Crisis and Reinforcements Arrive

His consciousness struggled upward from the bottom of viscous darkness.

Hearing returned first.

Rhythmic explosions kept coming from all around, as though massive hammers were relentlessly pounding against a heavy metal dome.

Every impact sent ripples across the surface of his consciousness, worsening the dull pain that came from the depths of his soul.

Then came the sensation of his body.

Cold, hard contact pressed against his back—the unique temperature and texture of the Black Giant Priests' liquid-metal arms.

His body was held steadily aloft, rising and falling slightly amid the continuous tremors.

Last came the feedback from his biological clock: time unconscious, approximately... seventeen hours and forty-three minutes.

Benjamin abruptly opened his eyes.

His vision was somewhat blurry, and the dizziness caused by the severe damage to his soul had yet to fade.

The first thing he saw was a swath of flowing blackness—the tightly packed backs and shoulder armor of the Black Giant Priests.

They had formed an almost perfect spherical defensive formation, protecting him tightly at its center.

Through the tiny gaps between the priests' bodies, he could glimpse the wildly flashing lights outside: blazing white lightning, ghostly green corrosive spheres, scarlet disintegration ripples...

And countless boulders, ice spikes, and metal fragments carrying physical force, accelerated to the limit by wizardry, crashing down outside the defensive circle like a storm.

With every collision, the bodies of the outermost priests trembled slightly. The transparent Return to Void Armor field around their bodies rippled violently, producing the muffled blasts he had heard earlier.

Yet the field held stubbornly, absorbing and converting every energy attack while deflecting or rebounding physical attacks.

They were like a black metal sphere slowly moving through a raging ocean of energy—or rather, a "turtle shell" under relentless assault.

Because their movement speed... was infuriatingly slow.