Elemental Source

Above those two eyes suffused with a strange glow stood the deathly pale Yetos.

His clothes were riddled with cuts, blood seeping through them. He looked like a hedgehog stripped of its spines, a painfully wretched sight.

"Hah... hah..." Yetos gasped for breath, his exhaustion making it hard to breathe.

His forehead and eyes glowed, his pupils losing focus as his vision blurred. He could no longer make out the diamond-shaped spike in his hand, but his hearing and perception still told him what was happening around him.

"On my command!"

"Attack its eyes!" he shouted to the people ahead.

"Yes, sir!" Xibizete moved first, shouting almost in unison with William and Aikimu beside him.

Kanni followed close behind. Zeng Mu pushed off the ground and raced toward the Snake King alongside Ma Linya's graceful figure.

Without the tide of snakes blocking them, all six rushed over from the distance in just a few breaths. Wielding their swords and spears, they converged from every direction and thrust at the Snake King's golden pupils.

Clang! Sparks flashed with a forceful crash, ringing like metal striking stone.

None of them had expected even the Snake King's eyes to be so unbelievably hard. The combined strike of their treasured swords could not inflict the slightest damage. Those eyes were like ancient boulders, as hard as black iron.

"Damn it..." Watching this, Yetos gave a bitter sigh. The last trace of strength left his hand, his legs buckled, and he lost his balance, falling from the Snake King's head.

"Knight Commander!" Fortunately, the agile Aikimu reacted quickly and caught him just before he landed facing the night sky on ground littered with diamond-shaped spikes and broken bones.

William and Xibizete stepped over, concern on their faces. "Knight Commander, are you all right?"

Yetos looked at them and raised a trembling hand, his voice faint and feeble. "Retreat... hurry and retreat. It's about... about to advance."

Even he had not expected that blocking its elemental energy with everything he had-even staking his life on it-would still fail to stop the Yellow Sand Diamondback Snake King's advancement. It seemed the creature had already possessed the foundation to advance a year or two ago. Only today, after finding this chance to replenish itself with a vast amount of food, had it finally committed to completing that step in one push.

At the thought of a tier-three Yellow Sand Diamondback Snake, comparable to an Elementalist in the Return to Truth Realm, all three men grew even more ashen. Helplessness and fear seemed to fill their eyes.

"I'm afraid nowhere in Sand City will have a peaceful night tonight," Aikimu said through gritted teeth.

"Xibizete, I'm leaving the difficult task of escorting the Knight Commander to safety to you." William sounded as feeble as an old man giving his last wishes.

"Don't try to be a hero. Hurry up and leave with us." Xibizete put away his greatsword and supported Yetos by the shoulder, ready to move.

William shook his head. "No, I can't leave. Don't forget how many knights are still at the camp. Almost all of them are fast asleep in bed. I have to warn them again."

"Go... that's... an order." After Yetos spoke, his lips pale as jade, he finally lost his grip on consciousness. The swelling darkness filled his vision completely, and he passed out.

At those words, William's tense expression eased. He took Yetos's other arm, pushed off the ground, and ran forward.

Kanni and Ma Linya instinctively followed, but before they had run a hundred paces, they realized something was wrong and both looked back.

Zeng Mu stood alone before the Snake King, utterly motionless, as though he had lost consciousness.

"Nameless! What are you standing there for? Hurry over here!"

"Have you been scared senseless?" the two shouted.

Zeng Mu seemed not to hear them. His entire attention was fixed on the elemental mark above the Snake King's crimson diamond-shaped spike.

Fine strands of blue-green light surrounded the slowly rotating golden mark. They were clearly the last traces of elemental energy Yetos had left to buy them time to escape. Once that final remnant was exhausted, the ripples of energy unleashed by the golden pillar of light would easily destroy everything in the square.

Xibizete stopped and turned back, shouting anxiously, "Kid, what are you doing? Hurry up and follow us! There's no time!"

Zeng Mu remained unmoved. As though answering some summons, he slowly raised his hand and lowered his fingertip toward the rotating golden elemental mark.

The instant his fingertip touched the golden mark, an incomparable heat engulfed him, as though volcanic lava had splashed over his body. Pain could no longer describe the sensation.

His breathing stopped, and the whole world fell silent. Every hair, every cell was breaking apart, crying out helplessly at that irreversible tragedy. Hearing, sight, smell, touch, sensation-all vanished. His surroundings became a black ocean that swallowed him. This was everything Zeng Mu endured at that moment.

That cold, black ocean did not last long before a barely perceptible black light sent ripples through it, like a pebble falling into water. The light came from the teardrop-shaped Blackstone Necklace around Zeng Mu's neck.

The ripples spread and enveloped his entire body. At once, every sense and perception returned. In his hazy vision, the blurred golden mass of light contracted into a pair of golden eyes. Their pupils flickered as they stared straight at him with vicious malice, sending a shiver through him.

Only then did he look at his raised finger. There, the Snake King's golden elemental mark had stopped rotating, and the number of lines on it had fallen by half.

"What's going on?" Zeng Mu murmured instinctively.

An elemental mark symbolized elemental energy, its outward form reflecting what lay within. Damage to the mark meant that elemental power would weaken or even dissipate, until the body could no longer draw that energy from the world. Whether an Elementalist or an Elemental Beast, its once-powerful body would immediately plummet to its weakest state, becoming no different from an ordinary person, bird, or animal.

"Hm? That guy..." Aikimu and the others had also noticed the reduced number of lines in the golden mark.

Watching this, Ma Linya, who knew the most about Elemental Beasts among them, murmured, "It looks like it failed to advance? But the pillar of light still hasn't-!"

Whoosh! Before she could finish, a boom rang out, and the golden light pouring from the Snake King suddenly shrank. The golden pillar that had pierced the clouds weakened and shortened, disappearing completely within a few blinks. Only the Yellow Sand Diamondback Snake King's head retained a lingering brilliance. Its scales dulled and vanished into the darkness, no longer giving off even a trace of light.

"Hiss! Hiss!" The disappearance of the pillar made the Yellow Sand Diamondback Snake King suddenly rear its head toward the sky. Furious hisses crashed down over Zeng Mu below, and amid those raging waves of sound, he heard madness and hatred.

With a rush of air, the Snake King's gleaming head, as large as a stone house, dropped. It fell as abruptly and swiftly as a deflating balloon, catching the distant onlookers completely off guard.

"Watch out!" Ma Linya and Kanni shouted in unison.

The head fell so fast that it took only the blink of an eye. An ordinary person would instinctively have shut their eyes, their body freezing before they could react. But to Zeng Mu now, that single frame before his eyes seemed to slow without limit.

His arm flicked, an afterimage flashed behind his back, and his Bronze Sword left its sheath with a hiss, sweeping upward like a shining crescent moon.

Had Yetos been awake to see this, he would surely have lost his composure and cursed, "Idiot! You have legs, so run! Why throw your life away?"

An Elemental Beast's body was so powerful that even the elemental energy condensed by an Elementalist could not defeat it in a single blow. Ordinary iron swords, spears, and halberds could not harm it at all. Even treasured blades sharp enough to slice through iron or sever a hair blown against their edge could only inflict some injury on its weak points.

A dog had a copper head, iron bones, and a soft waist; a bird had an iron beak, sharp claws, and a barrel belly; a snake's fatal weakness lay seven inches below its head.

Had Zeng Mu attacked the Snake King's vital point, the quality of his Bronze Sword would have given him a good chance of wounding it and escaping. But even he did not realize that the Yellow Sand Diamondback Snake King's head was the hardest part of its entire body. Against it, the fine sword in his hand, capable of slicing through tangled hemp in one stroke, was like an egg thrown against a rock or a toothpick driven into a wall.

In Zeng Mu's eyes, the flashing crescent cut in at an extraordinarily slow pace. The Snake King's rock-hard golden eyes were now as soft as silken tofu, unable to slow the bronze blade in the slightest.

At that moment, the deathly look on Zeng Mu's face vanished, replaced by a firm confidence. He could feel the elemental fluctuations flowing from the blade into his palm. They had become so weak that they could not possibly harm him at all.

Its elemental mark is damaged. That was the thought in Zeng Mu's mind.

Swish! The bronze blade swept through the night, trailing an arc of golden light that sprayed through the air. The enormous, rope-like body went still, helplessly accepting what followed like an ordinary creature.

Sword shadows flashed and sharp light danced, too dazzling to follow. Zeng Mu slashed at the two enormous eyes again and again, like a butcher whose skill came from practice alone. He could no longer feel his breathing. His whole being entered a state of flow, completely consumed by the slaughter.

Suddenly, with a swish, the Bronze Sword returned to its sheath. Zeng Mu stood straight, then took a few leisurely steps aside.

The Yellow Sand Diamondback Snake King, frozen in midair like a stone statue, suddenly moved. Its golden eyes shifted slightly, then dimmed as several black lines appeared within them. Before the distant onlookers could examine them closely, they watched in shock as the golden eyes shattered and fell to the ground with golden liquid, exposing two deep sockets filled with red flesh.

Boom! The Snake King's head crashed to the ground. A small patch of scales actually slipped free of its body and fell away. Proportionally, that spot was seven inches below its head-the vital point lay a full seven meters down.

With a swish, the bronze blade stabbed into the exposed red flesh at that vital point. Blood spurted out with a wet sound, staining Zeng Mu's face red.

"Whew..." He let out a deep sigh, as though the invisible stone weighing on his head had finally settled safely to the ground.

He casually raised his hand to retrieve the sword, but it would not come out. Perhaps the bronze blade had gone too deep, deep enough to catch firmly among the snake's bones and hooked teeth.

Zeng Mu added his other hand, braced his waist and legs together, and pulled with all his strength. Only then did the bronze blade begin to rise slowly.

The sword felt much heavier as it rose, but Zeng Mu sensed that this was not weight spread across the whole blade. It was concentrated at the tip, like a fishing line with something hooked on the end.

He gave a sharp tug and pulled the bronze blade free. At the same time, a round object resembling a candle flame came out with it and drifted to the ground. Invisible currents of air spiraled outward, stirring his hair.

Zeng Mu stared at the thing in bewilderment, unable to make sense of it.

In the distance, fire seemed to burn in the others' eyes. Ma Linya was especially excited: both her earlobes reddened, and her chest rose and fell with her rapid breathing.

"Elemental Source!" she cried.