Chapter 279: Annihilated
The blood drinker might have used some sort of underhanded methods to cheat his way through the first trial, but it would never be possible for someone like him to pass the second one!
The veiled woman hissed coldly as she continued to watch the scene in front of her. If one looked behind her veil, it was impossible to miss the chilling, murderous aura in her gaze right at this moment.
Damon’s focus was only on the puppet as he prepared for the next attack. He had no idea what was special or unique about this puppet, and he did not want to drag the fight unnecessarily, as he did not know what might happen next.
Besides, he was extremely impatient to finally try his new and improved mana core.
Damon sucked in a big breath and once again reached inward to connect with his mana core. Almost instantly, power exploded in his mana channels and flooded his body. He felt as if he was going to burst if he did not attack the puppet right now.
Damon did not think anything and clenched his fists. He then extended his hand forward in a simple punching motion with mana bursting out.
The seemingly ordinary punch connected with the puppet. Immediately, the veiled woman’s eyes widened in shock. Something was off. She could feel it.
Before she could place her finger on it, Boom!
An intense, blinding explosion rang out, a power that should not belong to a D ranker. Then something else even more unbelievable happened. The puppet was entirely missing, blasted into pieces!
"What?" She shrieked, unable to contain the shock. "How is this possible?" How can a single attack from this blood drinker completely devastate the trial golem? Just who the hell was this blood drinker?
She could understand him tolerating the poisons with some sort of special physique, but what about the golem?! It should have been impossible to even leave a mark on the puppet, let alone defeat the thing. But this guy once again just blew up the whole damn puppet!
The veiled woman’s hands curled into tight fists, her fingernails piercing her palms beneath her sleeves. Her body trembled from disbelief and rage.
This wasn’t some simple puppet conjured for theatrics. This was a high-tier artifact forged by her master’s own hand, calibrated to push even Heaven’s Chosen to their limits. It had poison resistance, adaptive defense matrices, and self-regenerating cores. And yet... it was gone.
Annihilated.
"Impossible..."
Once again, the blood drinker had cleared the trial in an excessive manner!
In the center of the room, the dust finally cleared. Damon stood unscathed, his fist lowered, steam rising from his skin, veins glowing faint green as his bloodline hummed with toxic vigor.
"That’s it?" he muttered, tilting his head. "I didn’t even use a real technique. Just a mana-boosted punch to test the output of my new core." He flexed his fingers, still buzzing with raw power.
"Wait, is that thing hiding in stealth mode somewhere in the room?" He looked around everywhere, even sending some mana bolts to different corners of the sanctum to test his theory out and force the golem to come out of stealth. However, nothing of that sort happened.
Damon finally gave up and scratched his head awkwardly. "With these damn system notifications going on and off, I have no idea what the hell is happening. Did I pass this trial or not? Hey, are you still here?"
He then started looking for the snake woman, hoping that at least she would throw some light on the progress.
Behind the veil, the woman’s eye twitched.
Not only had this insolent blood drinker survived the venom baptism, but he’d actually benefited from it. The new core he was speaking of... could it be that his poison baptism had mutated his mana core itself?
This was no longer amusing, and he wasn’t just a random nobody getting lucky.
This man in front of her was a force of nature clawing his way up from the abyss, and her master’s legacy, carefully sealed away for the worthy, was being devoured by him piece by piece. She had to stop him.
Or he would take everything.
"You still have to pass two more trials to claim my master’s legacy successfully." She coldly responded, her voice echoing in the temple.
Damon turned toward the voice, finally spotting the veiled woman once more. She stood on one of the floating stone platforms above, cloaked in mist and venomous light, though this time... she looked a lot less friendly, almost hostile even.
"Two more trials?" Damon grinned. "I am almost there." He did a fist pump. He was bursting with energy right now, and it made him feel euphoric.
The veiled woman’s fingers twitched at his response. She clenched her jaw and waved a hand. The temple trembled again, and another passageway opened in the stone, leading downward. From it, a thick green fog poured out, accompanied by an eerie hiss.
"The next trial will test your soul," she said. "The poisons you’ve swallowed so far have tested only your body. Now, let’s see if your mind and spirit can endure the legacy’s true weight. Many lost their sanity here... some are still screaming in the darkness below."
Damon raised an eyebrow. "Spiritual poison?" He cracked his neck. "That’s new."
"Your arrogance will be your downfall," she hissed.
Damon did not bother responding to her. She seemed pissed for no reason, and he chalked it up to her being some sort of monstrous, villainous snake. Besides, his focus was only on the trial.
He stepped forward into the mist-filled corridor without hesitation, vanishing into the toxic gloom. Behind him, the veiled woman stood still for a long time before following him down into the same miasmic mist.
The deeper Damon ventured, the thicker the fog became until he could no longer even see his hands in front of him. But what unnerved him wasn’t the darkness or the poison. It was the silence.
Then, suddenly, a voice that wasn’t his own echoed through the mist. "Please help me. Save me."