The black mud swallowed them both, while the Guardian that had self-destructed on the spot formed again within it, its reconstructed body once more covered in filth.
Relying on this "self-destruction-rebirth" mechanism, he could not only remove the "balance" effect Iluna had inflicted on him, but even purge the body that had only just been cleansed.
However, the reconstructed Mad Guardian did not attack the two lying in the black mud, nor did he even look at them. All the eyes on the Guardian's body, including the two on his head, closed. His feet slowly lifted from the ground, and maintaining the posture of clasping his hands together, he flew above the lava lake:
"It is time."
As he rose, the black sludge that had originally been flowing toward the lava also drifted upward in scattered droplets toward the top of this underground space.
In the end, the Guardian's body and most of the black sludge entered the high rock strata, heading for the surface. Only then did Shade and Iluna, who had just faced the spirit's self-destruction head-on, struggle out of the black sludge.
"Cough, cough. Within the Heart of the Earth, even if Iluna and I together could defeat him, we still couldn't subdue him."
Shade coughed as he covered his chest and pushed himself up from the ground. His entire body had been entangled with the Guardian just now, so he had reacted half a beat slower than Iluna and had nearly taken the full force of the spirit's self-destruction head-on. Fortunately, the explosion had not been particularly powerful. It had merely been a means of escape—or rather, the Guardian had never intended to kill them. Thus, Shade had not been seriously injured.
As for the black mud on the ground, due to the Night Watchman's ability