The Sacred Spirit's eye suddenly shot upward, revealing Benjamin high in the sky, his body in ruins.
His left arm was gone, his right leg ended just below the knee, and his Wizard Robe looked as though a pack of beasts had torn it apart.
Yet Benjamin's gaze remained calm.
Countless tentacles reached down from the clouds again, closing around Benjamin like an inescapable net.
"Anyway, I've finished the preparations I needed to make." Benjamin flexed his remaining right hand, and dark-gold light kindled at his fingertips. "I'll use what strength I have left to fight you."
Several beams of Li-Fire Extinction Divine Light shot from his fingertips. The dark-gold rays pierced the first tentacles to lunge at him, blasting charred holes in their shells.
Benjamin darted through the air, casting several layers of protective spells.
Each time a tentacle struck, one of the barriers shattered. He formed another the instant it broke, holding on through a rhythm that was almost a trade of wound for wound.
Now and then, Benjamin managed to smash one or two tentacles that whipped toward him, but most of the time, he could only take the blows.
His body had already exhausted its reserves while protecting the base. Now it was barely functioning on scraps of energy drawn in on the fly. Before long, his ruined body had fallen apart even further.
"Looks like this is about my limit."
Benjamin glanced down at what remained of his body and prepared to meet the final blow.
Then the Sacred Spirit suddenly exploded.
Without warning, the mass of tentacles that had blotted out the sky burst apart, along with the aliens around it who had not yet managed to retreat. Tentacles snapped, shells shattered, compound eyes burst, and green fluid and gray fragments sprayed in every