Chapter 287 - 267: 1 vs. 3! 3 vs. 1

Chapter 287: Chapter 267: 1 vs. 3! 3 vs. 1

After a dizzying spin that tore at his Perception, an icy sensation enveloped Jon’s entire body.

"Carina" led him as they pierced the Curtain of reality, tumbling into a dim space that defied all logic.

There was no sky or earth, no sense of up or down, left or right.

As far as the eye could see, everything resembled the abstract, frenzied scrawlings of a child. Twisted, distorted geometric lines stretched, coiled, and snapped haphazardly in the void. Murky colors flowed and bled into one another, erupting in jarring bursts of magenta and a sickening dark green.

But more prominent was a tide formed from an invisible, viscous chaotic Power, surging across this bizarre canvas and furiously crashing against the barrier of Jon’s will.

Immersed in this terrifying vortex of Power, Jon felt as if a red-hot iron had been shoved into his skull. Excruciating pain and intense dizziness assaulted him in waves. The world before him blurred and swayed like a melting wax figure, ghosting with double images.

His gaze inevitably began to lose focus, flickering like a candle in the wind. It seemed as if he would be utterly consumed by this chaotic madness in the very next moment.

Yet, at the critical moment when his consciousness was about to collapse, a low, short, cold laugh abruptly escaped his lips.

"Heh... you fool... you finally fell for it..."

The lazy smile on "Carina’s" face, who had been enjoying the sight of Jon on the verge of collapse, suddenly froze. A flicker of disbelief and shock flashed through her eyes.

She couldn’t understand how a mere mortal, his soul being frantically devoured by this twisted space, could possibly utter such words in a situation like this.

However, before she could even attempt to strengthen her control over Jon, a silver-white light of indescribable purity and power suddenly erupted from his chest!

"HUMMMMM—!!!"

The light was like molten silver poured into a sewer, forcefully dispelling all the churning, distorted Power within a several-meter radius around Jon. The wildly dancing abstract lines and flowing, filthy colors were instantly vaporized, like cheap dyes meeting their nemesis.

Then, at the center of this forcibly created silver-white Domain, the light rapidly converged and condensed!

A tall, slender, and upright figure emerged from within, exuding an aura of profound wisdom and ancientness.

It was Claudio!

His deep green robes billowed gently, seeming to blend into the space’s background hue. The distinctive pointed ears of an Elf were sharply defined in the glow of the Silver Radiance.

The Elf Mage stared coldly at the "woman" before him, whose smile had frozen on her face, as if he could see through to her true nature with a single glance.

"I have been waiting for a long time, you blasphemous thing who wears the flesh of another."

"Carina"—or rather, the entity occupying her body—lost the last trace of the lazy smile on her face.

She narrowed her eyes slightly, sizing up the Silver Radiance that flowed around Claudio, which seemed to hold endless Mysteries.

"Is that the Power of space?"

As she asked this, she instinctively floated backward, creating a viscous ripple in her wake. Countless streams of foul Energy from the chaotic space gathered at her side, coalescing into shifting, twisted Runes.

But she quickly dismissed this theory herself.

"No... Even if you have mastered the Power of space, it’s impossible for you to have entered ’the Painting World’ without a sound!"

"This place was anchored long ago by the supreme ’Dream Weaver,’ forming a self-contained prison, isolated from everything!"

Carina’s delicate features twisted slightly as she demanded coldly.

"How in the world did you do it?"

Claudio, naturally, was under no obligation to answer her question.

His sharply defined face remained impassive, like a timeless statue. Only the light deep within his eyes moved, rapidly taking in the wildly flowing "oil paints" and the illogically extending and breaking "lines" around them, as if he were critiquing a failed piece of art.

Finally, his gaze returned to the slender, threatening figure.

"Do not presume to fathom the true depths of my race with the limited understanding of a short-lived one."

His words were like a stone cast onto a frozen lake.

Carina was stunned for a moment. Then, as if she had just heard the most absurd joke in the world, a series of short, sharp laughs escaped her throat, causing the murky colors around them to roil like boiling soup.

"Heh... hehehe... is this... the arrogance of the long-lived races?"

She threw her head back, laughing, her black curls whipping about in an unseen wind as if they were alive.

"When it comes to knowledge of the material world and its many Curtains, I may indeed be no match for an Elf Mage who has lived for eons..."

"But so what—"

In the next instant, her wild laughter died. A malice even deeper and more ancient than the twisted space itself erupted, heavy and viscous, so thick it was almost suffocating.

Carina threw her arms wide. Her deep violet, almost-black velvet dress billowed violently, as if inflated to its absolute limit by an unseen Power.

Behind her, all the colors on the chaotic canvas—the magenta, the dark green, the filthy yellow—frantically converged, stretched, and took shape, as if being devoured by an invisible maw!

HUMMM—!

The entire space let out a groan, as if unable to bear the strain.

An unimaginably massive phantasm, composed entirely of viscous, twisted Chaos Energy, loomed into view behind her!

The phantasm had six arms, each as thick as a mountain. The end of each arm was not a hand, but a constantly shifting vortex of chaos. One moment, a vortex would become a giant, pus-dripping claw; the next, an aggregate of countless writhing eyeballs; the next, an abyssal maw splitting open to reveal rows of spiraling, sharp teeth!

The phantasm’s face was a blur, save for two crimson points of light at its center. Like falling stars, they locked onto the tiny Elf Mage below and the young man he protected.