"Lord Duke? Lord Duke?"
The skeletal Margas knelt anxiously at the edge of the magic array, gently shaking Duke Sigismund who sat in the center with vacant eyes and drool even dripping from the corner of his mouth. He prayed frantically in his heart that this lord wouldn't be completely broken.
"It shouldn't be!"
Looking around, the magic array was littered with corpses. Crimson blood and grayish-white brain matter had nearly soaked every rune. But three sacrifices had still survived.
Not from a guilty conscience, but because the sacrifices were being consumed too quickly. To be safe, Margas had stopped the ritual slightly early to avoid accidentally letting Sigismund directly face the abyss.
But now it seemed...
"Could it be... they still mutually destroyed each other?"
Just when Margas thought he'd encountered the worst-case scenario, the vacant Sigismund suddenly jerked up his head and roared with all his strength:
"1+1=3!"
Done for! Brain's completely fried! Margas's heart instantly sank into a bottomless pit.
However, the next moment, a flash of pained clarity suddenly flickered in Sigismund's crimson eyes.
He first clutched his head with both hands, letting out a beast-like pained howl. Then he violently shook his head and actually wobbled to his feet.
"Thank... thank goodness, my lord! You... okay?" Margas asked tentatively, half-doubting.
But Sigismund suddenly lunged forward, gripping Margas's bony shoulders with both hands. His speech still seemed slurred, but his tone was exceptionally urgent: "Quick! Quick! Cut my soul! Now!"
"Why? Lord, you're not clear-headed yet. Calm down!" Margas thought the duke was still loopy and tried to soothe him.
But Sigismund, like he'd finally fought through the chaos, snapped urgently: "No time! Trap failed! He's still in my head! I can't hold out much longer—move!"
His tone was urgent yet logically clear. Only now did Margas truly realize this wasn't the duke's mad rambling.
But to start another abyss array right now...
Forget whether Sigismund's soul, having just suffered severe trauma, could take it—even Margas himself was now utterly drained and probably couldn't handle the ritual's backlash!
"Hurry! What're you waiting for?"
Margas steeled his heart and suddenly yanked two potions from his chest—thick as ink and emanating a pungent stench. Without even looking, he tilted his head back and chugged them!
Then he practically dragged Sigismund and placed him in the center of another magic array.
The instant black light blazed on the magic array, Margas let out a gut-wrenching scream.
His left eye and half his liver seemed to be simultaneously erased from both material and soul levels by an invisible force, transforming into two wisps of ethereal black smoke that dissipated without trace.
Even if he used regeneration potions in the future to regrow the organs, this permanent soul loss could never be made up.
And Sigismund in the center of the magic array also screamed—his soul was being torn apart!
...
Thwack—!
In this increasingly wrecked, crumbling dreamscape, Sigismund was mercilessly smashed into a blurry mush by a giant Puffshroom tendril.
However, not much time passed before that pile of gore struggled and reformed into the vampire duke's shape again, though the outline was fainter, more ghostly than before.
"You'll never... easily..."
Thwack—
This wasn't a battle anymore—just Lin Jun playing whack-a-mole.
The other party's willpower was indeed tenaciously nuts, still stubbornly hanging on. But his recovery speed and the clarity of his condensed form were clearly slowly fading.
Lin Jun wasn't rushed at all. A few more smacks cost him nothing, and it was a good way to vent his annoyance from being startled by that black void earlier.
Though it wasn't particularly dangerous, this guy actually dared to scheme against him. Lin Jun hated traps the most!
Puffshroom stomped the vampire flat once again.
Just then, Lin Jun suddenly thought of a problem. After fighting for so long, he only knew the other party was a vampire but didn't even know his name or exact identity.
With so many tricks and able to set up that kind of freaky trap—no matter how you thought about it, he couldn't be some nobody, right?
If he just squashed him into nothing like this without even understanding what his victory was, wouldn't that be too incomplete?
How about... pausing a bit to ask?
At that moment, the dreamscape suddenly began to shake hard.
"What now, you still have traps?"
Lin Jun wasn't too worried. Any good tricks should be used in the first encounter.
Using them now—80% chance they were self-preservation measures.
Crack—
Accompanied by shattering sounds, behind Puffshroom, the connection channel representing the "Strange Dream" began falling away in large chunks like a broken mirror.
Taking advantage of Lin Jun being distracted observing this sudden change, the just-reformed Sigismund weakly leaned against a spreading, cracked stone wall, gasping heavily: "Hah... hah... This time... you win! Mystery guy! But I'll find you eventually! Eventually..."
"Huh?" Lin Jun blinked. "What's that mean? Why does it sound like the story's wrapping up or something?"
"What?" Sigismund gasped, a glint of mockery flashing in his eyes. "Don't tell me you're planning to stay in my head and go down with me? Don't even care about... your own body anymore?"
"Oh! So that's what you meant!" Looking at the constantly crumbling escape route that was clearly about to completely disconnect, Lin Jun finally got it.
He seemed to consider this portion as all of Lin Jun's soul power!
Really... having to occasionally think from an ant's perspective was quite tricky.
Lin Jun immediately stopped being in a hurry to smack him. From his appearance, he couldn't be completely squashed to death anytime soon anyway.
Instead, Puffshroom stepped forward two paces and plopped down beside him with a thunderous thud, even leisurely swinging his huge stubby legs.
"You... are you nuts?!" The composure and sneer Sigismund had been forcibly maintaining instantly shattered, replaced by jaw-dropping shock. Even his voice cracked.
...
The black light of the magic array gradually dimmed. The barely-alive Margas laboriously lifted his heavy head. His remaining lone eye nervously fixed on the duke standing stiff in the center of the array, frantically praying in his heart that the other party wouldn't turn into a bloodthirsty, completely mad maniac who would casually off him on a whim.
Time seemed to freeze.
A full several minutes passed before Sigismund's body suddenly twitched. Like a jerky puppet, with extremely stiff movements, he slowly stood up.
He first looked around blankly, as if not recognizing this ritual chamber he knew so intimately.
Then he lowered his head, staring intently at his slightly trembling hands, as if checking something.
Next, under Margas's terrified gaze—
"Ah! 123456789!" Sigismund suddenly burst out in a weird accent like someone just learning language and rapidly spat out a string of numbers!
Then he suddenly lifted his head, his face blooming with near-mad glee: "This is... hah... hahaha... HAHAHA! Clear vocal cords! Vivid... well, kinda alive body! This feeling... heh heh heh!"
Sigismund seemed to have completely lost it, laughing wildly with incomprehensible meaning, spreading his arms wide as if to embrace the entire world.
However, the next moment, still in his voice but switching to another tone full of fury and fear: "You lunatic! Get out! Get out of my head!"
Immediately after, that wildly gleeful tone forcefully roared back: "What do you mean 'your' head! It's mine now! You're the one who's gotta go!"
(End of Chapter)
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