Eros turned his head to look in the direction he had come from, let out a long breath, and then refocused his gaze on the meat-mountain spirit before him.
The entity was no longer in a hurry. The massive singular eye in the center of its belly watched Eros with leisure, while the thousands of mouths covering its body let out jarring, cackling laughs.
"I don't know where your power comes from, but there is no doubt it is fading. I can feel it—you won't last much longer."
"Your flesh and your noble bloodline will eventually merge with me."
"When that happens, I shall take my time studying the anomalies within your body."
Eros ignored the spirit's mocking laughter. He looked down at his own palm and spoke softly to Barbara: "Let me try one more thing!"
As he spoke, the phantom image of a lush, ancient tree manifested behind him. Taking a deep breath, Eros intoned in a low, heavy voice:
"With blood as the guide, 《Forbidden Spell: Descent of the Tree Realm》!"
As the last syllable left his lips, towering giant trees erupted from the ground. The common spirits still hungering for Eros’s flesh were instantly impaled by the massive roots; their essence became fertilizer, causing the trees to grow even thicker and more robust.
The meat-mountain spirit was also ensnared by countless roots, bound to the spot and unable to move. Seeing itself trapped, the spirit didn't panic, still cackling:
"How long can you restrict me like this? Is your Ling even sufficient?"
It didn't care about being bound because it was certain Eros couldn't kill it. Unless he could completely annihilate its Spirit Worms, it could always restore itself. To truly wipe it out, every single Spirit Worm would have to be killed twelve times over. Otherwise, the scattered spirituality would be enough for it to reform a weaker worm.
In their previous struggle, Eros had exerted all his strength and only managed to kill the worms four times over. Now that he was exhausted, what could he possibly do? The spirit watched him complacently, no longer worried about him escaping its grasp.
Eros made several leaps and landed on the spirit's main head. Looking at the face covered in mouths, a helpless smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
"Humans... sometimes, you just have to go a little mad."
The spirit’s heart tightened; sensing something was wrong, it blurted out, "What are you trying to do?"
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Eros didn't answer. The next second, the spirit felt a sharp pain in its skull as Eros plunged his fist directly into its head. He yanked his hand back, clutching a transparent, writhing worm.
Then, Eros closed his eyes and tossed it into his mouth.
He refused to believe that his body—which could even isolate the power of History—couldn't sever the connection between the spirit and its Spirit Worms.
The meat-mountain let out a harrowing wail, more shrill than any before. But Eros remained unmoved. His hands didn't stop, dragging out Spirit Worms one by one from the creature's head.
The spirit was now in a total state of panic. It could no longer sense the Spirit Worms Eros had swallowed.
"Aren't you afraid of being tainted by the Beyonder contamination within my worms?" the spirit shrieked in terror.
Eros’s movements paused for a microsecond. Noticing this, the spirit scrambled to speak:
"Swallowing my worms will contaminate you with the spiritual brand inside them! You might be able to withstand the pollution of Beyonder power, but the spiritual brand is far stronger—it targets the mind and the soul!"
"They will form another 'Me' within your soul! You are committing suicide! How about this: let me go, and I will leave immediately. I promise not to retaliate, and I’ll let your companions go as well!"
But its words were ineffective. After that brief pause, Eros actually increased his speed.
"Madman! Madman! You are a total lunatic! An arch-heretic among Elves!"
The spirit cursed and raved, its voice saturated with profound panic and dread. As time ticked by, the curses grew weaker until the meat-mountain finally fell silent.
Eros collapsed weakly onto the roots of the giant trees. It was finally over.
"Burp~" He felt a bit... stuffed.
The next second, Eros fell into a total coma.
After he passed out, Barbara’s petite figure suddenly manifested beside him. With a wave of her hand, she retrieved the Brilliant Sun from the ground. She tossed the miniature sun into the spirit's head; soon, a cluster of pure white flames ignited within the creature’s skull.
Having finished this, Barbara sat down, crossing her legs, and rested Eros’s head on her lap, which was clad in delicate white silk stockings.
She looked at Eros’s mouth with a hint of disgust. Tearing a scrap from his tattered clothing, she wiped the grime from his face and lips. Seeming to find that insufficient, she tilted her head and retrieved the Brilliant Sun from the spirit's corpse.
She pried Eros’s mouth open, positioning the sun so that its purification light could illuminate every corner of his oral cavity without any blind spots.
Minutes later, seeing Eros clean and pristine once again, Barbara nodded in satisfaction.
On the other side, Undine grew frantic as four or five hours passed without Eros’s return. She looked at the battle, seeing that the students had gained the upper hand. Taking advantage of the chaos, she slipped into the thick fog.
The spot she entered happened to be the exact place where Eros had disappeared.
As she vanished into the mist, a silver glow suddenly emerged from her collar and floated before her. Undine’s eyes widened, and her mouth hung slightly open.
She had seen something nearly identical to this miniature silver crescent moon before—in her family’s Ancestral Temple, behind the head of the Ancestor's statue. The statue bore a silver crescent moon of the exact same design, though much larger. She knew exactly what that artifact was, and that was why she was so shocked.
Why was the Ancestral Holy Artifact, the Moon of Eternal Slumber, appearing here?
The miniature Moon of Eternal Slumber swayed slightly, and a curtain of silver light enveloped Undine, shielding her from the contamination in the fog. It then flew forward a short distance and stopped, flickering as if signaling Undine to follow.