The Golem Mage

The moment Damien heard the roar, his body tensed, as a flash of fear crossed his face before he quickly masked it with an angry scowl.

"Make sure those boys die the most painful death imaginable. Don't you dare return if they're not dead or if you fail to retrieve my holy pool!" Damien ordered coldly, taking to the air to face the approaching threat.

Almost instantly, the snow-furred overlord lion appeared, its towering figure radiating a terrifying primal aura as its booming voice shook the surroundings.

"You dare steal from me!" it roared.

Though the explosion had happened deep within the mid-region, however the overlord, which was all the way in the High regions, had somehow sensed it, so it was clear now that it had planted some form of detection within the cave, so the moment the cave's mana veins were disturbed, the overlord lion had raced to the scene, extending its powerful Tier 9 mental senses long before its physical arrival just showing how much stronger it's mental power was than even Damien, but it was more focused on the mine and Damien and had missed Alec and his group who were hiding an energy source in their space sack.

Its mental sweep had already painted a partial image of what transpired inside: the mine had been completely cleaned out, the precious power stones stripped away, and worst of all, the mana pool—which required an entire year of constant nourishment from the power stones to replenish—had been drained entirely.

Barely able to contain its fury, the overlord quickly locked onto Damien's presence and wrongly assumed him to be the mastermind behind the theft, given the obvious human aura lingering in the cave and the fact that Damien just asked for it.

His rage was fuelled by the knowledge that it would now take years to restore the mine to its former state, the only way to hasten the time is by returning the stolen power stones, so the pool's mana veins could reconnect to the and eventually begin producing the valuable spirit water again.

Though it knew that forcing Damien to surrender the stolen power stones might speed up the healing process, but the overlord had no intention of letting him live also.

Damien's actions had crossed a line, and now, it wanted nothing less than his life as repayment for the heavy losses inflicted on its pride.

"Give me back everything you stole from me, and I might consider sparing your life," the Snow Lion Overlord demanded.

"Cut the crap. We both know how you operate. You didn't rise to power by being some benevolent lion king, and even if I had the power stones on me, I wouldn't hand them over," Damien shot back as he glanced toward the spot where the Gordons had been moments ago.

To his surprise, they were gone, his only remaining confidence lay in the Tier 7 priests he had already dispatched to chase them down.

"I guess I'll just have to make you regret your decision," the Snow Lion Overlord growled as popping sounds echoed from his body, his joints cracking unnaturally as if being broken from within.

Seeing this terrifying transformation, Damien didn't even consider launching an attack.

Instead, he turned and bolted, desperately trying to escape, all this while, he had been attempting to activate the teleportation stone in his hand, but each time, his efforts were blocked and cancelled—clearly due to the overwhelming suppression from being so close to the overlord.

—

Moments Earlier:

When Alec shouted "Formation One," the red tree grew visibly tense. It knew all too well how shameless Alec and his crew could get when backed into a corner, and it was ready for whatever tricks they might pull, however, it hadn't expected Alec to simply toss what looked like a harmless card toward it.

To humans, these random spell cards appeared as talismans etched with mystical ranks, but to demonic beasts and plant races like the Treants, it was nothing more than an ordinary card.

The moment Alec gave the command, and his two partners-in-crime darted in a coordinated sprint toward a weak point they could break through, leaving Alec to take up the rear—a maneuver they were all too familiar with by now.

Without hesitation, Alec hurled five Tier 6 random spell cards toward the red tree and another five toward the group of Tier 7 priests that had been dispatched to hunt him down. Alec didn't expect these attacks to kill either the tree or the priests, but he was betting that the injured priests would at least be temporarily affected when seeing a talisman heading towards them, therefore buying him and his team precious time to break free from the Treant warriors' encirclement.

Both the red tree and the priests were momentarily stunned when they saw the cards flying toward them.

The red tree sneered after quickly realizing they were just mana-infused cards, nothing more, but the priests, seeing the talismans, instinctively halted as they tried to assess the threat—though that brief pause was all Alec and his group needed. In that instant, they cut down the Treant warriors blocking their path and bolted into the forest.

On the red tree's right side, numerous vines wove together to form a large hand that grabbed the flying cards, and the moment the five priests saw this they also snatched one talisman each as they looked up, only to find Alec and his crew had already vanished into the woods.

"Damn bastards are still playing games. Let's see how your shameless tricks get you out of this one," the red tree growled as its Treants gave chase, with the red tree itself shifted into a smaller form, and perched on one of its Treant warrior as they pursued Alec.

Ignoring the red tree's actions, the five priests quickly darted through the air in pursuit.

Although Alec and his group had gained a head start, there was no way ordinary mid-rank mages could outrun Tier 7 opponents—unless something else was at play.

But what the priests didn't realize was that Alec wasn't even banking on outrunning them.

From the start, he had been extremely cautious of drawing attention from that Snow Lion overlord, though Alec had never faced a Tier 9 being before, he fully understood just how overwhelming the lion's strength was.

He had carefully led them deep into the forest, far beyond the range of the Overlord Lion.

Even as they closed the gap, and the priests were almost upon him, Alec didn't seem the least bit concerned, his eyes remained fixed on the skies above.

Finally, the moment he'd been waiting for arrived—as Damien, the Evil Sect Cardinal, had drawn the lion away.

Without hesitation, Alec came to a halt, no longer retreating, but while he stopped, Arthur and Brandon didn't; in fact, they ran even faster, with the heavy sacks on their backs swaying as they followed the rule of Formation One: no matter what happens, never look back—just run back to the human city.

Alec caught the scornful glances from the five priests who were seconds away from reaching him, he knew they severely underestimated him, and that was exactly what he planned to exploit.

"Explode," Alec said calmly, raising his index and middle fingers like a shinobi, channelling the hidden mana he had stored within the random spell cards.

Boom!

A deafening explosion erupted, shaking the entire forest.