Roarrrr!!!
Having spotted its prey, the humongous beast let off an earth-shattering cry of joy, the mere shockwave instantly flattened all the trees in a ten kilometer range.
Then it maddeningly pounced on Adonis, covering the short distance in the blink of an eye, and sweeping its paw down with an aura of destruction that seemed to want to squash the earth itself.
The mechanical artifact's first instinct when facing such a deadly attack was to try and run as fast as it could.
It was programmed to avoid fights whenever possible.
Alas!
The giant claws appeared to exert an immense gravitational pull that prevented it from even attempting such a thing, locking it in place and then soon sucking towards its doom.
Thus the item chose the next best option,- defend.
Redirecting all the energy it could muster, the small artifact produced as hard a magical shield as it could as its last line of defense to try and withstand the dreadful attack head on.
And no sooner had the sturdy aqueous barrier been produced, the mad wolf's huge blood-red claw made solid contact,
*Screeeechhhhhh*
It produced a mournful shrill noise, making uncountable spider web like cracks appear on the pristine barrier, as the tiny artifact was sent hurling across the forest like a kicked football.
And despite managing to somehow withstand the hit, the sheer momentum of the hit was still enough to cause much of the circuitry inside the artifact to be disrupted, including the shock-absorbing array housing Adonis, letting the infant feel the terrifying vibrations around him and causing him to cry out in terror.
The fact that just a simple swipe of its claws had been enough to produce such a result on a shield created using almost all the artifact's energy went on to perfectly showcase the power disparity here.
The only silver lining was that despite facing such a calamity, the artifact acted very cleverly.
It did not try to use any of its spell arrays to try and stop itself as it hurled through the air.
Rather, it tried to speed up its flight by activating its own flight spells, while cleverly navigating around all the surrounding trees in hopes of using the 'kick' to carry itself away from this mad beast's territory.
Roar!!!
Unfortunately for it, even this breakneck speed was not enough to escape the formidable creature's grasp as that familiar immense gravitational field appeared once again, abruptly stopping the artifact dead midair.
And then,
*Whoooosh*
A huge gaping maw opened high above in the sky, sucking anything and everything around into the giant mouth.
The tiny artifact proved itself incapable of escaping its fate, as no matter how much it tried to use its flight use, the surrounding pull was just too much.
It got swallowed whole by the deadly beast, tumbling against the soft but immensely strong gullet, and quickly ending up inside the gut, where it started to float on the intestinal acid, the strong corrosive managing to quickly eat through even the insanely strong magical shell.
The drone quickly figured if it did not find a way out soon, his young master was going to become just a puddle of digested liquid.
*Phew*, *Phew*, *Phew*
The clever artifact tried to first break through with brute force, shooting streaks of laser beams and various types of magical rays at the stomach lining.
Unfortunately this was to no avail.
Powerful attacks that would have one shot most Rank 4 mages and seriously wounded even Rank 5 practitioners simply bounced off the fleshly interior like they were peashooters, while the demonic wolf at best felt a slight discomfort in its tummy.
But realizing its prey was still struggling, just to be on the safe side, the beast quickly reinforced its already formidable stomach with even more magic spells, while also turning on the bath's acidity even more.
It then eagerly waited for the liquid to break through the shell and expose him to the delicious meal hidden within.
While inside the belly, recognizing the change and understanding the futility of any more such attack, the artifact stopped wasting its energy.
Then in a strange move, once again began to form that strong blue shield.
But just before the shell closed, a nondescript white cloth suddenly flew out of its body, the same cloth that the Iudex had wrapped Adonis in.
It was shot out at an almost impossible speed for such a flimsy thing, letting it tear through the stomach acid downwards like an arrow, making it dive deeper and deeper into the huge stomach, until it reached nearly the end.
There…. the fabric suddenly began to glow with faint but extremely intricate golden runes that were secretly etched onto it, producing waves and waves of deadly, explosive mana that began to pulse and undulate in magnitudes few had even witnessed in this lower realm.
The pulses were so bright and powerful that the giant mad demonic wolf outside instantly sensed in and was suddenly overcome with a great sense of dread. It was a feeling it had almost forgotten.
"What is happening? Where did such a…."
…BOOM!
It was not even the time to finish its thoughts, much less have any chance to spit the dangerous object out….
The tiny garment exploded with the power of a nuclear bomb, blasting anything and everything in its vicinity into smithereens.
The wolf's stomach and the acid were instantly vaporized, while its huge body was ripped apart into shreds like torn clothes, letting a shower of black, charred chucks of meat and gore rain from the sky, coating the wasteland in its filthy, pungent, smoky odor.
That tiny bit of cloth wrapped around Adonis had been the Iudex's insurance, one of two, so that even if the boy had by some miracle managed to survive all the external hostilities, this innocuous cloth would still see the job was done.
The power stored in those runes was enough to kill even a Rank 6 mage, what was there to say about a defenseless child?
That was also the reason behind his last disdainful smile.
The Grand Iudex had pretty much figured out the whole story of what was happening as soon as that imperious snort came out.
He knew Young Master Erstmound could not have ever so easily gotten to the altar without alerting the various runes and restricting arrays placed around it. That place was in the very core of the sect, too well protected to be vulnerable to such a cheap trick.
If a simple Level 1 spell 'Stoneskin' was all that was needed to bypass all their security, the behemoth known as Profound Architect Sanctuary would have long ceased to exist.
Hence the only logical explanation was he had help. And very high level help at that.
Combine this with the surrounding circumstances regarding Adonis, and the Grand Iudex did not need to use even a thousandth of his intelligence to figure out the answer.
He even suspected the artifact might not have been from the boy's father but from someone in his own sect. It definitely seemed a bit too intricate for that man's capabilities.
However in the end he did not bother exposing any of this.
He had no proof, and more importantly, he had already taken steps to foil such attempts.
Unfortunately, it seemed the boy's father had also foreseen this, installing an anti-detonation array that suppressed the engraved runes from going off, thus letting Adonis stay safe until now.
But when that garment was shot out, that effect was obviously lost and the runes swiftly reactivated, restarting the timer.
And when that reached zero, the immense explosion turned even this most fearsome beast into minced meat in a flash, killing it.
That was all the good news.
Now came the bad news.
Which was that the same explosion that killed the mad demonic wolf also killed the small artifact, despite the strong shield it had produced to try and save itself.
The simple fact was it had been too close to the center of the explosion and the blast was just too powerful.
The shockwaves had torn through the barriers like wet paper, blasted open the magical metallic shell like flimsy cardboard, and then the leftover energy let out its overwhelming malice in the interior, easily destroying the small innocent child stored inside.
Thus, just like the destroyed wolf, Adonis was also lying on a puddle of his own blood, meat, and gore, surrounded by bits of metal, and various large chunks of demonic flesh and bone, not even having the strength to cry out in pain.
Because he was effectively dead.
His entire lower torso- both the legs and hips had been completely blown off.
His left arm was missing, along with his entire left chest.
The same part of his head was also blasted to smithereens, causing the remaining gray matter to slowly trickle out, while on the opposite side, his right eye dangled out of its socket in an extremely macabre fashion.
It was like Death had already reaped the boy's soul and was just in the process of pocketing it into his robe.