Chapter 441 - 412: Merciful Release

Chapter 441: Chapter 412: Merciful Release

ZZZZT—

A sharp crackle echoed through the cavern.

It was the sound of Xiaolan’s dagger, "Silent," plunging into the heat vent at Adam’s waist.

The resistance was immense.

A high-density protective force field enveloped the ethereal blue Magic Power core. The moment the dagger’s tip touched it, a violent backlash shot through Xiaolan’s wrist. The webbing of her thumb tore open, and blood streamed down her fingertips, mingling with the rampaging energy.

’Thrust it in!’

Kael’s roar exploded in her mind.

Xiaolan gritted her teeth, her normally dark pupils suddenly constricting to pinpricks.

She didn’t retreat. Instead, she threw her entire body weight onto the short dagger.

The leather armor on her arm shattered inch by inch against Adam’s protective field, revealing a pale, slender forearm. Blue veins bulged beneath her fair skin, and streaks of blood were forced back toward her shoulder by the magical pressure. Yet, her right arm didn’t tremble in the slightest. It remained rigidly straight, stubbornly pressing down on the hilt, driving it deeper inch by agonizing inch.

Xiaolan clenched her jaw, twisted her wrist, and angled the blade.

The dagger finally found a seam between the armor plates and wedged itself into the mass of blue light spewing waves of heat.

—VMMMM!

The ethereal blue glow faltered for an instant before erupting into a blinding pillar of light. It shot out at an angle, shattering the stalactites on the cavern ceiling. Torrents of tangible Magic Power turbulence gushed from the armor’s seams, accompanied by a series of muffled detonations, as if some massive organ had just burst inside the steel shell.

"AHHH—!!!"

Adam threw his head back and let out a bloodcurdling roar.

It was a sound born not just of pain, but of the terror that came with a core function being destroyed.

The mechanical construct of his lower body went haywire. The hydraulics twitched erratically, and the legs that supported his heavy frame instantly locked up. A grating shriek of twisting metal erupted from his knee joints, sending sparks flying.

But he still had his upper body.

Even with his balance gone and his legs turned to scrap, the brute strength of a Level 5 Warrior was still terrifying.

Adam released his warhammer and swung his right arm—encased in its heavy vambrace—backward.

He didn’t even need to see the target behind him.

The sheer force of the swing was enough to rip through the air.

THUMP.

A muffled impact.

Like a ragdoll swatted by a giant bear, Xiaolan was sent flying sideways, crashing hard into a pile of debris seven or eight meters away.

Tumbling rubble buried most of her small frame.

"Cough..."

Pinned to his knees by the warhammer, his left arm twisted at an unnatural angle, Kael still forced himself to look up at the steel monster struggling frantically on the ground.

Adam lay collapsed on the ground.

The heat vent at his waist was still spewing turbulent Magic Power. His prized mechanical legs had become his heaviest shackles, rendering him immobile.

But he wasn’t dead yet.

His crimson cybernetic eyes still flickered as his hands clawed desperately at the ground, trying to pull himself up.

’Don’t just stand there!’

Mia’s sharp voice cut through the public channel. She stared at Kael’s grotesquely twisted arm and at Xiaolan, whose fate was unknown in the distance. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and her voice was thick with tears.

’He can’t move! Finish that bastard!! Throw everything in your packs at him! Don’t worry about the cost! I want him dead!!’

The succubus who usually loved to slack off was now showing astonishing decisiveness.

The other three team members snapped out of their stupor as if waking from a dream.

They forgot all about tactical coordination and inventory costs.

Everyone scrambled to open their tactical backpacks, grabbing every bottle and jar that could explode, burn, or corrode, and hurled them at the stationary target.

"CRASH!"

"BOOM!"

"HSSS—"

A kaleidoscope of alchemical vials shattered against Adam’s body.

Strong acid mixed with Blazing Fire Glue, while alchemical poison gas mingled with paralyzing dust.

The corner of the cavern where Adam lay had become a massive alchemical vat.

"AAAAARGH!"

Adam thrashed about in the sea of fire and toxic fog.

Amazingly, even after taking so much damage, the surface of his heavy plate armor remained almost completely unscathed, its plates still gleaming with a cold luster.

However, this suit of "Tyrant" armor was an unfinished product that had not been fully charged. Combined with Adam’s recent, unrestrained power bursts and system overloads, the defensive Array maintaining its internal circulation had long since been depleted of energy.

Without the support of Magic Power, the seemingly perfect armor was now riddled with vulnerabilities invisible to the naked eye.

As if with a mind of their own, the toxic fog and acid gas seeped through the gaps left by the failing Array and along the seams between the plates, infiltrating the armor’s interior.

Inside the sealed steel can, the toxic gases could not disperse, their concentration multiplying. They corroded and burned Adam’s already overdrawn physical body.

"Damned insects... I’ll kill you... I’ll kill you all!"

Adam’s voice grew garbled, as if he were speaking through a mouthful of molten magma.

Pushing off the ground with both hands, he forced his upper body upright, his crimson eyes locking onto Kael and Mia nearby.

He was a cornered beast.

And this was the most dangerous moment.

In that instant, a suffocating premonition seized Mia’s heart.

It stemmed from her succubus racial talent—an Extraordinary sensitivity to Ether Energy—and her instincts as a Caster. She "saw" it: ambient Ether was surging from the air toward Adam’s chest.

And beneath his heavy breastplate, a hidden alchemical device was pulsing at a high frequency. Like a signal tower, it was sending some kind of command deep into the earth beneath the workshop, following the underground Magic Power conduits.