"There's an aura on you... from the same source as the 'core.'"
The scarlet pinpoints in the gaunt figure's sunken sockets abruptly locked onto Best, like a viper scenting blood.
His gaze was no longer a hollow scrutiny. It suddenly erupted with an almost tangible greed and hunger that was profoundly unsettling.
His hoarse voice sounded like metal scraping against metal, every syllable steeped in naked possessiveness.
"So pure... so powerful... if I 'devour' you and absorb that power, then I will surely..."
But he never even finished his blasphemous declaration.
Best answered him with a sudden, all-out counterattack.
The psychic energy in the Librarian's eyes abruptly turned a blazing red, as though miniature stars burned within them.
He chanted nothing and made no gestures. He simply pointed forward with the Warhammer in his hand, still wreathed in psychic flames.
As though answering an unseen summons, the flames dancing over the hammerhead suddenly detached themselves, then gathered furiously before him!
In an instant, a lifelike dragon of flame, formed entirely from pure psychic energy, took shape at the hammerhead.
The dragon roared soundlessly. Bearing the searing heat and majesty to cleanse all things, it hurtled at the gaunt figure still proclaiming his greed, like a blazing spear launched at a terrifying speed far beyond that of sound!
The strike was swift, vicious, and decisive, without the slightest attempt to probe his defenses. It concentrated the greatest amount of psychic energy Best could muster, intended to vaporize him utterly in an instant.
"Aah!!"
The gaunt figure clearly had not expected such a decisive, violent counterattack from Best. In his haste, he barely managed to gather a murky psychic barrier over his body.
But before the pure, blazing dragon of psychic flame, that hastily erected defense tore apart like paper.
The immense