After the chaos subsided, a phantom spoke first. "Being from another world, which civilization do you belong to? State your name."
Benjamin hovered above the legion, looking up at the phantom.
The corners of his mouth lifted slightly. His voice was quiet, yet it carried clearly across the entire sky. "You don't need to know. There's only one thing you need to know: you're about to become my spoils of war."
A surge of fury erupted from within the phantom.
The leading King of the Sacred Spirits violently shook its tentacles. The phantom burst apart, revealing its true form.
Enormous tentacles thousands of meters long dangled from the clouds. Flowing runic patterns covered its carapace, radiating a dark purple glow that made hearts tremble.
Compound eyes slowly turned between the tentacles, locking onto Benjamin. "What an arrogant lesser lifeform! Do you have any idea what kind of being you face?"
It opened its mouthparts and issued a proclamation that shook heaven and earth. "By my very existence, I decree: you shall not gaze upon me! You shall not hear me! You shall not know me!"
The instant its voice fell silent, Benjamin felt the scene before him begin to distort.
The clouds in the sky became vortices, the outlines of buildings blurred, and the ground beneath his feet seemed to melt.
An indescribable sense of wrongness surged in from every direction, as though the entire world were rejecting his existence.
His senses transmitted chaotic signals. Sight, hearing, and touch all lost their original correspondence.
Those signals clashed and contradicted one another, preventing his consciousness from constructing a stable model of the outside world.
Below, the Black Giants and the Dragonblood Mushroom Legion were also affected by this distorted perceptual field. Their movements slowed, and their formations began to scatter.
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