When the attribute upgrades were complete, the system's black-and-white screen receded like a tide, and the frozen scene began to move again.
Marcus's Smite Evil came crashing down with enough force to split mountains and cleave rocks. His savage grin had already reached the corners of his mouth, but just as his sword was about to touch the loose strands of hair on Ye Wei'an's forehead, his pupils abruptly shrank to pinpoints—the young man who had been standing there had vanished into thin air without warning!
No, that wasn't right. It wasn't the Wizard who had vanished. It was Marcus.
The stench of burning and metallic tang that had filled his nostrils faded in an instant, replaced by a bone-chilling gust of wind.
Then a violent feeling of weightlessness seized his heart.
Marcus looked past the tips of his own boots and saw that there was no ground beneath him, only empty space. The earth below was impossibly far away, and the detestable Wizard was now just a tiny speck.
"[Quicken Spell: Vortex Warp]!"
Ye Wei'an stood perfectly still. He merely twitched the fingertips of his right hand, and the space around the Blackguard twisted violently, like a crumpled sheet of paper.
Marcus had no time to react. He and his heavy black armor were instantly teleported into the air.
Gravity became his greatest ally.
In the next instant, the ground rushed toward Marcus's eyes.
"Cyric's rotten ass... What the—!"
Thud! The level-five Blackguard slammed into a pile of rubble like a lump of scrap metal. He landed in a daze, the bones in his body cracking with a sound that made one's teeth ache.
Marcus choked out a mouthful of blood mixed with bits of his organs. The ringing in his ears from the impact left his mind blank