Chapter 0141: The Tide of Battle Turns

Deep within the sea of flames, a cluster of roaring fire twisted and warped, revealing Greem’s face, etched with shock and awe.

It must be said that for elemental-summoning magical constructs, sealing and banishment spells are truly their greatest enemies. While neither of these spells could damage the physical form of a construct, they were perfectly capable of temporarily purging them from the battlefield.

Given Alice’s mastery over space, even if the Lightning Giant were to struggle with all its might, it would remain trapped in that sealed, alien dimension for at least a quarter of an hour. During this interval, Greem would be deprived of his formidable ally, forcing him to face the aggressive and relentless Alice on his own.

A slight ripple stirred in the air.

Alice manifested before the hundred-meter-wide sea of fire, her face blooming with a sugary, adorable smile.

"Big brother, where are you? Are you playing hide-and-seek with cute little Alice? You’d better hide well! Alice is coming to find you..."

Her voice was honey-sweet and bewitching, yet the chilling, icy light radiating from the depths of her pupils was enough to make one shudder.

Greem’s face soon solidified from another cluster of flames. He sneered at Alice, "You certainly have learned some tricks; you’ve actually mastered sealing spells. I am right here in the fire field—if you’ve got the guts, come in and catch me!"

As soon as he finished speaking, his face receded, dissolving back into the towering, roiling heat of the flames. Moments after he had leveraged his home-field advantage to teleport to the other side of the fire, two wide spatial blades crossed through the spot where he had just appeared.

The flames shattered, the heat waves searing. Had he not moved quickly, he would have been wounded by Alice’s terrifying spatial cutting.

This was a defensive tactic Greem had custom-tailored for himself. Since forging his Fire Body, his elemental resistance and physical defense had increased significantly, but it could not resolve his "short legs" handicap. Among all his attributes, agility had become his greatest weakness, and his slow movement speed his most fatal flaw.

To patch this vulnerability, Greem used his high-temperature force field and Fire Body to create a massive fire field. By relying on the abundant fire elements gathered within, he achieved seamless, high-speed movement, and every so often, he could execute his dreamed-of short-range fire teleportation using the nodes of his high-temperature force field.

This meant that unless the enemy could shatter his fiery domain, they would be forced to endure his endless fire attacks while chasing after his flickering, elusive shadow.

Facing Greem’s provocation, the smile on Alice’s face grew even sweeter. She casually pulled out a winding, twisted spatial rift and tossed it into the fire field, then twisted her body to dodge a terrifying hand formed from flames, blinking away to another location.

Alice was not in a hurry. She struck and moved, each time pulling out a half-meter-long spatial rift and tossing it into a different part of the fire field. As time passed, the interior of the fire field—beyond the swirling heat—became dense with countless inconspicuous but slowly drifting spatial rifts.

These rifts constantly devoured the nearby flames, and any object that struck them would be sliced silently and effortlessly; their sharpness rivaled that of top-tier wizarding artifacts. Greem had collided with them several times while weaving through the sea of fire; had it not been for the protection of his Blazing Shield, his Fire Body alone would not have withstood such spatial blades.

Whenever Greem triggered a spatial rift, the very next second, his position would be swamped by an avalanche of spatial debris. That damned Alice was actually capable of miniaturizing numerous spatial rifts and throwing them like marbles.

Faced with such a barrage, Greem could only rely on short-range fire teleportation to evade.

However, as more spatial rifts drifted through the fire field, the number of safe nodes available for teleportation dwindled. Greem felt like a lone wolf slowly being cornered by a pack of hunters, his internal rage and ferocity mounting with every passing moment.

He had once sent out his Crocodile Hunter to distract Alice, but the moment this earth-type construct—which had accompanied him during his early days—appeared, it was riddled with holes by Alice’s rapid-fire spatial shards, nearly being scrapped entirely.

It had to be said that as Greem’s strength increased, so too did the power of his enemies. Constructs like the Crocodile Hunter, which possessed only high-tier strength, could now only serve as cannon fodder, no longer capable of playing a protagonist’s role on the battlefield.

Under the ravages of Alice’s numerous spatial rifts, the fire field Greem had cultivated grew smaller and smaller, with many areas drained of elemental fire. Greem was forced to reveal his physical form!

In this moment of crisis, Greem swung the Staff of the Flame Lord, and a towering Fire Djinn appeared in the sea of flames, shielding him from Alice’s rain of spatial spells.

For the first time since the battle began, Alice stepped into the area covered by the fire field.

Though she was haughty and arrogant, Alice was no fool! Before the fire field was broken, she would not easily step into a domain that did not belong to her.

But now, as the flames retreated, the area of the fire sea had shrunk by more than half, and there were blank zones everywhere where the fire had vanished. Thus, seeing her enemy beaten and unable to retaliate, and driven by a desire to humiliate him face-to-face, Alice finally stepped cautiously into the outer edges of the fire field.

Beneath her feet lay scorched, blackened earth; all vegetation had been reduced to ash by the terrifying high-temperature flames, swirling in the air with the rolling heat waves. The air was thick with high-temperature traps and void flames; there was no breathable air left within the field. Had Alice been an ordinary person, she would have long since been roasted into a mummy, scorched into charcoal, and choked to death by the foul air.

Alice, however, moved like a joyous little girl strolling through a royal garden. She lightly lifted her skirts, tiptoeing as she walked through the void half a meter above the ground. Beneath her feet seemed to be a perfectly transparent path, allowing her to avoid touching the thick layer of ash on the ground.

Thus, Alice swayed her figure, approaching Greem—who had been forced into the center of the field—step by step, like a cheerful sprite.

Greem was finally wounded!

While moving within the fire field, he carelessly collided with a winding spatial rift. His battered Blazing Shield scraped against the rift and finally exploded into a sky of fiery sparks. Caught off guard, Greem was grazed on his left arm by the spatial rift.

Silently, the flesh on his arm vanished, and even the golden bone beneath suffered a massive notch, its edges jagged as if bitten by a savage beast.

Bright red blood gushed from the wound, streaming down Greem’s arm. However, the blood was coated with flickering flames; from a distance, it looked like a winding little fire snake. After becoming a Fire Body, even the blood within Greem’s veins had become extraordinary.

Watching from three miles away, Mary couldn't help but lightly lick her luscious red lips, feeling a pang of heartache at the loss of such highly concentrated fire-blood. As for Greem’s current perilous situation, she turned a blind eye.

Having spent so much time together, she knew this "cunning" little man far too well. To fight desperately for an advantage and never suffer a loss—this was the true creed of his life. Since he was willing to put on such a masochistic display, he surely had a powerful trump card ready to turn the tide.

Just as Alice loved to look her enemies in the eye and admire their desperate struggles, Greem loved to create the illusion that he was at the peak of his power. And what followed would be the terrifying process of him using his methods to cast his enemy from that peak into the bottomless abyss!

One step, two steps...

Three steps, four steps...

As Alice slowly approached, the two finally stood face-to-face at close range.

Fifty meters! For two powerful quasi-wizards, this was an ultra-close distance where one could reach out and feel the other's breath!

"What, no more plans to struggle? Without those elemental puppets, how could your strength possibly compare to mine, the great Alice! Struggle! Wail! Let me tear that hateful face of yours to shreds... Hahaha..."

With a wild, shrill laugh, Alice pulled on the silver chain in her hand. Behind her, the Fire Djinn, tightly bound by thousands of rune chains, collapsed with a roar, its entire body exploding into a sky of falling flames.

This only added to her aura of unbridled, tyrannical cruelty.

Meanwhile, Greem, whose escape routes were all blocked by countless silver rune chains emerging from the void, watched the little girl who was reveling in the pleasure of revenge with a smile, pointing a finger behind her.

"Look behind you... look behind you... quickly, look behind you!"

Alice threw her head back and let out a satisfied, shrill laugh.

"What, no other tricks? You actually want to play a sneak attack with such boring methods..."

Before she could finish, a howling, violent wind struck from behind, immense and overwhelming, instantly shrouding her area.

The temperature in the air climbed at a terrifying speed, reaching three to four thousand degrees in the blink of an eye. Countless pure white flames manifested out of thin air, instantly burning through the space and rendering the spatial structure, which Alice had been manipulating with ease, unstable.

Alice turned around in horror.

A terrifying Fire Giant, standing tall enough to touch the sky, was leaning down, stretching out a massive, sky-covering hand of flame to snatch her!

"Ahhhhhhhhhhh..."

Screaming, Alice tore open the space before her and dove into the familiar, endless void.

The hand of flame whistled through the spot where she had stood, leaving five deep, scorched trenches in the earth.