Chapter 157: Bloody Battle

Even with Greem's current strength, it was not enough to completely restrain Mary.

The blood-colored battle armor Mary summoned around herself blocked the fiery chains, buying her a little room to maneuver.

He was the one who had helped her modify that very blood-colored armor! Now it had turned into an accomplice for Mary to use against him, filling Greem's heart with endless sighs.

Yet no matter how Mary struggled, her slender and tall figure was slowly dragged closer and closer to Greem piece by piece.

The next second, Greem's lava-infused palm, as large as a cattail-leaf fan, grabbed Mary's head. The searing crimson lava instantly burned her skin to shreds, and an indescribable, foul stench of baking flesh suddenly filled the arena.

Even such a cruel torture could not free Mary from Anderson's mental shackles. Barring her pearly white fangs, she made threatening gestures toward Greem, completely ignoring her utterly charred and unrecognizable face as she still crazily bit down on the lava hand.

Feeling the vibrant life struggling desperately in his grasp, Greem knew that with just a little exertion, this once beautiful and precious head would burst in his hand like a shattered watermelon. Then he could free up his hands to deal seriously with the injured Anderson.

Otherwise, if Mary were allowed to rampage unchecked like this, even a minor pawn could become a crucial chip to overturn the battle. Yet to solve this trouble, all it took was a gentle closing of his massive hand!

The gravity of this choice instantly plunged Greem into a dilemma.

However, at that very moment, the raging sea of fire in the distance suddenly choked, and a familiar figure stumbled out from within.

The earlier self-destruction of the magic puppet had clearly brought immense physical trauma to Wizard Anderson. Visible to the naked eye, burn marks from the flames covered his entire body, and his face had several missing chunks—clearly the handiwork of those black flying insects.

His left eye had been blown blind, and blood continuously flowed from the pitch-black, hollow socket.

His wizard hat had also been blown away, and a few sparse, withered yellow strands of hair danced in the wind atop his gaunt, shriveled skull. Meanwhile, his sole remaining right eye flashed with a cold and ferocious chill, staring unblinkingly at Greem, radiating a ruthlessness that would persist until death!

This sudden explosion was clearly something external elemental defenses could not withstand. Anderson's robe was blown to shreds, leaving only tattered strips of cloth barely covering his body. His bony chest was covered in bloody gashes of all sizes, with soot and fire marks visible everywhere.

"You're good... You're really good..." Everyone could hear the bitter malice in Anderson's tone. "I didn't expect you to have this trick up your sleeve. Fine... but a mere wizard-grade crystal core isn't enough to kill me. Now it's your turn to die!"

Bracing with towering fury, Anderson raised his right hand high, chanting arcane and obscure wizard spells at the top of his lungs. Countless dark spears rained down toward Greem like a storm.

Greem looked coldly at the overwhelming attacks and muttered to himself, "Three... Two... One, explode!"

The entire enclosed different dimension shook abruptly, and the turbulent spatial fluctuations were even visible to the naked eye. The towering bloody altar emitted a series of cracking sounds, and countless spiderweb-like fine cracks wound their way across the stone walls. Blood-red mist surged from them, just like blood flowing from a wounded human.

That elemental defense lingering around Anderson's body had not completely shattered even from the close-range self-destruction of a wizard-grade crystal core; yet this time, for some unknown reason, it trembled and shattered into pieces.

The close connection between Anderson and the Swamp Tower was suddenly severed!

Wizard Anderson was stunned at first, then realization dawned on him as he roared angrily, "It's Alice! That damned little girl! I'll tear each and every one of you to pieces, turn you into the ugliest and most evil stitched corpses, and bind your souls inside them forever... You all deserve to die..."

Greem, transformed into a Fiery Lord, smiled slightly and said, "You should go deal with her first!"

As soon as he finished speaking, a red flash of light gleamed in Greem's hand. A bizarre spell sank into Mary's head, and then he casually swung her like a club and smashed her toward Anderson.

This seemed like a signal, and a new battle erupted instantly!

The Flame Lord strode with heavy steps toward Anderson, and mid-charge, a barrage of lava fireballs was hurled crazily at his opponent. Meanwhile, Greem concealed himself behind, his large hand opening as the voodoo grimoire hanging from his waist automatically materialized in his hand.

As the spellbook opened automatically, page after page flipped rapidly with a rustling sound. Whenever the parchment stopped at a certain position, a violent fire-type spell would be triggered and strike fiercely at Anderson.

The pages kept turning, and fire-type spells kept triggering; Wizard Anderson's surroundings were instantly swallowed by towering, surging flames.

Flame Storm!
Consecutive Fireballs!
Blazing Fire Pillar!
Ignition!
Venomous Flame!
...

One violent fire-type spell after another almost transformed that patch of heaven and earth into a towering sea of fire, mixed with physical attacks and toxic assaults that were utterly irresistible.

Yet all of this collided head-on with the shattering sonic waves unleashed by Anderson, and the two sides entered a fierce deadlock in the center of the arena. The splashing elemental turbulence scoured everything within the arena, turning them all into tiny, indistinguishable residues to the naked eye, before wildly scattering them to the distant edges of the enclosed space.

Anderson roared once more as he charged out of the sea of fire. The temporary wind barrier he had hastily erected around himself was battered to pieces, resulting in a few more wounds on his body. However, within his ethereal grip, Anderson clutched a tattered human body covered in blood and flesh, with barely any intact skin remaining across the entire form.

It seemed he had just used Mary's body as a shield to barely survive the combined onslaught of Greem and the Flame Lord. Without the continuous energy infusion from the Swamp Tower, Anderson lost his protective elemental defense. In a two-on-one situation, his meager combat experience and spellcasting techniques were simply not worth mentioning.

The subsequent battle rapidly escalated into a white-hot phase!

Anderson soared into the sky once more, riding the endless winds to glide swiftly above, bombarding Greem with large-scale tornado storms, sonic blasts, dark dragon spears, and wind blades. Meanwhile, Greem and the Flame Lord pursued closely behind him, retaliating with even more violent fire-core melt-explosions, lava fireballs, and flame storms.

Spells with intensely violent elemental fluctuations streaked across the sky, either exploding into fireworks against the opponent's external defenses or missing their mark to strike the edges of the enclosed space, turning those areas into seas of fire or wind vortices.

Crouching on the ground and hugging his head with his hands, the goblin Kabi relied on invisibility to hide cautiously in the distance. Watching the terrifying spells sporadically streak just above his head, the fear in his heart reached its absolute limit. Every fireball that exploded not far away kicked up countless mud and sand particles, pelting his body black and blue.

Yet Kabi paid no heed to this, keeping his eyes wide open as he frantically tried to discern which spell might land directly on his head.

"Great Goblin God, please bless me so that no spells fall on my head!"

The enclosed space looked quite large, but it could not withstand the unbridled devastation of two wizards and one wizard-grade magic puppet. Furthermore, the deity goblin Kabi prayed to was clearly not a local god of the wizarding world; thus, no matter how wildly it prayed, a lava fireball dragging thick black smoke came straight toward it.

"Damn it! I hope you didn't lie to me..."

Crying out in terror, Kabi pulled a bizarre sphere from his bosom and slammed it fiercely onto the ground beneath his feet.

With a loud, explosive bang, a huge deep pit five meters in diameter was blasted into the ground of the different dimension, surrounded by spiderweb-like cracks along the outer edge of the pit. Violent flame currents and a sea of fire instantly swept through every inch of the surrounding space.

Under this intensity of elemental attack, even a quasi-wizard would find it difficult to protect themselves, let alone apprentices below the quasi-wizard rank who had zero chance of survival. Yet when the terrifying elemental detonation slowly subsided, a transparent energy barrier unexpectedly appeared in the deep pit, and goblin Kabi was curled up inside with a pale face, watching fireworks bloom brilliantly all around.

The duration of the energy barrier was not long, but it safely allowed him to evade that round of "stray bullet" attacks.

Patting himself and feeling no injuries, Kabi pinched his thigh hard, feeling a pain so sharp it made him leap into the air.

"Gazlowe, I love you! I shouldn't have doubted you..."

Regarding this Goblin-improved Type III Full-Coverage Energy Deflection Protective Field, goblin Kabi no longer held the slightest doubt. Although every activation consumed ten magic crystals, no amount of magic crystals could compare to the preciousness of his own life!

Kabi instantly pulled two goose-egg-sized energy shield generators from his bosom, looked at the fiercely contested core battlefield in the distance, and flashed a toothy, foolish smile. "Come on, come on, this daddy isn't afraid anymore..."

Just moments ago, he had been terrified of the stray bullets in the sky, but at this very moment, he was actually hoping for something to hit him so he could test out the treasure in his hands once more!

One had to admit, after all that relentless nagging and pestering over this period, goblin Kabi had indeed managed to scavenge some bizarre things from that goblin engineer Gazlowe. Although these items sounded high-end and possessed unimaginable magical abilities, everyone who had ever dealt with goblins knew one thing: they were amazing, but extremely unstable!

Sure enough, as Kabi eagerly prepared to experience this magical energy protective shield a second time, it... it actually exploded. Fortunately, the minor explosion triggered by the energy shield generator blasted Kabi more than ten meters away, just in time to dodge a core-melting fireball; otherwise, Kabi would have lost his life or at least a layer of skin.

Clambering hastily to his feet and looking at the generator remnants melted into liquid iron within the sea of fire, Kabi's legs trembled violently from fright.

"That damned Gazlowe actually sold me counterfeit and substandard products. Just you wait until I get back; I'll see how I settle accounts with you..."

Jumping up and cursing toward the sky, Kabi no longer dared to be arrogant. He cautiously pulled out a magic wand, cast an invisibility spell on himself, and hid once more.