"Whoosh-"
Amid the light and shadows warped by violent collisions of energy, a Fourth Circle "blazing sun," which had been freely radiating light and heat, seemed to be crushed by an invisible giant hand. Its radiance abruptly went out.
Then, stripped of the support of his Mental Force Field, a figure plummeted helplessly toward the ground like a kite with a severed string, accompanied by scattering motes of elemental light.
The thunder of spell bombardments briefly ceased, as though even the world had held its breath.
At the center of the energy storm, which churned with the murderous frenzy of an apocalyptic hurricane, Lintis's figure slowly emerged.
Lintis now stood over three meters tall. His human skin was completely covered by chitinous armor flowing with black light,
Dense clusters of translucent bone spikes had sprouted from both sides of his head, each greedily devouring the surrounding light.
His body had become extraordinarily elongated and brimming with explosive power. A strange, barbed tail extended from the base of his spine, lashing unconsciously through the air with tooth-grating cracks.
He was no longer human, but a monster that had crawled out of a forbidden abyssal tome, born to kill and feed.
Lintis slowly raised a hand encased in hardened keratin. A drop of a Fourth-Circle Wizard's blood essence hung from a blade-sharp fingertip.
He gently slipped that finger into a mouth split all the way to his ears. Like a greedy child stealing the sweetest jam, he sucked it with an intoxicated expression, his dark-gold vertical pupils revealing his utter delight at the death of a higher-order life.
The sight struck everyone present like a heavy hammer to the chest.
The instinctive terror buried deep within their souls awakened in an instant. Countless wizards felt their blood freeze and their limbs turn