"What is this?" Lam's eyes widened in astonishment.
"This is the person Daniel was just thinking of." Cliff explained.
"Although he blurred the image, he still left a trace in Daniel's memory!" Eris expressed her confusion, "Lord Cliff, I don't understand what you mean!"
Cliff placed the book on the ground and softly recited a magical incantation.
To everyone's amazement, the beetle on the page came to life, scurrying around on the paper before flipping over, crawling off the page, and flying away in a specific direction.
Realizing what was happening, everyone quickly followed suit, rushing after it.
...
"Nathan isn't dead? How is he still not dead? What have you done?" Roars echoed through the narrow underground cave.
Like a spiderweb hanging in the cave, a mosaic, delicate mirror made of hundreds of fragments displayed the middle-aged, decadent face of Frank.
At this moment, Frank's face bore a ferocious expression.
"I've given you so much time for such a trivial matter, why can't you handle it?"
"It was Anthony!" the old wizard in the black robe answered.
"That boy is obsessed with the little princess!" Frank, fuming with anger, said, "Didn't you give him the Mystic Spirit Pill?"
"He let the princess escape!" the old wizard pursed his lips.
Frank's tone darkened: "Cliff has gone there, you have 10 minutes."
Then, his figure rippled like water, disintegrating into mana particles that slowly vanished into the air.
The next moment, the wizard's body disintegrated like eroding sand, turning into a fine powder that formed a small yellow cloud, drifting out of the cave with the wind.
In the sky, the insect-formed face once again released a black stream, carrying away a large chunk of the cliff wall.
Just as the energy was about to be exhausted and disperse into insects again, a yellow cloud drifted from afar and directly collided with the giant face.
Anthony, hiding at the edge of the forest, suddenly looked up.
In the sky, the collapsing black face reassembled, its size now doubled than before.
With this change, a rain of insects began to descend from the sky.
Different from the previous insects, this time, tiny yellow bugs fell from the sky.
After the insect rain, the ground instantly blossomed with flowers formed by transparent wings.
Anthony's face turned pale as he shouted towards the sky, "Mentor, you can't kill Luna!"
The ancient voice from the sky responded, "You have already failed, do not harbor any delusions."
"Killing Luna, aren't you afraid of the Emperor's blame?" Anthony challenged.
"Sacrificing a descendant to deal with Milo, and to protect the Gale Empire's safety for a millennium, even if the Emperor blames me, what is my death in comparison?" The aged voice dispersed with the wind and rain.
Anthony stood rooted to the spot, momentarily at a loss for words to persuade his mentor.
The rain in the sky grew heavier.
Each drop that hit the ground turned into a cluster of yellow bugs, which instantly absorbed energy from anything they touched.
In a very short time, they transformed into flowers formed by transparent wings, the yellow bugs growing countless times in size.
Wherever these winged insects made contact, they either instantly drained the life force or caused blackening and corrosion.
Moreover, these insects had a decent resistance to magical flames.
It didn't take long for half of the cliff to be eroded away.
The ground flowed like a flood with a sea of yellow insects.
The burning of the Flame Cloud could no longer stop the flow of yellow bugs into the cave.
The cave echoed with the booming of exploding fireballs.
Witnessing this scene, Anthony suddenly roared, exerting all his mana, sending out a command to control the swarm above.
He was fighting for control over the insects.
Inside the cave, Nathan had no magic equipment left in his hands.
Luna ceased her digging efforts, turning instead to tirelessly cast weakness spells at the cave entrance amidst the flames.
For the occasional insect that made it through, if it could be killed with a rock, it was; if not, she used low-level magic scrolls Nathan had given her.
Firebreathing spells, ice spear spells, scroll after scroll was unleashed, barely holding back the invading insects.
However, due to the overwhelming number of insects charging in, they caused severe damage before they could be dealt with.
Behind her, Nathan held a small fireball, the size of an egg, in his hand, frantically compressing magic.
Faced with this desperate situation, he no longer cared about the risk of Blood Burning.
This time, he challenged himself again, aiming to compress the giant fireball to the size of an egg, squeezing all his mana into it.
As he madly concentrated all his mana into the fireball in his hands, another wave of insects charged in.
Luna's firebreathing spell eliminated most of them, followed by a small fireball that blasted away the small remainder.
Yet, two insects escaped her magical assault.
Despite being hit by a weakness spell, they fearlessly leapt onto her, spraying venom.
Two coin-sized swellings immediately appeared on her arm and bare leg, quickly turning into festering wounds.
Luna crushed the two insects, casting another weakness spell without even glancing at her wounds.
However, the spell's range was significantly reduced; she was now too weak, both her mana and physical strength on the verge of collapse.
Yet, she persisted, refusing to let herself fall.
She saw Nathan's magic; she didn't know what it was, but she could tell from Nathan's focused demeanor that it must be a powerful spell.
Despite what Nathan might say, he was indeed protecting her.
So, no matter what, she couldn't let the insects harm Nathan.
Moreover, she could feel the brightness of that fireball increasing steadily.
With every moment she held on, the fireball's power grew stronger.
With this thought, she endured the long minutes.
Then she heard Nathan utter the incantation for release.
A white fireball from Nathan's hand, with terrifying brightness, flew out of the cave.
Outside, Anthony was contesting with the mentor for control over the swarm.
He couldn't control the tiny insects, but he could manipulate other flying bugs.
Under his command, the insect rain released by the mentor became erratic, growing unstable.
At that moment, Anthony suddenly noticed a white bright spot flying out of the cave towards the face in the sky.
That bright spot was incredibly luminous, immediately drawing the attention of all insects, which swarmed towards it.
The next moment, an explosion of white light as intense as the sun burst from that point.
It was as if a sun had been placed in the midst of the sky.
The fierce white flames spread outwards, instantly melting everything they encountered.
It seemed as if only one color remained between heaven and earth.
Anthony suddenly lost control of the swarm.
"Blazing Flame?!" came the astonished and enraged voice of the old wizard in black robes from the sky.
Then, the giant face in the sky could no longer maintain its form, instantly disintegrating.
The next moment, the old wizard appeared beside Anthony, looking at him with pity: "Your actions are pointless, only bringing you more pain. Time is up, let's go. I hope you'll have a chance to start over."
The old wizard then transformed into a yellow cloud, sweeping up Anthony and quickly fleeing into the distance.
As they left, all the insects swiftly burrowed into the ground, leaving behind only a thick layer of charred insect corpses.
A minute later, Eris arrived at the base of the cliff.
She looked at the thick layer of charred insect bodies on the ground and the severe damage to the mountain, feeling her heart sink.
They had just entered this floating island when a strong flash that erupted here drew their attention.
She could fully sense the power of the magic used.
Given Nathan's level of magic, surviving such an attack seemed highly unlikely.
If Nathan had died like this, Eris didn't know how she would explain it to her mentor.
Then Daniel, Lam, Sophia, and Cliff arrived in succession.
Daniel cast a large-scale water-based magic spell to sweep away all the insect corpses on the ground, and the group discovered a partially hidden cave behind a pile of rubble.
Eris was the first to rush in.
Inside, she saw Nathan, who had suffered a Blood Burning outbreak, lying in the cave, and beside him, Luna, injured all over and unconscious.