Chapter 1101 - 893: Teleportation

Duke took a deep breath, withdrawing his hands from the rock wall and abruptly spreading his fingers wide before him.

The four-colored divine light surged from his palms, spreading through every crack in the rock layers, extending to the edge of every mineral pouch.

The philosopher’s stones embedded in the mother rock were stripped away one by one by the four-colored divine light, then pulled by an invisible force, transforming into countless streams of dark red light that poured into the Light God Court.

This time he no longer cautiously stripped them layer by layer, but instead, with himself as the center, enveloped the entire core region of the main vein within the extraction range.

The four-colored divine light spread along the vein path like a living creature, where it passed, the dark red crystals embedded in the rock wall faded, shattered, and turned to gray-white powder, and the new divine light extended to deeper mineral pouches before the powder could even land.

Inside the Light God Court, the philosopher’s stone minerals piled along the edge of the Spring of Life had formed a true dark red mountain, several times more than the combined total of his previous attempts.

The roots of the World Tree emerged from the spring, like countless pale golden tentacles coiling around this mountain of minerals, extracting, absorbing, and converting the life energy within into nutrients for its own growth with visible speed.

The sapling, which had already grown to Duke’s chest, gently trembled in the continuous flood of energy, with the bud tip of the fourth branch emerging from the top of the trunk.

The overhead rock layers began to emit a groan of unbearable burden; the rich area of the main vein was emptied too fast, too hollow.

This time, Duke’s extraction scale far exceeded the previous two times, almost the entire core area of the philosopher’s stone crystals was stripped away simultaneously, the gray rock layers lost their supportive framework, collapsing from the dome to the walls.

Massive granite blocks broke free from the dome, crashing onto the ground around him with a dull roar, the entire mine tunnel collapsing segment by segment behind him, with rocks and dust flooding in all directions like a breached flood along the mine tunnel.

Duke stood in the collapsed center of the ruined mineral pouch, collecting the last batch of philosopher’s stones still flying mid-air into the Light God Court, then melded into the rock wall without looking back, diving at full speed toward the depths away from the mining area.

Behind him, the entire core area of the main vein completely collapsed into a massive sinkhole of astonishing diameter, with the rock layers on the crater’s edge continuously crumbling, rocks and dust shooting into the sky from the pit mouth, forming a gray-white mushroom cloud over the Gobi Desert.

In the abandoned mine tunnel on the southwest side of the mining area, Rodrick was swinging a short-handled warhammer to smash through yet another shield wall blocking an intersection.

His flesh form had reached the edge of its limit, every swing of the hammer accompanied by the wet, sticky sound of muscle fibers tearing and being reborn.

Just as he smashed the last tribal warrior blocking the intersection into the rock wall, ready to break through again, the rock layer beneath his feet shook violently, followed by an overwhelmingly deep rumble coming from the direction of the mining area core, the sound pierced through layers of rock wall, causing the entire abandoned mine tunnel’s rubbled floor to shake violently.

The pursuers blocked at the mine tunnel intersection simultaneously halted their actions.

They turned around to look toward the mining area core, just in time to see that gray-white mushroom cloud surging and rising in the night sky.

A heavily sweating Stone Hammer Tribe sentry stumbled over from the direction of the mine tunnel entrance, his voice filled with uncontrollable terror: "The main vein! The main vein has completely collapsed! All the minerals are gone! All drained!"

The pursuers in the mine tunnel looked at one another, a few veterans subconsciously letting their grips on their pickaxes slacken.

They finally realized that the southwest side hunt was just a diversion tactic.

The true target to be captured had never appeared in this abandoned mine tunnel.

And that mysterious mineral thief whom all the tribal chiefs detested, at this moment, was at their rear stealing minerals.

Almost simultaneously, several Level 4 powerhouses’ auras from the mining area core sharply shifted, swiftly heading for the collapse zone, the ones about to catch Rodrick also unhesitatingly turned and rushed toward the principal mining area.

To them, entangling with a demigod-level wizard was far less crucial than safeguarding the tribe’s most vital vein, which was the foundation of several tribes’ survival and absolutely could not be lost.

On the rubble-strewn slope, Rodrick knelt on one knee, his chest heaving violently.

The flesh form was slowly receding, that layer of dark red glow fading from his body surface, revealing the pallid scarred skin beneath.

His arms were still trembling slightly, not due to fear but from the muscle spasms after the debt of flesh rules.

He lifted his blurry vision, watching those torches swiftly moving toward the core area of the mining area, watching those Level 4 powerhouses unhesitatingly abandon pursuing him, turning to madly dash toward the true main vein.

He gritted his teeth, bracing against the rough rock wall of the mine tunnel, and slowly stood up, staggering in the opposite direction of the main mining area.

He remembered the escape route well, every intersection, every collapse zone in this abandoned mine had a complete map in his mind.

Under the cover of night and the chaos of the mining area, he bypassed several smoldering collapse zones, crossed a dried riverbed shielded by wind-eroded pillars, and finally stopped at a secluded chasm in a mountain valley.

Leaning against the cool rock wall, he retrieved a few recovery potions from the space ring and gulped them down, habitually activating the Divine Revelation Mark to check the leaderboard, and then his entire being froze.