Max's eyes narrowed.
He understood imdiately. Concepts were tied to laws—and the Mourning Depths was made of nothing but infernal energy. Unleashing a Concept here was like lighting a flare in a sea of monsters.
Max shifted slightly, readying his stance.
"You know, we shou—" he began, trying to parley—
But before he could finish the sentence, he vanished in a flash of purple lightning.
"You can't run from ," Lucas growled, eyes gleaming. "Not here. Not in this place."
With a long stride, he surged forward, dragging with him the corrupted fog and a maelstrom of infernal energy, the aura around him acting like a magnet pulling death itself.
Max, now dozens of ters ahead, gritted his teeth.
Through his Three Dinsional Body, he saw Lucas gaining fast.
Too fast.
"Damn it," Max muttered. "He's catching up."
He didn't hesitate.
With a burst of thought, he activated Lightning Shadow Clone.
In a split-second, another version of himself materialized beside him—sa expression, sa posture—but just a fraction slower.
The clone continued to run alongside him before gradually falling behind.
Max, without looking back, increased his speed again and vanished into the thickening fog.
Lucas arrived monts later, landing right in front of the clone.
He stopped briefly, glanced at the second Max, and sneered. "Do you really think a cheap copy can fool ?"
Without even breaking stride, he ignored the clone and kept running, his eyes locked onto the real Max's trail.
Max's heart pounded.
He could still feel Lucas's presence—chasing, closing in.
He glanced around. The landscape offered nothing useful.
Just blackened soil. Rotten, twisted trees. Jagged cliffs. Hollow caves. And endless fog swallowing everything in view.
Nowhere to hide.
Nowhere to regroup.
---
"You can't escape !" Lucas's voice thundered from behind.
And then—
BOOM!
He slamd both palms forward, and the very earth beneath Max shook violently.
With a sharp crack, the ground split.
Then—
Hands of stone and rock erupted from the dirt beneath Max's feet and seized him, tightening like a vice around his legs and waist.
Max struggled—gritting his teeth as the jagged, earthen grip began to crush inward.
The Concept of Earth had taken hold.
Max gritted his teeth, veins bulging at the side of his neck.
In the next heartbeat, he activated Dragon Scales Transformation, and with it, the full force of his 58 Draconic Essences surged through his body like a volcanic flood. In an instant, black-glowing scales erupted across his arms and torso—scales that shimred like obsidian under the pressure of raw, ancient power.
The stone hands clamping down on him cracked as his muscles bulged and roared with power.
"Break it!" Max growled, and with a violent twist of his arms and a surge of brute force, the rock hands shattered with an earth-shaking crack, splinters of stone flying in all directions.
He didn't waste a second.
Max took off again, the ground beneath him exploding in bursts of dust and energy with every step.
"I told you," Lucas's voice echoed through the fog, "you can't run from in this place."
And just like that—
The ground writhed again.
From the dark soil, dozens of stone serpents erupted, their bodies winding and slithering with unnatural speed. They weren't real snakes—but conjurations of Lucas's Concept of Earth, each one forged from hardened rock and twisted intent.
They struck like whips, wrapping around Max's body before he could blink.
In seconds, he was trapped again—his arms, legs, torso, and even his throat locked in a crushing embrace, leaving only his head free.
From the thick fog ahead, Lucas erged, calm and triumphant, a wicked smile playing on his lips.
"I told you," he said smoothly, "you can't run from here."
Max struggled against the restraints, his face grim.
He knew brute force wouldn't be enough this ti.
Then, like lightning in the dark, Blob's voice rang sharply in his mind:
"You have a yellow soul! Attack him with your soul, now!"
Max didn't hesitate.
He focused, gathering his soul force in an instant—then unleashed it in a concentrated, invisible blast that surged from his forehead and struck Lucas head-on.
WUUUUMM!
A wave of soul pressure rippled through the air.
"AGGGHHHH!" Lucas scread, suddenly clutching his head with both hands, stumbling backward in agony.
Max's eyes lit up. "It worked!"
He pulled against the stone snakes, preparing to escape—
But then Lucas's body stilled.
And he lifted his head.
The pained expression was gone.
Replaced with amusent.
"No… it didn't," Lucas said, smirking. "I was just playing along. Did you really think I wouldn't co prepared for soul attacks?"
He stepped forward, the smile on his face growing sharper.
"So infernal beings use soul-based strikes. I've a treasure that resist all soul based attacks."
Max's expression hardened.
He was running out of options.
"You're mine now, Max," Lucas said, slowly circling around him. "Do you have any last words before I soul search you?"
Inside Max's mind, Blob's voice erupted again, this ti laced with pure panic:
"Max! You have to do sothing! If he searches your soul—even with your soul being stronger—you'll lose everything! Best case, you go brain-dead. Worst case—you die!"
Max's heart pounded as his eyes darted around.
All he could see was swirling fog, shadows moving within it.
Infernal beings.
Dozens of them, just beyond reach, circling like vultures, drawn to the aura of the Concept and the chaos.
"No one's coming to save you," Lucas whispered, lifting his hand toward Max's forehead. "You're in a hopeless situation."
Max gritted his teeth—and made a split-second decision.
A desperate, reckless move.
One that could either save him… or end him.
BURST!
His head suddenly exploded into black flas, engulfing his skull in searing fire.
Lucas flinched. "Flas won't help you either—"
But before his hand could reach Max's head—
The black flas twisted.
They surged outward like a violent cyclone, spinning into a wide vortex, funneling outward in all directions.
And then—
They began to devour.
All around them, the infernal energy that had gathered—thick in the fog, heavy in the air—began to swirl violently, drawn into the flas like water into a whirlpool.
The fog trembled.
The very space around Max scread with pressure as all the infernal energy nearby was pulled toward him, absorbed into the heart of the black fire.
Lucas's eyes widened, his expression shifting from triumph to disbelief.
"What… the hell… is this?!"
Before he could even begin to process what was happening, the fog erupted around him.
Dozens of infernal beings, previously hiding within the thick, cursed mist, lunged at him from every direction—so screeching, others silent as death, their bodies twisted in grotesque shapes, drawn toward the vortex of black flas and Max's devouring aura.
"Damn it!" Lucas spat, his hands slamming into the ground.
At his command, the earth beneath his feet splintered, and more stone serpents erupted—twisting, thrashing, slamming into the infernal beasts, crushing several of them into dust, while others were thrown back in screeching agony.
"You pests," he snarled. "Do you think you can kill ?"
Arrogance laced his voice.
He was an Expert Rank cultivator. If he'd still been in Seeker Rank, perhaps he would've struggled. But now? These mindless beasts were nothing to him.
Or so he thought.
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