Chapter 31: Eternal Silence Domain |
The sound of metal treading on the marble floor rang out like a heavy hammer striking down. Wearing heavy armor, Kyle walked to stand before everyone. The chilling murderous aura radiating from his body made every person present shudder to the bone.
At this moment, Alvaro had transformed into Kyle’s sturdiest equipment and backing. Right now, let alone Transcendent, even Legendary—Kyle dared to clash with them!
The fusion of two Legendary beings caused the power that erupted forth to rise by geometric multiples!
“What a pity, plans never kept up with changes.” Kyle’s tone was mocking. “I had wanted to take things step by step, to gently push forward reform, so that everyone could transition steadily.”
His gaze was icy as he looked at Robert as though looking at trash.
“What a pity, there were always ‘great geniuses’ who thought flipping the table could solve problems better.”
At this moment, murderous intent was diffusing from Kyle. Did they really think he had such a good temper?
“From the moment you released killing intent toward me, you were already a dead man! Robert! No matter what choice you made today, your ending was already decided!”
He had tried his best to salvage things, but the other party still acted like a firecracker.
The cold words and the confidence they revealed made Robert’s heart sink completely to the bottom. Even more fatal was that all his equipment had been prepared for assassination, and he had very few items that could help him escape!
Moreover, Kyle’s display clearly was not a bluff. He truly had the confidence to keep him here!
“As for the few of you.”
Kyle’s gaze swept over Bartos, Sarkhad, Claudi, and Gann, who had likewise hurriedly armed themselves from head to toe and were flashing with all kinds of enhancement auras.
“You could be considered dragged down by this idiot and caught in an undeserved disaster.”
He paused, and the pressure within the dark domain seemed to grow a little heavier again.
“I won’t kill you. But……”
An invisible fluctuation containing the power of spatial restraint quietly spread through the domain along with Kyle’s words.
“To ensure that what happened today will not happen again, and for the future stability of Coral Thorn City······a soul magic contract with absolute binding force is the only key for you to leave this place.”
Kyle’s voice was like the final judgment, echoing through the deathly silent darkness:
“Sign, or……stay here forever!”
Kyle cast a pitying glance at Gann·Cole. This old man had been the most wronged one of all. But since he now knew his information, the contract was something he had to sign no matter what.
As for methods like soul enslavement, Kyle had basically never considered them. Although that method looked like the best one, it had a fatal problem: soul enslavement was equivalent to fully receiving the other party’s thoughts, mind, and memories all over again!
And that kind of act itself was an evil path. Unless he had gone mad, he would absolutely never do something that would pollute his own soul!
Naturally, Robert would not wait for death without resisting. At the same moment Kyle opened his mouth, he turned into a shadow and charged toward Bartos, who was nearest to him, while violently tearing open a dark-gold scroll. Dazzling dark-purple light burst out all around his body!
He wanted to kill Bartos, or teleport him away together with himself. That way, he could both weaken Kyle’s intimidation and use Bartos as a hostage or bargaining chip in negotiations.
Wrapped in the power of spatial distortion, the dark-purple light tore through the domain’s dark barrier. At the same time, his left hand grabbed Bartos, who had only just reacted, and the light swiftly spread to cover his whole body as well.
In that flash of lightning, although Bartos condensed battle aura and baleful aura into blood-colored energy and infused it into his armor to protect his vital points, Robert’s fingers still easily pierced through his shoulder blade.
Ignoring the intense pain, he backhandedly clamped onto Robert’s wrist. His muscles bulged, and he forcibly tore off the other party’s hand together with a huge chunk of flesh from his own shoulder.
But Robert’s right hand had already locked onto his throat, his fingers deeply embedded into the flesh of his neck. Black poisonous blood mixed with chilling cold sprayed out through the gaps between his fingers, turning into patches of eerie ice crystals that shot in all directions.
At the same time, the dark-purple light swelled violently, and the figures of the two men began to blur amid the spatial distortion—
“Buzz!”
The surrounding space rapidly trembled. Layer after layer of dense dark ripples completely disturbed the space, and the stable teleportation instantly turned into a twisted spatial turbulence.
“Ahhh——!”
Bartos let out a shrill scream. Half his body was shredded to pieces by the spatial turbulence. But Robert, who had been gripping him, shattered like a bubble and vanished in a bizarre manner.
Kyle swept his gaze toward the position where Robert had originally been standing.
“A very fine ability. To think you could still withdraw completely intact even under spatial turbulence.”
Robert’s figure slowly appeared again in his original position, his expression looking unbearably ugly.
He knew that this time he might truly be finished. He had not expected the other party’s spatial domain to have already matured to this extent, that even a Legendary-grade random teleportation scroll could not break through it.
This had been one of his most precious life-saving items, bought at an enormous price from that group of forbidden mages in the Arcane Society, yet in the end it had not served even the slightest purpose.
“This should be your Transcendent-level ability, right? Let me guess……a clone? A shift between illusion and reality? Or some kind of substitute-death ability?”
Kyle stared at Robert with great interest. This ability was very strong. Without the suppression of the domain, he might really have been unable to keep the other man here.
Bartos forced himself to stay conscious and took out an intact potion. Without even having time to open it, he directly stuffed the potion bottle into his mouth and bit it to pieces.
A tremendous life force immediately erupted inside his mouth and began repairing his shattered body.
The others had already retreated far away the instant Bartos was seized, warily watching Robert’s movements.
“But none of that matters anymore—within the ‘Eternal Silence Domain,’ you have no chance of victory!”
The moment his words fell, darkness surged like sticky asphalt. Light, sound, aura……all means that could be used for perception were completely stripped away. Everyone was like helpless isolated individuals dragged into a dark ‘swamp,’ and even breathing seemed to become extremely difficult.
As the one being specifically targeted, Robert’s bones creaked under the forced compression of space. His originally elegant black formalwear now clung to his twisted, deformed body like tattered rags.
Kyle knew very well how terrifying the counterattack of a cornered beast could be, so he would not easily approach Robert.
A man who could sit in the position of branch chairman of the Shadow Guild had personal strength and hidden trump cards that were both worthy of Kyle’s caution. Because of this, he had even consumed a portion of his mental power to use the threads of causality to spy and deduce a little.
Although the information he obtained had not been much, as long as he did not give the other party a chance to get close, he stood in an undefeatable position.
A red gleam flickered in his eyes, and from the surging darkness within the domain, several metal weapons of different shapes stabbed out.
These weapons, which had been absorbed, refined, and reforged by Alvaro, this Legendary metal lifeform, all contained the dual special attributes of space and silence.
Kyle was confident that as long as even one of them struck the opponent, it could immediately make him lose the ability to resist.
At the same time, Robert’s formalwear also suddenly exploded, turning into a skyful of poisonous needles that shot in all directions, leaving behind countless blue-violet streaks of light in the darkness.
He also flung out several mana bombs that could instantly annihilate nearly half a city, going all-in on mutual destruction.
But unfortunately, Kyle had long anticipated this and used spatial power to transfer them into the chaotic deep layers of space, where any random spatial storm was stronger than those mana bombs.
Robert’s heart was filled with bleakness, but the instinct of a top powerhouse gave him no chance to stop for even a moment.
Three solid clones condensed at the same time and, guided by memory and instinct, pounced toward Sarkhad, Claudi, and Gann.
Meanwhile, he himself continued locking his target onto Bartos. Even within a domain where the spatial pressure was dozens of times higher than the outside world, Robert still forcibly burst forth at sonic speed.
Unfortunately, he had still underestimated the power of a spatial domain.
Although after fusing with Alvaro, Kyle still could not freely extend and alter the space within the domain to reach the level of turning inches into horizons.
It was still enough to compress and solidify space into an unbreakable cage.
Robert’s charge went from extreme motion to extreme stillness in only an instant. He felt like an insect trapped in amber, utterly unable to make any effective movement.
His clones were even less able to withstand the immense spatial pressure and were directly crushed apart.