Wiped Out

"Crack..."

"Bang!"

This time, the knight's armor shattered completely. He was blasted more than twenty meters away by the water dragon and slammed heavily onto the ground.

"Puh..."

He spat out a mouthful of bloody foam. Unable to hold onto the greatsword in his hand, he flung it aside.

"W-wait..."

At last, fear appeared on the knight's face.

Though he could neither see nor hear, the knight still had his sense of touch.

He could feel that he had suffered extremely serious injuries.

If an attack of that caliber came again, he would undoubtedly die.

The knight immediately wanted to beg for mercy.

Right now, he was filled with regret.

If he had not been so arrogant and had waited for the two Priests, then even if this mage had mastered some strange magic, all it would have taken was one Priest casting a divine purification spell on him. Wouldn't capturing this mage have been easy?

Unfortunately, there was no medicine for regret in this world.

This knight would have to pay for his recklessness.

"Water Dragon Chant!"

"Boom!"

The final water dragon plunged down from the sky, instantly blasting a pit more than five meters wide and over two meters deep into the ground, along with the knight.

Once the water dragon dispersed, the knight at the bottom of the pit was already a mangled mass of flesh and blood, devoid of any sign of life.

"Whew..."

After killing the Rank 7 Knight, Locke immediately withdrew from the state of "Unity of Heaven and Man."

In merely a dozen breaths, nearly one-fifth of Locke's Mental Strength had been depleted, while more than half of his magic power had also been consumed.

It was clear that before reaching the Saint-level, this state could only be used as a trump card.

Of course, maintaining the state of "Unity of Heaven and Man" for a long time would allow the laws of heaven and earth to temper Locke's Mental Strength and increase its strength.

Locke's Mental Strength had now reached the peak of Rank 6.

As long as Locke escaped the Temple of Light's pursuit and returned to the Frost Snow Empire, he could cultivate in "Unity of Heaven and Man" several more times while ensuring his own safety. At most, within half a year, his Mental Strength would reach the level of a Rank 7 Mage.

Stepping forward, Locke removed the ring from the knight's finger. With a wave of his magic staff, an image immediately appeared before him.

Water-element Rank 5 magic, Illusionary Projection.

This was a detection spell that used the refraction of water elements in heaven and earth to display distant scenes before one's eyes.

Locke had used this spell before when meeting with the Temple of Light's knights.

However, he had used it in reverse, refracting his own image to another location. He had even refracted it twice, which was how he had successfully deceived that knight.

In the image, two figures dressed in white mage robes were rapidly approaching Locke's location.

Locke could not help but freeze when he saw the two mages.

They were familiar faces!

A few days ago, when he had encountered more than thirty Temple of Light knights, these two mages had been with them.

However, Locke had felt that fighting them then was too risky, so he had let it go.

He had not expected these two to bring a Rank 7 Knight to him.

If he had not had a few tricks up his sleeve, he would probably already be dead by now.

It seemed these two mages could not be allowed to live either.

After examining the environment around the two mages and estimating the distance between them, Locke swiftly entered the state of "Unity of Heaven and Man." He raised his magic staff high and began chanting a spell.

With Locke's current strength, he could cast Rank 5 spells silently, while intermediate spells could already be cast instantly.

The lowest rank of spell that required him to chant an incantation was Rank 6.

The spell Locke was casting now was a water-element Rank 6 area-of-effect spell—Ice Roar.

A massive amount of ice surged from the tip of Locke's magic staff, flowing down the mountainside like a tide.

"Rumble..."

The torrent of ice grew faster and faster. Within a few breaths, it had frozen nearly half the mountainside.

The two Temple of Light mages probably never imagined that before they could even reach the battlefield, before they had time to cast defensive magic, they would be ambushed and directly frozen by an area-of-effect spell.

After seeing that both Temple of Light mages had been frozen in the Illusionary Projection, Locke dispelled the spell and continued fleeing toward the Frost Snow Empire.

Now that he had killed a Rank 7 Knight of the Temple of Light, it might lead to one of two outcomes.

The first was that the Temple of Light could not spare any additional Rank 7 Knights to pursue him, allowing him to escape safely.

The second was that the Temple of Light would dispatch even more Rank 7 Knights or Rank 7 Priests to hunt him down and kill him completely on this battlefield.

Locke was not being overly cautious. Rank 7 warriors and mages were already considered upper echelons, whether in the Temple of Light or the Frost Snow Empire.

For most people, reaching Rank 6 was already their limit.

Even with a battle aura cultivation method, those lacking the talent would be stuck at the peak of Rank 6.

Generally speaking, only one or two out of every hundred peak Rank 6 warriors could break through to Rank 7.

Mages had it somewhat better. Out of every hundred Rank 6 Mages, at least twenty or thirty could break through to become Rank 7 Archmages.

After all, mages possessed talent many times greater than that of warriors.

As long as a mage's Mental Strength broke through to Rank 7, they could liquefy their magic power and advance to Archmage.

Those with high talent could break through to Rank 7 at around thirty years old.

But most people did not finally break through to Rank 7 until around the age of fifty.

After sixty, if one still could not break through to Rank 7, then whether warrior or mage, their physical strength and Mental Strength would begin to decline. They would lose any potential to continue advancing for the rest of their life.

Only experts above Rank 7 were the foundation of the two great powers.

The countless remaining warriors and mages below Rank 7 were merely expendable resources.

Whether it was contributing Power of Faith to the Overgod or expanding territory for their own faction, Rank 7 Experts were far more useful than soldiers below Rank 7.

Fortunately, Locke's luck was good. In the time that followed, he was not attacked by any more Temple of Light pursuers and successfully entered Bidia Territory within the Frost Snow Empire.

Bidia Territory was the domain of Duke Bidia of the Frost Snow Empire.

As a duke of the Frost Snow Empire, Bidia was not only a Saint-level Mage, but also commanded an army of more than a hundred thousand men.

This army was far weaker than the three hundred thousand troops of the Fifth Legion where Locke had been stationed.

But as long as Duke Bidia remained, the Temple of Light would not dare attack Bidia Territory.

With the Light Pope and the Emperor of the Frost Snow Empire, two God-level Experts, restraining one another, no one was willing to provoke a Saint-level Expert.