It wasn't until dawn that Asa and Ruya finally left the Tooth Tower.
"Don't you think you went a bit too far?" Ruya asked, looking at Asa.
"Not at all. She was the one who insisted on thanking me, and honestly, I've been wanting this for a while," Asa replied, looking visibly tired. Spending hours rummaging through the mountain of scrolls in the Tooth Tower's archives would exhaust anyone.
Master Edwina, who had been watching him search through the scrolls, must have been equally tired, as her expression had grown increasingly grim. When Asa finally pulled out more than a dozen of the magic scrolls he wanted, her face turned even darker. These scrolls were all top-tier, like the "Blazing Nova," and several were rare treasures. In the end, Asa had to trade two jade pieces he had picked up from Master Aiden in exchange for the scrolls before Edwina allowed him to leave.
The Tooth Tower was undoubtedly the place with the most elemental magic scrolls on the continent. The top-tier scrolls accumulated by successive Tower Lords were all exquisite treasures. Asa hadn't felt this pleased in a long time.
Before leaving the Whispering Forest, Ruya and the elders had set up the teleportation magic circle they brought from Turaleone. With just two teleportation scrolls, Asa and Ruya instantly returned to the Whispering Forest from the Tooth Tower.
Before the blue light of the teleportation could dissipate and clear their vision, an overwhelming stench of blood assaulted their noses, so thick it could make one faint.
The pale light of dawn was slowly breaking in the east, and a thin mist hovered over the grass in the forest. However, the mist, which should have been pure and white like a veil, now carried a tinge of crimson, stained by the blood on the ground.
The grass around the teleportation circle was almost completely submerged in blood. This wasn't the amount of blood that one or two, or even dozens of people could produce, nor did it seem to have been spilled all at once. In many places, the blood had already congealed into black clumps, only to be covered by fresh blood flowing over it. The once lush green grass had turned into a sea of blood.
There were no corpses or dismembered limbs floating in the blood. The bodies had been neatly arranged, piled up like a chef's meticulously prepared dish, forming a small mountain. The "chef" responsible for this masterpiece now stood holding a longsword, his expression calm and indifferent as he watched the two figures emerge from the teleportation circle.
"This is the 284th. I rarely get tired of killing, but today I feel a bit weary. You see, even the simplest action, repeated over two hundred times, can become tedious..." Knight Tamik said calmly, holding an elf whose throat had been slit. Bright red blood gushed from the elf's slender, pale neck, splattering onto the grass and adding a fresh layer of warmth to the sea of crimson. The elf wasn't dead yet; his limbs twitched in a strange manner, and his facial features were twisted almost to the point of tearing off his face. However, he couldn't make a sound, like a chicken whose throat had been completely cut.
The cut on the elf's neck was identical to those on the hundreds of elf corpses piled nearby—a single precise slash that severed both the vocal cords and the major arteries without damaging any extra muscle or skin, like a master baker slicing bread. The ground was a mess of blood, but the black longsword in Tamik's hand remained spotless, gleaming as if new. Tamik's demeanor was calm, his movements carrying a natural grace and poise, like a legendary chef who could effortlessly dissect a cow with a flick of his finger.
Standing beside the mountain of corpses, with a lake of congealed blood at his feet, he wasn't just a chef—he was a butcher.
Not far away, a large group of elves lay or sat in several clusters. They didn't appear to be bound or restrained; all the elf captives here were unconscious. Further away was a pile of charred remains, barely recognizable as the bodies of more than a dozen elves burned beyond recognition.
"Alright, hand over the World Tree Leaf. Oh, and that thing that emitted that strange aura earlier—I know it's on you," Tamik's voice was soft, as calm as ever, blending seamlessly with the heavy stench of burnt flesh in the air.
Almost as soon as Tamik finished speaking, Ruya pulled out the World Tree Leaf. However, she didn't step forward to hand it over to Tamik. Instead, she held it aloft, its emerald light shining like a beacon as a torrent of magical energy surged forth.
"Great Fahma, your servant calls upon your divine power in your name—Thorn Prison!" Ruya's voice was filled with rage as she took in the scene of carnage. Her shock had instantly turned into fury. As she chanted, the grass around Tamik suddenly grew at an explosive rate, transforming. What had been soft, delicate grass moments ago now formed a dense forest of towering thorns around Tamik. These thorns didn't look like ordinary plants; they resembled giant, bizarre snakes that immediately coiled and pressed toward Tamik in the center.
This was no mere prison—it was a massive meat grinder. The thorns, as thick as arms, were covered in steel-like spikes. With the force they exerted, even a bull would have been crushed to pieces.
But Tamik was no bull. His black longsword flashed like a bolt of black lightning around him, slicing the serpentine thorns into pieces. After his swift strikes, Tamik's expression remained unchanged. He casually picked up a fragment of the thorns and tossed it toward a group of unconscious elf captives.
The sound of the fragment hitting the ground was soft, almost imperceptible. But in the next instant, a deafening explosion erupted, and the group of elves was engulfed in a pillar of blazing fire. The flames burst from the ground with the force of a centuries-old geyser, so intense that the elves' screams were cut short as they were instantly reduced to ash. The fire vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving behind only a pile of charred, twisted bodies.
"If you attack me again, I'll burn another group. They're all sitting on magic traps. All it takes is a single trigger, and dozens of elves will be turned to charcoal in an instant. And don't even think about using your nature magic to disarm the traps. The slightest touch will set them off," Tamik said emotionlessly, pointing to a Holy Warrior standing not far behind him. "The magic traps my subordinate set are no less impressive than the masterpieces of the assassins from the Killer's Guild years ago."
The Holy Warrior stood beside a group of elf captives, holding a longsword. Like his leader, his expression was blank. His middle-aged face lacked any sharpness or imposing aura, and he didn't look like a master at all—in fact, he seemed rather plain.
Like the other Holy Warrior who could use the Magic Eye, Tamik's subordinates weren't necessarily the strongest fighters, but when it came to fulfilling their roles, they were more effective than any master.
"I'll say it again. Hand over the World Tree Leaf and that thing. Otherwise, I'll keep killing until you do," Tamik said coldly, glancing at the two before turning and walking toward the elf captives.
"It's no use. This is a sacred relic of our elven race. Every elf is prepared to sacrifice himself for it. Your threats won't work on me," Ruya's eyes were bloodshot, and her words were spat out through clenched teeth. Compared to Master Aiden's threat to destroy the entire Whispering Forest, Tamik's threats might seem insignificant. But faced with the mountain of corpses and the overwhelming stench of blood that seemed to swirl in her mind, she felt her blood boiling.
Tamik ignored her. He simply reached out, grabbed another elf captive, and slit his throat with a single stroke. He wasn't one for words, as he knew actions spoke louder.
Ruya's entire body trembled. She suddenly leapt out of the teleportation circle's stone platform. However, she wasn't charging at Tamik to fight him. Instead, she rushed toward the direction of the Ancient War Tree. She couldn't hand over the World Tree Leaf, but she also couldn't stand by and watch her kin being slaughtered.
"Don't move!" Asa shouted the moment Ruya moved, reaching out to grab her.
From the moment they appeared in the teleportation circle and took in the scene around them, Asa had been acting strangely. He hadn't moved to confront Tamik, nor had he used the magic scrolls he had just looted from the Tooth Tower. He simply stood still, scanning the surroundings. It wasn't until Ruya moved that he seemed to snap out of it and quickly reached out to stop her.
Ruya was still in mid-air when Asa grabbed her, but her toes had already touched the half-congealed sea of blood below.
In an instant, an overwhelming surge of magical energy filled the space around the teleportation circle. If the magic trap that had burned the elves earlier was like a century-old geyser, what erupted now was akin to a millennia-dormant volcano suddenly exploding.
But this wasn't fire—it was bone-chilling cold, far more violent and deadly than the flames that had turned the elves to ash. Not only did the moisture in the air instantly freeze, but the air itself seemed to solidify, trapping everything within it.
From the moment Ruya's foot touched the bloodstained ground, it took only a blink and a third of an eye's time for a massive block of ice to form out of nowhere, encapsulating everything within the blood-soaked area, including the teleportation circle.
With a sharp clang, almost simultaneously with the formation of the ice, a black blade flashed, and a figure burst out of the ice. Asa landed on the grass, his body covered in a thin layer of frost, with several chunks of ice clinging to his legs. Behind him, the massive block of ice continued to emit cold air, rapidly drawing moisture from the air to grow even larger. By the time Asa turned to look, the block of ice had already become a small iceberg.
Ruya's figure was frozen in the very center of the iceberg, like an insect trapped in amber. The World Tree Leaf was also trapped within, its emerald light still glowing around her. The iceberg, formed by immense water magic, was as hard as iron. Even someone as powerful as Grutt would have difficulty breaking through it.
Asa only glanced briefly at the scene inside the iceberg before turning his attention elsewhere. There was someone far more important to watch. When facing someone like Tamik, no one could afford to look away.
"I knew that if I triggered the trap myself, you'd notice. So I waited for you to set it off. But I didn't expect you to escape. I see you know when to let go.