A savage aura raged. The Furious Giant, the second tier of bloodline power Gru had unleashed, wore a hideous expression, his rage maxed out, as though he might go berserk and start slaughtering at any moment.
Though Nox was unafraid, he still carefully tossed Leo and Ice Woman far beyond the battlefield.
These two important Wizard Apprentices could not be allowed to die from the shock waves of the battle.
"Roar!"
A roar erupted. The Furious Giant stepped through the air, about to close in on Nox in an instant. Once this ten-meter giant got within striking distance, even a person forged from steel would be torn apart.
Among the known worlds, no world's living creatures dared let a Body Refinement Wizard get close. The lives of countless worlds had long since taught everyone how terrifying a Body Refinement Wizard was at close quarters.
Nox's expression grew grave. He stamped his staff down in midair, his aura erupting in an instant as an imposing pressure suddenly exploded outward.
"Burst!"
With a low shout, an enormous air wave burst from Nox's body. Visible to the naked eye, it warped the light and distorted the view, striking the Furious Giant head-on.
"Roar!"
The Furious Giant roared, his brutal aura sweeping outward. Nox was right before his eyes, only a step away, yet he could never get any closer.
The air shock wave struck his body, making every organ and cell vibrate at high frequency and directly dispersing the strength contained within his powerful flesh.
The Furious Giant seemed to be enduring unimaginable pain. The air wave actually pinned him in midair.
The Furious Giant exerted himself, his terrifying hands attacking wildly as though trying to tear the air wave apart. But Nox stamped his staff down again, sending another air wave straight into the Furious Giant.
"Roar!"
The Furious Giant let out a furious, defiant roar. His enormous feet stamped hard into the air as though into solid ground, producing deafening sonic booms. Yet he still could not withstand the combined assault of the two air waves and was blasted away in an instant.
Hundreds of meters away, the Furious Giant tumbled before regaining his footing, his scarlet eyes fixed on Nox. His body was beyond imagination and had suffered no injury at all, but he could not tolerate the humiliation of being blasted away in an instant.
He took great, deep breaths, breathing so forcefully that gales whipped up around his mouth. His muscles abruptly swelled, his aura surging another notch. Light flashed across his knotted muscles, as though his strength had taken physical form.
This was the Furious Giant. Every burst of anger stimulated his body's potential, making him fiercer the longer he fought.
With a boom, the Furious Giant smashed through the air, instantly closing to within a hundred meters of Nox. His savage fists rained down.
Fist shadows formed from air instantly engulfed Nox. If his attention slipped for even an instant, these fist shadows, packed with tremendous force, could tear him apart.
This was no witchcraft, merely attacks casually generated by strength pushed to its utmost limits!!!
Yet Nox remained composed in the face of danger, as though he did not see the fist shadows filling the sky. His lips moved, rapidly spilling out an inaudible incantation. As the Furious Giant's fist shadows came within three meters of him, they instantly exploded into dust.
A sturdy barrier surrounded Nox, protecting him securely.
Leo and Ice Woman watched the battlefield from over a thousand meters away. Both were so shaken by this fierce battle that they could not recover for a long time.
Even a thousand meters from the fighting, they were still affected by the gales and tremors stirred up by its shock waves.
With their entire bodies bound and only their heads exposed, they could do nothing but let the wind batter them.
Gru's roars filled their ears. Leo felt his head buzzing. He had experienced Gru's loud voice before, but he had never expected it to be this loud. Even a thousand meters away, it nearly deafened him.
The shock waves from Gru and Nox's battle instantly leveled the surrounding terrain. The nearby stretch of forest looked as though heavy artillery had bombarded it repeatedly, with most of its trees and rocks pulverized.
The volcano where Leo had cultivated had originally been on the verge of erupting again from the shock waves. Now it had simply been flattened, its entire crater shaken into collapse. If not for the black smoke rising from it, no one could have told that a volcano stood here.
It could no longer be called a volcano. This place was almost a sinkhole now. What mountain was left?
The Furious Giant's countless fist shadows continued attacking Nox, but even Leo, who could not see the battlefield clearly, knew these attacks were having no effect on him at all. His defenses were rock-solid.
Whenever the Furious Giant tried to seize an opening to approach, Nox's air waves instantly blasted him away. Unable to get close, the Furious Giant could not hurt Nox at all.
Nox was also looking for opportunities to attack the Furious Giant, but his attacks struck the giant with repeated clangs, like a hammer striking an anvil, without hurting him in the slightest.
Though the Furious Giant was weaker than Nox, Nox also found it difficult to injure him. For the moment, the two had actually reached a stalemate.
Ten breaths.
There were still ten breaths until the academy reinforcements Ice Woman had mentioned arrived.
Nox and the Furious Giant remained locked in battle. Leo could do nothing, however anxious he was watching them. With his strength, he could only wait passively.
But this situation was already far better than being taken away by Nox.
Leo glanced at Ice Woman, who was bound beside him. She remained expressionless, as though everything was under control. Leo even wondered whether she would so much as frown if the world ended, but that did not change how weak her aura was.
To protect him, Ice Woman had blocked two casual strikes from Nox, far exceeding her limits. She had overtaxed her body and suffered serious injuries.
"I still haven't thanked you for protecting me all this time. And now you've even been injured because of me," Leo said apologetically.
Ice Woman remained as expressionless as ice, not even blinking at Leo's apology. "There is no need to apologize. This has nothing to do with you. Protecting you is simply my mission. Nothing more."
"All right, but I still want to thank you."
"As you wish."
Ice Woman looked utterly unapproachable. She simply gazed at the distant battlefield, somewhat lost in thought. There was no telling what she was thinking.
Seeing Ice Woman like this, Leo stopped inviting a rebuff and tried to force his restraints open. All that did was make the elementally enchanted earthen chains bind him even tighter.
Leo simply lay flat!
"Roar!"
Seeing that he could not defeat Nox, the Furious Giant's rage rose again. He stretched out a palm larger than a person, and an enormous battle-axe over fifteen meters long appeared in his hand.
Looking at that enormous axe, which seemed fit only for a god, Leo instantly thought of the giant anchor aboard the ocean-going ship!
Badass!
Absolutely oozing badassery!
A ten-meter giant wielding a fifteen-meter axe—Leo suspected that if Gru appeared like this in some small indigenous world, he could easily be taken for a creator god!
Armed, the Furious Giant was completely different from before, his killing intent even stronger. A single swing unleashed a savage hurricane that instantly tore a trench through the ground. With a source of water, that trench could have served as a riverbed.
Eight breaths remained.
There were still eight breaths until the reinforcements Ice Woman had mentioned arrived.
This time, the Furious Giant charged again with the enormous axe in hand. The howling air stirred up by his massive figure echoed throughout the sky, his savage aura seemingly about to blast the heavens apart.
This time, Nox did not remain calmly in place as before. Instead, he moved swiftly, choosing to put distance between himself and the Furious Giant. Points of faint light appeared beneath his feet as he left trails of afterimages in the air, his movements flowing and elegant.
He constantly dodged the enormous axe in the Furious Giant's hands, waving his staff again and again. Air waves powerful enough to flatten mountains blasted out as though they cost him nothing!
It seemed the axe-wielding Furious Giant was putting considerable pressure on him too!
Nox's flight drove the Furious Giant mad. He was clearly slower than Nox, and even when he swung his enormous axe to send hundreds of hurricanes bombarding Nox, Nox easily dodged them all.
Six breaths.
Leo was no longer anxious at all. Gru and Nox's battle looked set to continue for a long time, more than enough for Purple Flame Academy's reinforcements to arrive.
He could properly appreciate a battle between high-level wizards. If he could comprehend and understand even a little of it, that would be enough for him to make progress.
The battle in the sky continued. There was no telling how many circuits the two figures had fought through. They moved too fast, exchanging blows many times every second.
At some point, lines of light began tracing out beneath Nox's feet. At first, they attracted little attention and seemed to be nothing more than his magical power leaking out. But as Nox continued dodging, the faint lights beneath his feet, which no one had originally noticed, were now all connected by those lines.
The lines linked the faint points, forming the outline of an enormous magic array in the sky in the blink of an eye!
"This is bad! It's a Teleportation Witch Array!"
Even someone with Leo's limited knowledge could tell that the witch array Nox had drawn with his feet was a Teleportation Witch Array. Clearly, it had already reached the final, critical stage of formation.
The Furious Giant stopped pursuing Nox and instead raised his enormous axe, hacking wildly at the nodes of the Teleportation Witch Array. Yet the moment he shattered a faint point, a new one immediately appeared.
"Hehehe, only noticing now? Body Refinement Wizards really are simple-minded. Too late."
Accompanied by Nox's mocking laughter, the enormous witch array, over a hundred meters in diameter, suddenly erupted with powerful spatial force. Its aura was so strong that it instantly sent the Furious Giant flying.
Amid the spatial distortion, an aura different from those on the battlefield came through!
A wizard was on the other side of the Teleportation Witch Array and would be able to teleport over at any moment!
"Roar!"
Faced with Nox's provocation, the Furious Giant's rage surged again, his aura boiling. His enormous ten-meter frame instantly swelled to eleven meters, and his muscles, swollen to their limits, even made terrifying banging sounds.
Nox's actions sent the Furious Giant completely berserk!
His enormous hand stretched out, and a small Teleportation Witch Array appeared in it, utterly tiny compared with Nox's hundred-meter spatial teleportation array.
But no one would underestimate a Teleportation Witch Array.
No one could be certain what level the wizard on the other side of a teleportation array was!!!