Chapter 2649: Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred and Ninety-Three: The Angel's Right Eye

The silver holy unicorn pulling the flame-tail accelerated its charge upward, and the death power suffusing the entire world could no longer affect her in the slightest.

"Moonlight Wheel!"

After taking another large gulp of pink essence, the massive wheel of light flew forward continuously from Xia De's hand—not to wound the enemy but to clear a path. After that soul-arrow rain, several dozen large clumps of soul residue came flying in, but the wheel sliced through them one after another.

The unicorn now seemed to truly have become a beam of silver light, and in the blink of an eye had already arrived before the colossal creature. As the black fog poured toward them like a waterfall when the thing finally swung its arm forward, after a single cry of "Silver Moon," the silver moonlight that seemed capable of illuminating the entire world instead eroded the black fog in reverse, and directly melted the colossal creature's right arm.

This enormous body was nothing but an empty shell; the true core lay within the eye.

"Neigh~"

The unicorn whinnied softly once more. Its spread white wings first flung out two slashes resembling light blades, then as the spirit-runes on the Ring of Destiny bloomed with light, a massive skull wreathed in blue flame flew out from the center of the Ring of Destiny.

After leaving the Ring of Destiny its volume grew larger and larger, until it became the size of a three-story building. The cackling skull rapidly devoured the scattered and purified soul power around it, then above the unicorn it spat out soul fireballs one after another to intercept attacks from every direction.

Although she had become a unicorn, she was indeed the Eleventh Ring great witch of death.

The unicorn's speed was considerable; in only three or four exchanges of blows it had already carried Xia De to the position of that shield formed of pure death power that had blocked the "Moonlight Wheel" earlier.

The unicorn's horn blazed with light, and in a single strike successfully pierced through that layer of shield, bringing Xia De before that enormous face. But in fact, even at such close range, Xia De still could not observe what this colossal creature actually looked like.

It was as if it wore a veil, or as if it simply had no features other than eyes.

The silver unicorn charged without pause straight toward its right eye, but at the same moment a slender black beam of light shot out from the giant's eye socket.

Xia De had seen this before—the "instant-death attack" that had shattered the key in the Fifth Epoch was exactly the same as this attack. He hurriedly pressed his hand to the badge on his chest, then leaped violently to leave the unicorn's back, his whole body crashing toward that beam:

"Praise the Angel of Death!"

The beam struck him dead-on but nothing happened. After the unicorn caught the reckless Xia De, it maneuvered that massive skull to block attacks behind them, then carried Xia De straight on into the pitch-black eye socket.

When the distance reached its limit, they seemed to have crossed some kind of boundary. An instant of coldness was like having ice water poured over one's head outdoors in the sweltering heat, and then Flora Winslet actually felt time stop flowing forward.

She was astonished to discover her humanoid soul floating in midair, while before her eyes were the unicorn and Xia De upon it, advancing through the dense barrage of attacks.

Attacks of every color and the two's counter-thaumaturgy interweaved, making "light pollution" truly appear before one's eyes. And at this moment, whether the unicorn, Xia De, or the flying spheres of light, crystal spears, and soul residue in the air, all were in a state of complete stillness, like an oil painting with chaotic composition and gloomy colors.

But she understood this was not time stopping; rather, because her soul had been stripped from her body, her consciousness in that single instant had reached the limit of its activity:

"Once you get close to this thing's vicinity, your soul gets ejected from your body?"

She tried to return to her own body, but found she could only look and could not move. But she was not anxious; instead she wanted to search for Xia De's traces. If this truly was a defensive mechanism that ejected souls within a certain distance, then theoretically Xia De's soul should also be nearby.

But she did not see Xia De's soul within this picture made still by heightened consciousness; instead, Xia De, who was riding the unicorn with his right hand raised high, wanting to cleave out moonlight once more, was actually slowly turning his head backward to look at her.

"Xia De's soul is still inside his body!"

Flora Winslet, in her pleasant surprise, met eyes with the turning Xia De, and then she was even more astonished to see that Xia De's eyes were actually golden:

"It's because I'm in the soul dimension, so what I'm observing is......"

The moment she realized Xia De's eyes were golden, golden cracks in her observation had already spread from his eyes across his entire body. But what she saw was not merely the "Divine Afterglow" state, because then as the golden light spread, Xia De upon the unicorn's back seemed to have become pure light in his entirety.

In that instant, the great witch of death felt that his gaze had become tangible, and that the gaze alone was about to ignite her entire soul. And when he reached out and grasped her hand, the searing heat brought by the light from a power beyond the mortal world actually kept her from immediately realizing, after her soul returned to her body, that she had already returned to normal.

Fortunately, even though the witch's mind was dazed, at least her unicorn body still maintained its inertia and continued crashing toward that pitch-black right eye socket.

Because the speed was too great, when the unicorn's silver body ignited by moon-fire became a beam of silver light that pierced through the giant's right eye, it was like a silver arrow passing through the giant's head, and the silver light-trail in the dark sky lingered long without fading.

"What happened? What just happened?"

Only now did the witch come to her senses; when she turned around in the air to look back, she discovered that the enormous body was collapsing like a shadow.

And in Xia De's hand, his face contorted as his left hand gripped a shriveled eyeball. Flames rose as he tried to suppress the eyeball's power, but the power of death still caused black patterns to climb up nearly half his arm. Having no choice, he could only use one of the three wooden stakes meant for dealing with the undead, driving it straight into the eyeball's interior, and only then did it quiet down:

"I got the core, so why is the remains still an eyeball...... this place is about to collapse!"

His right arm directly wrapped around the unicorn's neck, letting him keep his balance while continuing to suppress that eyeball:

"This way! The exit has appeared, let's go, this place really is about to collapse!"

Not only were the east, west, south, and north directions of this subspace collapsing, even the height of the sky was pressing down. The witch had originally been somewhat unused to Xia De holding her neck, but upon sensing the danger she immediately descended back to the ground, then spread her wings in a near-ground-skimming flight, advancing along the Gravestone Plain in the direction Xia De had indicated.

The silver figure's hooves struck the ground, leaving a trail of glowing hoofprints, and if she had turned to look behind her at that moment, she would have seen the entire world dissolving into nothingness. The black earth and the gravestones vanished silently, and even color itself lost meaning within the void.

Although the unicorn had no time to look back, it could also sense that the power of "the End" was destroying everything here. The dread within reached its limit; she had never felt herself running so fast. When she exerted herself in unicorn form, every muscle of her own, every patch of fur in contact with Xia De, and even Xia De himself, all seemed to be in the state most conducive to her running.

She did not know that in those mere seconds she had truly become a beam of light; she simply stared ahead, and finally passed through that rift stretching across the black Gravestone Plain.

And so, in the woods of Vesta Lineland, Xia De and the unicorn were suddenly "spat" out from a coffin lying in the tree-shadows with its lid open.

After landing, Xia De rolled twice, then was surprised to discover that the shriveled eyeball pierced by the wooden stake in his hand had actually calmed down after leaving the world inside the coffin. And when the unicorn landed it turned back into the witch; she likewise tumbled a few times across the grass, and finally came to a stop leaning against Xia De's body.

And so the two lay side by side, looking up at the sunlight filtering down through the sparse leaves. Both were gasping for breath, grateful that this wholly unprepared great battle had ended in such a manner.

"Mm~"

Suddenly, the grey-black-haired witch struggled to sit up, then threw her arms around Xia De's neck and pressed down from above to kiss him.

The coffin lay quietly to one side, and the shriveled eyeball Xia De had been gripping tightly also fell to the ground to lie together with that jar of umbilical cord. A kiss after a life-and-death crisis was sweeter and more passionate than usual. Xia De could easily tell that Flora Winslet did not actually know how to kiss, but fortunately Xia De, after so long and so much training and practice, was already quite skilled.

Only after a long while did the kiss end. Flora Winslet abruptly pulled away from Xia De and breathed heavily, her flushed and sweating face bearing a somewhat dazed expression, and then she pantingly lay on Xia De's chest, listening to his heartbeat.

Xia De, lying flat on the grass, also reached out and held her, and only then did the witch say softly:

"Alright, I admit it, my conclusion earlier was a bit wrong—kissing you is still quite fun."

Xia De did not know how to respond to this, so he simply did not answer.

The witch struggled to calm her violent breathing and heartbeat:

"Do you know? If it weren't for the fact that I'm in a cursed state right now, when we were escaping from the coffin just now, I even felt I had touched the edge of the Twelfth Ring. I have never truly experienced what the power of 'the End' actually is. The teacher was right—death is not the original intent of our seat; the End and conclusion are."

After speaking she propped herself up again, nearly pressing her face against Xia De's as she said:

"Alright, I'm done talking, let's try it again—this is really fun."

Her golden eyes shone with excitement. She stared into Xia De's eyes, and without waiting for his answer she directly kissed him once more.