...
At this moment, Angel researching beside the control node lifted his head: "Seems, we’re being discovered..."
Toby chirped lightly toward the distant mist, seemingly saying: "Fool."
Though Dangross didn’t understand Toby, he echoed: "Master Toby is correct!"
Angel ignored the puzzling exchange between the little fellows, instead turning towards the distant mist where he distinctly saw two silhouettes.
One was X0, the other... was Angel himself.
Or perhaps, it’s the illusion left behind by Angel.
Before X0 emerged from the glass pillar, Angel had already released a large number of illusion nodes around. And the spread of cold liquid, causing mist to breed, provided a more concealed place for the illusion nodes.
When X0 came out, Angel had already constructed the illusion and arrived near the master control node.
What later battled with X0 was entirely an illusion.
"This X0 talks about quantifying threat level, but this judgment is just too bad, not even realizing that under such speed, there’s definitely something fishy since not even a single blade hit," remarked Dangross with a clicking sound.
After the words, Dangross felt a chilly presence beside him, turned to look back, and saw Angel raising his eyebrows at him.
Dangross froze for a moment before coming to his senses, coughed twice and said, "I didn’t mean Mr. Pat’s speed isn’t fast, it’s just, just..."
Though Dangross was stuck there, what he said was actually correct. Judging from the fighting style, attack strength, and other details, X0 is clearly a Bloodline Wizard with enhanced speed, and without activating the gravity meridian, Angel’s speed certainly couldn’t surpass X0.
If facing a normal Bloodline Wizard, one might get suspicious in a short bout: the enemy’s speed is so fast, yet they don’t use it to counterattack but manipulate a phantom limb to fight, which is clearly abnormal.
But X0 isn’t a normal wizard, he’s lost his emotion module, and from the current situation, he also lost normal logic. Both behavior and judgment rely on rigid quantification. This might make him calmer and better controlled, but facing a wizard of illusion series like Angel, he was completely outmatched.
If it weren’t for the spatial limitations, even if X0’s soul-freezing mist could spread, Angel would still use his illusion body to make him lose his way.
Unfortunately, there is no if.
The good thing about X0 is that without emotional interference, his judgment might have declined but becomes more decisive.
"Ice Blade unsealing failed, no soul of intruder detected, beginning to review combat, conducting energy identification."
"Identification completed, over sixty percent probability of being influenced by illusion."
"Intruder’s threat level beginning to fluctuate, current threat level upgraded to level 0."
As the words fell, X0 stopped attacking, stood still, pulled out a pair of daggers and slashed his neck, causing a spray of blood.
A large amount of blood fell to the ground.
The blood pearls seemed to be drawn and slowly seeped into the ground. Immediately, a red light began flashing from below.
Within the red light, the route of magic patterns could be clearly seen.
The red light kept flashing... flashing, and flashing again.
But by the end of the flashing, there was no change.
X0 remained in place for a while, not knowing what happened, why after he activated the magic pattern with blood, yet the other guardian did not appear?
Indeed, there is another guardian here.
X0 is the obvious guardian, while the other is a concealed force. When X0 cannot ward off the intruder and the threat level reaches level 0, it would activate the ground’s magic pattern through blood and summon the hidden guardian.
But now, X0 was puzzled.
The magic pattern seemed activated, the red light flashed, his blood flowed, yet why didn’t the guardian appear?
As a semi-mechanical entity with a fixed mindset, it’s another thing whether X0 had self-doubt, but he definitely went into a "program malfunction" state.
He stood dazedly in the mist, not knowing what to do.
Is it to continue moving forward and fighting? Which he can’t win.
Or wait for the other guardian to appear? But the red light is just flashing and no one comes.
After a while, X0 muttered dumbly, "Program error occurred, unable to activate level 0 threat. Intruder threat relegated back to level 1."
With the words falling, X0 continued hacking at the illusion... he actually wanted to slash Angel’s true body, but couldn’t find it and had to attack the illusion.
"Is this the legendary self-deception?" Dangross observed the happenings within the illusion, continuing his commentary.
After watching for a while, Dangross lost interest, turned to Angel: "What was that red light just now, what is it trying to activate?"
Angel shrugged, "I don’t know either."
Dangross displayed a disbelieving gaze, but Angel wasn’t lying; he truly didn’t know what X0 was trying to activate.
Initially, he didn’t discover the magic pattern hidden beneath the floor, because this type of floor is made of special material, capable of silently shielding the senses.
However, as a master of Enchantment Studies, Angel is very knowledgeable about magic patterns. Additionally, he wasn’t fighting with X0 but simply creating an illusion to toy with X0, so X0 didn’t activate the ground’s magical energy array right away, allowing Angel time to study the master control node.
After observing the master control node for a while, Angel immediately spotted a peculiar magic pattern route.
This magic pattern route seemed to appear out of thin air, with no preamble but directly linking to the magical energy array.
It’s like a red dot on a blank sheet, Angel immediately noticed its abnormality.
After conducting some research, he found out that this magic pattern is connected to the floor, appearing "out of thin air" due to the special material of the floor shielding the pattern route.
Continuing to study, Angel realized the mechanism of this magic pattern required a certain blood type to activate.
Looking at the activation condition, it was clear it’s not something good.
Although he didn’t know the final effect of the magic pattern, based on crisis judgment, Angel directly used an external slate method to temporarily suppress this magic pattern.
That’s why X0 couldn’t activate the magical energy array.
In a sense, this was some kind of coincidence. If Angel didn’t understand magic patterns, or didn’t first study the master control node, it was unlikely he would have discovered this matter.
But there’s no if in the world.
Various coincidences led to the current inevitability.
Turning his gaze to the mist where two figures resumed battling, Angel rubbed his temples, slightly sore from studying the magical energy array, and gently tapped the ground with his knuckles.
A head emerged from his shadow.
"Earl Mi, go and deal with X0."
If it weren’t for the soul-freezing mist, Angel wouldn’t mind continuing to toy with X0. But now, the mist appeared, the space around the master control node is limited, if it drifted over, it wouldn’t be good.
So, it’s better to control him.