"Urgh—"
Xiang An clutched his chest and crouched halfway down, looking to be in considerable pain.
"Second Brother!"
Zi Juan, standing not far behind Xiang An, was frightened out of her wits and hurried over.
"Mr. Xiang An!"
Mash quickly supported Xiang An at his side.
".I'm fine."
Xiang An waved Mash and Zi Juan off, wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, then stood back up and looked down at Tiamat below.
Several rifts resembling star-like pupils had split open across Tiamat's body, firing pure, terrifying blasts of magical energy in every direction.
Merlin used an almost illusory method to evade the damage; Fujimaru Ritsuka was carried away by the rapidly arriving Ishtar; Lawrence simply dropped flat to the ground and rolled, barely avoiding Tiamat's immensely destructive black magical-energy blast.
But those blasts had never been aimed at any of them.
Tiamat, completely consumed by rage, had targeted—the Underworld itself, or rather—the Mount Tai summoned by Xiang An.
Mount Tai was Xiang An's "mount," part of the Grand Saint Graph that made up Xiang An himself. Destroying Mount Tai was therefore equivalent to injuring Xiang An.
Though every strike Xiang An threw carried tremendous force, to be honest, he was not in very good condition.
He had used Mount Tai to trap Tiamat, preventing her from destroying Mesopotamia's Underworld and burying everyone beneath its collapse. At the same time, for greater combat strength and safety, he had divided his Authority among Ereshkigal, Fujimaru Ritsuka, Mash, and Zi Juan. By now, Xiang An had already employed an astonishing variety of methods.
"Second Brother. Take this."
Zi Juan stuffed a bottle of gem potion into Xiang An's hand.
"Mm." Xiang An knew what it was and did not refuse. He unscrewed the gem potion's cap, poured all of its