Killing Dimensius is the responsibility of every Void Spirit. Whether it's the Order Faction, the Revenge Army, or even merchant organizations like the Astral Consortium, they all see eliminating Dimensius as their duty. However, their opponent is far beyond their capabilities, to the point that even after their homeland was destroyed for tens of thousands of years, they have made no progress.
Being able to come up with the idea of using Void Spirit conduits to build mana furnaces to restrict Dimensius was already very difficult for the Void Spirits. Although they had never succeeded in the past—this time, success was right before their eyes!
Amir even couldn't help but want to press it now. A long night invites many dreams. What if Dimensius suddenly became alert and escaped?
Such a method can only be used once. Once it fails, this method can never be used a second time.
What Amir held in his hand was an ordinary button, but he himself was already standing at a turning point in history. Whether or not Dimensius could be contained depended on how well he pressed it!
"Don't rush, wait a little longer, it's not time yet! Look at the screen!" Halamid was also very nervous, but he wasn't the one pressing the button, so he was slightly more sober than Amir. There is a process for the valve to fall. Although it's very fast, who can compare speed with Dimensius? Before the space is sealed, Dimensius can escape into the Void Spirit conduits at any time.
Therefore, the timing of pressing the valve must be well controlled. Even a tiny bit early could lead to failure. And this timing was clearly stipulated before, and now it's obviously not the time yet.
Amir's hand hovered over the button, but his mind was almost a complete mess. This was a decision of fate. If he failed, he would become a sinner of the Void Spirits for all time. He was the one who wanted to kill Dimensius the most, so how could he bear the risk of failure?
"Um, um, wait, wait for it to go in a little more," Amir muttered to himself.
On the screen, the black-purple energy representing Dimensius moved forward a little more. On the screen, Dimensius taking another step, equivalent to one-third of the distance just now, had a red mark. That was the position that the Void Spirits and Aiden discussed and believed was enough to close the valve before Dimensius could react.
According to Dimensius's current speed, it should take another minute and a half to reach that position.
Normally, ninety seconds is just the time to read a paragraph of text, listen to half a song, or say a few words, and it passes without noticing. But now, the two Void Spirit leaders truly felt like every second was like a year. In their opinion, the speed at which Dimensius was moving forward was too slow. Why couldn't it go faster?
This was actually Dimensius's consistent caution.
The void rift in front of him was full of energy, and it didn't seem like there were any traps at the moment, but caution was never a bad thing. This caution had saved it many times. Although there weren't many beings in the universe stronger than Dimensius, there were still some. But it was able to remain at large from the pursuit of many powerful beings until now because of this caution.
It slowly moved forward a little, carefully observing the surrounding environment. If there was a trap, it would definitely be able to retreat before the opponent launched it—even shameless methods like stopping time wouldn't be able to hold it back in its vigilant state!
It gradually approached the red marker of the Void Spirit conduit that only existed on the screen.
With five seconds left to reach that point, Dimensius suddenly retreated rapidly, rushing towards the entrance.
Order Faction Commander Amir was immediately horrified. He only had one thought in his mind—Dimensius had discovered it!
His hand almost immediately pressed down on the red button. At this time, even if there was a one in a billion chance, he would execute the procedure and close the valve!
"No!" Halamid exclaimed, lunging over and pushing Amir away. But before that, Amir had already pressed it.
The two highest leaders of the Void Spirits rolled a few times on the ground. Amir angrily said, "Let go of me, are you crazy, Halamid!"
"I'm not crazy, you're the one who's crazy!" Halamid was exasperated. He was extremely angry when he saw Amir press the red button!
Halamid completely lost his usual elegant demeanor, angrily scolding, "Amir, haven't you thought about it? Dimensius could have instantly escaped through phase transition, so why did it retreat by running? It was bluffing us, and you actually fell for it!"
"I—" At this time, Amir also reacted.
That's right, if Dimensius had discovered a trap, the first reaction it would have made would definitely not be to run backwards, but to escape directly. This was clearly a means of bluffing them, but he was so muddle-headed that he didn't notice the other party's intentions and fell for it so foolishly?
With this press, the originally potentially successful plan was really ruined. For a time, this Void Spirit military commander was disheartened. His mind was in chaos, as if the voices of millions of Void Spirit compatriots were angrily scolding:
"Sinner."
"Sinner!"
"The sin is unforgivable!"
Amir stopped struggling, and Halamid no longer had the idea of continuing to beat him, after all, that wasn't his purpose. As a Void Spirit, what Halamid wanted to see most was killing Dimensius, and he believed that Amir felt the same way. The other party was so flustered just now because he was blinded by the situation.
If Halamid himself had been in that position, he might have directly pressed the red button as his first reaction when he saw Dimensius running backwards.
But the matter had already happened. Even if Halamid was rational, he couldn't forgive such a mistake. He sat on the ground without any composure, both frustrated and angry.
If beating up Amir could have worked, he wouldn't have minded tearing him to pieces. But that didn't have any effect.
Just then, a teasing voice rang out beside the two Ethereals, with a distinct dwarven accent: "I say, don't you two look like little kids?"
Halamed and Amir didn't respond, but another young and energetic human voice picked up the conversation: "They would if they were crying."
"Exactly," the dwarf said with a grin.
Halamed didn't even lift his head. He knew who had come. The annoying dwarf mocking them was none other than Brann Bronzebeard, brother of the King of Ironforge and a famous explorer. The other young human lad was the explorer Ezreal from the Valoran Federation.
These two came from different worlds, but their shared hobby had made them good buddies for several years.
Amir lay on the ground, his eyes vacant, muttering, "Failed, failed... It's all my fault... I... I deserve to die!"
"Say, bandage man, shouldn't you guys have looked before acting?" Brann said with a chuckle.
"Huh?" Halamed was the first to react. He scrambled up and hurriedly asked, "Didn't it go down?"
"Of course, it went down."
"With great force."
The two explorers said shamelessly.
The hope that had just ignited in Amir's eyes instantly died, turning into a pile of dead ashes.
"But we had a backup plan." At this point, Brann burst into laughter. "Get up quickly, or you'll miss the real show!"
Halamed and Amir weren't fools. They, the Ethereals, certainly wanted to kill Dimensius because they had a world-ending feud with him. But Azeroth had also been ravaged by him recently. As representatives of the Alliance, how could Brann and Ezreal be so heartless as to gloat over the failure of the Ethereals?
The two instantly jumped up, and upon looking at the screen, they were filled with surprise and joy—it turned out that the valve hadn't been closed. Dimensius had put on a show and, finding no special traps, had drilled back in. This time, it was much bolder than before, moving more than twice as fast as before, and it was already approaching the red line.
"This, this..." If Halamed and Amir had tear ducts, they would definitely be crying tears of joy now.
"Is this button broken?" Amir looked at the red button with great suspicion. But if that were the case, he would only be extremely grateful—otherwise, he would already be a sinner for all time.
"Haha," Brann and Ezreal exchanged a look and burst into laughter.
The two Ethereal leaders didn't know what they were up to, but there was definitely something they were hiding from them. The people of Azeroth had kept a backup plan, obviously not trusting them, the Ethereals, enough to directly entrust them with the important task of imprisoning Dimensius.
However, neither Halamed nor Amir, who was "controlling" the button, could feel angry, because they, the Ethereals, had almost caused the failure of the operation.
The energy ball representing Dimensius on the screen had already crossed the important red line. Amir had been staring at it, and upon seeing this, he immediately pressed the red button again—but still, there was no response.
He pressed it several times in a row, but he didn't see the valve closing through the circuit.
"Is this red button broken?" Even if Amir was stupid, he would have realized it by now.
"That's right," Brann nodded as a matter of course. "It's obvious!"
"The switch is in your hands? Now that Dimensius has crossed the red line, quickly activate the valve, or else..." Halamed hurriedly urged.
At this time, Dimensius had indeed crossed the red line and was still moving forward.
"Don't worry, wait a little longer. It's not time yet." Ezreal responded with the same words that Halamed had used to answer Amir not long ago.
"When will it be time then?"
"When Dimensius starts drawing Void energy."
—
That time came quickly.
Dimensius crossed the red line and walked forward for a while, then retreated a little. This action caused the two Ethereals to become tense again, but fortunately, this time Dimensius didn't run backward, nor did it directly teleport away.
It stopped here because it felt that the energy here was the most abundant, making it convenient for it to restore all its injuries in one go.
"This is the place! After I recover my injuries and summon the Old Gods, I'll have some fun with you!" Dimensius muttered to itself.
It spread its arms, and the surrounding Void energy frantically surged towards it.
And in the Spider-Man Palace, one thousand meters underground, Brann smiled and said, "Now is the time!"
He tiptoed and slapped his wide palm on the green button below the red button on the instrument—the button that was originally for opening the gate. And when Brann pressed it, the valves at both ends of the Ethereal pipeline slammed shut.
Dimensius reacted almost instantly, but it was already too late to phase shift because it had been drawing energy before, and to shift, it had to interrupt its own spell first.
"I've been tricked!"