Within the giant spherical shield made of vines, the silver-armored Nine Gloom had not suffered any injuries to his body at all. However, at the moment, he felt exceedingly gloomy.
True, Lin Huang and the other two’s round of attacks had not caused him any harm. However, this time his Divine Power had been depleted much more than in the first clash earlier.
This was for no other reason than Lin Huang and Saber9’s use of techniques that absorbed and drained his Divine Power, thus depleting it significantly.
Although Nine Gloom had managed to defend himself against Virtuoso’s shockwaves, overall, the drain on his Divine Power had increased. He had exhausted almost one-third of his full store of Divine Power.
On top of the Divine Power loss from that first battle, he had lost over half of his Divine Power just from these two rounds of attacks.
As far as Nine Gloom was concerned, this was not good news at all.
No matter how powerful his abilities, without Divine Power, he could do nothing.
Realizing that Lin Huang and the other two had targeted him, Nine Gloom rapidly began thinking of counter-strategies.
Meanwhile, although Lin Huang and the rest were aware that this wave of assault was insufficient to cause Nine Gloom any harm, they were still satisfied.
They had no idea what percentage of Divine Power loss Nine Gloom had suffered, but they had a rough idea of how much Divine Power would have been absorbed and drained in the attack just now.
If one round were not enough to drain Nine Gloom’s Divine Power completely, they would merely repeat the process several times. Eventually, his Divine Power would run out.
Nine Gloom was clearly aware of this. More than half the Divine Power within his body had been drained just from these two rounds of attack. If he were to allow them to continue their onslaughts, he could only sustain two more rounds at most before his Divine Power depleted entirely.
Once this occurred to him, he initiated an attack the moment the shockwaves dissipated.
The giant spherical shield abruptly split apart and proliferated. Countless vines extended in the direction where Lin Huang and the other two were, blotting everything out.
The three of them hastily dodged, slicing away tendrils as they evaded the attacks coming at them from the vines.
However, the wave of incoming vines was endless. Every time vines broke off, they would regenerate within the blink of an eye and continue to attack the three of them.
As there were too many vines, the three of them could only struggle to cope. They could only defend passively; they did not have the energy to initiate any more attacks.
Nine Gloom finally had the upper hand in this round of battle.
However, Lin Huang and the other two did not panic at all. They were even communicating secretly through voice transmission.
“Has this fellow gone insane? Why is he suddenly pulling out all the big moves?!” Saber9 could not help grumbling.
“It proves that our previous two rounds of attacks drained his Divine Power significantly. He dare not drag things out any further, so he’s eager to take control of the battle in order to end it quickly.” Virtuoso saw through Nine Gloom’s plan right away.
“You’re right about that, but not entirely.” Lin Huang, on the other hand, raised his head to look at the sky.
Apart from the vines that were attacking the three of them, there were considerably more vines that had grown past their heads and were now extending even further toward the distance.
“The ranged attack is just a smokescreen. His real goal is to shift the battlefield!” As soon as Lin Huang finished speaking, the all-encompassing vines had already rapidly surrounded them, completely blotting out heaven and earth.
The next instant, Lin Huang and the other two emerged in a world full of vines.
An overwhelming curtain of vines surged toward them in an onslaught.
“We’re in trouble now—we’ve been dragged into his God Territory…” Saber9’s expression instantly changed to one of dismay.
Although the three of them had powerful abilities, their combat strength was still only at true god-level after all. Their God Territories were nowhere near as strong as Nine Gloom’s; they had no way of defending themselves against being swallowed up by his God Territory.
In his God Territory, Nine Gloom was practically the god of this world. His Divine Power was almost limitless.
Therefore, the plan that Lin Huang and the other two had come up with earlier was more or less utterly useless here.
If they continued to drain Nine Gloom’s Divine Power, they might very well drain themselves to death.
“What the hell do we do now?!” Saber9 looked at Lin Huang and Virtuoso.
Virtuoso said nothing. They still seemed to be thinking about counter-strategies.
Lin Huang spoke up right away, “There are only two ways to get out of a God Territory. One is to forcibly eradicate the God Territory; the other is to kill the God Territory’s master.
“Given the current level of our attack power, naturally, we can’t achieve the former, so we can only go for the latter.”
One could only eradicate a God Territory by force if the power of their attack exceeded the limits of what the God Territory was able to withstand. Given Nine Gloom’s ability, destroying his God Territory was something perhaps only half-step lord-level powerhouses would be able to achieve.
Clearly, Lin Huang, Virtuoso, and Saber9 did not possess such capabilities. Therefore, the option of eradication by force was not viable.
However, upon hearing Lin Huang saying that only the second option was available to them, Saber9 could not help curling his lips slightly, secretly critical within his heart.
If they could not even eradicate a God Territory with force, could they kill Nine Gloom, who was now within his own God Territory?!
From Lin Huang’s tone, it sounded as if killing Nine Gloom was a piece of cake.
“Lin Huang is right. If this had been before Nine Gloom activated his God Territory, we would still have had options—if we were no match for him, we could have abandoned the battle and fled straight away. However, we have no choice now. We’ll only be able to get out of this God Territory if we kill him,” Virtuoso finally delivered his verdict after pondering for a moment.
Saber9 looked helpless when he heard this. “The problem is, how do we kill him?! If we were outside his God Territory like before, we could still drain his Divine Power slowly. However, now that we’re in his God Territory, the Divine Power within his body is limitless. If we continue trying to exhaust his Divine Power like we did before, we’ll be the ones who die in the end.”
Virtuoso glanced at Saber9 after hearing him out and said calmly, “That’s why we have to bring out some actual trump cards now, or the three of us really will die here.”
Saber9 went completely silent upon hearing what Virtuoso had to say.
Virtuoso did not press him either. They waited patiently for Saber9’s response as they continued to dodge Nine Gloom’s vine attacks.
They were waiting to hear what Saber9 had to say because they were worried that their own trump card might not be able to kill Nine Gloom in one go. If they attacked with Saber9, their chances of succeeding would increase significantly. Therefore, they did not dare make any rash moves before getting a response from Saber9.
Saber9 was silent for a long time. Finally, he made up his mind.
“Alright, I’ll go first! If I don’t end up killing him, you finish him off.”
The reason he made this decision was that he knew the situation would only get worse if they dragged things on. By the end of it, he might not have sufficient Divine Power to even use his trump card.
Naturally, Nine Gloom was aware that the three of them were discussing counter-strategies. However, he could not hear any concrete details, nor did he pay attention to what they were saying.
As far as he was concerned, the three of them were like rats caught in a trap. They had nowhere to run.
He even did not bother wasting effort to launch powerful attacks at the three of them. After all, their abilities were not weak; a strong assault might not gain him much in the way of advantages. Therefore, he opted for the strategy the three had used earlier, which was to use vine attacks to wear down their Divine Power. Once their Divine Power had been completely depleted, the three of them would naturally become sitting ducks; he could do whatever he wanted with them.
Unfortunately, he did not know about Virtuoso and Saber9’s backgrounds.
If he had had any inkling at all, he would definitely have killed the three of them as swiftly as possible to prevent anything unforeseen from happening.
However, it was this tiny bit of misinformation that created an opportunity for Lin Huang and the rest.
