Chapter 612: The Ten Seconds.

About ten seconds earlier...

Levi drew a deep breath as the wish suppressed his punishment... yet his body remained tense under the terrifying spiritual pressure.

Through his spiritual vision, he perceived the gigantic manifestations surrounding him, each towering several kilometers above the ruined forest.

He felt like an insect at the bottom of a canyon, except the mountains around him had eyes, and every one of them was staring at him.

Four Tier 8 monsters... and all of them had been spawn camping him for months!

Without his Void Form, he felt their clashing auras through every inch of his body... his bones trembled, and his chest tightened until taking another breath became a struggle.

Meanwhile, the Death Energy seeping from Gallows’s lance made his stomach churn... Levi felt his own life force recoil from it, as though every living cell in his body rejected its presence!

Even under Severin’s protection, that instinctive revulsion left him wanting to tear himself away as far as possible from it.

Still, he knew that he was only experiencing what slipped through Severin’s spiritual aura protection.

If Severin withdrew his aura for even a split second, those monsters would cripple him before he took a single step!

’Calm down... I only have ten seconds to escape this hell.’

Levi had spent months preparing for this moment... whenever the spiritual trial gave him a brief respite, he used it to piece together his escape, reviewing the news from outside and adjusting his instructions before the next ordeal dragged him away.

He hadn’t been certain whether any Tier 8 would be camping him... but to be safe, he planned his escape against them.

’Stick to the plan...’

He forced his breathing to settle before contacting Severin dimensionally.

’Lord Severin... I’m ready.’

’Move once the blood covers you,’ Severin replied sternly. ’You only have one shot at this... better make it count, kid.’

Levi lowered himself at once.

BOOM!

The Royal Coffin imploded around Gallows and his cavalry... then burst into an ocean of blood!

The moment its crimson waves concealed him, Levi activated the Divine Mutation Abyssal Filtrum not merely to hide his presence... but to erase it from any source of vision or detection skill, as though he were a piece of floating nothingness.

He knew those monsters trusted their detection techniques far more than their eyes... especially after watching hundreds of his illusions scatter across the battlefield.

Then... he sliced off a potent spiritual wisp, sacrificing about 5% of his soul to make it strong enough to emit genuine life force!

The pain left his jaw clenched... but he forced the wisp toward the blood puppet forming beside him.

When planning this, he hadn’t known that a Death Knight would be here... and he had still gone for it just to be on the safe side.

As Severin said, he only had one shot at this; it wasn’t the time to be stingy.

Before attaching the wisp, Levi cut his palm and pressed it against the puppet’s forming chest... Severin drew his blood inside immediately, incorporating it into the creation!

The instant Levi felt it circulate through the puppet’s veins, he sent his wisp into its body.

His blood signature, his spiritual mark, and a genuine trace of his life force... everything those monsters needed to recognize him!

Severin’s blood thread caught the puppet just as Levi released it and lowered himself to the bottom of the blood ocean.

The entire exchange took less than half a second!

They had only just met in person... yet Levi felt as though they had rehearsed every movement, with Severin completing his part the moment Levi finished his own.

To be honest, when competent people carried out their side of the plan flawlessly, a perfect synchronization was naturally born.

He kept his breath held as the thick, dark blood concealed his body completely... while his Abyssal Filtrum killed off his presence.

Through his spiritual vision, he followed the puppet into Severin’s smaller coffin... then watched the King fasten it against his back and take off!

Levi remained motionless.

A moment later, he felt the four monstrous auras either chase after Severin or have their entire focus placed on him.

Inside his spiritual leywell, Ash’Kral watched the ongoing battle with a crooked smirk.

’Look at them scramble... each trusting that precious perception of theirs.’

The Titan chuckled.

The Omnithar remained silent for a moment, following the coffin through Levi’s senses... then, a trace of amusement entered his voice.

’You have made those ten seconds worth much more than I charged for them.’

Levi had no time to enjoy their reactions as he knew that it wasn’t over yet... he had only succeeded in the first phase.

’Seven seconds...’

That was all he had left before the punishment resumed!

He summoned his staff and lowered one of its crowns until it touched the ground beneath the blood lake.

Echoforging: Resonance Barrier.

A transparent sphere enclosed Levi... faint ripples crossed its surface like a trembling soap bubble, absorbing the sound and vibrations attempting to pass through it.

Echoforging: Resonance Drill.

Around the staff’s lower crown, tightly packed rings of compressed sound spun into a pointed spiral... resembling a drill carved from vibrating glass!

Levi pressed its tip downward... and the ground beneath it crumbled without a single sound escaping the barrier!

He had used this same combination to enter Mountain Thurnak’s buried treasury.

Echoforging... his first-ever unlocked Ultimate.

As his strength grew, it seemed to have lost its value beside his increasingly destructive powers... yet Levi had never forgotten it, much less discarded it.

Now, it was about to get him out of this death trap!

’Six seconds...’

He shaped a small Echoforged seal across the tunnel’s entrance while covering it with another silencing barrier.

Its compressed sound held back the blood from pouring down the tunnel as he kept digging underground rapidly, akin to a mole!

As he descended, he focused his advanced aetheric vision eastward... piercing through the earth until he located the spiritual signatures waiting roughly one kilometer away.

The Dean... and several Tier 6 instructors!

Behind them, spatial Ilthorien inscriptions illuminated the Dimensional Hexagon Array through which Severin had arrived.

Expecting Spatial Jammers to be all over the place, Levi’s plan was centered around reaching this dimensional array that was connected to the Academy... and, to be exact, to Nurah, who awaited him on the other side with a prepared dimensional gate to the Boundless Expanse!

He just needed to make it before the wish’s suppression expired, as ten seconds was all he could afford to wish for.

Thirty meters beneath the surface, he angled his staff toward the Dean’s position.

’Five...’

His spiritual prowess lifted his body horizontally behind the staff... then he accelerated, holding nothing back!

The sound drill widened a path ahead of him as Levi flew through the opening like a human torpedo!

He kept the Dean’s spiritual signature ahead of him and kept correcting his direction with slight movements of the staff every time he scanned a solid object in his path.

Four... three... two...

’One second!’

Four seconds allowed him to cross about six hundred meters underground; with forest cover overhead and his hunters still occupied by Severin, Levi angled upward and pierced through the surface!

He did a front flip, desummoned his staff, and at the same time ignited concentrated aether with sound on his soles...

Boom! Boom!

Two combustion leaps were enough to send him flying another hundred meters, their noise suppressed under the resonance barrier...

A mere three hundred meters remained between him and the teleportation array platform... yet, the instant he was about to unleash another combustion leap, he felt his soul tighten like a giant hand had taken hold of it!

The wish’s suppression ended, and the universe’s punishment came rushing back akin to an unforgiving flood!

Then... thousands of overlapping screams assaulted his mind... even his partner in crime wasn’t spared.

’ARGHH!’

His flight lost its stability, sending him tumbling and smashing into the trees in his path.

’Argh... I’m... almost there!’

Levi tried to use another combustion leap... but to no avail; screaming ghostly faces filled his aetheric vision and overwhelmed his focus, making it difficult to distinguish the trees in his path!

This wasn’t all... even when he turned off his aetheric vision, his world kept flashing in green light.

It was like the universe was seeking to pull his spirit forcefully to the Aether Realm.

Only this time... it wasn’t as gentle as the first time he went inside.

As Levi kept writhing against the pulling force, he suddenly felt his body being lifted against his will.

"I got you."

The Dean came for him the moment he noticed him lying on the ground, holding his head... he had already been informed that if their guest showed any signs like these, he had to secure him immediately.

He didn’t hesitate to follow through, sprinting while holding the squirming Levi on his shoulder.

"Keep the Array open!"

The Dean ordered as he rushed toward the platform, his silver braid whipping behind him.

When Levi saw the messy floating spatial Ilthorien inscriptions, he sent a dimensional message to Nurah to prepare for Scenario C... which entailed his failure to pass through the portal before the universe’s punishment was unleashed.

Alas... this was the last message he managed to send before the pulling force abruptly doubled in its intensity... making him let out a suppressed, agonized groan while his back arched to an unnatural degree.

While he let out that suppressed groan, the Soulleech Maw wasn’t subtle... its toothed mouth opened against his palm, releasing a harrowing spiritual screech!

KREEEEEEEEEE!!