"Bang!"
The icy tentacle struck Luo Ya's right hand with enough force to split mountains and shatter jade.
"Zzt—"
The terrible force traveled through Luo Ya's body, driving him far backward and plowing a long furrow in the ground. The dark battle aura he had gathered over the Blood-colored Glove was also knocked apart.
If not for the fact that his Blood-colored Glove was a well-made Artifact, that icy tentacle might have pierced straight through it!
"Her Profundity of Evil is already at an extremely profound level." Luo Ya shook his aching right hand and quickly assessed the situation.
Even a Saint Realm peak expert would struggle to react in time to an attack of that caliber. If one of those tentacles struck a vital spot, such as the heart or head, it would be fatal.
"Luo Ya, if you don't start taking this seriously, you're going to lose." Milia had been startled by the close call.
Once she had recovered, she discreetly urged Luo Ya to fight in earnest.
He had clearly been relying on his still-shallow understanding of the Profundity of Dark Element, which was why Beiya had seized the initiative.
"I know." At Milia's reminder, Luo Ya's expression grew more serious.
Given the strength Miss Beiya had just displayed, he really did need to take her seriously.
Hearing his reply, both women watched his next move even more intently.
It was obvious that Luo Ya was about to use the Profundity of Devour, the one he excelled at most.
"Demon Hand!"
To their surprise, Luo Ya didn't conjure the Devouring Vortex outright. Instead, he gathered a palm-sized blood-red vortex in the center of his right palm!
"Again!" Holding the blood-red vortex in his hand, Luo Ya was confident that this move alone would be enough to defeat Beiya.
"Whoosh!"
In an instant, Luo Ya's body became a black streak of light as he charged at the silver-haired elf hovering in midair.
Beneath the moonlight, the elf wasn't flying. She had anchored herself to the ground with two tentacles, keeping her body suspended about thirty meters above it.
"Gather!" Seeing Luo Ya launch an attack, the elf didn't let her guard down. She immediately drew all her tentacles back and positioned them in front of herself to block him.
"So it can do this, too? It really is a move that works for both offense and defense." Her tentacles had been viciously difficult to deal with when attacking, and now they seemed just as impregnable when used defensively.
If she could control more tentacles, she might be able to cover herself from every angle.
Of course, that didn't mean she was limited to conjuring this many. If she wanted, she could extend a hundred icy tentacles, just like Luo Ya. But those would be little more than showpieces, with nowhere near the power of the eight tentacles she was controlling now.
Just as Harvey could currently transform into only four bodies, Beiya's grasp of the Profundity of Evil probably let her control only eight tentacles with the ease of her own limbs.
"Take this!"
Although Beiya had drawn all her tentacles back to defend herself, Luo Ya didn't retreat. He kept driving forward with his right hand.
At the same time, a violent stream of icy, dark energy gathered wildly in the center of his blood-red right palm, colored by the Blood-colored Glove. The raging vortex grew larger and larger, until it resembled a blood-red doorway.
"He can use that move like this, too? Impressive!" Milia had seen Luo Ya's previous technique, which made her all the more impressed by how he had refined it.
"Boom—!"
It was as if a gate to Hell had truly swung open. An inexhaustible force of suction burst from the blood-red vortex.
Nearby rocks broke loose from the mountains, and even trees were mercilessly sucked in and annihilated into nothingness!
"Crack!" "Crack!" "Crack!"...
The silver-haired elf was the only one facing the move head-on, so she felt its effects most strongly. Realizing the danger, she hurriedly anchored several tentacles to the nearby towering trees that seemed hardest to move, while others pierced the ground and burrowed deep underground to resist the suction.
"It won't work."
Beiya's response was undeniably clever. At least, without activating the Black Hole within him, Luo Ya's suction force could be resisted.
But with the Profundity of Devour, "devouring" was only one part of it, and served mainly to control. The crucial part lay in "destroying."
Sure enough, as Luo Ya closed in, he merely pushed the blood-red vortex in his right hand forward. The sturdy icy tentacles were torn apart and ground down into their most basic Dark Element energy.
"Boom!" "Boom!"...
As one tentacle after another was crushed, the elf was left exposed within Luo Ya's attack range.
Without her icy tentacles, she couldn't even resist the blood-red vortex's suction. Her body was pulled toward it against her will.
If Luo Ya didn't reduce the move's power, she would be sucked inside and pulverized!
After all, elves were made of flesh and blood, too.
"Fff—"
When the elf had been drawn to within half a meter of Luo Ya, the blood-red vortex abruptly vanished, and she regained control of her body.
Still shaken, Beiya took a few small steps back and graciously admitted defeat. "That move of yours is impressive. I lost!"
To be honest, Beiya hadn't expected to lose before the match. She had already figured out how to counter the move's suction.
What she hadn't expected was that Luo Ya could move freely while carrying the Devouring Vortex. Nor was the vortex's most terrifying feature the suction that ordinary people had exaggerated in their rumors. It was the dreadful destructive power that seemed capable of annihilating anything into nothingness.
Under that power, the Tentacles of Evil she had conjured were destroyed as easily as toys.
And once her Tentacles of Evil had been broken, she had already lost.
"Whenever you used the Devouring Vortex before, you formed it in midair, and the release was rather rigid. If an enemy was prepared, they could avoid some of its power."
"I didn't expect you to come up with the idea of channeling it through your palm. Unless your opponent has footwork as fast as mine, there's no way to dodge it." Once the fight was over, Milia hurried over and offered her assessment.
Luo Ya's clever refinement of his technique had been a major highlight of the battle.
"Actually, I came up with the idea a long time ago. My body just couldn't withstand the move at full power back then." Luo Ya gave a simple explanation.
He had long considered using the Profundity of Devour through his palm.
But if he activated the power of the Black Hole within him and pushed the move to its limit, his hand wouldn't be able to withstand it. His palm might be annihilated into nothingness first.
However, after he put on the Blood-colored Glove, which he had identified as an Artifact, that weakness was partly remedied.
With his current strength, even the Devouring Vortex at full power couldn't destroy an Artifact.
"I see." After hearing Luo Ya's Soul Transmission, Milia's gaze lingered briefly on his right hand.
No wonder he had been wearing such an unusual glove when they met this time.
After the three of them discussed the battle, they returned to Yelan Castle to rest.
In the back hills, the peaceful chirping of cicadas resumed in the night.
Only the wide swath of battered trees and the ground left in ruins showed that an intense, breathtaking battle had just taken place there.
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