"After all...... Is that all there is to it?"

With a heavy and miserable scream, the huge headless horseman's body fell to the ground weakly, its head, which was separated from its neck and floated alone in the sky, also with a hideous and painful expression, and finally turned into crumbs in the struggle. After this, its metallic body also completely lost its luster and gradually turned into a stone statue.

Aroma mercilessly shattered the statue.

"I feel like that's all there is to it in terms of strength. Fang Xiang said with some interest, originally seeing that this huge and evil headless horseman could make her happy, but as a result, it was still a hasty end, making Fang Xiang quite unpleasant, "It's very weak, if the strength of the brave men in the future is a little stronger, it won't be too difficult to break these things, right?"

"Don't measure it by your standards - if these boss monsters are all 'fun' to your heart', I'll be very worried about the future...... Moreover, even if this guy's strength seems to you to be average, it is still a very formidable enemy for most people, not to mention, its ability traits are still very difficult to deal with. ”

Along the way, Io and Aroma also discovered that there are many powerful monsters similar to the nature of "bosses" in this castle. It seems that each region has only one appearance, and each boss monster is also clearly related to the strength and strength characteristics symbolized by the region—just like this headless horseman, represented in the image of a "knight". For those warriors and knights who have practiced martial arts since childhood and are determined to uphold justice, the Headless Horseman has the ability to induce them into the darkness of their hearts...... If the will is not strong enough. If there is a gap, you may fall here, and it is possible to swing your sword at your companions.

It's just that this ability is useless in front of the fragrance.

"I've disposed of it now, will it show up in the future, this guy?"

"It stands to reason that it will still appear in this image. But there could be something else - it's like this now, it's built on this castle and it's just the two of us...... Well, maybe Aisha is also ...... on the basis of. However, after all, this is the embodiment of the darkness of the human heart, and if there are more powerful degenerates than this headless horseman in the future, they will wander here. Maybe it's him?"

Almost. The current situation is uninhabited...... That's about it.

"However, I just noticed a very interesting phenomenon. Io leaned down, picked up a fragment of stone shattered by the aroma, and took it to his eyes to look at, "This headless horseman, including the boss-level monsters we encountered before, has a strange characteristic compared to ordinary monsters - I can feel it after they are defeated. The sense of disobedience is even stronger. ”

"Disobedience?" do you mean...... Distortions in time and causality?"

Io nodded with a heavy face.

"Maybe it's because after the boss was defeated. While the decrease in the activity of this area has stimulated the 'owner' of this castle to a certain extent, I don't think that relying on this dark consciousness alone can break through the blockade of time and causality, but at least it is certain that there is some connection between it and the existence that has caused the current strange situation...... When its strength grows stronger, it is also causing this 'causal contradiction' to expand...... By the way, Aroma, can you close your eyes first?"

Although she didn't understand what Io was trying to do, Aroma followed Io's advice and obediently closed her eyes, and Io closed her eyes as well.

Smack.

The crisp sound of stones hitting his forehead resounded in the hall that had been cleared of the fragrance.

"That's exactly what I thought...... By the way, now you can open your eyes. ”

"What the hell were you doing?" Fang Xiang picked up the small stone that hit her forehead from the ground with some confusion, although it didn't hurt much, but it was inexplicably hit like this, and it was impossible to say that Fang Xiang was very happy.

But Aroma doesn't think Io is just trying to play a prank.

"Poof......" Io didn't hold back, and laughed out loud, "It turns out that I smashed her in your face 'just now'......"

What is this?Aroma was a little dissatisfied, but when her gaze slid over Io's hand, she couldn't help but be stunned - in her hand, she was holding a small stone...... Moreover, that stone, no matter how you look at it, is exactly the same as the one in your hand now!

The aroma reacted immediately.

"The process I went through was to throw the stone upright and catch it, but I didn't expect that Aroma was the kind of experience you actually experienced?" Seeing that Aroma also reacted, Io also felt a little funny, took out the common ointment she carried, and asked at Aroma, "Do you need to apply a little?" ”

In fact, his forehead is just a little red and swollen, and this little injury is really nothing for Aroma, but since Io is not stingy with kindness, Aroma accepts it.

"It's so cool!"

The moment the ointment was applied to the forehead, the fragrance was felt, as if the temperature on the forehead had dropped several degrees, and wisps of ice spread along the forehead to the brain, and for a while, it seemed that the mind had calmed down a lot...... Fang Xiang thinks that she has always been relatively calm, but at the moment she still feels very enjoyable, as if she suddenly ate chilled pear juice in the dog days.

When Aroma was about to return the ointment, she saw Io closing her eyes and covering her ears, wondering what she was doing...... She poked the latter's forehead, and Io opened her eyes to see the ointment box in Aroma's hand, then at her package, and suddenly sighed.

"Didn't it turn into two cans......"

"Hey, are you thinking about this at this time?"

"I'm still thinking if I close off my senses. If you don't see that you take the ointment and apply it, will there be another 'I didn't give you the ointment' branch...... It's a shame I didn't get a copy. ”

Fang Xiang found that she really couldn't keep up with the elf's thinking. The tone was concerned that this opportunistic thing didn't work out. You're worried about where we're in now—it seems that what we're doing can already lead to that phenomenon?"

Aroma still had a bit of a dazed understanding of what Io was described, but seeing a stone in two before her eyes, and experiencing something Io hadn't done, Aroma felt like she was tied up if it continued with the two of them. So what do they do next?

Will there be a possibility that they will work in vain and end up in the bamboo basket for water?

"Anyway. We try to concentrate as much as possible and not separate. As long as the two of us have experienced the same thing together, it is much more difficult for the kind of event that is inherently probabilistic to happen......"

"I hope so. ”

"There are three bombs left. Let's hurry up and take some steps. lest you have long nights and many dreams. ”

......

As the two of them traveled all the way to a place where many gears and clocks were stored, Io and Aroma felt a sense of foreboding rise in their hearts.

"This place, the atmosphere is really weird. ”

If she had been here in any other situation, Aroma might have wondered why there were so many pendulums and machinery here, but after what had happened before, she was now suddenly a little more sensitive to things like clocks that involved the concept of "time"—especially in such places.

"It seems. It's supposed to be like the mechanics inside a clock tower, but at this scale...... It's kind of spectacular. I didn't expect that from the outside, it was just such a bell tower, and the internal structure was so large and complex—this is more than the number of machinery needed to fade out to supply the operation of a bell tower, right?"

Io grabbed a floating monster resembling a gorgon head, and despite her howl, shoved it into a spinning gear set beside her...... Then, as the terrible screams and the crushing sound of "squeak" were mixed together, some fishy blood splashed out from between the gaps in the gears that had been blurred with flesh and blood.

Io, on the other hand, didn't seem to see the dirty blood flowing from the side of the gear, and put his hand on it, feeling it carefully.

"Sure enough, something went wrong. After a moment, Io raised his head and looked at the cogs and machines that were scattered throughout the room, and even interspersed with other rooms in this area, "Unlike other places, the spirit and energy of the monster that was crushed by the gears just now did not re-immerse itself in the current room, but followed these cogs and machines and went in the other direction......"

Io was silent for a moment, as if sensing the direction.

"I can't be wrong, it should be right above us...... That is, the top of the clock tower!" Io looked at the tireless gears above his head, thoughtful, "Perhaps, the existence of this clock tower is not only to share part of the strength of the castle owner, but also to have a special purpose in itself......?

"Be careful!"

The fragrance suddenly burst out, and grabbed the thinking Io, and the two of them fell to the ground in embarrassment. Ai Ou was also stunned, but when she leaned back, she saw the cold light that almost wiped her forehead hair flashing in front of her eyes, and her back immediately broke out in a cold sweat.

The attack was fleeting, and after discovering that it had not hit Io, it quietly disappeared into thin air. But Io could still see clearly that it was a sickle with a terrifying glow.

And it's a very large scythe - it's impossible for a human to have a scythe nearly five meters long with just the blade.

I was almost attacked!

Aware of this, Io's face also became ugly...... Although he was patronizing and thinking just now, he relaxed his vigilance, but he was able to approach himself and Aroma quietly, and even let Aroma notice when he knew that he was going to make a knife, and from this point of view alone, the person who came was by no means good. If it weren't for the fragrance, even if he pushed himself away, maybe he would have ...... just now

"If you cut someone, you want to run...... Aren't we going to talk about reparations first?"

Io's mood also turned bad, and she raised her right hand. A gentle stroke into the empty air. In an instant, an emerald green storm rose out of thin air and swept across the hall—a storm condensed purely by the forces of nature. Even the original neutral and peaceful force has quite terrifying destructive power in Io's hands. The snake-headed monsters that kept floating in the room were torn apart in this torrent of nature.

And the enemy who attacked Io and Aroma also showed its form in this raging storm—the gray-purple figure in the emerald greenery of the sky. It's obvious.

Aroma leaped to her feet, and the ferocious storm seemed to have no hindrance to Aroma, and she went straight through the storm. Stabbed at the figure that swayed a little in the storm. This time, Aroma didn't bother to use her fists again, and the pitch-black magic turned into a hard sword and a huge scythe in the hands of an unknown enemy. A violent collision was issued.

from the size of the sickle. It can also be judged that the other party's body size must not be small, but the difference in body size is not a problem for aroma for a long time!

And Aroma, at this moment, also saw the true face of the other party - it was very appropriate to the image of the weapon he used, which was the image of the god of death with a hideous face and white bones shrouded in a gray-purple robe. If you walk out of the castle with this dignity, you will definitely scare all the children who refuse to sleep properly, right?

Although the appearance is terrifying...... But its opponents. But a militant who dares to kick Cerberus's head as a ball, this level of honor. For the fragrance, it is better to call it ugly than terrible!

"That's it...... It's not even close! It's so poor, you thief!"

The other party's sneak attack on Io almost caused a tragedy, which made Aroma, who was responsible for protecting Io, angry, so this shot, he didn't spare his hand at all, and he was completely in full firepower!

As her black blade and the scythe blade intersected, rubbing together with a piercing sound, Aroma took a deep breath, and her whole body was instantly shrouded in a hazy black mist.

"Exercise this skill with the power of darkness, hum...... It's my first time. ”

A soft black glow lit up from Aroma's body, and from a distance, there was no lethality in the slightest—it had neither ferocious explosiveness, nor did it look like it was the usual corrosive nature of dark magic, and at that glance, it seemed as if it were a failed spell cast by a dark mage apprentice who had not learned his skills.

"This is...... Paladin's ...... Baptism of Light?"

Io was also stunned for a moment, but when he saw the magic fluctuations of this skill used by Aroma, it was very similar to the proud skill of the paladins, so he could react - isn't it? In addition to the amount of dark power shown, this trick used by Aroma is completely familiar to everyone, the signature skill of the paladin.

"Uh-huh-"

The sound of pain came from the other party's mouth, and the moment the seemingly weak black light of the fragrance touched its body, the body that was touched began to dissolve, as if it was an ice cube falling into boiling water, and the speed of dissolving, it was not like being eroded by dark magic at all, but it felt like it was being burned by a strong holy light!

"Impossible! How can the power of darkness hurt me......

"Keep this question for yourself and go to hell to think!"

Aroma didn't have the time to explain to the opponent, taking advantage of the opportunity that the opponent's skeletal arm was dissolved by half and the scythe couldn't hold it, the black blade poked directly into its eye socket and plunged deeply into its head - Aroma didn't know if there were any brains in this guy's cranial cavity, but looking at Fukong's empty skeleton body, she could only attack its head.

"Aromatic this guy...... Did you really do it in the Holy See before?"

Aophee's attitude towards Aoife made Io very puzzled before, but now it seems that she must have served in the Holy See for a period of time in the past, right? Aophee, who can serve as the head of the exorcist group, will definitely not be born in the wilderness, but must be a good citizen of three generations (...... And her mother must have been a member of the Holy See. Although she didn't know what kind of fragrance Lu Dao was denying the possibility that Aoife was the daughter of an old man, Io always felt that she was trying her best to avoid something.

“...... Oops! Aroma get out of it!"

Io suddenly noticed the Grim Reaper's small movements—when she saw Death's robes, she somehow connected a thin thread of silk to a clock behind it. After perceiving the hidden magic fluctuations, Io also realized something, and hurriedly reminded the fragrance.

Because the fragrance is on the front of the Grim Reaper, you can't see the small movements behind it at all!

"Hmph...... It's late!"

The Grim Reaper changed his previous miserable appearance and laughed arrogantly: "Very remarkable warrior indeed...... However, in the midst of the regret and pain called 'the past', no matter how powerful a warrior is, he is just a piece of rotten paper!"

Before she could understand what was happening, she felt a whirlwind of the world, and everything in front of her was blurred and confused. She knew that she should have been tricked, but at this moment, all she could do was to protect herself and ensure that she would not be hurt too much before the situation stabilized.

......

"Tsk. ”

Seeing that Aroma's figure instantly blurred into the furious magic, and then disappeared without a trace, Io's expression completely cooled.

"Don't rush...... It's your turn next, stupid elf. ”

The Grim Reaper's embarrassed injuries had fully recovered, and at this moment, it was looking at Io triumphantly, as if it were looking at its prey to be slaughtered.

"Hey, I hope your face isn't too brittle......" (To be continued......)