Wizard: My skills can be upgraded indefinitely.

Ian stood in the darkness, motionless.

The sound of breathing came from deep within the room, heavy, murky, and with a gurgling sound like boiling liquid.

That was Titus's breathing.

The inky black aura had already permeated the entire bedroom, turning it into a mist, making the surroundings pitch black.

But in Ian's mental perception, everything was crystal clear and glaring.

On the bed, the once dignified patriarch now resembled a skin ripped open from the inside by something.

Dark purple tentacles emerged from under the skin, not just one or two, but hundreds or thousands.

They writhed slowly in the air, like deep-sea seaweed, or like offerings in some kind of sinister ritual.

Each tentacle is covered with tiny suction cups, and a viscous, dark liquid oozes from the edges of the suction cups.

Where the liquid dripped, the stone floor of the bedroom was corroded, leaving a fist-sized hole that hissed and steamed.

Silver chains bound this twisted shape.

The chains had dimmed to almost transparent, and were crawling with black flying insects.

The insects were much larger than the ones we had seen outside the door, about the size of a fingernail, and their mouthparts were frantically gnawing at the runes.

With each bite, the chain dimmed a little, and the flying insect swelled a little.

Some of the flying insects have grown to the size of walnuts, with swollen abdomens.

When its wings flap, it emits a shrill cry like that of a baby.

"Ian..."

Within the soul connection, the creaking sound was tense.

The little guy stood guard outside the door, but through visual coordination, he could clearly perceive everything inside the room.

"This thing... is disgusting..."

Ian did not respond.

His gaze passed over the writhing tentacles and landed on Titu's face.

The face was distorted beyond recognition, the eyes were wide open, and the pupils disappeared.

Only two dark purple vortexes remained, slowly swirling in their eye sockets.

His mouth was agape at an exaggerated angle, his jawbone was clearly dislocated, and with each breath, a dark breath surged from the depths of his throat.

Deep within that vortex, there was endless, frantic writhing.

Ian detected an extremely faint fluctuation.

That was the last vestige of consciousness belonging to "Titus Just".

Like an oil lamp in a storm, it could go out at any moment.

"There's still hope," Ian concluded.

He lifted his foot and took another step forward.

The instant the first step lands.

laugh!

The pitch-black mist in the entire room suddenly boiled over, like a giant beast that had been awakened!

Countless black flying insects simultaneously stopped gnawing at the chains, and thousands upon thousands of compound eyes turned toward Ian.

The writhing tentacles on the bed, like a swarm of snakes smelling blood, all turned towards the doorway.

The suction cups opened, revealing the fine, ring-shaped teeth inside.

"Humans..."

"wizard......"

"Fresh flesh and blood..."

Countless sounds overlapped, emanating from within those tentacles, sharp, cloying, and nauseating hissing.

Ian ignored him and kept walking.

hum!

A silvery-white light emanated from his body.

[Spacetime Curvature Field] Fully open.

Within a radius of fifty meters, the geometry of space begins to distort.

The black flying insects that were swarming towards him suddenly veered off course.

They flapped their wings frantically and snapped their jaws together wildly, but their bodies began to circle uncontrollably.

Like a spinning top propelled by an invisible hand, it circled Ian five meters around him, drawing one perfect circle after another.

It flew faster and faster, closer and closer, until finally...

Snapped!

Countless tiny flying insects, no bigger than grains of rice, collided and exploded into fine black powder.

Before the powder could even fall, the light of the second ring of star trails had already been cast.

【Purify star trails】.

Pure starlight emanated from Ian's mental sea, forming a silver halo with a diameter of five meters around him.

The halo rotated slowly, with the rhythm of the ancient stars.

The moment the starlight touched the black powder, the powder vanished.

It wasn't destroyed, it wasn't burned, but... it was directly erased.

It's as if it never existed.

"hiss!"

The tentacles on the bed emitted a sharp hiss.

The writhing tentacles suddenly retracted, like fingers that had been burned.

But Ian didn't stop.

Step three, step four, step five...

With each step, the curvature field's distortion range advances forward by one meter.

The radius of the purifying starlight's coverage increases by one meter.

The black mist dissipated before him, like Moses parting the sea.

The swarm of flying insects fled frantically, but could not escape the gravitational pull of the curvature field. They could only spin, collide, and annihilate on invisible tracks.

Three breaths later, Ian stood in front of the bed.

It's less than two meters from the picture.

The tentacles writhed right before my eyes, their fine textures clearly visible, and I could smell the putrid stench emanating from the liquid seeping from between the suckers.

But all the tentacles stopped a meter away from Ian.

It's not that they don't want to attack... it's that they can't get through.

The curvature field completely bends the geometry of this space.

When the whiskers extend forward, they will involuntarily veer to the left, and then automatically turn to the right.

No matter how they twisted and turned, they couldn't reach Ian, who was right next to them.

"Level 4 pollution..."

Ian stared at the tentacles, and deep within his pupils, three star trails slowly rotated.

"It has indeed developed intelligence."

The words fell.

The group of whiskers suddenly froze.

Then, all the tentacles turn simultaneously, facing the same direction.

The wall behind the bookshelf in the northeast corner of the room.

There, something is breathing.

Ian's mental energy swept over it instantly, and his pupils contracted slightly.

"Huh? This thing wasn't here before."

Embedded within the wall is a dark purple crystal about the size of a thumb.

The surface of the crystal is covered with cracks, and deep within the cracks flows a dark liquid light.

With each flow, the tentacles on the bed wriggle once.

Like a heartbeat, like an umbilical cord, and even more like the unbreakable bond between mother and fetus...

"Ha! How dare you show your face in front of me."

Ian raised his hand, and the [Gravity Collapse Sphere] condensed in his palm.

But it hadn't even been thrown yet.

hum! ! !

The crack in the crystal suddenly burst forth with a dazzling purple light!

The purple light pierced through the walls and the inky black mist, shining directly into Ian's mental sea!

Then... a voice exploded directly in the depths of his soul.

"Little bug...you...have a smell that I really hate..."

The voice was deep and slow, like the murmur of an ancient beast awakening from its slumber.

As the voice appeared, a scene forcibly entered Ian's consciousness.

In the depths of the endless void, a gigantic vertical pupil slowly opened.

The pupils were a pure dark purple, with no whites, no irises, only an endless abyss.

"Pure abyssal aura..."

Ian was deeply shocked; he was all too familiar with that aura!

The knowledge he accumulated from countless instances of exploiting loopholes made him a well-versed "abyss expert".

The enormous pupil was covered with countless tentacles.

Each tentacle has a small eye at its tip, and each eye is moving.

Everyone was looking at Ian.

"The Level 5 Mother of Burning Canyon".

Ian's pupils suddenly contracted!

Within the sea of ​​consciousness, the image continued to expand, the vertical pupils growing larger and closer...

The tiny eyes on those whiskers began to wriggle, emitting a baby-like laugh.

then……

The panel vibrates silently!

It simply appeared as a line of text at the edge of my field of vision.

[Level 5 Abyss Will Intrusion Detected...]

[Start the purification process...]

next second.

The vertical pupil contracted sharply, like an eyeball being branded with a hot iron!

A piercing roar exploded in his mind, causing Ian's consciousness to momentarily daze.

It was just a fleeting moment.

When he came to his senses, his mind had returned to calm.

The vertical pupil disappeared, and so did the tentacle-like eyes.

All the intrusion footage disappeared.

Only the last line of text on the panel remains.

Purification complete.

[WARNING: The intrusion source has locked your soul coordinates.]

[Distance: Unknown, Direction: 37 degrees East-South, Burning Canyon.]

[Recommendation: Sever the spiritual connection with the contaminated individual as soon as possible, otherwise the coordinates will continue to be exposed.]

Subsequently, an extremely pure spiritual essence and information flow surged into the spiritual sea.

Ian opened his eyes, his forehead beaded with cold sweat.

Just a moment ago, only a moment, but he clearly felt it.

The terror of being watched by a higher being.

Like ants gazing up at the sky, like mortals facing the gods.

"Level 5 Mother Body...Radiant Moon Class."

If the panel had been a fraction of a second slower, if the purification had been delayed even a moment, his spiritual sea would have already been polluted and eroded.

"This is terrifying... there's actually an old silver coin!"

Ian's gaze returned to the dark purple crystal embedded in the wall.

The cracks on the crystal surface are healing at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The failed invasion of the mother body just now seems to have also affected this child body.

The cracks healed 30% slower than before, and the dark light flowing inside dimmed slightly.

"It's very weak," Ian thought to himself.

The connection between the daughter organism and the mother organism is bidirectional.

The mother can use this to invade, and the offspring can also use this to draw power.

The mother body has been repelled by the panel, and communication has been temporarily interrupted. The child body is now isolated and helpless.

It's now!

Ian raised both hands at the same time.

With his left hand, twelve [Gravity Collapse Spheres] instantly took shape.

No longer the size of a walnut, but compressed to the extreme.

Each one is only the size of a sesame seed, but the gravitational pull inside is three times stronger than before!

The black sphere's surface is covered with flowing silver star trail patterns, creating ripples in space as it rotates.

With his right hand, he projected the purifying star trail from his mental sea.

It was no longer a passive halo with a diameter of five meters, but actively condensed into a silver beam of light.

It is composed purely of the power of the Order of the Stars and is about the thickness of a thumb.

The beam of light was directed at the dark purple crystal.

"go!"

Twelve gravity-collapsed spheres were launched simultaneously.

Under the control of the [spacetime curvature field], fly along a curved trajectory.

Bypass the tentacles on the bed, bypass the bookshelves, and get around all the obstacles.

Then, one meter in front of the crystal, the twelve spheres collided simultaneously!

boom!!!

Space was violently distorted.

Twelve miniature gravitational singularities erupted simultaneously, forming a "gravitational vortex" with a diameter of half a meter around the crystal.

The vortex rotates in the opposite direction to normal spacetime.

The walls around the crystal began to twist, and the floor, like dough being kneaded by an invisible hand, collapsed toward the center of the vortex.

The dark purple crystal trembled violently!

It tried to break free, but the pull of the gravitational vortex made it unable to move.

It tried to contact the mother, but the panel had already cut off the channel.

It can only hang there all alone, being torn apart little by little by the reverse-rotating spacetime.

It can only hang there all alone, being torn apart little by little by the reverse-rotating spacetime.

The cracks reappeared, more numerous and deeper than before.

"Not enough..."

Ian gritted his teeth, unleashing a surge of mental energy, and slammed his right hand down.

The silver beam pierced precisely into the center of the gravitational vortex!

The moment the beam of light purifying the star trail touched the crystal.

laugh! ! !

A piercing corrosive sound exploded!

Within the cracks on the crystal surface, the dark purple liquid began to boil, churning, struggling, and hissing wildly like a living creature.

A piercing shriek emanated from within the crystal.

It was like a million tiny mouths simultaneously emitting desperate howls.

Ian's eardrums stung, and warm liquid welled up in his nose, but he didn't stop.

The beam of light is continuously injected.

Twelve gravitationally collapsing spheres maintain the rotation of the vortex.

One second, two seconds, three seconds...

The color of the crystals began to change.

From dark purple, it turned purplish-black, then grayish-purple...

The liquid flowing through those cracks went from boiling to drying up, and from drying up to solidifying.

Finally... *click*.

A crack appeared on the surface of the crystal, running through the entire crystal.

The crevice was empty, like a hollowed-out eggshell.

"Break!"

Ian growled and clenched his fists.

The gravitational vortex suddenly contracted to its limit, and then... exploded!

An invisible shockwave swept across the entire room.

The bookshelves shattered, the walls cracked, and rubble fell from the ceiling.

The crystal shattered silently into countless tiny powders, like a glass ball being crushed.

The powder scattered, and vanished completely the moment it was touched by the purifying starlight.

at the same time.

A hoarse, inhuman howl came from the bed!

Those writhing tentacles, like a snake whose spine has been removed, instantly went limp.

The dark purple light faded from the surface of the tentacles, leaving behind a withered, lifeless dark brown.

The whiskers began to shrink, starting from the tips, gradually drying out, cracking, and turning into ashes.

Before the black flying insects could even flap their wings, they exploded into powder in mid-air.

The inky black fog thinned and faded at an extremely rapid pace, eventually dissipating completely.

The light from the crystal lamps illuminated the room once again.

On the bed, the distorted form could finally be seen in its true form.

Chieftain Titus Just.

He lay on his back, his clothes torn to shreds by his whiskers, his exposed skin covered with dark brown, dried scabs.

But beneath those scabs, the skin had already returned to its normal color.

The silver chains still bound his limbs, and the runes on the chains now glowed faintly again.

"call......"

Ian let out a long breath, staggered a step, and grabbed the bedpost for support.

"This time... I really did my best."

The touch of my fingertips was icy cold, and a layer of fine ice crystals had condensed on the wooden pillar.

This is a remnant of the room temperature dropping sharply during the previous pollution outbreak.

Blood was still flowing from his nose, and the warm liquid slid down his lips, carrying a metallic, metallic smell.

My eardrums are still ringing, a lingering effect of that shriek.

But he didn't bother to wipe it; his gaze was fixed on Titu's face.

At this moment, this face finally has the appearance of a "human".

His eyes were closed, his brows were furrowed, and his lips were bloodless.

But his breathing was steady, no longer the heavy and turbid breathing of before, but the normal breathing of a sleeping person.

In the depths of that breath.

Ian's mental power detected an extremely faint fluctuation of the soul.

That was a fluctuation belonging to Titu himself.

Though faint, though weary, though like a candle flickering in the wind, it truly exists.

It was not completely swallowed up by pollution.

"The cut was successful..."

Ian muttered to himself, a slow smile curving his lips.

He failed to completely eliminate the pollution; not only was he unable to do so, but it was also dangerous.

That crystal was merely a sub-sub-body; the true source of pollution, deeply rooted in Titu's soul, remained dormant.

If it's his own pollution, even at level five, Ian can purify it instantly.

However, Titu's pollution level was also level four, and he was afraid of revealing the existence of his panel if he tried to purify it in the other party's mental sea.

Even when a level three peak wizard is in a deep sleep or coma, their soul still has a faint connection to the outside world.

Fortunately, he severed the "umbilical cord" connecting the Burning Canyon to its mother body with his own hands.

From now on, the pollution within Titu's body will lose the energy supply from the mother and the spiritual guidance of the mother.

All that remained was a rootless, lifeless mass, passively being worn down little by little by the purifying agent.

Although it's slow, it won't explode again.

It will take time, but it won't get out of control again, and that's enough.

"cough......"

A faint cough came from the bed.

Ian looked down, and Titu's brows furrowed even more, his chapped lips moving slightly as if he were saying something.

But no sound came out; only a faint friction of airflow came from deep in the throat.

Ian leaned down and listened intently.

The voice was intermittent, like a dream, or some kind of instinctive, unconscious murmur.

But Ian heard the last syllable clearly.

"......Thanks......"

It's very light, like fine dust blown by the wind.

But it really is that word.

Ian sat up and looked at the patriarch on the bed.

"You're welcome."

He said in a low voice, "I just... don't want my previous investments to go down the drain."

After saying that, he turned and walked towards the door.

Behind them, the residual light from the purification of the star trails still lingered slowly in the air.

It was sprinkled on the body that had been ravaged by pollution for years.

Ian pushed open the door, and the light from the hallway shone in, almost blinding him.

Edel stood three steps away, the hem of her deep purple robe trembling slightly.

She stared at Ian, her lips moved as if she wanted to say something, but she couldn't utter a single word.

There were tears welling up in her eyes.

"Don't worry, your father is fine."

Ian's voice was calm, showing no trace of the desperate effort he had just displayed.

"Contact a trusted medical wizard to prepare for the subsequent purification. Also..."

Ian paused for a moment, looking at Adele.

"What I'm about to say is, don't tell anyone that your father's pollution was connected to an extremely powerful source of pollution, but I've already severed it. The rest can be dealt with slowly."

Adele took a deep breath and nodded vigorously.

That tear never fell.

She nodded, her voice hoarse:

"Okay, I won't tell anyone."

Adele's feelings at this moment were extremely complicated.

There was both worry for her father and gratitude for Ian.

There was even... a hint of secret joy in the two of them sharing a secret.

Ian walked past her, and Gaga poked its little head out from its shoulder.

Its silver-gray pupils glanced at Adele before retreating back into its feathers.

The sound of footsteps echoed in the corridor, gradually fading into the distance.

Adele stood there, watching the dark gray figure disappear at the top of the stairs.

Then, she turned around and pushed open her father's bedroom door.

Bathed in the glow of the crystal lamp, Titu lay quietly, his breathing steady.

Although her face was pale, it was no longer the distorted, inhuman paleness it had been before.

Adele walked to the bedside and slowly knelt down.

She reached out and gently touched the back of her father's hand with her fingertips.

It feels cool to the touch, no longer the damp chill of the previous pollution.

Tears finally fell silently.

"Father......"

She murmured softly, her forehead resting on the edge of the bed, her shoulders trembling slightly.

Outside the door, Delia and Nassenger stood quietly, their faces showing complex expressions.

The two of them stared at the direction of the stairwell, but the dark gray figure had already disappeared.

Then he turned his gaze away and looked at the figure crouching by the bed in the room.

After a long while, Delia murmured to herself.

"This favor...the Just family owes them a huge debt."

……

Ian quietly returned to No. 7 Wisteria Lane.

He sat in front of the stone platform, rubbing his temples with his fingertips.

My mental sea is still a little sore from forcibly maintaining the gravitational vortex and the purification beam.

The nosebleed has stopped, but my eardrums are still ringing.

Gaga perched on his shoulder, its little paws gently clutching his collar.

"Ian, you were... amazing just now."

The child's voice carried a rare seriousness.

"I was terrified when that big eyeball appeared, but you were completely unharmed."

Ian twitched the corner of his mouth but offered no explanation.

He looked to the edge of his field of vision, where a new line of information was quietly floating on the virtual panel.

[Detected and locked the coordinates of a Level 5 Abyss Mother Soul...]

[Following has been automatically blocked...]

[Warning: The other party has memorized your soul's essence.]

Ian stared at the line of text, and deep within his pupils, three star trails slowly rotated.

After a long while, he muttered to himself in silence.

"You still dare to hold a grudge... then bring it on."

"Once I've traversed the paths of several rules..."

"Who will hunt whom is still uncertain!"

Outside the window, the night was deepening.

In the distant eastern sky, towards the Burning Canyon, a faint, dark purple light flashed and disappeared.

It was like a giant beast opening its eyes, or like some ancient being slowly turning around.

Good books and good stories accompany you every day.