Again and again, four times in total. Ilos truly lived up to his reputation as a veteran elf; he managed not to vomit.
Resonance cannons were made of elite Puchis and couldn’t be endlessly produced like cannon fodder. At least not yet.
When Ilos began preparing his spell for the fifth time, the cannon-fodder Puchis, though limited in use, still charged forward wave after wave.
Most of Ilos’s attention, aside from his spell, was on sensing nearby mana fluctuations, guarding against Lin Jun bringing out another resonance cannon.
As a result, he only noticed at the last moment that one of the charging cannon-fodder Puchis had an unusual mana signature!
The already battered vines were suddenly severed. A knight Puchi shot forward with a burst ejection.
Without hesitation, the super self-destruct boosted by an S-grade magic crystal instantly blasted Ilos away.
Lin Jun had bet heavily to raise his odds of winning!
This knight Puchi had been transferred from home base: solid diamond-tier combat power.
Yet after witnessing Ilos’s strength, Lin Jun could only use it for a suicide bomb.
The explosion was so powerful it even killed surrounding Puchis.
At the center, Ilos’s shield shattered. He spat blood but did not fall.
Before the Puchis could swarm, he wrapped himself in a thicket of thorns.
Both sides were now thoroughly miserable.
For Ilos, these pet-like creatures were endless and annoying, their tactics varied. The fight had never entered his rhythm.
For Lin Jun, four resonance cannons and two diamond-tier self-destructs had marginally disrupted Ilos and created openings, but the openings vanished instantly. Lin Jun couldn’t capitalize!
How could someone get blown away and rebuild full defenses in one second?!
Ilos finally used the spell: Lava Surface.
As straightforward as its name, it was a brutally simple area spell, but terrifyingly large!
The entire battlefield instantly became a blazing hell. Even Puchis with [Heat Resistance] couldn’t survive in the lava.
Ground-bound Puchis burst into flames, becoming torches in the space.
Even the Sacred Tree’s roots were scorched.
Some Puchis still flapped wings in the air, but in both quantity and quality they could no longer threaten Ilos.
Even though Lin Jun’s panel showed Ilos in a Weakened state.
The potion’s peak power wasn’t long-lasting. The repeated tug-of-war with the Puchis had burned through it faster.
Still, victory was decided.
Vines lashed toward a nearby information block. A gutted plump recluse Puchi tumbled out, collapsing onto the lava and quickly burning, leaving only the undamaged Heartwood of Genesis lying amid the charred remains.
The process had been tortuous, the plan riddled with setbacks, but with the artifact in hand, Ilos was confident he could bring everything back on track.
With victory assured, Ilos finally had leisure to speak. “To control so many magical pets and ignore the interference of information blocks, I’m truly curious who you are. But it doesn’t matter. Once I control the Sacred Tree and the elves, I’ll find you eventually.”
“I lost, but you haven’t won yet!” The voice Puchi, hidden in some block, spoke Lin Jun’s first words since the fight began!
The terrifying voice poured into Ilos’s ears, but what truly unsettled him was the content!
He snatched the artifact and tried to teleport out.
But the feedback was chaos.
After realizing he couldn’t win, Lin Jun had been doing only one thing: “removing” the teleport button!
That level of sabotage meant nothing to the dungeon’s legitimate administrator. Like the stars in his own crystal core, no matter how messed up, the dungeon’s computing power could reset everything.
But Ilos was no administrator. Like Lin Jun, he was just an illegal intruder exploiting a loophole. He had no way to mobilize the dungeon’s computing power!
“How is this possible?” Ilos couldn’t believe it.
Those control nodes had felt indestructible to him. Affecting them should require at least a large-scale abyssal sacrifice ritual from outside.
He had only been inside a short while. Even with preparation, completing such a complex ritual was impossible!
Yet no matter how he tried, teleportation gave no response, confirming the enemy’s words.
Vines yanked the voice Puchi from behind a block. The rag-doll appearance made even the well-traveled Ilos’s eyelid twitch.
“Heh heh… I’ll starve you here and slowly find a way in later! Old man, how long can you go without eating?”
The Puchis still circling overhead suddenly dove.
Their target wasn’t Ilos, but the not-yet-cooled lava.
One after another, Puchis burned to charcoal, leaving no food for Ilos!
In the end only the voice Puchi in Ilos’s vines and the cannon-fodder Puchi carrying it remained.
Ilos’s single remaining hand, gripping staff and artifact, trembled. The ups and downs of the past days, plus his current weakness, finally made him spit blood, half-dyeing the voice Puchi red.
The voice Puchi laughed louder.
Unfortunately, angering the opponent to death was wishful thinking.
Ilos eventually calmed himself.
He wasn’t at a dead end yet. The Heartwood of Genesis was still in his hand.
As long as he connected to the Sacred Tree’s consciousness through the artifact, there was still a chance to repair teleportation.
This step was supposed to be stably achieved by reverse-tracing the artifact with an abyssal ritual. Now, without ritual conditions, he could only fish blindly for a solution.
It was a bit like Lin Jun studying his own crystal core, but with the added “before I starve” time limit.
In the end, everything seemed left to fate.
While Ilos sank into the Sacred Tree’s consciousness to grope for a way out, and Lin Jun planned to cause more trouble from outside, a tender shoot suddenly broke through the still-hot lava and bloomed into a small white flower.
Then countless flowers and grasses surged from the ground like a tide, turning the entire abyssal space into a sea of blossoms in moments. All traces of battle were gently covered by vibrant life.
Several roots lifted Ilos and the Puchi.
Ilos tried to resist, only to find he couldn’t move at all!
Lin Jun noticed that [Dormant] had vanished from the Sacred Tree’s panel at some point.
(End of Chapter)
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