The blue-white world-burning tornado that connected heaven and earth finally exhausted all its fuel after rampaging madly for several minutes, and began to slowly dissipate.
It was as if the world’s mute button had been pressed.
The deafening roar and wailing that could tear eardrums apart, along with the ever-present, soul-oppressing sound of a heartbeat, all stopped abruptly at the same moment.
Delicate ash, like black snowflakes, drifted through the sky.
Each fragment of ash was the final remnant left after the Flesh Broodmother was completely burned away.
Deathly silence—an unprecedented, suffocating stillness—blanketed this land that had been thoroughly purified.
The mountain-like monstrosity of flesh was completely erased from the world.
In its place was a massive Lava Crater, hundreds of meters in diameter, its edges still flowing with molten red magma.
Within the crater, the high-temperature magma rolled slowly like viscous blood, exuding the scent of sulfur and molten metal—a scene as if the apocalypse had arrived.
Those who survived the disaster collapsed onto the ground almost simultaneously, drained of all strength.
Magis knelt half-upright, his head bowed as he stared at his right hand, now reduced to bare, pale bones, the skeleton especially stark against the ash.
He felt no pain—only the relief of having fulfilled his mission after sacrificing half his life.
Elena leaned weakly against Fiona’s shield, wiping blood from the corner of her mouth with her sleeve, her chest heaving as she greedily breathed in air that, for the first time in ages, was free of the stench of blood.
The surviving Dark Elves warriors and Thorn Guard members discarded their battered shields like burdens.
Some sat, others lay on the ground, utterly exhausted, their faces etched with bewilderment and lingering fear.
A young guard’s trembling voice broke the deathly silence.
“Is… is it over?”
This question echoed the doubt in everyone’s hearts.
Fiona forced herself to stand, looking around and listening intently. The world was so quiet that only the bubbling of magma and the heavy breathing of the survivors could be heard.
That terrifying heartbeat was truly gone.
She took a deep breath, mustering all her strength, and shouted hoarsely to her comrades.
“We won! We won! The Flesh Broodmother… it’s finally gone!!”
This proclamation was like a massive stone thrown into a tranquil lake, instantly igniting the emotions suppressed in everyone’s hearts.
“We won!!”
“Ancestor above! We did it!”
After a moment of silence came a tidal wave of joy.
The exhausted Dark Elves embraced one another, letting out hoarse yet powerful cries of triumph.
Some wept with joy, others howled at the sky, releasing centuries of fear and despair in that instant.
Yet, as everyone was immersed in the ecstasy of victory—
At the center of the massive Lava Crater, a gentle and sacred emerald green light stubbornly pierced through the scorching magma, blooming like a newborn star.
A vast and pure Life Essence spread with the green glow, like a spring breeze brushing every soul.
The moment the Dark Elves came into contact with this power, they felt a trembling deep within their bloodlines.
It was like a mother’s embrace, gently dispelling their exhaustion, healing their wounds, and even erasing mental trauma beneath its touch.
Tears streamed down Magis’s clouded eyes.
He extended his less injured left hand, feeling that familiar yet distant power in the air.
In a voice hoarse beyond belief, he murmured,
“It’s… the power of the Hall of Life… It really still exists!”
Everyone’s condition recovered rapidly under the nourishment of this power.
Elaine felt strength returning to his body, trembling with excitement.
He stared in awe at the ever-growing sphere of green light, eyes filled with unprecedented hope.
“Great! With this pure power, the Crown Prince can be saved!”
The joy of victory, combined with hope for the Crown Prince’s recovery, pushed everyone’s emotions to their peak.
They believed that all the hardships of this journey had received the most perfect reward.
“Thud—!”
A heavy, slow, yet infinitely powerful heartbeat resounded from the depths below—far more forceful than any before.
The sound didn’t travel through the air, but exploded directly within everyone’s soul, instantly shattering all cheers and joy.
Time seemed to freeze.
The smiles on every face stiffened.
They stared in terror at the center of the Lava Crater.
There, the emerald sphere of life that symbolized hope began to flicker and waver violently, as if choked by an invisible hand, emitting a dying wail.
In the next second, the most horrifying scene unfolded.
“Splurt! Splurt! Splurt! Splurt—”
Countless blood-red tentacles, thicker and more twisted than ever before, erupted from beneath the boiling magma like the claws of hell.
Their target was clear.
Like a monstrous net woven from nightmares, they instantly enveloped and strangled the green light.
Under the greedy embrace of innumerable tendrils, the emerald glow dimmed rapidly to the naked eye.
And as the tentacles devoured the Hall of Life’s pure energy, they began to multiply, expand, and reconstitute at a terrifying speed.
They twisted and fused, reconstructing a body of flesh even larger, more hideous, and exuding a more dreadful aura than before.
How long does it take to fall from heaven to hell?
The answer: a single heartbeat.
The entire group’s elation plummeted into an abyss.
Terror and utter despair replaced the hope that had just begun to blaze in their hearts, crushing it into ash.
“How… can this be…”
Fiona’s voice trembled with fear, her grip on her sword loosening.
Elena’s face was deathly pale as she stared at the horrific rebirth unfolding before her, a suspicion that had haunted her mind finally taking solid form.
With a tearful, quavering voice, she spoke the words of despair.
“I understand now… We were all wrong…”
All eyes fixed on her.
“The Hall of Life’s power originates deep beneath the earth,”
Elena’s voice was bitter and hopeless.
“What we destroyed… may have been only the portion of the Flesh Broodmother exposed above ground.
Its roots had already intertwined with the Hall of Life’s source underground!”
Her words fell like a cruel curse, plunging every heart into a frozen abyss.
“It isn’t dead,”
Elena’s voice quivered even more.
Silence.
A deathly stillness more suffocating than before.
This cruel truth shattered even the final thread of hope.
As the endless nightmare seized them and despair took hold, everyone’s gaze turned unconsciously to the figure who had remained calm from beginning to end.
Lin En slowly turned around.
There was no panic on his face—only a gravity deeper than mountains.
His gaze passed over faces twisted in despair, locking onto the monster being reborn in the magma, more powerful than ever before.
In his eyes was a depth, as if performing calculations too vast and precise for mortals to comprehend.
The final and only hope still rested on the shoulders of this legendary mage.