End of the Magic Era

Xiuban swung Carnage and clashed heavily with the huge grinding wheel. As sparks flew about in all directions, the powerful Xiuban groaned and was forced to take four steps back before stopping.

Meanwhile, another huge grinding wheel followed the first one and sliced towards Lin Yun.

Lin Yun frowned, and Reina took the initiative to act. She breathed out, and two ice fragments flew out, slicing at the joints of the mechanical arms.

Ice started spreading from the joints in an instant, and the originally fiercely moving arms quickly stiffened.

The two mechanical arms kept shaking, as if they were trying to struggle free in order to keep attacking.

Lin Yun was still frowning, as he yet again failed to notice any traps. These two mechanical arms were extremely powerful, and even Xiuban wasn’t able to destroy them, but their function was to polish puppet components… They weren’t used for battle.

Yet, these two mechanical arms had sliced at them with the grinding wheels. Grasping the timing and angle needed for a surprise attack was something a combat puppet could do, but it was beyond the capabilities of two mechanical arms designed for assembly.

Lin Yun looked at these two arms for a long time before using a crystal pen to write numerous runes onto them and thoroughly severing the arms’ energy supply. This action finally stopped the two shaking mechanical arms.

After leaving the room, Lin Yun threw a glance back while feeling that this matter was too strange. It felt as if there was some unknown activation method that he couldn’t discover, or maybe even something controlling the place. They were always ambushed at some unexpected places.

They continued down the passage again, until Lin Yun suddenly stopped. He had lost connection to a Mage Eye without having any time to see anything. He didn’t know what had destroyed it.

And it spread like a chain reaction. He lost contact with the eight Mage Eyes that had been spread ahead of them, and barely managed to see a scene flash before it all disappeared.

When that Mage Eye entered an open room, the door suddenly closed, and some device able to create a burning flame suddenly shot a Fire Bolt and destroyed the eye.

Lin Yun frowned and started pondering. The other mage eyes had also entered different rooms before he lost contact, so he assumed that they had also been destroyed.

“Prepare for battle,” Lin Yun instructed in a deep voice, his Draconic Staff already shining brightly.

They’d just reached the center of an intersection when suddenly, fierce mana fluctuations spread from all directions.

Several dozen Fire Bolts rushed over at Lin Yun’s group from all four directions. Moreover, this passage was only seven meters wide, giving them no space to dodge.

Lin Yun waved his Draconic Staff and a light flickered as Askrim Gates rose up around their group, boxing them in and blocking the Fire Bolts.

Reina also chanted in Draconic, causing transparent Ice Walls to rise up just behind the Askrim Gates and make them also transparent, allowing everyone to see what was happening.

Through these transparent walls, everyone could see four teams of alchemy puppets that seemed to know their whereabouts attacking them in a pincer attack. There were ten puppets lined up in each direction, raising arms enchanted with numerous Fire Bolts.

Several dozen Fire Bolts would be shot towards them from all directions every second, and it only took two seconds for Lin Yun’s Askrim Gates to evaporate from all the firepower.

Lin Yun frowned, his Draconic Staff flickering as more Askrim Gates rose up, firmly protecting everyone within.

The spells enchanted on these puppets were very formidable, and they were also casting fast, low-consumption Fire Bolts. In such a narrow place, the Fire Bolts could display their full power while also being very efficient.

Other spells might have been stronger, but they would have higher consumption and wouldn’t be able to keep up as much pressure.

It looked like the puppets were prepared to forcibly keep them here, killing them through attrition.

Some victims might have run out of mana after half an hour, suppressed until their deaths.

Slightly weaker people might not even last ten minutes before being hounded to death.

Lin Yun handled the defense while Enderfa and the puppet made their preparations.

Enderfa roused the Ten Thousand Spell Wheel, causing four types of spells to rush out and collide with each other. All the spells mixed together to turn into a terrifying, four-colored Elemental Storm that fiercely tore through one passage.

The numerous Fire Bolts from that side were forcibly suppressed. These puppets were tailored towards attacking, and they didn’t have a single defensive rune. But by relying on Fire Bolts, they could slightly resist the Elemental Storm.

After all, these ten puppets were only level 35, while Enderfa could display the power of a 9th Rank Archmage.

The numerous Fire Bolts formed a glaring beam of light that kept clashing with Enderfa’s Elemental Storm. The resulting mana fluctuations formed tides that continuously rushed away in all directions.

After a few seconds, the ordinary Fire Bolts were no longer able to hold back Enderfa’s Elemental Storm with their numbers. Without any defensive spells, the ten puppets could only rely on their bodies, but that wasn’t enough… They were torn apart after three seconds.

Something similar happened to the side attacked by Lin Yun’s puppet. These puppets that could only use Fire Bolts simply couldn’t resist the spellwave, and they turned into a pile of components after several seconds.

Reina’s fight was the fastest one. Her ice spells had reached an extremely terrifying stage and even a Chill could forcibly extinguish those Fire Bolts. After those puppets were frozen into ice statues, she sent out several dozen Frost Lances to tear them to shreds.

Wagner was in charge of the last side, and although he was filled with regret, lazing around was impossible. The rain of Fire Bolts fell down relentlessly, and Wagner didn’t believe that this Askrim Gate could keep protecting him.

But his spells couldn’t overcome the Fire Bolts of these puppets. Instead, they were being pushed back.

Lin Yun saw this situation and the huge wheel shadow appeared behind him. A flood of runes poured out of that shadow and instantly transformed into several dozen ice spells that filled the whole passage.

The storm of ice fragments whistled past, and after a second, the Fire Bolts were completely eradicated. After the ice cleared up, it was possible to see that all the puppets had disappeared.

The forty puppets were all torn apart, yet Lin Yun’s expression hadn’t eased up.

Enderfa, Wagner, and Reina all understood. Not only had their route been predicted, but also the time it would take to arrive there. The puppets then mounted a sneak attack, allowing the puppets to maximize their effectiveness.

Lin Yun’s frown intensified. He was completely certain that there was some sort of probing method that he was failing to figure out. The defenses here seemed to have full knowledge of their actions and locations.

These puppets had no defensive runes, and their bodies weren’t very tough. On the contrary, every surface of those puppets had been covered with only one kind of rune and spell.

It was all about Fire Bolts. The carved runes were all tailored to increase the power of the Fire Bolts.

These forty puppets were all specially made to fight in that area, apparently in order to ambush them with perfect timing, despite the fact that Lin Yun hadn’t detected anything tracing them.

They were made to attack from all four sides simultaneously in the narrow passage. Apart from this sort of ideal ambush scenario, these puppets could only be likened to trash. If they fought in the open, even an Archmage could casually tear them apart.

Lin Yun was deeply pondering when Enderfa’s three faces came over.

“Merlin, don’t you feel like we have experienced this before?”

Enderfa’s words sparked a flash of enlightenment in Lin Yun’s eyes.

But before he could quite figure it out, a loud rumble came from that passage.

He raised his head and saw thick pillars continuously falling down at the end of the passage. It took three seconds for the passage to be completely sealed.

A pillar even fell in front of Lin Yun, crashing against the ground with a loud explosion. Runes shone around it, from which numerous patterns spread out. It looked like a gorgeous carpet was covering the entire floor.

The fall of that seven-meter-thick pillar only made the arrays slightly brighter and didn’t seem to damage the ground at all.

It was a powerful enchantment array, and an everlasting one!

Lin Yun recognized the array on the floor with a single glance. With this kind of array, wanting to shatter the ground without having the power of the Heaven Rank was simply impossible.

After touching the pillar in front of him, a cold light flashed in Lin Yun’s eyes.