Benji was shocked because he suspected that Leo had lied to him and hadn't told him the truth at all.
Even though he was certain that Leo had lied to him, Benji had no choice but to grit his teeth and continue. Once the plan to open the spatial passage began, there was absolutely no turning back.
The interdimensional altar was like an engine starting up; with time and Leo's continuous chanting, the altar's power increased.
40%
45%
70%
75%
From the initial tremors of the canyon, Benji witnessed firsthand how the entire canyon was completely torn apart, the enormous chasm large enough for his true form to leap into utterly shattered the once sacred land of the Gulu Clan.
The altar recklessly absorbed underground energy, turning the once vibrant canyon into a dead zone with only 75% of its power.
The once fertile land, which nourished vast tracts of lush vegetation, has now been drained of its life force and has withered and died, with the crackling and popping sounds of the dry, crumbling grass and trees never ceasing.
The land is desertifying; without the nourishment of energy, it will become a dead land that even undead creatures would not want to stay in.
The desertification of the land is like a worm encroaching on the land, gradually expanding from the initial changes only below the altar to an extent that it has now grown by more than ten meters.
This small desert seemed to have a life of its own, trembling and rolling, dragging all the vegetation it touched into the depths of the desert. No sound could be heard, only the rolling of the desert could be seen, and soon a pile of withered vegetation was turned up.
Its energy was drained, leaving only a corpse; all its energy had been absorbed into the altar.
If the altar's reckless absorption of the earth's energy was terrifying, then the hurricane sweeping through the entire Gloomy Forest was utterly destructive.
The altar, like an insatiable man, opened its bottomless maw and greedily sucked up the Gloomy Forest, sparing no energy whatsoever, licking it clean and stuffing it into its belly.
Yesterday, Benji absorbed energy to tear open a spatial rift and allowed Leo to sneak over, it directly caused a huge energy funnel, which already made many Gulu very worried.
Today, the altar directly and forcibly created an energy tornado, greedily swirling up all the energy it could absorb.
The tornado swept across the sky and engulfed the entire Gloomy Forest. Its range was so vast that even Demigod Benji could not perceive its boundaries.
Countless branches and leaves in the Gloomy Forest were blown down by the gale and then swept into the sky, accompanied by countless screams of terror.
Benji could sense countless tiny lives within this terrifying tornado, all natives of the Gloomy Forest, who had been swept into the sky because they couldn't withstand the tornado's suction.
They were in agony, but also exhilarated, because in just a few breaths they were torn apart by the raging tornado, their flesh and blood merging into the tornado and being devoured by the altar bit by bit.
Above, the sunlight seemed to have encountered a black hole, pouring all its rays into the sky, making it appear darker than night, even though it was daytime.
Large swaths of dark clouds gathered in the sky, and as they were torn apart, they churned and spun, growing ever thicker, and the sound of thunder began to rumble.
Benji was utterly panicked. Only three hours had passed, and given the current strange phenomena, it seemed that only the blind and deaf would be unable to see or hear anything within a hundred kilometers.
Given this cataclysmic phenomenon that continues to increase in energy, if it lasts for more than a day, it could destroy half of the entire Gloomy Forest.
Countless lives and towns depend on the Gloomy Forest for survival. Within a day, experts from the Dark Night Clan will surely come to investigate. This is a full day earlier than Leo predicted, that it would take two days to be exposed.
The exposure time was brought forward by a full day...
This isn't how you fool people!
Leo, who was on the altar, was also startled by the strange phenomenon before him. After all, it was his first time presiding over such a large-scale interdimensional altar, so it was normal for him to be unfamiliar with it.
Although Alexander had repeatedly warned him that something was amiss after the altar was activated, and told him to be careful.
Leo felt the same way as Benji at this moment; he also wanted to curse. You can't just fool people like this!
Is this a bit unusual?
The energy fluctuations here are probably perceptible throughout the entire plane.
But once the cross-sector connectivity plan begins, it's truly impossible to stop.
Leo felt as if he were glued to the altar, his hands gripping the activation staff tightly, his magical power surging into it like a flood.
He now understood why the Purple Flame Stigmata Wizard had prepared so many potions for him, all of which were for restoring mana—because they already knew how staggering the mana consumption was for presiding over the altar.
Leo struggled to take deep breaths, but even so, the incantation in his mouth could not be stopped.
Presiding over the altar is entirely about using oneself as the fulcrum and the altar as the lever to mobilize the energy of the Jeft World and connect it to the Wizard World.
It seems that both worlds prepared enormous altars in advance, but in reality, the energy used to connect the two worlds comes from the two worlds themselves. These two altars are merely levers to manipulate this energy.
Benji only saw the altar frantically absorbing the energy of the Jeft World, but what he didn't know was that the amount of energy absorbed was still less than 5% of the altar's activation!
"Gulp"
A shadowy figure shoved a bottle of Black Pearl Potion into Leo's mouth. Leo swallowed the bottle along with the contents; the powerful stomach acid completely corroded the bottle.
The potion took effect, instantly restoring his mana, which had just been depleted. During his apprenticeship, only one-tenth of Black Pearl Potion was needed to fully restore his mana, but now it took a whole bottle.
This was the thirty-seventh bottle Leo had drunk. The altar's activation power had reached 91%, close to its limit. It would deplete all of Leo's magical power in ten minutes.
But the altar's charging is only at 10.2%!!!
Benji, his heart pounding in his chest in the desert beneath the altar, watched as the altar slowly charged, as the desert expanded, and as the strange phenomena in the sky grew stronger.
The only good news was that they were in the eye of the tornado and hadn't been hit by the hurricane. Thunder roared and lightning flashed, and torrential rain poured down, but before the rain could fall, it was torn apart by the raging tornado.
The tornadoes that were originally on land instantly transformed into waterspouts that could only appear on the sea, relentlessly ravaging the Gloomy Forest with even more ferocious power.
Fueled by the gale, countless water droplets, like bullets, riddled the Gloomy Forest with holes.
In the end, the only safe place in the entire Gloomy Forest turned out to be the central area, where the altar was located.
The original ambush area of the Gulu Clan had long been cancelled. Now they are all lying in ambush close to the waterspout, since no living being would be willing to go in and ambush when faced with a raging waterspout.
No one had come in to check the situation yet. With every second that passed and every breath he took, Benji felt grateful for the blessings of the creator god.
It would be wonderful if things could stay this way!
But the time in life when good things happen and one's wishes come true is always very rare. Just as Benji was thanking the God of Creation for his favor, he sensed a powerful energy breaking through the waterspout and arriving deep in the Gloomy Forest.
When he broke through the waterspout and stepped into the desert covered in water vapor, he was stunned by what he saw.
The visitor was a Level 1 life form.
They should have been exploring the edge of the Gloomy Forest when they encountered the anomaly and came in to investigate. After all, such a large energy fluctuation was no small matter; it might even be some world-class treasure.
Before the level one Dark Knight could say anything, he was surrounded by several level one Gulu when he saw that the depths of the Gloomy Forest, once known as the Pearl of Jeft, had turned into a desert.
Leo also witnessed the battle at the edge of the desert; in an instant, the level one Dark Night People who had come in to investigate was instantly killed.
If he were to face ten opponents of equal skill, he would be lucky to survive even a single breath.
Although the news hadn't leaked, Leo and Benji's hearts sank simultaneously. The original plan was to expose them on the second night, and now it was only halfway through the first day.
With the first one here, how far behind will others come to check on the situation?
Not far away, less than ten minutes after the first Dark Night People died, the second Dark Night People broke in.
Nothing has changed except for adding a corpse to the desert.
But this bad situation made Benji's expression even worse.
Thousands of the Dark Night Clan are active in the Gloomy Forest year-round; if they were to come and check the situation one by one, they would be overwhelmed with work.
"Tell all the native life of the Gloomy Forest my command: exterminate all the Dark Night Clan within the Gloomy Forest."
"Tell them that these Dark Night Clan are planning to attack our Gloomy Forest and plunder our wealth, and that all the Dark Night Clan members in the forest are spies."
"For our forest, for our home, kill all those Dark Night Clan who try to seize our forest!"
"Tell them that killing a Dark Night People will earn them at least one energy crystal, ten for Saint, and fifty for Demigod. This is the promise I, the Demigod Benji, the Lord of Gloom, have given them."
The two intrusions by the men of the night served as a wake-up call for Benji; he could no longer afford to be passively defensive and had to mobilize his forces to begin guarding the secrets of this place.
As long as the secret isn't exposed, every minute counts.
As for those energy crystals, they'll be readily available as long as the wizard descends!
As the only Demigod in the Gloomy Forest, Benji's words are law and cannot be disobeyed. Now he's even rewarding people with so many energy crystals. What's killing a few Dark Night People compared to that? He's killed plenty of them on a regular basis.
As expected, no one from the night dared to enter in the following time; they were all dealt with by the enraged beast tide at the edge of the Gloomy Forest.
This method can only treat the symptoms, not the root cause. Leo knew this, and so did Benji, but everything they were doing now was just to buy time.