"Gandalf, why didn't you use this method earlier? I just wasted all those potions!"
Gandalf's operation left Levi speechless. If you had taken me away earlier, I wouldn't have had to drink them!
"Aha... well, this sort of thing can't be done often. You should understand what I mean—it's not without cost..."
Gandalf laughed awkwardly, but his feet didn't stop as the two continued their mad dash outward.
The orc army behind them also reacted at this moment, noisily pursuing them along the rear path. Gandalf struck backward with his staff, directly shattering the top of a watchtower behind them. The huge falling stones crushed a pile of pursuing orcs and blocked the road as well.
Were they safe?
Just as Levi was thinking this, wisps of black mist suddenly appeared before them.
Rumble!
A void phantom resembling a giant eye formed before them, directly blocking their path. Looking closely, there was a figure surrounded by flames in the center of that eye.
Sauron.
Now Gandalf was in trouble.
Levi was in trouble too.
Because—
[?/?]
He had no health bar, or rather, this wasn't Sauron's true form at all—it might really just be an external phantom.
At this moment, his potion effects still had dozens of seconds remaining, and Levi was getting restless.
He bit down on another golden apple.
"No light can defeat the darkness, wizard."
Sauron intoned lowly from within the raging black mist.
As soon as he finished speaking, a rolling, boiling black mist struck out, heading straight for Levi beside Gandalf, seemingly planning to first eliminate the troublemaker other than the wizard.
However, this attack received an unexpected response. Levi instinctively slashed with his sword, directly cutting the black mist in half and withstanding the impact.
"Human? No..."
"Whatever you are, stay here."
Whoosh!
The black mist suddenly expanded, surrounding all the buildings in the nearby area. Gandalf quickly raised his staff, creating a thick barrier of light.
All buildings outside the barrier were pulverized to dust by the black mist. Only the floor beneath Gandalf and Levi remained intact.
"Go quickly, go call for reinforcements!"
Gandalf struggled to maintain the barrier, clearing a path behind them, and said to Levi: "I'll hold him off."
"No way, I just drank potions—am I supposed to take this lying down?"
Seeing the potions had only a dozen seconds left before wearing off, Levi felt it would be a real waste not to use them. Under Gandalf's wide-eyed stare, Levi suddenly jumped forward, targeting Sauron's phantom and slashing down with his long sword!
Clang!
At this moment, Levi felt as if he had struck bedrock. This blow actually caused his ancient elven sword, which had almost never lost durability, to show a durability bar. Sauron wasn't completely unaffected either—the flaming figure in the center of the giant pupil shrank back a step, and the surrounding black mist also shuddered.
However, immediately after, this Dark Lord displayed tremendous fury.
The black mist on the scene suddenly surged, covering everything the eye could see like a canopy, leaving only black and more black wherever one looked.
At the same time, nine phantoms emerged from the pupil—the Nazgûl. Their forms had been reforged by Sauron, and under Sauron's power enhancement, they became even stronger, each one seething with evil black energy.
Gandalf's barrier contracted and nearly disappeared.
Levi placed several TNT blocks and lit them at the fastest speed of his life, then built a stone wall in front and pulled Gandalf backward.
Rumble!
Successive explosion sounds rang out. The massive impact scattered the forms of the approaching Nazgûl, and even the encroaching black mist showed a small gap.
However, all this was only temporary. Almost simultaneously with their forms dissipating, the Nazgûl's figures condensed again, and the black mist behind them surged forward once more to devour the two.
Effective, but not by much.
The Nazgûl needed Sauron's help to regain their forms. If this were somewhere else, once they were cut down they'd have to run back to Sauron for resurrection and wouldn't be able to appear again for quite a while.
But now Sauron was right here—this was equivalent to moving their respawn point right to their faces. Moreover, surrounded by the darkness emanating from Sauron, these Nazgûl's power became even stronger, each one at mini-boss level.
This was like encountering an unbreakable monster spawner.
Gandalf raised the barrier again, this time using all his remaining strength. He glanced sideways at Levi, as if asking whether he had any other solutions.
Levi returned a look: Do I look like I have solutions?
Wait, he actually did.
"Gandalf, take this."
Levi pulled out an ender pearl and handed it to Gandalf.
This was something he'd obtained during his Nether travels, but he only had seven total—three he'd camped for half a day in the warped forest to get, and four he'd traded with piglins.
Whether it was Levi's terrible luck or the piglins' bias against him, when he threw a stack of gold at them, ender pearls only appeared twice for a total of four. This made him so angry he almost drew his sword to slaughter all the piglins.
These things were far too rare. Unless it was particularly important or there was real mortal danger, Levi hadn't even thought of using them.
"What is this?"
Old Gandalf asked weakly, panting.
"A kind of magical item. Throw it out, and it can teleport you to where it lands."
"But we're trapped right now, uh..."
As he spoke, the light around Gandalf scattered. He quickly struck his staff on the ground, but this time no light shield emerged—he was only using the staff's own magical power to resist Sauron.
The pressure from Sauron grew increasingly enormous. Gandalf's staff emitted a faint, barely noticeable glow, resisting that pressure. It looked like it might shatter at any moment, yet somehow it held firm.
Unbreaking III.
"I'll create a gap."
Levi quickly piled up a bunch of TNT behind them, lit it, then rapidly built a stone wall to reduce the impact.
However, this time Sauron didn't just watch. Having experienced the power of those red objects, he naturally wouldn't let Levi light them. A stream of black mist quickly extended out and swatted the already-lit TNT away.
But Sauron completely failed to notice—or rather, in a place he couldn't notice at all—Levi had already switched to his fishing rod. He cast it toward the glowing TNT that had been swatted away, connecting a thin line to it, then pulled it back.
Theoretically, as long as something was an entity, the fishing rod could pull it—obviously, lit TNT also retained its properties and was counted as an entity.
BOOM!
The moment the TNT was pulled back, it exploded, triggering the surrounding TNT as well. The massive impact weakened the black mist by several layers. Even the stone wall used to buffer the impact was blown apart. Gandalf suddenly turned and pointed with his staff—the blasted black mist dissipated at once, revealing an exit to the outside world.
"Quick!"
With a shout, Gandalf had already thrown his pearl out first, and Levi quickly followed suit.
The exit quickly disappeared as black mist swept over Gandalf and Levi's entire bodies, violently knocking them back to the ground.
Gandalf was merely pressed against the wall, unable to move. Levi's situation was much worse—Sauron's hostility toward him was almost overflowing. He was directly pressed and slammed into the tower, smashing through building after building. This power was terrifyingly great—each time a building was destroyed, Levi's health would plummet. This reminded him of fighting wights a year ago when he had no equipment.
It had been a long time since he'd been beaten this badly.
He ate golden apples one after another, even consuming two pieces of lembas, using every means available to restore his health.
If not for having enough items, he might really be in mortal danger right now.
Just as Sauron was gathering power to deliver a devastating blow, suddenly both Gandalf and Levi disappeared one after another, leaving only a cluster of purple particles in their place.
[Chapter Complete]
***
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