Moria frowned at the sight. He raised a hand, intending to offer a prayer for the dwarf, but forcibly stopped himself. Li Wen took several steps back. If she still had any mana, she definitely would have attacked now. After all, it was perfectly normal to sneak in some damage while an enemy was changing phases.
The dwarf Zotes grabbed half a face of skin, tilted his head back, and stuffed it into his mouth. He wrung out its blood and drank every drop of its fluid. Then, clutching his bloody, mangled face, the agonized wailing in his throat gradually turned into roars before finally devolving into beastlike panting.
He removed his hands. His murky yellow eyes contracted into reptilian vertical pupils, while the mangled muscles of his face twitched incessantly. Fine spikes, as though they had grown from his skull, covered the exposed flesh.
"Shedding skin and drinking blood... Be careful. He's a Blood Lust Cultist," Moria warned.
Li Wen had expected it and was not surprised.
After tearing the skin from his face, Zotes continued ripping away the skin across his body. With every flaying, with every bloody agony, his shriveled body swelled further. By the time all his skin had been shed, Zotes, already a head taller than a human, had expanded to four or five meters tall.
His entire body was covered in rocklike or bony scales. Every beat of his heart sounded like thunder. Each scale had grown from flesh and was therefore stained crimson.
His murky yellow vertical pupils narrowed, locking directly onto Li Wen. Zotes's massive body moved in an instant, at a speed no ordinary creature could achieve. In Li Wen's eyes, only his afterimage remained.
A bloody wind rushed toward her. Li Wen held the Eye of the Transcendent without moving. Only after a metallic clash rang out did a figure fly away from nearby.
Li Wen looked at the flung-away Moria, utterly speechless. Firstborn of the Holy Temple, was that all?
"Such exquisite power, such sweet fragrance... Let me drink every last drop of your blood, one by one. Especially yours, Hypocritical Knight."
Zotes licked his claws, his gaze constantly shifting between Moria and Li Wen. As for the other two Wild Mages, they were beneath notice.
"You still have another choice, Zotes. Not all suffering is destined. More often, it depends on your choices. No matter what you have endured, if you turn back now, it is not too late."
The Temple's knight rose to his feet again. This time, he drew the Knight Sword and stared seriously at the dwarf.
"What do you know? What do you know?!" Zotes roared. Blood swirled within his pupils, and every cell in his body howled in fury. "Everything is humanity's sin! Everything is your fault! And I will use your blood for the final cleansing!"
"These people all died because of you?" Moria looked at the corpses on the ground.
"They were merely a pack of greedy fools, just like you. I need only reveal the existence of this dungeon, and they come willingly to die. You cannot defeat the Great Blood. You might as well surrender now, rather than suffer through futile struggling."
Moria ignored him. He prayed over his sword, and crimson flames wrapped around the blade like blood.
"You're the one who should surrender."
Zotes had long since grown impatient. He had originally planned to kill Li Wen first, then deal with Moria slowly. But since this knight was so incapable of appreciating kindness, he could only eliminate him first.
He felt the Great Blood flowing through his body. It seemed alive, yearning for something nobler, something sweeter and more worthy.
"This is—Blood Curse!"
As if showing off, Zotes shouted the name of the spell. Scarlet light shot from his body like countless sharp blades, stabbing toward Moria.
The Firstborn of the Temple did not move, nor did he offer any resistance. He allowed the scarlet rays to pierce his body.
Even with his knight armor in the way, the scarlet rays still pierced through him. Blood continuously streamed from his wounds, with no sign of slowing.
One effect of the Blood Curse was that wounds would bleed without end until death.
Seeing Moria struck, Zotes felt that he had already won half the battle. This knight looked unfathomable, but he was just like any other human, arrogant to the bone. Little did he know that Zotes's spell had been strengthened by the Great Blood, making it several times more powerful than an ordinary Blood Curse.
Just as Zotes imagined how he would savor the knight's blood, immersed in its sweet fragrance, sudden pain wracked his body. Bloody holes appeared across his scales, which were as hard as stone. Their number and positions exactly matched the wounds on Moria's body.
But unlike Zotes, the more Moria was wounded, the brighter his eyes became, as though flames danced within them.
This was the Path of Sacrifice Divine Art, Shared Fate. It could fully inflict the damage one had suffered upon an enemy. In the hands of others, it might be a technique for risking one's life or perishing together with the enemy, but in the hands of one who walked the Path of Sacrifice...
"All who make sacrifices shall be granted blessings."
A clear candle flame burned in Moria's hand. The wounds on his body vanished like wisps of smoke drifting from a candle.
"All who commit evil shall be punished!"
The candle flame in his hand flared brightly in an instant, becoming the sole sun beneath this dark underground.
Zotes felt an enormous threat. The Great Blood frantically warned him that if he failed to dodge, he was doomed.
The dwarf panicked and tried to get away from the knight, but the light had already pointed toward him.
The blinding light forced Li Wen to close her eyes. When she opened them again, the dwarf was nowhere in sight.
Dead?
Li Wen immediately rejected the thought. She looked up and saw the dwarf hanging upside down from the ceiling.
He bared his bloody maw and raised a claw toward the ceiling.
"Victory will be mine!"
The tremendous force shattered the ceiling. Along with the falling rubble, crimson liquid like blood and countless mutilated corpses came crashing down. In an instant, everyone was submerged beneath a sea of blood.
Zotes stood in the middle of the blood sea. Behind him loomed a gigantic deformed monstrosity beyond description.
The monstrosity had no limbs. Its body was a blood-red sphere of flesh, covered in scales identical to those on the dwarf and the other monsters. It had sixteen mouths, each lined with rows of sharp teeth. Crimson liquid constantly overflowed from those mouths, releasing an unnaturally sweet fragrance.
Merely looking directly at the monstrosity made the flesh throughout one's body seem ready to burst free and merge with it.
Li Wen rose from the sea of blood and looked at the many corpses on the ground, which even the blood could not conceal. With so many bodies, perhaps every adventurer who had met with misfortune was here?
Moria saw the corpses as well. His eyes held pity, regret, and self-reproach.
"Behold! The creation of the Great Blood!"
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