Chapter 1535: Twisted Phantoms, Loot Drops from Monsters

From the moment he entered the Magic Net Riot Zone, Xia Duo's mind had been tightly coiled; the instant he saw the shadow, he threw a Mind Stun at it without a second thought.

This strike was like adding an equal or even greater amount of clear water to a blob of ink, and even stirring it a few times; after enduring this blow, the shadow's distorted form looked exactly like ink being dispersed.

Immediately following this, Xia Duo heard a sharp, angry roar that pierced the soul; even through his heavy layers of Protection, the sensation felt very much like the electric screeching of old-fashioned loudspeakers from his hometown, making one feel extremely uncomfortable.

But before he could make any further moves, the distorted shadow changed its form again, turning into a patch of twisted red clouds, and the next moment, the red clouds turned green, then yellow.

It changed incessantly, like a distorted, alien RGB ambient light with a bug in its internal program; if it weren't for the fact that the thing still emitted shrill mental screeches while changing forms, Xia Duo would have wanted to keep it around a little longer.

But unfortunately, for an unknown Ether Creature, there was only one thing Xia Duo could do, and that was—eliminate it!

However, before completely eliminating it, he wanted to see what exactly the thing was; subsequently, he unleashed Will Disintegration + Mind Stun, followed by Focused Lightning triggered by his Bloodline Ability Thunder Control, one after another.

The former descended instantly, and the latter could also be called extremely fast, but this time the attack still failed to eliminate this unknown Ether Creature; it only made the speed at which it changed forms much faster.

Besides red, yellow, and blue, more colors appeared; at first it was just monochrome, but after "seeing" Xia Duo, there were even signs of it turning into Xia Duo.

It was just that, affected by Xia Duo's attacks, even if it wanted to turn into his likeness, what was ultimately presented was only a distorted, mottled, humanoid form.

At the same time, the mental screeching emitted by the opponent never ceased, and it even became increasingly fierce due to being attacked by Xia Duo.

For a moment, Xia Duo even suspected whether it was his active attack that had angered the opponent; if he hadn't attacked, would the opponent have remained quiet?

But there are no "ifs" in such matters; Xia Duo dared to be certain that if someone with less understanding of the mental domain had come instead, they would barely be able to withstand a single attack from it.

For such a bizarre thing, its mere existence meant that no human Spellcaster could ignore it; it was just a matter of elimination versus utilization, and what Xia Duo chose at this moment was elimination.

The Ether Creature he encountered previously in the ruins of the Inosen Mage Tower was invisible, while this one was tangible, and looking at it like this, it seemed to be capable of many changes.

Coupled with the fact that this thing was naturally adept at mental spells, it was almost certain to be a being possessing Wisdom; once it ran outside, who knew what kind of chaos it might cause!

……

After the mental spells, Xia Duo tried Force Field spells and Evocation spells, neither of which achieved very good results; they only made the opponent become more weakened.

If he kept trying, perhaps he could kill the opponent, but the efficiency was self-evident; basically, Advanced Rank Mages should not consider going against it—it was almost certain death if they encountered it.

Especially in the current environment, where the Ether Plane and the Main Plane had overlapped, which caused all Teleportation Spells based on Etheric Link to fail.

As for Teleportation Spells using the Astral Plane as a medium, because the Astral Plane and the Ether naturally repel each other, it was difficult for a Spellcaster here to link to the Astral Plane, and thus they were also almost unusable.

Once an Advanced Rank Mage lost their greatest mobility, they were actually no stronger than an Intermediate Rank Mage.

"Sigh—I don't know what on earth Iolum is up to; I'm afraid this mess here will be very difficult to clean up!"

Originally, it was just a normal Magic Net riot, not even as serious as when a Mythallar collapsed; as long as it was carefully suppressed, guided, and repaired, it would not be difficult to quell.

But now it involved Ether Chongdie, and there were too many variables; even Xia Duo instinctively felt that this matter was extremely thorny to handle.

Based on his own experience, he could not properly handle it alone.

"I hope Iolum has some miraculous ability!"

Taking one last look at the unknown Ether Creature that was still constantly changing its form, Xia Duo lost all interest and casually pointed at it, extinguishing it.

It was difficult for an Advanced Rank Mage to kill the opponent, but for Xia Duo, not to mention destroying it with a flip of his hand, at least it didn't take much effort.

And after the unknown creature died, its form, after a burst of rapid distortion, turned into a patch of transparent mist, and it became thinner and thinner.

"Clatter—"

Something shaped like a colorless, transparent crystal bead fell to the ground from the dissipating mist; Xia Duo looked closely and saw that the crystal was not a complete sphere, but had dozens, nearly a hundred, facets.

Even in the slightly dim Ether Mist, it looked completely transparent and sparkling.

"Did I get a loot drop from killing a monster?"

To this, Xia Duo's first reaction was that it was absurd; if killing monsters could drop equipment, then what was the need for craftsmen and factories? He might as well just kill monsters.

But on second thought, Ether Creatures were often mysterious and could not be viewed with common sense; who knew if they wouldn't drop equipment?

Regardless, he should just pick the thing up first!

Thinking this, Xia Duo made a casual beckoning gesture, but the bead did not react; had his Mage Hand, which had always worked, actually failed at this moment?

Xia Duo immediately became interested; this was the first time he had seen such a thing. Since it ignored the Transmutation-based version of Mage Hand, could he create a Force Field hand by shaping a force field and pick it up?

It didn't have to be like a real hand; Xia Duo directly created a clip shaped like two bowls joined together to clamp that multi-faceted crystal bead.

This time it succeeded; as the clip retracted, the top half disappeared, and it returned to Xia Duo's front as a small bowl the size of a palm, holding the crystal bead.

Observing and sensing it at close range, Xia Duo always felt a sense of inexplicable familiarity, but no matter how he thought about it, he couldn't recall where he had seen it.

Simply tracing memories could not search for things like intuition or inspiration; it could only search for memories based on objective information actually received by various senses.

If he wanted to search further, he would need to trace it from his Subconscious; standing here, Xia Duo did not feel safe doing that.

He hadn't forgotten that an Elf had snuck in here not long ago, and it was an Elf who had bypassed the blockade of more than a dozen Archmages.

Admittedly, there was the factor of surprise, but it also showed that the opponent was not an ordinary Elf; at the very least, they were a powerful Elf Mage.

After hesitating for a moment, Xia Duo did not directly touch the bead to gain a stronger sense of inspiration, but temporarily stored it in his Personal Space.

In any case, the item was already in his hands, and he could study it whenever he wanted; there was no need to risk being ambushed by an Elf to study it here.