Having completed all preparatory work, Peter arrived at the absolute deepest depths of Ta Lo village.
What entered his vision was a colossal stone mountain. Embedded directly into its center was a massive stone gate, its surface tightly encrusted with dragon scales.
Perhaps because the Dweller-in-Darkness locked behind it was simply too terrifying, the scales lining the stone door had now been completely tainted into a pitch-black color.
The scales were further blanketed in dense, hairline fractures. Those cracks writhed and rippled like pulsing blood vessels, faintly oozing a sinister, dark-red glow.
Peter stood entirely solitary before this colossal gate. Gathering behind him was practically the entirety of Ta Lo village's combat strength—over two hundred villagers, fully clad in dragon-scale battle armor and gripping dragon-scale armaments, stood waiting in strict battle readiness.
Daisy stood at the absolute front of the crowd. Her arm was encased in a radiant, color-shifting dragon-scale gauntlet, and the resonant vibrations within her palm were already primed to erupt.
"How do you plan to open this gate?" Ying Nan couldn't resist asking.
"The most primitive method."
While speaking, Peter raised his right fist, which was currently encircled by the Ten Rings.
One punch.
BOOM——!
The earth shook, and the mountain swayed. The entire stone mountain trembled visibly to the naked eye. The fractures across the stone gate webbed outward across a massive section, allowing wisps of black qi to leak through the fissures.
Faintly, from behind the stone gate, a woman's voice drifted out:
"Wenwu, have you finally come to save me? I've been waiting for you here for so many years. Thank heaven, you've finally arrived."
The exact instant she heard this voice, Ying Nan's expression turned incomparably hideous.
This damned Dweller-in-Darkness was actually still mimicking her elder sister's voice even now. She didn't dare imagine—if the person who had arrived here wasn't Peter but Xu Wenwu instead, just how frenzied he would be at this very moment.
While she was contemplating these matters within her heart...
BOOM!
With even heavier force and an even grander momentum, a second punch smashed brutally onto the stone gate.
The terrifying energy fluctuations formed ripples visible to the naked eye. Immediately following, the massive stone gate shattered into countless fragments in a single split second!
The horrific black qi originating from within the threshold instantly blasted the stone gate to pieces, and the shards were sent splattering in all directions by the storm condensed from the black mist.
Everyone else present, excluding Peter, subconsciously turned their heads away.
Right at this moment, the night sky—which had previously been clear with scattered stars—was instantly blanketed by a dense, heavy black fog.
The cloud layer completely obscured the moon, rendering everything in the surroundings pitch black, to the point where one couldn't even see their own outstretched hand.
Within this absolute darkness, a black mist carrying a rancid stench of decay diffused outward from the cavern entrance.
"Screeech, screeech~!"
The black mist billowed and shifted constantly, ultimately condensing into winged, eyeless, small-scale Soul Eaters equipped with countless writhing tentacles beneath their torsos.
These lesser Soul Eaters shrieked ecstatically, flying toward the villagers of Ta Lo like swarms of locusts.
"Attack! Move quickly! According to the ancient records, the instant these things make contact with your body, they will immediately devour your soul!"
Guang Bo's voice warped completely out of pitch from agitation. The surrounding Ta Lo villagers likewise stood in strict readiness, their arrows flying toward the airborne Soul Eaters like sheets of rain.
Dragon-scale weapons were indeed capable of exerting their effects when facing these Soul Eaters; fundamentally, it required only a single blade strike to shatter these small-scale monsters into patches of scattered black mist.
But the problem lay in the fact that these Soul Eaters, having been reduced to black mist, would not vanish. Instead, they would constantly reassemble and fuse in a vaporous state until they shaped themselves into brand-new Soul Eaters.
At the exact same time the Ta Lo villagers were locked in a chaotic melee with these lesser Soul Eaters, a roar that was over a hundred times more piercing than before echoed from behind the threshold.
Immediately following, a colossal, lumbering monolith exceeding fifty meters in length roared as it flew out from within!
Its appearance was practically a magnified version of the lesser Soul Eaters, but the crushing weight of the aura it carried could not be compared to those small fry whatsoever. That terrifying air almost made people want to drop to their knees in absolute submission.
The Dweller-in-Darkness soared into mid-air, unleashing an ear-piercing screech. Accompanied by its roar, countless motes of light abruptly manifested from the bodies of the Ta Lo villagers, flying toward the Dweller-in-Darkness in the air like a cloud of fireflies.
That was the Dweller-in-Darkness forcibly siphoning their souls. Once a soul was absorbed by the Dweller-in-Darkness, these people would forever degenerate into mindless, walking corpses!
Panic blanketed the scene. Facing a formidable enemy of this caliber, no one knew what to do.
"Calm down. With me here, none of this is an issue~"
Just as the Ta Lo villagers were panicked and apprehensive to the absolute limit, Peter's lazy voice chimed beside everyone's ears. Immediately following, he merely snapped his fingers. In the next split second, his form visibly divided into two.
The righteous Peter, a smile hanging on his face, spun the Omnitrix on his left wrist, and visible transformations occurred across his form.
A teal halo enveloped him. Immediately after, amidst this radiance, two dragon horns sprouted from his brow, and a layer of fine, dense dragon scales visibly blanketed his body.
He had almost completely transformed into a... dragon boy!
Beholding this scene, let alone the surrounding Ta Lo villagers, even the Great Protector—who was holding back but preparing to strike to protect the villagers—couldn't help but be completely dazed.
While they were paralyzed in a daze, the dragon-boy-form righteous Peter spread his arms wide. In the next split second, countless teal motes of light rained down upon the Ta Lo villagers present.
Bathing within these luminous motes, a layer of teal barrier visibly materialized over the villagers' bodies, and faint dragon-shaped patterns could be seen quietly swimming across the shields.
The exact split second they were encased by these teal barriers, their soul force—which had previously been continuously siphoned away by the Dweller-in-Darkness—instantly became incomparably stable.
It was as if the channels transmitting their souls had been instantly severed by the shields.
Noticing this point, the Dweller-in-Darkness's expression changed. It subsequently roared as it lunged toward the righteous Peter, attempting to thoroughly crush this damned fool who dared to prevent it from enjoying a full feast.
But before it could make a move, a rebellious, arrogant, and wild shout attracted the attention of everyone present:
"Mud monster, your opponent is me!"
The instant the voice echoed, everyone merely felt a blur before their eyes. In the next split second, a golden figure was seen crashing heavily right into the torso of the Dweller-in-Darkness.
What was even more unbelievable was that, even though the discrepancy in size between the two sides was exceptionally vast, the Dweller-in-Darkness was actually sent flying entirely by this single stream of golden light.
Its colossal torso smashed heavily onto the ground, causing the surrounding structures to instantly disintegrate into fine powder.
"ROAR!"
The Dweller-in-Darkness unleashed a fury-filled roar of absolute pain, its pitch-black, massive face twisting frantically, seemingly unable to believe that all of this had actually occurred.
The undying and un-erasable self had actually felt pain?
Snapping out of its shock, the monster let out a furious bellow. Its colossal frame struggled to scramble up from the ground, lifting a massive claw to swipe down brutally toward Peter!
"Good, very spirited!"
Beholding that descending, massive palm that was almost large enough to blot out the sky, the evil Peter's lips hooked into a ruthless arc. Immediately following, he unleashed a roar completely brimming with an unhinged, fierce aura:
"Then taste this... HUOWAN!!!"
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