Chapter One Hundred and One: The Third Seal

By this time, Bai Shengye had also rushed back. As he sprinted forward, a spell of ice sealed the surface behind him, giving Black Feather a firm foothold once more.

"How is it?" Bai Shengye asked.

He helped Crimson Heart up from the ground and fed her several pills to staunch the bleeding and mend broken bones. His medicine chest was too heavy to carry into battle, so he had left it in the Ice Fortress; most of the satchel slung across his shoulder this time was filled with elixirs to boost magical power.

"It can regenerate," Crimson Heart said weakly as he steadied her. "Cut off any of its tentacles, and they grow back at once."

Bai Shengye thought of the lava behemoth and realized this was going to be troublesome. Then he remembered there were still several girls behind him who needed protecting. After a moment, he said, "If we can't beat it, then perhaps... retreat is the best option?"

Crimson Heart shook her head. "Too late. I’m afraid we can’t get away. A one-eyed troll’s speed in the sea is definitely faster than ours on foot. We might as well give it everything we’ve got!"

As she spoke, she tried to rise again, but the tip of her sword scraped across the ice and stabbed into the frozen layer beneath. The broken bones throughout her body flared with searing pain, and she coughed up a mouthful of blood, still unable to stand.

"A patient must follow the doctor’s orders. You cannot get up right now," Bai Shengye said with a frown.

"If that’s so, then let’s finish it in one strike!" Black Feather said, spreading his wings.

"In one strike? Are you joking?"

Bai Shengye turned to look at Black Feather. Even though the one-eyed troll had regenerative powers and a war of attrition would be disadvantageous to them, ending it in a single blow sounded far too reckless.

A dark whirlwind had already burst up from beneath Black Feather’s feet, stirring icy shards and cold mist across the frozen surface.

"Second Seal—release!"

A pair of demon eyes unfolded behind him, staring straight into the ancient beast’s single eye. Under that gaze, the ancient creature seemed to sense a threat and instantly flew into a rage, its tentacles slapping and churning the seawater, raising wave after wave.

At the same time, Black Feather’s strength, speed, and skin toughness all surged in an instant, and dark smoke began to coil up the shaft of the trident-like staff in his hand.

"Space-Time Shift!"

Shifting his position once more, Black Feather flickered among the troll’s ten tentacles, evading its attacks as he drew closer, all the while striking out with slashes. The one-eyed troll’s assault never ceased, yet it could not catch his location at all.

He had learned this technique from a small booklet left behind by Blaze Maple. It was his first attempt, yet he grasped it quickly. Still, each of his slashes landed harmlessly against the troll’s smooth, resilient skin.

"No way... this is already my second seal, and I still can’t hurt it? Are ancient demons really this strong?"

He remembered that after receiving Yunlan’s guidance on wind blades, his demonic light slash had reached the force needed to shave a mountain peak flat.

"Could it be that I can only force open a higher seal, even if it risks the burden on my body..."

Looking at the ice shattered by the one-eyed troll’s frenzied tentacles behind him, Black Feather steadied his heart again. In such a desperate moment, there was no room for hesitation. He could only gamble everything.

Once more, he dropped back onto the ice. Gripping his right wrist tightly with his left hand, he looked earnestly at Crimson Heart and said, "Captain Crimson Heart, please do not speak of what happens next."

Crimson Heart studied the black wings behind him with a look of faint suspicion. But with everyone’s lives hanging by a thread, she had no choice but to trust him, and so she nodded.

"As a warrior, I swear I will tell no one."

"Third Seal..."

A sharp pain shot through his arm, as if his skin were being torn apart, and dark red blood dripped from his palm. Black Feather’s brow tightened, but he did not hesitate.

During his training, he had once analyzed the uses of Devouring Power and the Demon Eyes. Against lower-ranked demons, merely gazing at them with the Demon Eyes could bind their movements. Moreover, the greater the disparity in rank, the more pronounced the effect.

When he had proposed a "single decisive strike" earlier, what he had been thinking of was Devouring Power. Now that this ancient demon was neither mortal nor killable, Black Feather could only seize the moment and see whether he could devour it. Of course, if his own power was inferior, he might be devoured in turn.

"Open!"

Under the forced opening of the Third Seal, cracks appeared in the ice beneath his feet, as though a tremendous force were erupting from within his body.

Bai Shengye and Crimson Heart, standing almost within arm’s reach, were swept by a fierce wind and instantly felt the pressure. It was the pressure of fear, the power of fear that all the weak can feel in their bones—the power of demons.

The Demon Eyes behind Black Feather became clearer and more solid by the moment, staring into the one-eyed troll’s gaze.

This terror made Black Feather’s presence become like that of an ancient troll; a strange aura spread invisibly from him.

Bai Shengye was nearly suffocating. His arms grew heavier and heavier, his body gradually pressed closer to the ice, and hallucinations began to flicker before his eyes. He struggled to stay conscious. At the same time, he tried to repair the broken ice beneath Black Feather’s feet, but his fingers trembled and he could not cast the spell.

"What... is this power?" he muttered in shock.

As the power erupted, Black Feather himself gradually lost his wits. A scarlet glow drifted from his eyes as he followed the will to slaughter. He raised his staff in his right hand, and three-tenths of the flame sigil in his palm had already faded away.

His wings behind him were swelling larger and larger, their span exceeding anything before, lifting his body higher and higher.

The Third Seal was a power sufficient to awaken a portion of the dormant demon blood within Black Feather. After the monster met his demonic gaze, it immediately ceased all movement, its expression vacant.

At that moment, Black Feather felt boundless darkness rise from the depths of his eyes, swallowing everything around him.

The sky vanished. The sea vanished. Sound vanished. Wind vanished. Within an empty black void, a colossal single eye opened before him.

In that emptiness, he stood upon a mirror-like surface of water, naked, his expression serene, as though he were another self. Behind him, familiar and warm black wings enveloped him, and feathers drifted lightly down around his feet.

And behind him too was a pair of Demon Eyes, unleashing a mighty power of fear, locked in a stare with the monster opposite.

During that silent contest of wills, Bai Shengye waited patiently on the ice. From his perspective, Black Feather had already lost consciousness and was floating in the air, while the one-eyed troll stood motionless as well.

At that moment, Crimson Heart accidentally looked up and suddenly saw the pair of Demon Eyes behind Black Feather. The force of fear immediately seized her.

"Aah! A monster! A monster!"

She clutched her head and screamed, then rolled and struggled on the ground as though she had lost her reason.

"Hey, don’t move around!" Bai Shengye tried to restrain her. Though he too was unable to move under the pressure Black Feather had unleashed, Crimson Heart had been gravely wounded earlier, and he could barely keep her steady.