Turning around, Dago's face no longer showed the slightest emotional fluctuation.
He calmly took a step forward.
As that step fell, the air beneath his foot seemed to become a tangible stair.
Invisible ripples spread through the void.
It was the microscopic tremor of elemental particles being forcibly repelled and then reorganized.
"Whoosh—"
He appeared abruptly high in the sky as if teleporting, nearly level with the terrifying figure ahead, shrouded in rolling gray soul-smoke with only a pair of pitch-black eyes exposed.
Between them lay only a gray dead zone formed from resentment and death.
The fierce winds at high altitude let out mournful howls as the two powerful Mental Force Fields collided.
The latter stood atop a black-gray tide, surrounded by countless translucent wandering souls.
Their faces were twisted as they opened their mouths in soundless shrieks.
They craved the flesh and blood of the living, cursing everything in this world.
Bone Death Knell looked at Dago, surprise and astonishment in his eyes as though he had discovered a new continent.
Even among Second-Ring Wizards, there had never been anyone like the one before him—someone who dared to actively provoke him beneath the pressure of a higher-dimensional life-form.
"This is the first time I've seen an ant like you actively seek release."
Maflin's voice was hoarse yet magnetic, as though it were grinding against the listener's skull.
It carried the lofty pity of a predator toward its food.
"Is fear and despair driving you?"
"Or is your impoverished brain incapable of processing its fear at this moment, forcing it to choose collapse?"
The gray smoke behind him roiled even more violently, as though mocking the arrogance of this tiny creature.
Dago said nothing. He merely stood there quietly.
He felt the vast, terrifyingly cold aura of Bone Death