Wizard: Starting from Escape from the Thorn Garden

Chapter 92 Barlog

The Balrog is a terrifying behemoth forcibly formed from the skeletal remains of countless enormous creatures, fragments of discarded undead armor, and liquid death energy emanating from the core of a furnace.

Standing over five meters tall, it resembled a twisted hybrid of a giant bear and a beetle. Its body was covered in viscous, high-temperature, dark blue liquid death energy. Six thick bone claws supported its massive body, and its head was made up of three enormous demon skulls. Three dark blue soul flames burned fiercely inside the skull cavity, emanating a suffocating pressure.

Its mere existence causes the surrounding space to distort slightly, and low-level undead that approach are assimilated and devoured by the liquid death energy flowing from its body.

The Seed of Origin was operating wildly, and a stream of icy analysis flowed into Kate's consciousness:

[Ultimate Goal: Forge Guardian Balrog (Level 4 Peak)]

[characteristic:

1. Physical defense: extremely high (fusion of skeleton and liquid death energy armor stomach), energy resistance: extremely high (liquid death energy can absorb and annihilate most energy attacks).

2. Attack: Terror (bone claw strikes with immense force and death energy erosion, liquid death energy spray has a range of corrosion and assimilation effects), Soul Roar (three soul fires resonate, power far exceeding the host).

3. Core: Deep blue soul fire within three demon skulls (Trinity, resonance amplification).

4. Environmental advantages: Located at the core of the Soul Forge, the death energy is almost infinite, resulting in extremely strong recovery ability.

5. Weaknesses: While the resonance of the Three Souls Fire is strong, subtle frequency differences exist; joint connections (covered by liquid death energy but still structurally weak); movement is relatively slow; the spiritual core is vast but complex, potentially vulnerable to highly concentrated spiritual attacks.

[Threat Assessment: Deadly!]

[Tactical simulation:]

6. Unable to confront it head-on, it is necessary to utilize the furnace environment (floating soulfire fragments).

7. Primary objective: Disrupt the resonance of its three soul flames! This requires precise calculation of the frequency differences among the three soul flames, and using one's own soul flame shriek to create ultra-high-precision interference.

8. Secondary targets: Attack their weight-bearing joints (knees, elbows) to restrict their movement and create opportunities to attack their core.

9. Ultimate Method: Utilize the Seed of Origin to analyze its liquid death energy flow pattern, find a brief "gap," and pierce its core soul fire with a death energy giant sword formed from highly condensed soul fire!

Estimated success rate (current status): 25% (successful interference) + 15% (successful joint destruction) + 10%

(Successful core thrust) = Overall success rate approximately 4.5%

[Warning: Failure means annihilation of the soul!]

4.5%! The cold data did not deter Kate; instead, the Soulfire burned even more fiercely.

Kate did not launch an attack immediately.

Like the most patient hunter, he lurked in the churning liquid deathly mist at the edge of the furnace, enduring the high temperature and erosion, and relying on the Seed of Origin, began a long period of observation and calculation.

He observed Balrog's slow patrol route, recorded the fluctuating characteristics of each of its soul roars, analyzed the patterns of the liquid death energy flowing across its body, and calculated the subtle differences in the pulsating soul fire within its three demonic skulls.

Time passed in deathly silence.

Kate was like a statue, but her soul fire was burning at high speed.

The Seed of Origin transforms massive amounts of observational data into cold, hard models, constantly optimizing attack strategies.

Finally, an attack window was detected.

As usual, Barlog slowly walked to the area where the energy flow of the furnace was relatively calm, seemingly "feeding" as he opened his three demonic maws and greedily devoured the fragments of soul fire floating in the air.

The soul flames of the three heads pulsed in sync as they devoured each other, reaching a brief peak of resonance.

"Now!"

Kate's Soulfire erupted suddenly, its eerie blue light piercing through the mist.

"Soul Scream - Triple Disintegration!"

He let out a silent roar.

Three highly condensed soul shockwaves, each with a distinct frequency and precisely corresponding to the subtle differences in the inherent frequencies of the soul fires of Barrow's three heads, pierced towards Barrow like invisible scalpels.

Buzz—! ! !

A strange, soul-stirring tremor erupted simultaneously within Balrog's three heads.

Its synchronized, perfectly resonant soul fire was instantly interrupted.

The deep blue flames churned, clashed, and trembled violently, like water on which stones had been thrown.

"Roar—!!!" Balrog roared in pain and rage, his three heads shaking wildly, and the liquid death energy on his body boiling violently.

The balance of power of the Trinity was forcibly broken, and its massive body showed signs of instability for the first time.

Kate had already started, her figure, covered in dark bone armor, shot out like an arrow, leaving a pale afterimage in the churning deathly mist.

The target was the right forelimb knee joint that Barrow had slightly raised due to pain, supporting his massive body.

"die!"

The prototype of the two-handed greatsword, formed from highly condensed death energy, burst forth with an unprecedented ghostly blue light under the full force of Kate's burning soul fire.

With the will to sever everything, he slashed fiercely at the outside of Balrog's right forelimb knee joint, at the joint of the bone armor covered with thick but relatively still liquid death energy.

Snap—Boom!

The hard bone armor shattered instantly under the combined power of Kate's level 4 early stage strength and the sharpness of the Death Aura Greatsword.

The immense impact caused Barlog's massive body to stagger to the right and forward.

The severely damaged limb groaned in unbearable pain.

Barlog was completely enraged, and its other five bone claws slammed wildly against the ground in an attempt to steady itself.

The demon head in the middle suddenly turned towards Kate, and viscous, eerie blue liquid death energy, radiating terrifying heat, gushed out like a burst dam! Its range was so vast that it almost covered all of Kate's dodging space.

A deadly crisis!

But Kate seemed to have anticipated this. After his successful attack, he didn't pause at all, using the recoil from the strike to retreat rapidly like a weightless leaf.

At the same time, the trajectory that the Seed of Origin had already calculated was activated.

He didn't retreat in a straight line, but narrowly missed the edge of the terrifying torrent of liquid death energy, retreating towards an area in the furnace where fragments of soul fire were unusually dense.

Barlog's torrent of liquid death energy swept across the area, instantly devouring a large number of free soul flames, emitting a "sizzling" annihilation sound, and some of its energy was dispersed and consumed.

Kate, on the other hand, darted into the gaps between the Soulfire fragments like a fish.

"It's not over yet!" Kate's soulfire pounded wildly as her senses locked onto Barlog, whose movements were unbalanced due to rage and joint injuries, and whose three heads' soulfires were still clashing and vibrating.

Life or death, success or failure, hinges on this one move.

Kate poured all her willpower and the power of her soul fire into the deathly greatsword in her hand!

The Seed of Origin's icy analytical force field was pushed to its limit, locking onto the moment when the soul fire of Balrog's three heads clashed most fiercely and its defenses were weakest, as well as the extremely brief and minute energy "ripple" gap generated by the violent movement of the liquid death energy armor on its chest.

That's it! Slightly to the lower left of the center of the breastplate, corresponding to the location of the left-hand soul fire, a fleeting "dot".

"With death as fuel—forging my blade—to slay!"

Kate let out a silent, soul-stirring roar.

He burned a portion of his soul fire essence, and the dark blue flames burst forth from the gaps in his bone armor, all converging on the deathly greatsword he gripped tightly in both hands.

The giant sword, which was originally just a prototype, instantly solidified, lengthened, and became incomparably dazzling, transforming into a dark blue meteor that pierced through the desolate space.

Kate's figure merged with the sword light, ignoring spatial distance, and just as Balrog stabilized his stance and the ripples of the liquid death energy armor were about to subside.

*Pfft!*

The deep blue sword light, imbued with all of Kate's power, will, and analytical wisdom, pierced precisely into the center of that tiny ripple.

The tough liquid death energy armor was pierced instantly, like a burst bubble.

The sword light, undiminished in its momentum, pierced fiercely into the massive demon skull on Balrog's left, precisely penetrating the core of the deep blue soul fire whose defenses had been greatly weakened by the conflict and shock.

Time seemed to stand still.

Barlog's massive body froze abruptly. The deep blue soul flame on his left, like ice thrown into a raging fire, instantly twisted and contracted violently, then with a silent wail—

It exploded with a deafening roar!

Deep blue fragments of soulfire scattered like fireworks.

"Awooo—!!!" Barlog let out a deafening roar of pain.

With the loss of a head and its soul flame, the trinity was completely shattered.

The remaining two heads flickered wildly with soul fire, the liquid death energy on their bodies surged violently as if out of control, their massive bodies staggered backward, leaving deep cracks in the ground, and their power plummeted instantly.

The Seed of Origin issued a chilling notification:

[Target severely damaged! One-third of the core soul fire destroyed! Power plummeted! Resonance shattered!]

Kate's Soulfire was extremely weak; that attack had almost drained him of his life force.

But his soul fire showed no hesitation. He would strike while the iron was hot, to take his life.

He mustered his last strength and charged once more at Barlog, whose defenses were wide open due to the excruciating pain and imbalance.

The target—its relatively vulnerable chest-abdomen junction, the core area where the remaining soulfire energy converges!

The Death Aura Greatsword was raised once more, its light dimmed, but its killing intent undiminished.

The remaining two heads of Balrog finally showed fear. They tried to spew death energy to block it, but their power was greatly reduced and their soul fire clashed, so their spews became scattered and weak.

It tried to strike with its bone claws, but its movements were slow and clumsy due to the intense pain and loss of balance.

puff!puff!puff!

Kate moved like the most skillful assassin around Barlog's massive body, her deathly greatsword avoiding the thick bone armor and repeatedly piercing the gaps in his joints and the weak points where the bone armor connected, especially in the chest and abdomen area.

Each sword strike carried a highly concentrated death aura, eroding and destroying the remaining soul fire connections within its body.

Barlog's roar turned from anger into a desperate wail.

Its movements became slower and slower, and the liquid death aura on its body grew dimmer and dimmer.

Finally, when Kate used the last ounce of her soulfire power to plunge the greatsword deep into the center of Balrog's chest and abdomen—the extremely unstable energy core that was barely maintained by the remaining two orbs of soulfire—

Rumble—!!!

Barlog's massive body stiffened completely, and then collapsed with a bang, like a building block whose supports had been removed.

Countless enormous skeletons, fragments of armor, and viscous liquid death energy exploded in all directions.

Two enormous, deep blue soulfire cores, like ownerless stars, floated above the collapsed wreckage.

The Seed's message was cold and clear:

[Successfully defeated Forge Guardian Balrog (Level 4 Peak)]

[The target Soulfire Core can be devoured — containing a vast amount of soul essence and fragments of the rules of death —]

Kate struggled to walk to the two balls of deep blue soul fire, feeling the immense power contained within them.

He extended his bone claws and slowly guided them toward his skull, which was burning with eerie blue flames.

The moment the two balls of deep blue soul fire merged.

boom-!!!

An indescribable surge of immense energy erupted instantly, far surpassing any previous absorption; this was the complete essence of a level 4 peak being!

Kate's soul fire expanded to its limit instantly, as if it had been injected into the core of a star.

The deep blue light became almost tangible, blindingly bright, as the deep blue and the dark blue intertwined, merged, and transformed.

His skeletal body emitted a thunderous explosion, the bone armor covering it shattered and peeled off inch by inch, only to be reshaped again in a purer, more condensed deep blue death aura.

The new bone armor was thicker and more ferocious, flowing with a metallic luster, and the joints were covered with sharp bone spikes! The deathly greatsword in his hand solidified completely, transforming into a huge runic blade wrapped in deep blue demonic flames and engraved with mysterious bone patterns.

A vast, cold, and majestic undead pressure spread out from Kate as if it were a tangible entity, and the billions of soul fire fragments floating in the furnace trembled and bowed slightly as if paying homage to a king.

[Soulfire Transformation: Level 4 Early Stage → Level 4 Peak (Bone General)]

[Ultimate Enhancement of Skeletal Body: Skeletal General Form (Covered in Abyssal Bone Armor, physical strength and defense comparable to legendary metals, power and speed beyond mortal imagination)]

[Weapon: Abyss Rune Greatsword (Complete Version)]

[Analysis revealed: Soul Forge Mastery (Basic), Liquid Death Energy Manipulation (Intermediate), Undead Domination Aura (Enhanced), Fragment of Death Rules Enlightenment (Neosa's Legacy Core)]

Kate, no, she should now be called Skeleton General Kate, stands at the heart of the Soul Forge.

His nearly three-meter-tall skeletal body was covered with deep, abyssal bone armor, and two dark blue soul flames, like vortexes in the abyss, burned in his eye sockets.

The Seed of Origin slowly rotated at the core of his soul, its cold analytical force field merging with the vast fragments of the rules of death, as if transforming into the new core of this furnace.

The grand and ancient voice of Neosana rang out once more, this time carrying a hint of indescribable satisfaction and anticipation:

【Excellent — Level 4 Peak Skeleton General —】

You have realized—death is not the end—but the beginning of a cycle—the rule—

[Analysis — Mastery — The True Essence of the Way of the Undead —]

【The Legacy of Neyssa — Ignite in your soulfire —】

[Trial — End —]

As Neyssa's voice faded, the scene of the Soul Forge began to ripple and dissipate like waves.

Kate felt that mysterious force that stripped everything away descend upon her once more, but this time, it was not about stripping away, but about returning and sublimating.

His massive body, covered in abyssal bone armor, began to shrink and reshape, the deep blue soul fire receding, and he finally transformed back into the human form of Kate Herman.

He still stood on that wasteland of bones, as if he had never moved. But everything was different.

In his spiritual sea, the prototype of the "space-time nursery" still exists, but deep within its foundation, there is a profound, cold, and mysterious power of rules containing endless secrets of death and rebirth—the death inheritance of Naosa.

This power is closely connected to the Seed of Origin, forming a strange balance with the life fragments of the Root of Immortality, like the yin and yang of life and death.

In his hand, he tightly gripped a strange token that was neither gold nor bone, had a cool touch, and whose surface was covered with interwoven patterns of deep blue and emerald green light—the mark of Neosa's heritage.

The dashcam alerted:

[Complete the Special Legacy Trial: The Path of Death for Neyssa]

[Obtained: Neyssa's Legacy Mark]

[Gained: Insights into the Rules of Death (Core Level)]

[Hidden increase in mental strength (significantly increased affinity for the rules of death)]

[The Seed of Origin fuses with fragments of the rules of death, and the analysis of the force field grants the "Insight into the Essence of the Undead" trait.]

Kate took a deep breath, inhaling the cold, deathly aura of the skeletal wasteland, but it could no longer cause him any harm.

He looked at the inheritance mark in his hand, feeling the new, instinctive power of the rules of death flowing through his spiritual sea, and the even more profound, cold wisdom of the Seed of Origin.

The transformation from a level 0 skeleton to a level 4 skeletal general is not only a leap in power, but also a reshaping of the soul and a baptism of rules.

The legacy of Neosa paved a unique and indelible foundation for his path to becoming a formal wizard, a path that transcends life and death.