Chapter 3771: Backstab

The ten-thousand-meter-high star giant tree, the shallow water on the ground rippled. Su Xiao held his blade alone, facing the Abyss Archbishop and the Lord of Eternal Darkness. There was no doubt that this was almost a dead end.

Among the Four Giants of the Lightless Temple, the Astral Devourer had the strongest frontal combat power, but its intelligence wasn't great, so its comprehensive combat was actually the bottom among the Four Giants.

The Progenitor was both impossible to hit and could continuously absorb the enemy's life force, and also had terrifying effects such as corruption and instant death. If one were to talk about who had the strongest defense among the Four Giants, it was definitely the Progenitor, not the Astral Devourer. The Progenitor had an exaggerated damage reduction of "all damage reduction 95%," like a ten-thousand-year-old withered corpse, withered, hard, immortal, and indestructible.

Even so, the Progenitor's comprehensive strength could only be ranked third from the bottom. It wasn't that it was weak, but the remaining two were too strong.

The Lord of Eternal Darkness was very mysterious. That white robe with a metallic texture, and under the hood, seemed to be a void, or it seemed to contain the suffering and struggles of all living beings.

But compared to the Abyss Archbishop, the Lord of Eternal Darkness couldn't be ranked first. That's right, in terms of comprehensive strength, the Abyss Archbishop was very strong in combat power, strategy, and various trump cards.

More importantly, this place was the Eternal Light World, a world with only elemental power and no Abyss power. In this place, the Abyss Archbishop had such means. One could imagine how difficult this guy would be to deal with once he reached the outside world.

Su Xiao's talent mission was to kill three of the Four Giants of the Lightless Temple. All along, he had actually excluded the Abyss Archbishop because he always felt that the probability of killing this guy was less than 40%.

After the Nightmare Blood Shadow broke through the nightmare, Su Xiao had one more strong enemy to deal with, which invisibly reduced his probability of killing the Abyss Archbishop by another 20%. Some means had to be reserved for dealing with the Nightmare Blood Shadow, not the Abyss Archbishop.

Another point was that the Progenitor, the Astral Devourer, and the Lord of Eternal Darkness all devoured an entire world, either swallowing the world itself or turning the world they were in into a wasteland. This was undoubtedly the most hateful way.

Compared to this, the Abyss Archbishop's approach was much lower-key. In the myriad worlds, no matter which world's Dark God Sect, as long as they wanted to obtain power through the dark faith of this sect, they had to perform equivalent sacrifices, either sacrificing secret treasures, or collected soul energy, or even their own origin soul energy.

These sacrifices, it was said they were sacrificed to the Abyss, but they were completely the wishful thinking of those who sacrificed. The Abyss wouldn't respond to them at all. These sacrifices were actually all sacrificed to the Abyss Archbishop; it was the supreme god of the Dark God Sect.

Even if the Abyss Archbishop was imprisoned in the Eternal Light World, the Dark God Sect was still active. After Su Xiao ascended to the ninth stage, he experienced two worlds, namely the Shadow World and the Wind Sea Continent, but both worlds had the Dark God Sect.

Especially the Wind Sea Continent, the Dark God Sect there wasn't too active, but it was as stubborn as a tumor, and in that world, there was also an Abyss Archbishop. However, that Abyss Archbishop was more like a branch individual who was gradually influenced by the true Abyss Archbishop's consciousness and had long lost himself.

Actually, calling the leader of the Dark God Sect in the Wind Sea Continent the Abyss Archbishop wasn't quite accurate; calling him the Abyss Bishop was more appropriate, because there was only one true Abyss Archbishop, and he was in the Eternal Light World.

Su Xiao faced the Abyss Archbishop and the Lord of Eternal Darkness at the same time. This situation was naturally to retreat according to the predetermined plan. Long before the plan to kill the Astral Devourer, Su Xiao had considered whether the Abyss Archbishop and the Lord of Eternal Darkness would take this opportunity to deal with him together. Now it seemed, it was indeed so.

If you can't beat them, you can't beat them. There was no miracle or good luck, and there was no such thing as temporarily becoming stronger. When fighting the Abyss Shadow · Ciman Achid, Su Xiao had already lost once. Not dying that time didn't mean there was a second chance like that. That was his first defeat, and he had to strive for it to be his last.

The plan to retreat was simple and crude: take out one of the two remaining "Sun Holy Swords" and detonate it instantly, relying on the 【Inscription Base · God Sacrifice】 sun flame damage reduction to resist, and then immediately use the Law-Breaker teleportation array to leave this place.

Su Xiao was just about to take out the "Sun Holy Sword" when he suddenly discovered that a translucent grid appeared in the sky, covering this large area. And this grid was covered with space crystal thorns. Once he tried to break through by force, he would be caught by this space net and then brought along with this trap covered with space thorns to complete a space teleportation. That would be extremely dangerous.

"Your friends are now busy dealing with the Deep Sea Evil Spirits; it's already impossible for them to come to save you."

The Lord of Eternal Darkness spoke. What he mentioned about the Deep Sea Evil Spirits was the monster Su Xiao had eliminated one-thirtieth of through the Law-Breaker teleportation array when he first entered this world. He still remembered the prompt at that time:

【You have eliminated Deep Sea Evil Spirit (1/30).】

【You have been hated by the Deep Sea Evil Spirit.】

An invisible and cold fluctuation appeared on the back of Su Xiao's right hand. This was a circular mark, exactly the same as the mark on the Lord of Eternal Darkness's sleeve.

After sensing it slightly, Su Xiao confirmed that this was a tracking mark. He could devour and extinguish it, but while maintaining the stability of his own Green Qing Qing Gang Ying energy, he could devour and extinguish it within one minute. However, if he was in battle or being hunted, this time would be dragged to at least one hour or more.

The current situation was a killing trap set by the Abyss Archbishop and the Lord of Eternal Darkness, and the bait for this killing trap was the Astral Devourer.

Facing this trap, Su Xiao had long been prepared, because besides his four "good teammates," he also had a collaborator, and that was Solomon, whom he had agreed to cooperate with before entering this world. At this moment, the other party was in the Gray Dark Sanctuary and could reinforce at any time. A Transcendent-level undead-type mage, even if he had just ascended to the Transcendent level not long ago, couldn't be underestimated.

Solomon had two ways to summon undead or dead spirits: one was permanent summons, which were few and could be summoned instantly for sudden encounter battles.

The remaining undead and dead spirits, Solomon generally summoned different undead and dead spirits according to different worlds. And in this world, Solomon received unprecedented strengthening.

Given the danger level of the Eternal Light World, those qualified to survive here were all extremely powerful entities. But those who died in the elimination actually also had many powerful people with bad luck. These powerful people, after death, were summoned in the form of undead, and their strength could be imagined.

This also led to Solomon not daring to fully open his ability to summon after ascending to the Transcendent level. Perhaps after one full-force summon, the undead and dead spirits that appeared would exceed Solomon's control limit. In other worlds, this wouldn't happen, but in this world, it was a situation that could definitely occur.

Although he had this trump card in hand, Su Xiao always felt that something was wrong with this situation. He couldn't judge exactly what was wrong for a moment. After all, the strong enemies he was facing this time were very strong in strategy.

The Lord of Eternal Darkness opposite naturally didn't know Su Xiao had this trump card. From the beginning of entering this world, Su Xiao hadn't met Solomon.

Water vapor rose slowly, complementing the ten-thousand-meter-tall Star Giant Tree that shimmered with a faint light. The scene at this moment was beautiful, yet none of the three present had the heart to appreciate it.

The Lord of Eternal Darkness raised his hand, and the invisible palm aimed at Su Xiao. An eye gradually appeared in the palm of this hand. This eye had multiple pupils, and in each pupil, there were many smaller pupils. This seemed to be the secret of the Lord of Eternal Darkness's immortality.

"Being buried under this star giant tree is also a good ending. Don't you think so, Law-Breaker Shadow..."

Pfft!!

A dark tentacle as thick as an arm pierced through the Lord of Eternal Darkness's back from behind and stabbed out from his chest. The invisible blood stains on the black tentacle caused transparent flesh and blood branches to grow on it, and they twisted wantonly.

This strike was too sudden. More importantly, the one who performed this backstab was none other than the Abyss Archbishop, who was supposed to join forces with the Lord of Eternal Darkness to deal with Su Xiao.

Normally speaking, being pierced through the back wouldn't count as an injury to the Lord of Eternal Darkness, but at this moment, what pierced through his back was a weapon named "Scorn." This thing had once backstabbed the strongest Beast King of the Wind Sea Continent.

Looking at the myriad worlds, this was the strongest backstab weapon, none other. However, it hadn't appeared in the world for tens of thousands of years. Now it seemed that this weapon had been brought to the Eternal Light World by the Abyss Archbishop.

"Scorn" had three characteristics. Once a backstab was successfully achieved, its attack characteristics would be determined according to the characteristics of the world it was in. If it were in the Dark Continent, then "Scorn" would have Abyss characteristics. Right now in the Eternal Light World, the attack characteristic of "Scorn" was elemental characteristics.

The second characteristic of "Scorn" was that its attack had two stages. Once the first stage of the attack successfully achieved a "backstabber," it would erupt with a second-stage attack according to the world's characteristics. Moreover, the eruption intensity of this second-stage attack would be determined according to the strength of the person being backstabbed, which was to be strong when meeting the strong.

The third characteristic of "Scorn" was adaptation. The stronger the person holding it, the stronger the power it could erupt.

Simply put, the stronger the user of "Scorn," the stronger the world it was in, and the stronger the enemy being backstabbed, the more powerful the attack it would erupt.

This strike just now was very likely the strongest strike "Scorn" could erupt, because this was the Abyss Archbishop backstabbing the Lord of Eternal Darkness in the Eternal Light World.

The Lord of Eternal Darkness's eyes, covered with pupils, widened a bit. Its right arm slowly lifted, but it couldn't move further. This was caused by the ability of "Scorn" and the Abyss Archbishop.

All of this happened too suddenly, or rather, this was a confrontation between old schemers; one couldn't guess what would happen in the next second. The previous second, the Abyss Archbishop and the Lord of Eternal Darkness were going to besiege Su Xiao standing under the star giant tree, but the next second, the Lord of Eternal Darkness was tragically backstabbed.

Under the star giant tree, after witnessing this scene, Su Xiao immediately felt a stinging pain all over his body. This was a stinging pain of perception, and it was so intense that it was as if there were really sharp needles stinging. He had only had this near-death experience when fighting the Abyss Shadow · Ciman Achid, when he had exhausted all his means and was sitting against the tree wall, watching the Abyss Shadow walk toward him step by step.

But at this moment, this feeling appeared for the second time, and it was extremely intense.

I don't know when, the sky had turned into a dazzling white-gold. Unprecedented daylight gathered and surged, and white-gold world thunder emerged, hidden in the huge vortex composed of daylight.

Looking up at the sky, one would find that this slowly rotating daylight vortex almost covered one-third of the sky of the Eternal Light World. Under this heavenly might, everything seemed extremely small, including that ten-thousand-meter-high star giant tree.

All of this happened too fast. Su Xiao only had a moment to make a decision. He put away the Zhan Long Shan and the Hunter's Night on his body, took out the 【Intense Emblem】 with only 2 points of durability remaining, held it in his palm, and consumed the remaining 88,703 points of mana, converted it into Green Qing Qing Gang Ying energy, and all of it formed a crystal layer, clinging to his body surface.

The only good news was that this time it was originally to deal with the Astral Devourer. To prevent the Astral Devourer from dying and counterattacking, there were large-scale mutual destruction means. Su Xiao came here alone, and Bubu Wang, Amu, and Baja were all in the Gray Dark Sanctuary.

"Farewell, Eternal Darkness."

The Abyss Archbishop spoke. As he spoke, darkness had already emerged on his body. A horn appeared in his hand. This horn looked like the horn of a male reindeer, looking somewhat wood-like. The strongest manifestation of the Abyss was sometimes not darkness, but this wood-like quality. This item was a life-saving artifact.

As for why Su Xiao and the Abyss Archbishop didn't turn around and flee, it wasn't that they didn't want to, but they couldn't do so. After the daylight vortex appeared in the sky, root-like white-gold thunder silk threads were distributed in the surrounding area.

This time, the Abyss Archbishop exerted the characteristics of "Scorn" to the extreme. Especially, "Scorn" would determine the attack attribute according to the characteristics of the world it was in. Right now, being in the Eternal Light World, it was naturally an extreme natural elemental attack attribute. Furthermore, because too many extreme natural elements had accumulated in this place for so many years, leading to stagnation and precipitation that couldn't circulate, being triggered at this time was naturally unprecedentedly terrifying.

The factors of time, place, and people made this strike not only contain the white-gold world thunder, but also equivalent to the entire world's extreme elements conducting a bombardment on this place.

A dazzling beam of light descended from the sky. Su Xiao's vision turned into a vast expanse of white. A feeling of being evaporated by daylight struck. The crystal layer on his body surface shattered, and his million-level life value suddenly slid down to only 1%. While triggering the Blood Gun Master · Blood Imperial ability, the 【Intense Emblem】 effect was also triggered.

"【Intense Emblem: After storing it in the team storage space, when you and all team members receive a high-intensity strong attack, causing the life value to suddenly drop to 1%, this emblem will be activated, locking the life force of this unit for 10 seconds, making it enter an absolute invincible state.】"

The surroundings were bright. Vision seemed to lose its meaning at this moment. Su Xiao seemed to see the entire Eternal Light World, and, a layer of scarlet outside the Eternal Light World. This scarlet was slowly and firmly eroding the world's space seal. It looked like it wouldn't take long before it could erode through the space seal of a certain area of this world, thereby escaping this world. That area was located... deep in the Sea of Sand.

Hum~

The intense tinnitus allowed Su Xiao to escape from this true-or-false realm. As the tinnitus sound became smaller until it finally disappeared, pain struck all over his body. However, fortunately, after the life value dropped significantly, the adventure group skill was triggered.

"【Vitality Awakening (Rare · Team Passive Lv. 72), when a team member's life value drops below 10%, this ability will be activated, restoring 10,100 points of life value + 65% maximum life value in the subsequent 3 seconds...】"

The rapid recovery of life value made the pain all over Su Xiao's body disappear. By this time, his vision gradually recovered. In the vast expanse of white vision before his eyes, there were gradually colors. This was an area covered with white light particles. The surroundings were extremely open, but there was nothing. The ground was relatively flat, but very hard, like black volcanic rock.

If viewed from the sky, one would find that this was actually a cylindrical giant pit with a diameter of over a hundred kilometers, and it was bottomless. The air was filled with granular daylight, slowly floating toward the sky. Su Xiao was currently at the bottom of this giant pit, at least a hundred kilometers away from the ground.

Under the heavenly might of the strike just now, the rock layers, water layers, and magma layers underground were all pierced through or compacted, forming this vast underground area.

Among the large pieces of floating light particles, even though Su Xiao's life value had recovered by more than half, he was still somewhat exhausted all over. He held his blade in his right hand and the scabbard in his left, supporting his body with the scabbard as a staff. After resting for more than ten seconds, he flashed a few times and disappeared in place.

Moving a few kilometers at the fastest speed, a space crack several hundred meters high stood in front. The Abyss Archbishop was standing under this space crack, holding a head with a single horn in one hand. This was none other than the head left after the Lord of Eternal Darkness died.

Originally thinking he had been schemed to death, the Astral Devourer, who swallowed the "Book of Original Sin," then swallowed the "Scarlet Scepter," and finally swallowed the "Sun Holy Sword," died miserably enough. Now it seemed that the Lord of Eternal Darkness's unwillingness must be above the Astral Devourer's.

"See you in the future, Bai Ye."

The Abyss Archbishop leaned back into the space crack behind him. But just then, a "Blade of Sealing" came with the sound of breaking wind, which made the Abyss Archbishop's eyes narrow a bit.

Snap!

Like stabbing into a crystal, the Blade of Sealing stabbed into the space crack and stood still in it. However, because this space crack was too large, cracks gradually appeared on the Blade of Sealing. It looked like it could only be maintained for a few seconds.

Blood shadow broke the wind, a long blade attacked, a thrust from top to bottom, with a snap, pierced through a dark barrier, and stopped a few centimeters in front of the Abyss Archbishop's brow.

A dark impact struck his face. Su Xiao immediately took a big step back. The long blade was pulled out from the dark barrier. He blocked the front with his left hand wearing the Black King's Gauntlet, stabilized his breath for 1 second, and kicked straight out.

Thud!

The dark barrier was kicked to pieces. Su Xiao and the Abyss Archbishop were no more than three meters apart. Because they had withstood the heavenly might of the Eternal Light World just now, the states of both sides were very poor.

Snap!

The Blade of Sealing above shattered, and chaotic space fluctuations surged, making the surrounding air twist a bit.

"Blade Dao Blade · Magic Blade."

"Dark Abyss · Thirst."

Clang!

The long blade clinging to black-blue smoke slashed off the Abyss Archbishop's entire left arm, and this was a double-slash soul + magic blade strike.

Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!

Three sharp-tipped black tentacles sank into Su Xiao's left shoulder, right chest, and right rib.

Both sides left some "gifts" for each other. The Blade of Sealing inside the space crack completely collapsed. As the crack healed, a huge suction force spread out, and the Abyss Archbishop disappeared into it.

With a whoosh, Su Xiao spat out a large amount of black blood from his mouth and nose. The pitch-black spreading on his left shoulder made his left arm hang down powerlessly. Fortunately, as a master of pharmacology, he immediately took out several kinds of potions and poured them on the three penetrating wounds on his body. With a hiss, white mist rose. With Su Xiao's willpower, he couldn't help but have blue veins bulging on his neck, and only after a moment did he calm down.

Su Xiao looked at the broken arm gradually burning out not far away. He had a feeling at this moment that the Abyss Archbishop was definitely his mortal enemy in this life, and the Dark God Sect, the minions under his command, was also a faction he would focus on dealing with in the future. The Dark God Sect with the return of the Abyss Archbishop was not comparable to before.

The Abyss Archbishop had escaped, successfully breaking away from this cage. As for how the other party's plan succeeded, this had to involve the Astral Devourer.

In this series of developments and calculations, Su Xiao, the Lord of Eternal Darkness, and the Astral Devourer could each be called a faction, and they all had different plans among the three parties.

Su Xiao's plan was to lead the Astral Devourer out through the Priest's assistance and eliminate it without a death battle. The result was success.

The Lord of Eternal Darkness's plan was to join forces with the Abyss Archbishop, using the Astral Devourer as bait to lure Su Xiao out. Even if the Astral Devourer was eliminated, it didn't matter, as long as Su Xiao could be trapped. The result was that although this plan succeeded, it wasn't a complete success.

The Abyss Archbishop's plan was to wait for the Astral Devourer to be schemed to death, then pretend to join forces with the Lord of Eternal Darkness, but the real purpose was to backstab the Lord of Eternal Darkness through the strongest backstab weapon "Scorn."

Then, through the powerful attack triggered by "Scorn," bombard and kill the Lord of Eternal Darkness. In fact, killing the Lord of Eternal Darkness wasn't the Abyss Archbishop's goal; it was to use an unparalleled powerful attack to temporarily blast a crack in the space seal of this world, which had long been scarred, and through this crack, escape the cage of the Eternal Light World.

In fact, the Abyss Archbishop had long had this idea, but the opportunity to use "Scorn" only came once. Once it exposed that it held "Scorn," the Lord of Eternal Darkness, the Progenitor, and the Astral Devourer would all stay away from it. And without these three strong people who could be backstabbed, it couldn't exert the strongest second-stage attack of "Scorn."

It wasn't until the Abyss Archbishop used a "Blade of Sealing" that it confirmed one point: the space seal of this world was no longer as indestructible as it was ten thousand years ago, especially since a force of scarlet had been eroding the space seal of this world.

This made the Abyss Archbishop make up its mind, and then there was the plan that seemed to be joining forces with the Lord of Eternal Darkness to ambush the Law-Breaker with the Astral Devourer as bait, but was actually to backstab the Lord of Eternal Darkness.

Among the Four Giants of the Lightless Temple, Su Xiao eliminated the Progenitor and the Astral Devourer. The talent mission only needed to eliminate one more of the Four Giants to be completed. But the current situation was that the Lord of Eternal Darkness died at the hands of the Abyss Archbishop, and then the Abyss Archbishop escaped from this cage.

No matter how you looked at it, this mission was about to fail. The reason it hadn't failed at this time was that the Abyss Archbishop, as the mission target, was still alive. However, there was no chance to kill this Abyss entity within this world.

But there was actually room for reversal in this. The Four Giants of the Lightless Temple didn't mean there could only be four. Not to mention, now three of the Four Giants had been eliminated, and one had escaped from this place.

This meant that the subsequent Lightless Temple, and even the entire Sanctuary City, would be decided by the Priest, who was the Temple High Priest. At this time, this faction was leaderless and urgently needed a new Four Giant, that is, the supreme god of the Lightless Temple.

Under these circumstances, if one were chosen at random to become one of the new Four Giants, it definitely wouldn't pass the mission judgment. Once the talent mission didn't recognize it, no matter how one operated, it would be useless. But if this new Four Giant was even stronger than the original Four Giants? Plus, the faction originally ruled by this new Four Giant had already been wiped out. No matter how you looked at it, this new Four Giant could successfully pass the talent mission's judgment.

As for who this new supreme god of the Lightless Temple was, that was naturally the Scarlet Monarch. And as for whether the high-level members of the Lightless Temple agreed now, this was easy to handle; Su Xiao had a way to make them agree.

At this moment, it seemed that two strong enemies had been solved. In fact, among the enemies to be dealt with, the Lord of Eternal Darkness and the Abyss Archbishop were the two easiest enemies to deal with, because the other enemies were the Nightmare Blood Shadow, the World-Boring, and the Scarlet Monarch.

Compared to these three strong enemies, the Lord of Eternal Darkness and the Abyss Archbishop didn't seem so difficult to deal with. So regarding the current situation, Su Xiao wasn't worried. Furthermore, the "Talent Awakening Mission · Law-Breaker Shadow (First Stage)" was a no-penalty mission. Even if this mission failed, he still had one chance to activate this mission. Only the second failure would mean the complete inability to awaken the talent.

Thinking this way, the current situation wasn't actually bad; on the contrary, it was better than before. Before, Su Xiao had to deal with the Lord of Eternal Darkness, the Abyss Archbishop, the Nightmare Blood Shadow, the World-Boring, and the Scarlet Monarch. Among these, each had an irreconcilable hostile relationship.

But the problem was, after dealing with the Lord of Eternal Darkness and the Abyss Archbishop, even if Su Xiao won, he would have exhausted all kinds of means and basically lost the qualification to deal with the Nightmare Blood Shadow and the Scarlet Monarch. But now, he only needed to concentrate all his means to deal with these two strong enemies.

The dark aura on Su Xiao's body dissipated, which made him breathe a long sigh of relief. Only then did he have time to check the kill rewards for killing the Astral Devourer before.

【You have killed World-Extinguishing-level entity · Astral Devourer.】

【You have obtained Golden Skill Point ×11 points.】

【You have obtained 10,350 Soul Coins (because the combat power extreme of World-Extinguishing-level entity · Astral Devourer is limited by this world, this is the Soul Coin reward quantity obtained after evaluation).】

【You have obtained Eternal-level treasure chest · Star Devourer.】

【You have obtained Origin-quality treasure chest (killing a strong enemy, has a probability of obtaining).】

【You have obtained Star Crystal Core (highly rare item, can be submitted to Reincarnation Paradise to obtain Space-Time Power, or used for the improvement of Eternal-level equipment).】

【You have obtained 538,000 points of World Reputation.】

... ===== CHAPTER 3772 =====

【You have obtained 538,000 points of World Reputation.】