi to lunge her weapon forward with force.
Pfft!
The barbed dagger pierced straight into Leah’s soft abdomen, and then the red-haired Elf’s Douqi, following the hook, transformed into countless blades that rotated rapidly, grinding Leah’s internal organs like a meat grinder.
This all happened in just 2 seconds.
Leah hadn’t even figured out why Winnidith had aimed the magic at her when the red-haired Elf’s weapon pierced through her protective Douqi and entered her body.
“Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!”
The intense pain almost deprived Leah of her ability to think, and blood and flesh rained down over the entire ground with her screams.
‘Is… is this a monster?’
Winnidith was stunned by the red-haired Elf’s performance and the cruel scene before her, but Leah’s miserable wails immediately pulled her out of the shock.
‘No choice!’
Winnidith gritted her teeth and chose to detonate the mana still surging inside the Sword of Dawn.
BOOM!!!
The violent explosion ravaged the miserable underground space again.
The Sword of Dawn easily tore through the red-haired Elf’s protective Douqi, and as Winnidith detonated the residual mana of the sword, a ball of light like a sun appeared in the air.
Winnidith squinted her eyes and stared closely at the light ball, suddenly discovering two dark shadows flying out from inside the light ball in opposite directions, and immediately manipulated her mana arm to grab Leah and pull her over.
“Cough, cough, can’t you use a gentler method next time?”
Leah coughed up quite a bit of blood when she spoke.
However, she knew that Winnidith’s method was the most effective one currently, so she didn’t complain much, instead turning to smear her own blood onto the mural.
The Dark Elements used for concealment began to dissipate, and the true teleportation magic array emerged on the surface.
It radiated a faint fluorescence, slowly rotating on the wall, completely out of place with this terrifying battlefield.
“Get back quickly, the teleportation magic will take effect soon!” she shouted, enduring the pain in her abdomen.
Hearing this, Arns immediately gave up his entanglement with his opponent and rushed toward the magic array at high speed.
The red-haired Elf who had been blown away also tried to pursue, but with half her waist gone, even standing was a difficult task.
After swaying and walking two steps, she lost her balance completely and fell to the ground.
“………. Delusions of the ten thousand crystal, Crystal Bulwark.”
A crystal wall rose from the ground.
Itheriel, at the cost of taking two spells from his opponent head-on, successfully unleashed a high-tier spell to protect the teleportation array from infringement, and then, at Winnidith’s command, quickly flew into the magic array.
“Open!”
As Arns entered the array as well, Leah channeled the array’s operation with all her strength.
A dazzling light immediately filled the entire chamber.
Even the magic released by the Ninth Tier mage of the Sacred Wood Monastery was rapidly extinguished upon touching this light.
By the time the light dissipated, Winnidith and the others were nowhere to be found.