There, a hideous wound remained.

If that were all, the wound wouldn’t have stood out among the countless other old injuries that covered his body, which had long since healed or faded into faint scars.

But what was horrifying was that, unlike the other scars, this wound was slowly seeping wisps of black gas, so thin they were almost imperceptible.

Even stranger was the wound itself.

It was a disturbing, deep purple.

Its edges weren’t the pink of new flesh seen in a normal healing wound. Instead, they were charred and rotten, a deathly gray, as if corroded by some powerful acid.

The inside of the wound didn’t bleed, nor did it ooze any tissue fluid. There was only a patch of dead, dark flesh, as if it had been stripped of all vitality.

’Damn it, what in the world is this Power?’

Seeing that the wound still hadn’t healed and was even showing signs of further decay, Graham cursed inwardly.

As a powerful Knight who had stepped into the Extraordinary Domain, his Life Energy surged like a furnace.

Ordinary injuries, even grievous ones that cut down to the bone, would stop bleeding, close up, and scab over at a visible rate thanks to his formidable physique.

Yet this wound, ever since it was inflicted by that bizarre enemy, clung to him like a maggot on a corpse, stubbornly refusing to heal in any way.

He could clearly feel a cold, deathly, and highly corrosive Power coiled deep within the wound.

It wasn’t a physical poison, but more like a pure concept of "death"—an Energy diametrically opposed to the vitality of the living.

Whenever his Life Energy instinctively rushed to the wound to repair the damaged tissue, this cold, sinister Energy would coil around it like an awakened viper.

The moment pale pink flesh tried to form, the black gas would wrap around it like a persistent maggot, swiftly staining it a deathly gray and even corroding it away.

The two diametrically opposed Energies were locked in a tug-of-war at the site of the wound, a battle waged every single moment.

The pain it brought wasn’t a sharp, tearing sensation, but a slow, insidious torment that felt as if it were freezing his very marrow and draining his Life Energy bit by bit.

It was like a cold chain, wrapped around his shoulder and constantly seeping inward, eroding the very source of his Power.

’Jia Xiu... Fisher... you have to hurry...’

Graham gritted his teeth, beads of cold sweat forming on his temples.

But the two other Extraordinary Professionals Graham was thinking of, Jia Xiu and Fisher, were already deep in crisis with no time to spare for anything else.

......

......

Somewhere in the Land of Mist, thick fog churned, and twisted shadows flickered in and out of view within the wall of mist.

The embers of battle radiated a bone-chilling cold.

On a ravaged stretch of scorched earth, meticulously laid Magic traps still flickered with an ominous, dark purple light, like the blood vessels of a dying behemoth.

Scattered all around were fragments of skeletal constructs shattered by immense force, along with patches of foul blood frozen by Frost.

In the center of the battlefield, the great and lofty figure of the Knight Fisher was kneeling on one knee, his head bowed low.

His sturdy Armor, now rent as if torn by countless withered hands, was covered in deep claw marks and ghastly white frostbite.

Embedded in his breastplate, its strongest point, were several jet-black Bone Spears formed from pure Energy, radiating an aura of decay.

The flesh at the edges of the wounds had taken on a bizarre, ashen, and crystallized appearance. No blood flowed, only wisps of cold, black gas that continuously dissipated.

His Giant Sword, which had tasted the blood of countless Demons, was now broken in two. It was stabbed diagonally into the frozen earth, its blade coated in a thick layer of dark ice crystals.

A severed, withered skeletal arm, wreathed in black gas, was still clamped tightly onto his unarmored forearm. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

The finger bones dug deep into his flesh, staining it an ominous purplish-black.

The air was filled with the cold of death, the stench of rotting earth, and the hollow, soul-shuddering Echo of Negative Energy.

The ground around Fisher was a bizarre sight, a web of scorched cracks interwoven with ghastly white Frost—the result of the violent clash between his final burst of Life Energy and the Negative Energy that had invaded his body.

Here, only a dead silence remained.

An instant later, a Shadow wreathed in bone-chilling cold coalesced silently beside the lifeless, lofty body of the Knight Fisher.

The Shadow receded, revealing a figure cloaked in a tattered mantle that seemed woven from ancient burial shrouds and shadows.

Beneath the hood was not a face of flesh and blood, but a terrifying visage of dried skin stretched taut over a gaunt skull.

Two faint points of Soul Fire, Burning with an eerie blue, cold flame, flickered unsteadily in its deep-set eye sockets like candles in the wind.

The desiccated figure reached out a hand with long, skeletal fingers, as if to touch Fisher’s Armor, but its movement was tinged with an almost imperceptible hesitation.

On that skeletal hand, a crack deep enough to see bone ran from the knuckles all the way to the forearm.

And the already tattered cloak it wore was now riddled with tears and scorched holes.

Wisps of pure, cold Negative Energy were slowly seeping out from the largest tears like black blood, dissipating into the air and being greedily absorbed by the surrounding Magic traps.

"PFFT!"

Just as the desiccated figure’s fingers were about to touch Fisher, a dull sound, like a rotten piece of parchment being punctured, suddenly tore through the silence.

Immediately after, the sound of a sudden battle erupted in the distance, savagely intruding upon this dead domain.

At the same time, a figure appeared beside him.

The newcomer was tall, clad in silvery armor, but his face was as pale as a dying man’s.

"Yo!"

After that exceptionally flippant greeting, the tall figure took a step forward.

"Ellis, it looks like you’ve had quite a harvest!"

The tall figure’s voice was tinged with amusement as his gaze swept across the battlefield.

"The Extraordinary Professionals of this era are laughably arrogant..."

The desiccated figure called Ellis slowly shook his head, his eye sockets with their faintly Burning Soul Fire still locked on Fisher’s tall frame. His tone was steeped in deep disdain.

"They didn’t even scout the situation and just charged headfirst into my meticulously prepared traps like brainless brutes. If this were before the Era of the End, hmph!"

"Alright, alright..."

The tall figure grinned, reached out, and clapped a heavy hand on Ellis’s scapula.

"CRACK!"

A faint but clear sound of a bone fracturing rang out.

The already dim Soul Fire in Ellis’s eyes contracted violently, as if it would be completely extinguished in the next second.

"Damn you, Holland!"

Ellis’s soul-scream, filled with pain and fury, exploded directly in both their minds.

"You reckless fool! Be more gentle!"

"Fine, Ellis..."

The tall figure named Holland pulled back his hand and gave an innocent shrug, a gesture that was strangely at odds with his heavy Armor.

"I was just trying to say that in this era, where most of the ancient legacies have been lost, Transcendents like them are seen as invincible as Gods in the eyes of the world."

He spread his hands, gesturing to the surroundings.

"So naturally, it’s hard for them to be sufficiently vigilant or on guard during a fight. Besides..."

His gaze swept over the dense collection of Magic sigils still faintly glowing on the scorched earth. Holland couldn’t help but click his tongue, making a sound like scraping metal.

"Who would have thought you’d be crazy enough to lay so many Magic traps?"

"For these little guys who’ve never seen the methods of a true Caster, this is simply an incomprehensible and unstoppable calamity. But..."

Holland retracted his gaze and looked toward the intense battlefield in the distance.

"Those cultists of yours are certainly working hard!"

As his eyes swept over the clear eye-shaped patterns on the backs of the white-robed figures, a mischievous and playful smile spread across his bone-pale face.

"But... I have to say, Ellis."

Holland drew out his words, his tone filled with unconcealed mockery.

"I seem to recall you used to be the one who sneered most at those high and mighty Gods. What’s this? You wake up after a few hundred years of slumber only to stoop to serving Ogma, the God of Truth?"