“Hahaha, it’s too late, far too late.”
“You’re all doomed, awaiting to be sacrificed to the Great Sky Black Demon.”
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Seeing the commotion outside the white bones pit, Melinda and Allen inside the pit revealed scornful and crazed smiles. As long as these people and the civilians outside were sacrificed to the Great Sky Black Demon, they would receive a massive amount of pure spiritual power in return, propelling them to become official sorcerers in one fell swoop.
Sure enough, the Spell attacks emitted by Ivan and the others, once they touched the glow above the white bones pit, were like hitting a wall of glue, hindered and rapidly dissolving.
Inside the white bones pit, the apprentice’s corpse remained unchanged, while the massive bodies of the two magicalized wild beasts shrank at a visible rate, their life essence being rapidly extracted, clearly used as sacrificial offerings, causing onlookers to shiver with fear.
The wind began to rise.
In the middle of the white bones pit, a black wind started to blow, bringing with it an ominous feeling.
The black wind grew from gentle to strong, changing with each breath.
“What should we do?” Wolban felt that they couldn’t linger any longer; delay might bring about a great disaster.
“Give me half a minute more,” Heidi pleaded, daring not to be distracted as she focused on channeling the power of the peripheral defensive array. If she could successfully draw upon that vast force, all the current anomalies would dissolve like ice before the sun.
This was the reason why the academy’s sorcerers confidently left the matter in her hands; she possessed the key power to level the situation.
However, her Token could only be used once, and now was the time.
Unfortunately, her speed was ultimately unable to outpace the speed at which the situation deteriorated; the wind began to blow fiercely around her…
This black wind harbored great peculiarity, capable of shaking everyone’s spiritual power. With a gust of wind, Heidi’s spirit was immediately disturbed, prompting a drastic change in her expression.
“Retreat!”
Wolban, sensing this, did not hesitate to issue the order to retreat.
Despite her reluctance, Heidi glanced at the increasingly intense black wind inside the white bones pit and realized she had no choice but to seek temporary shelter from the threat.
It was too late!
Everything was far too late!
As they began to distance themselves, the black wind’s intensity suddenly magnified and strengthened, transforming into a raging whirlwind that swept rapidly towards the people around, shrouding everything in an instant and attempting to drag them back into the pit.
No one escaped this fate, not even Heidi.
In the crowd, Ivan’s head suddenly felt heavy, as if he were back at the breakthrough of the 3rd Class threshold, momentarily losing the feeling of his body, and then he quickly found his sense of self again, but it was too late, his body already caught in the black wind and drifting with it.
He tried to struggle, but it was futile; there was nothing to push against, his spiritual power still severely suppressed, only able to mobilize about thirty percent.
The others fared no differently; he saw many figures, including the powerful Wolban, as well as Melinda, who had just initiated the sacrifice. Her face was marked with confusion and terror, completely lacking her previous composure.
Could it be that there was another dark force behind the scenes?
In the blink of an eye, Melinda was engulfed by the black wind.
Stones, bones, and other such items around the apprentices were swept up into the black wind as well.
Ivan sighed, lamenting the situation: What in the world was happening here?
Suddenly he hit something soft; before he could react, a pair of long legs wrapped around his waist from behind.
“If we manage to safely settle down, I will need your help,” came Heidi’s voice; they had just collided.
“Alright.” In such circumstances, Ivan naturally had no other thoughts.
After quite a while, the two were flung out together by a whirlwind and landed on the ground in a tangled heap.
On one side, Cooke stared at the two, who were oddly embracing each other, with wide eyes.
“Where is this?” Heidi pushed Ivan away and quickly stood up.
“I don’t know, with what just happened, how could we tell the direction? But we must be trapped in some kind of runes sorcery array,” Cooke shook his head; he had arrived only a step ahead of them.
The two started to look around and saw they were enclosed on all sides. The black wind formed a cage, trapping them inside.
It was only the three of them here; the situations of the others must be the same.
“It seems we’ve truly been made into sacrifices.”
Combining the words spoken by the person who activated the formation, it was clear to them what had happened.
Heidi tried to use the Token to communicate with the defensive array of the Kanda magic stone mine. After several attempts, she finally shook her head in resignation under their expectant gazes, as that layer of connection was cut off by the cage.
“If we could blow open a small crack, perhaps we could draw upon the power of the Kanda magic stone mine,” she said.
Upon hearing her suggestion, the three decided to give it a try. Their spells bombarded the Black Wind Barrier, only to be absorbed, as if swallowed, leaving the barrier immovable, regardless of their attempts.
Clearly, this method was not going to work.
“Let’s rest for a moment. Everyone just calm down, and then let’s think of other strategies,” Ivan suggested.
“Okay,” Heidi nodded.
Already feeling exhausted from the consecutive battles, she sat down without any ceremony and took out a spirit power replenishing potion and a mana recovery potion, then began to rest and meditate for a short while.
Ivan, not as well-off as she was, could only meditate to recuperate, while checking on his insect nest. Fortunately, he had mostly been dodging during the previous fight, so his mental power and mana weren’t greatly depleted, and his insect nest was unscathed.
If someone could view the entire runes sorcery array, they would find that there were four cages in total,
including the corpses, the Enchantment Group, the Hunting Team, and foreign apprentices, a total of twelve apprentices were evenly distributed across the various cages, like prey waiting for slaughter.
“Melinda, what is going on?”
In another cage, Allen, Melinda, and the body of an apprentice were grouped together. Allen looked at Melinda with an angry face, almost ready to lash out at her.
Theoretically, at this time, they should have been standing at the center of the Formation, presiding over the sacrifice, not stuck in cages on the periphery.
Nobody understood better than them what it meant to be in these cages.
“You’re asking me? Who am I supposed to ask?” Melinda yelled, her face very pale. The last changes were not as she had anticipated, “Am I not trapped here with you? Do you think I wanted this?”
After a moment’s thought, Allen’s expression softened a bit.
“The Formation lost control at the end, as if someone had hijacked it. I suspect—I suspect—” Melinda also calmed down somewhat, thinking carefully about what had just happened and starting to doubt.
“Impossible, we witnessed and experienced it ourselves; the Great Sky Black Demon couldn’t have been fake,” Allen countered.
“In any case, there is something strange about this situation,” Melinda mused over everything in detail, yet could not pinpoint what was amiss, which deeply frustrated her.
Allen and Melinda discussed for a while but could not come up with any conclusions.
“Kids, it looks like you have many questions you can’t figure out,” said a somewhat familiar voice nearby at a time of their confusion.
Both turned to look and saw the silhouette of someone who only existed in their memories appearing not far away, smiling at them.