Golden Eye

"Teacher, the medium for your Innate Spirit Art... is your eyes?"

The boy looked up at the enormous Golden Eye in the dome of the sky. It continuously blasted scorching beams of light from its pupil, all while turning its body to incinerate and scorch the pitch-black sea in every direction around the Snow Mountain.

Under the Golden Eye's soundless yet immensely intimidating bombardment, countless openings and cracks appeared in the boundless Abyss domain, revealing chaos and void.

The boy lowered his head and looked at Lyle beside him. He stood motionless, without saying a word, his golden eyes wide with anger as he fearlessly stared back at the Abyss shrouding heaven and earth.

Under Lyle's concentrated gaze, the Golden Eye above unleashed even more ferocious firepower. Like a blazing sun rising before dawn, it surged forth to drive away the surrounding darkness, using its radiance to reclaim dominion over the world.

However, although the Golden Eye's bombardment covered an area so vast it was terrifying, an unbridgeable gulf still separated it from the Abyss domain, which was vast enough to blot out the sky and sun.

As its gaze focused on blasting one area of the pitch-black sea, the Abyss in all the other areas surged forth at once, rushing toward the Old Church halfway up the Snow Mountain in an attempt to swallow it whole.

Yet as soon as this viscous seawater reached the air above the church, a golden barrier stopped it. Any Abyss Matter that touched the barrier evaporated completely in an instant.

Under Ye Chen's careful observation, he soon realized that the barrier was a sturdy bulwark Lyle had built from an incredibly dense and pure concentration of Auling Power.

The purity of the energy coursing through it was worlds apart from the Auling Power flowing through Ye Chen's body. He was nowhere near a level that could compare.

"Teacher, you're incredible."

Ye Chen's eyes widened as he watched Lyle single-handedly put up a magnificent fight against the Abyss's encroachment. He couldn't help but exclaim in awe, and his hands, which had been clenched tight all this time, finally relaxed, filled with relief.

Although he had always believed his teacher's strength was unfathomable, seeing it with his own eyes still left Ye Chen deeply shaken.

Judging by the power Lyle was displaying, even if all the prey from Ye Chen's three trials joined forces—not just that, even if their numbers multiplied a thousandfold or more—they still wouldn't pose the slightest threat to Lyle.

For this man, all it would take was a casual glance at his prey, and every enemy would be reduced to ashes, silently melting away like ice beneath the blazing sun.

Lyle's strength was truly that terrifying and absurd.

And yet, wasn't the Abyss this man now faced just as terrifying?

Each time Lyle's golden eyes swept a gigantic rift through the dark depths, tens of thousands of black silhouettes filled it in succession. The blazing golden light blasted away the Abyss surrounding the Old Church, while the Abyss around the church relentlessly surged toward the scorching light, one wave after another.

Matching Lyle's terrifying, overwhelming firepower, the Abyss possessed an almost inexhaustible ability to regenerate. That regenerative force even seemed to be gaining the upper hand, leaving the area around the Old Church ever darker and more oppressive.

At the sight of this, Ye Chen's excitement quickly gave way to a grim expression.

From his previous experience, unless they destroyed the Abyss's core, these revolting things would regenerate forever. But finding and destroying the core in an Abyss domain of such immense scale would be like searching for a needle in the sea.

Lyle's power was certainly great, but even he would eventually run out of strength.

What would the two of them do when that happened?

"Teacher..."

The anxious boy murmured, but he didn't know what advice to offer. All he could do was stand there looking lost and helpless.

Yet despite the perilous situation, the man merely turned around with an easygoing expression and smiled warmly at Ye Chen.

"Don't worry. While I'm still here, I won't let the Abyss touch you."

As soon as he finished speaking, endless flames suddenly erupted once more in the places Lyle had been looking, the places his golden light had swept, and the places the Abyss had filled. They burned the black sea in those areas to destruction once again.

At the same time, the flames connected with one another and, as if by some mysterious force, formed an abstruse array of light. In the blink of an eye, it sent the Abyss surrounding the Old Church reeling back, while the strands of light radiating from its center reached straight toward a point in the dark depths.

"I found the core."

Lyle murmured, his gaze snapping toward that point in the sea.

The Golden Eye at the top of the sky turned in the same direction as Lyle. The golden light bursting from its pupil shot straight toward the spot indicated by the array and pierced through.

Crash—!

Amid a deafening boom, Ye Chen was astonished to see the Abyss seawater where Lyle had struck twist and convulse. As if struggling in agony, it gradually lost its pitch-black color.

Through the retreating black mist, Ye Chen then caught sight of the outline of a colossal object.

Its appearance was somewhat like the Abyss's round stone core Ye Chen had destroyed before, but it was ten thousand times larger. Its surface was covered in thick, plump flesh and clearly visible veins. From afar, it looked like a heart as large as a mountain.

However, a great hole had been burned into the heart's center, and it had stopped beating. Having discerned its location, Lyle had already ordered the Golden Eye above to pierce straight through it without mercy.

As the heart perished, the pitch-black sea around the Old Church also shattered and melted away.

The Abyss disappeared, and the boy's expression had just brightened with relief when the strange sight before him shook him.

For after it had retreated, the Snow Mountain, forests, and plains familiar from Ye Chen's memories did not return. All that remained was a dim, hazy chaos.

Apart from chaos, there was nothing else.

"Teacher, where did everything else go? Were they all swallowed by the Abyss?"

The boy asked his teacher uneasily.

If Ye Chen's guess was right, then every area outside the Old Church, along with all the living beings in those places, had failed to escape the Abyss's clutches.

The mountain ranges, forests, and plains where he had once hunted; everyone from Cold Wind Village whom he had once saved; that adorable yet pitiful Frost White Person girl; and Frost White City, which he had visited several times—the symbol of Frost White Person civilization.

Everything, every last thing, had vanished without a trace. It had all been consumed by the Abyss's encroachment, scattered into oblivion.

This was clearly not what Ye Chen wanted to see. It was a result his very nature could not accept.

However, seeing Ye Chen's frantic expression, Lyle couldn't help shaking his head with a wry smile. Then, with a few simple words, he immediately calmed Ye Chen's wildly trembling heart.

"Don't worry. While you were unconscious, I already sent the other regions of the Eternal Winter Hidden Domain away. The Abyss is only interested in you and me, after all, so there was no need to drag those innocent lives into this."

Ye Chen's expression shifted twice in an instant.

At first, when he heard that all those people hadn't been reduced to ashes, he felt a weight lift from his heart.

But when he heard that the Abyss was targeting him and Lyle, he was stunned.

Then Lyle's calm yet resolute words reached Ye Chen's ears once more.

"Next, it's your turn, Ye Chen."