Chapter 295: Meteor Burst

Seeing Jilannis take the field, Ron stopped hesitating. However, instead of summoning more companions, he grabbed the nearby Delaford. An Arbitrary Gate opened before him, and the man and the goblin immediately vanished from the battlefield.

"You knew what he was going to do, yet you still took on this task?" Kao Jia flew to Jilannis's side in surprise. Her wings, injured by the Death Knight, hampered her movements.

"The best way to solve a problem is to eliminate the person causing it," Jilannis said with a slight nod. "If someone wants to alter the links between two old Teleportation Arrays, doing it personally and guarding the exit against any surprises is one of their few options."

"As for you…" The Sword-Singing Lion Armor flared, and a voice identical to Jilannis's boomed out. "Since you refuse to speak, allow me to see just what you're made of!"

Within the billowing black mist that shrouded the Death Knight, two points of scarlet light flared to life. As if given a command, the remaining Undead Creatures abandoned their pursuit of Sera's group and turned to overwhelm Jilannis. Faced with this development, the only thing the others could do was retreat—the farther, the better.

Even a Caster of Ron's caliber could easily cause immense destruction, to say nothing of a Grand Mage like Jilannis—a living legend to the short-lived races.

The mouth of the lion-head sculpture on the Sword-Singing Lion Armor opened and closed, chanting one Arcane Magic incantation after another on Jilannis's behalf. An invisible barrier, like a heavenly chasm, stretched between the Immortal and the Undead. Even when the Death Knight himself charged on horseback, he couldn't budge it an inch.

Meanwhile, Jilannis herself chanted a completely different set of Magic. The Moon Elf raised her left index finger to the sky. As the cadence of her Elf Language grew ever faster, the very sky above New Green Swamp Town began to roil and transform!

If the oppressive presence of the Death Knight and his army was like black clouds threatening to crush the town, then Jilannis, all on her own, could truly make an endless night descend!

"Quick! Keep falling back! We're not far enough away!" Aive shouted, urging everyone to flee farther, ideally out of the town completely.

'What on earth is she casting…?' Aive's heart nearly leaped out of her chest as she looked up at the churning, dark clouds that sank lower and lower in the sky.

The Death Knight clearly noticed the mounting danger. He ceased his charge and plunged his greatsword into the street, which gave way like soft tofu. Reaching his free hand toward Jilannis, he too began Casting.

It was as if an invisible, giant hand was tearing at the space around the Grand Mage. Jilannis's figure and her surroundings started to distort. The Death Knight was attempting to banish her to another plane entirely, thus interrupting her monumental Casting.

But how could Magic, granted through the betrayal of faith and oaths, ever hope to contend with profound knowledge? When one chanted—be it the Sword-Singing Lion Armor or Jilannis herself—the other's Magic remained unaffected. The gauntleted right arm lifted. With a snap of its fingers, the Death Knight was knocked back several steps, horse and all. Had the Knight not been gripping the hilt of the sword embedded in the ground, it would have been thrown from its mount!

Just before she could be banished, Jilannis interrupted his Casting!

"A nice thought, but useless." Jilannis spoke the final syllable of her incantation. Simultaneously, the clouds above the town descended to their lowest point. A low rumble of thunder, like the beat of war drums, echoed from all directions. It seemed as if something was about to break out of its chrysalis in the sky and descend upon the world.

It was a rain of innumerable, blazing meteors.

"Come! Let's see just how powerful this so-called Undead Knight really is. Meteor Burst!"

Jilannis still held back, not covering the entirety of New Green Swamp Town within the spell's range. Even so, the cataclysmic, saturated barrage scoured the area clean, annihilating all surrounding Undead. Other than the Death Knight, no Undead Creature could withstand such concussive force and extreme heat. The Undead nearest the impact points were instantly vaporized, leaving not a single trace of their existence behind.

Aive and the others had thought they were a safe distance away, but even at the absolute fringe of the blast radius, a wave of intense heat washed over them. A few slower goblins screamed, unable to escape being burned. The scales on several Kobolds curled from the scorching heat.

"Silvia..." Staring at the rain of fire filling the sky and the sea of flames covering the ground, Sera cleared her throat with difficulty. "Will you... be able to do this someday?"

"I hope to," the Vampire Mage said, her voice clearly lacking confidence.

'There are vast differences between Mages. Silvia was willing to bet that even if she and Jilannis used the same amount of energy to cast the exact same Fireball Magic, Jilannis's would undoubtedly be more powerful than her own!'

"Is it over?" Unlike the two women, Morlo and Anpbi were clearly focused on a different aspect of the aftermath.

From their vantage point, the once-unbeatable nightmare steed was gone—either blasted to dust or having fled at the first opportunity. The legions of Undead Creatures, which would have required their utmost concentration to fight, had vanished into thin air.

Their leader, the mighty Death Knight, was now kneeling before the Elf Grand Mage like a deactivated Golem, surrounded by hundreds of fragments of various sizes.

A meteor had struck the Knight squarely on the head. The unbearable weight forced it to its knees. Its heavy shield and greatsword had protected its flanks, but to no avail. The black mist clinging to its armor had yet to fully dissipate, but plumes of white smoke now billowed from the seams—had it been a living person, the body inside that armor would have been at least well-done.

Jilannis, however, showed no signs of relaxing her guard. She lowered her left arm, and a pale blue Sword-shaped Force Field materialized in her right hand. The Moon Elf advanced across the scorching ground, which had sunk several centimeters from the bombardment, moving step by step toward her incredibly resilient foe.

When she was no more than five paces from the Death Knight, a pair of scarlet eyes flared to life from beneath the all-encompassing helmet!

"Watch out—!" Victoria and the others shouted, but it was too late. In an instant, the Death Knight's vicious blade tore the Mage's body to shreds. Jilannis was sliced into countless fragments and scattered on the wind before she could even raise her own sword.

"I thought so." Jilannis's true form shimmered into view from invisibility. She had never moved from her spot; the figure that had walked forward was merely a startlingly lifelike Phantom.

"Who... are you?"

Unprecedentedly, seeing that its feigned-death ambush had failed, a horrifying sound issued from beneath the Death Knight's faceplate.

"Seeing as you didn't answer my question, I'm under no obligation to answer yours," Jilannis said with a flick of her blade. In an instant, she and four hazy mirror images vanished. The chanting of the Sword-Singing Lion Armor and Jilannis's voice then echoed from all around the Death Knight. "Come, be a subject for my experiment. I can keep this up all day!"