Locke's attack, once again, failed to take effect.
Frank leaned back along the trajectory of the ice blade, avoiding it in a stance reminiscent of a plank bridge.
Then, like a spinning windmill, Frank whirled his greatsword into a cyclone slash, generating gusts of wind around him that shattered Locke's third ice blade.
Locke's brow furrowed.
As expected, a Sixth-Level Warrior was not so easy to kill.
Even after having his vision stripped away, this warrior could still destroy two of his ice blades.
Glancing toward the two mages beyond the mist, Locke decided against using another spell.
He hadn't yet shaken off his pursuers, and he didn't have enough time to meditate and restore his mana. Using another spell now would only increase the risk against those two mages.
Focusing his mind, Locke activated his signature technique.
"Celestial Dance Treasure Wheel!"
"Auditory Deprivation!"
Locke's soul power, infused within the mist, penetrated Frank's soul and formed a transparent barrier, enveloping it.
Instantly, following the loss of his vision, Frank's hearing vanished completely.
His face changed dramatically as he swung his greatsword wildly, smashing everything that came near.
"Tactile Deprivation!"
Once his sense of touch was stripped away, Frank let out a terrified scream.
No matter how he shouted or bit his tongue, he could neither hear his own voice nor feel the pain in his body…
After a few breaths, Frank's movements became distorted, exposing numerous flaws.
"Whoosh—whoosh—whoosh…"
This time, the ice blade cut directly across Frank's neck, spraying a plume of blood.
"Bang…"
The blade shattered.
A Sixth-Level Warrior, indeed, was extraordinary.
If Locke's ice blades had struck other parts of Frank's body, the most they could do would be to carve a shallow seven- or eight-centimeter wound, which his powerful frame would easily crush.
But for a vital area like the neck, even a shallow wound could be lethal.
The only consolation for Frank was that, deprived of touch, he could not feel the pain of his body dying.
After eliminating the last warrior, Locke quietly approached the edge of the mist, cautiously observing the two remaining mages in the unit.
Originally, the mages had been about 140–150 meters from the mist. Upon hearing the soldiers' screams, they retreated another thirty or forty meters, bringing the distance between them and Locke to over 170 meters.
The elder of the two mages lowered his head and began chanting. Moments later, over twenty arrows of light rained down from above, striking trees in the mist and triggering a chain of explosions.
Level 5 Light Magic: Rain of Light Arrows!
Locke's gaze narrowed.
High-level mages…
Although Locke's ultimate technique, Celestial Dance Treasure Wheel, was said to "deprive," he knew the truth.
With his current understanding of the Water Element Profound Laws, he could only obscure an opponent's soul—making them believe they could not see or hear.
Against a warrior with weak spiritual power, this was sufficient.
But against a mage, especially a high-level one? Locke could not say how effective it would be.
To truly deprive someone of all five senses, he would need to fully master the Profound Mystery of Illusionary Fog under the Water Element Laws.
Casting a long glance at the two light mages, Locke turned and quietly slipped through the mist, heading toward the Frost Empire.
…
In his previous life, Locke had been a nearly broken office drone in China, on the verge of evolving from the "996" grind to "007." Exhaustion had been his constant companion, and only novels and anime could soothe him.
Perhaps some kind deity took pity on him, for Locke was reborn in this fantastical world.
Here, magic dazzled, and the aura of combat was wild and violent…
The strong could level mountains with a wave of a hand, annihilate billions with a single thought.
The weak were as insignificant as ants; stepped on by a passing beast, they left not a trace.
This was the Coiling Dragon Universe.
Moreover, seventy-seven Primordial Gods had already gathered, creating divine planes. They discovered that faith power could be used to fuse Profound Laws, giving birth to the rudimentary form of magic, designed to collect belief.
Many who became gods were simply lucky, acquiring the Divine Rank by chance. Before ascending, these beings were just high-level deities, some of whom hadn't even fused any Profound Laws.
Having experienced the power boost of law fusion through faith, their obsession with faith grew to extreme levels.
Among the gods, there were differences in strength:
Lower Gods Mid-level Gods Sovereigns
The power gap between each rank was immense.
A Lower God who had fused all five elemental Profound Laws could roughly match a Mid-level God who had fused three, or even a Sovereign with no law fusion.
Though comparable in theory, in a real fight, the former could barely hold against the latter.
Yet this fueled the ambitions of countless gods.
If one could achieve Great Perfection, could a perfected Lower God even defeat a Sovereign?
Those with divine avatars calculated eagerly in their minds.
Everyone wanted to grow stronger—but no one wanted to die.
Especially those gods standing at the pinnacle of the Coiling Dragon Universe.
Now, stagnation meant becoming prey to other gods.
To attain peak strength and secure their survival, the gods turned their sights to the infinite material planes.
Collect more faith, fuse more Profound Laws in the shortest time, and ultimately hunt down a god compatible with their divine avatar to become a multi-law god.
Faith Wars, then, became the greatest conflict since the competition for Divine Rank—spanning the entire Coiling Dragon Universe, claiming countless lives, and taking down scores of gods.
For beings like Locke, mere ants on a material plane, they were insignificant, but even a grain of sand can crush the unwary.
Locke had no choice.
The plane war had already reached Wakanda, the plane of his rebirth.
The Wakanda plane was first targeted by Phiros, the Water-element god, who sent divine emissaries to spread water magic and collect faith.
Over a hundred years ago, a Light god's emissary arrived via a plane teleportation array and began spreading Light magic, gathering faith for the Light Overlord, Augusta.
Naturally, Phiros' emissaries could not allow their flock to be harvested by another god, and waves of attacks were launched against the fledgling Light Temple.
The war between the Frost Empire and the Light Temple had raged for nearly a century, leaving ordinary casualties countless.
Fortunately, Locke, reborn in Wakanda, possessed innate affinity for water magic. At age seven, he passed the mage aptitude test and entered the Frost Empire's Mage Academy, becoming an elite water mage and sparing his family from conscription.
(End of Chapter 2)