Chapter 243
Ainoru Xiya brandished her longbow, sending a wave of green life energy cascading over the plants before Ye Bai. The mutated flora surged forward, empowered once more, while she deftly retreated, casting restoration and purification spells upon herself to counter the damage inflicted by the mental plague.
The challenge with humanoid BOSSes lies in their agility and combat awareness, making them far more formidable than their monstrous counterparts. This was especially true for a being of divine caliber.
The enhanced plants closed in on Ye Bai, and she swiftly unleashed her scythe of death, sending a flurry of crimson crescent blades slicing through the vegetation.
Breaking through a tangle of leaves and branches, Ye Bai launched herself toward Ainoru Xiya, intent on pursuing her.
From their earlier skirmish, she realized that Ainoru Xiya did not possess the full strength of a typical divine being. Supporting the entire Emerald Dream had drained her of the ability to cast other powerful life and poison spells, limiting her to the capabilities of a magical archer.
“Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!”
Ainoru Xiya reappeared, unleashing a barrage of arrows at Ye Bai. At that moment, Ye Bai felt a quarter of her health bar dwindle, though it was quickly regenerating.
This was the second challenge posed by the elven queen: within this domain, she enjoyed an extensive health pool and various restorative and protective buffs from the Tree of Life.
‘-2113’, ‘-2332’, ‘1988’, ‘2133’
Ye Bai braced herself against the onslaught of high damage, leveling up in the process. She fought like a melee warrior, striving to close the distance between herself and Ainoru Xiya.
Against such an enemy, a war of attrition was futile; she needed to unleash her most potent single-target legendary spell, but timing was crucial.
As Ainoru Xiya commanded the plants to form a trap, Ye Bai activated her Bone Domain.
A pale field spread from her feet, rapidly expanding to dispel the activated plants on the ground and enveloping Ainoru Xiya, who had drawn closer.
However, this time, the Bone Domain's range was limited, far less than when she had battled in the City of White Night against the player army. It wasn’t that Ye Bai had restrained her power; rather, the Emerald Dream imposed significant restrictions on the Bone Domain's existence.
Once ensnared in the Bone Domain, countless semi-ethereal hands of the dead emerged from the ground, blocking Ainoru Xiya’s path. She could only fend them off with her bow.
The magic that had once animated the plants and the power within her arrows dissipated under the Bone Domain's anti-magic effect.
Layer upon layer of ghostly bones piled up, forming a prison that closed in on Ainoru Xiya, visibly draining her health.
Seeing this, Ye Bai's eyes brightened. If she could defeat the elven queen with necromantic magic, it would be ideal.
But in the next moment, a sharp crack echoed.
The bone prison shattered, and a long-anticipated blood-red arrow shot forth, smashing through the cage and hurtling toward Ye Bai.
Ye Bai's pupils constricted; this was an arrow marked with hatred.
The red arrow struck the ground, vanishing without a trace.
In a split second, Ye Bai switched her Death Codex for the Snowy Sword, using a Breakpoint Leap to evade the attack.
With her long-anticipated shot gone awry, Ainoru Xiya instinctively tightened her grip on the longbow, searching for Ye Bai’s location once more.
In that fleeting thought, Ye Bai’s figure materialized before her, no more than ten meters away.
In that moment of eye contact, Ye Bai’s dark pupils vanished, replaced by pure gray.
【Petrifying Gaze】!
Instantly, Ainoru Xiya's eyes widened in fury: “Purgatory!”
With that exclamation and the evident shift in the elven queen's expression, Ye Bai suddenly realized where the elusive aura of Purgatory she had been trying to connect with originated.
Previously, Ye Bai had been puzzled; she thought her Purgatory title effect was opposed to Purgatory itself, and it couldn’t possibly be the true name of the demon Asirio that she had grasped—she was not in a contract with the demon but had merely acquired its true name, which belonged to ‘knowledge’. The demon’s essence was still imprisoned in the City of White Night.
Just as a paper figure, as a form of information, could not enter the Emerald Dream, a third-tier demon’s status was far from sufficient to infect the aura with its essence.
Now, Ye Bai finally understood.
The Purgatory aura surrounding her was derived from the Serpent Demon Lord’s 【Petrifying Gaze】.
In the past, Ye Bai had thought that using 【Disintegration Return】 was a form of learned simulation. Coupled with her previous success in the real world through the return of the black hole’s mental chains, she suddenly realized that the principle of this ability was far deeper and more wondrous than she had imagined.
It seemed not to be simulation but rather a lossless transfer.
“Crack…”
But it was too late; having only uttered the word "Purgatory," the furious elven queen before her maintained the posture of speaking, yet her entire being was rapidly ‘fading’, transforming into a stunningly beautiful stone statue.
Ainoru Xiya’s health bar was instantly reduced to zero; due to her small size, the effects of Petrifying Gaze were even more lethal.
…Was it over?
In that moment, Ye Bai felt a sense of disorientation. Even a third of the elven queen’s power being so ‘easily’ dealt with was beyond her expectations. If it had been any other player of the same level, they would have died countless times by now.
“Crack, crack…”
The crisp sound startled Ye Bai, and she saw the statue before her shattering into pieces.
So, the elven queen wasn’t dead after all?
However, Ye Bai quickly realized it wasn’t as she had thought, for the sound of shattering did not only come from the queen turned statue but also spread to the surrounding air and ground, with nothing spared.
The entire space before her, like Ainoru Xiya, was fracturing and peeling away like a wall.
“Crack, crack, crack…”
Ye Bai watched as the space around her arm shattered, inflicting an environmental damage of ‘-2211’.
Her figure flickered as she hurriedly retreated, but movement was futile, for the entire environment was collapsing.
“Otophis!”
This space now resembled a shattered mirror, cracks spreading endlessly. Ye Bai felt like a tiny insect, scrambling to find a foothold on the broken ‘mirror’ while searching for Otophis.
Even with her swift evasive maneuvers, Ye Bai could not avoid taking substantial environmental damage.
Golden light erupted continuously: 64, 65… 67. Even with Ainoru Xiya, Ye Bai had not leveled up this many times. Finally, the rate of shattering accelerated, accompanied by a sensation of weightlessness from the collapse.
Ye Bai realized she had lost all footing; she understood that this layer of the dream was crumbling.
In a flash, the Dragon Language Spirit Whistle around her neck glimmered faintly.
【Silver Sanctuary】
Ye Bai transformed into a silver statue, plummeting out of this layer of the dream.
This skill granted immunity to all damage except for soul and mental harm for ten seconds.
During those ten seconds, through a narrow perspective, Ye Bai glimpsed fleeting images that formed the foundation of the mid-layer dream, revealing fragments of the dream before her.
On one fragment, she saw the scene of Purgatory invading the Emerald Forest.
Flames illuminated the entire forest, blood tainted the land, and within the fragment, a pale hand clearly belonging to an elven child clutched a toy-like bow, blood trickling down from the arm.
“Thud…”
Then, a reddish-brown demon foot stomped down, turning the lifeless arm into charred remains.
A larger fragment floated by, revealing Ainoru Xiya clad in battle armor, her face as cold as frost, her deep blue eyes brewing a storm as she gazed at the Purgatory Gate from which the infernal army emerged.
Resolutely, she drew her bow, nocking an arrow made from the branch of the Tree of Life that now rested in Ye Bai’s hands, piercing through layers of space to strike at the Purgatory King, who stood atop the entire infernal army.
**Chapter 165**
The scenes unfolding before her were remnants of the Purgatory invasion that the Emerald Forest had once endured.
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