Inside the castle on the wasteland, in the spacious hall, Frederico, who was turning into a Stone Gargoyles, was constantly growing in size, continuously absorbing various gold, silver, and treasures from his Baoku (Treasure House). During this process, those treasures occasionally slowed down or changed trajectory, but they were ultimately drawn into Frederico's body.
The huge Baoku (Treasure House) was emptied in just a few seconds under Frederico's Devour, and in this process, Frederico's body underwent changes that ordinary Stone Gargoyles did not.
Frederico's physique became increasingly massive. After his clothes were stretched and burst open, his incredibly sturdy body surged to about six or seven meters, twice the size of an ordinary Stone Gargoyles. Although his skin was still gray-black, it became glossy and bright, with a metallic texture. Gems grew on his huge wings, like decorations inlaid on metal crafts. Long horns grew on his originally hideous head, and a tail with sharp spines constantly swayed behind him. Frederico transformed from a moving stone statue into a moving metal sculpture.
After completely devouring the treasures in his Baoku (Treasure House) in a very short time, Frederico also completely finished his transformation, turning his shiny, fleshy face towards the Phantom Thief not far away, and then let out a roar.
"Roar!"
Amidst the roar, a flame countless times thicker than that of an ordinary Stone Gargoyles shot out from Frederico's mouth, attacking the Phantom Thief standing in the hall. At the same time, he also vigorously flapped his wings, raising a gust of wind while spraying flames. The wind and fire superimposed quickly formed an extremely fierce flame storm. In an instant, this fire storm swept through the entire hall, leaving no place untouched.
Facing a highly agile unit with nimble movements, the most effective countermeasure is to execute large-scale area attacks, leaving them nowhere to hide or escape. Facing the flame storm that was rapidly spreading throughout the entire hall, the Thief, knowing she couldn't resist, immediately turned and ran. However, her speed, which she was proud of, was momentarily unable to evade the speed at which the flames, aided by the strong wind, spread in the confined space. Before she could even reach the window, the roaring flames had already pursued her from behind, about to catch up.
Just at this moment, behind the Thief, countless metal objects suddenly began to gather. Various decorative armor, weapons, cutlery, and other items scattered throughout the hall began to move on their own under the influence of an invisible force. They had already gathered into blocks when Frederico first sprayed fire.
Just as the flames were about to completely engulf the Thief, these blocks gathered into a thick iron wall blocking the Thief's back. The directly incoming flame impact hit the iron wall, scattering it immediately, but the brief moment it bought was enough for the Thief to leap out of the window and, with the help of a force, soar into the sky. Behind her, the main hall of the castle, where high-temperature flames were spewing from all rooms.
Not long after the flame storm swept through the entire castle hall, it quickly stopped and subsided. What appeared next was a scene of devastation and ruin, with charred scenes and lingering fires everywhere. The originally luxuriously decorated hall was completely gone. Frederico stood in place, and although he had been directly subjected to the intense fire, his metallic body was still as glossy as new. He looked at the uncontrolled scattered metal objects in the distance and couldn't help but recall the slight anomalies that occurred with various gold and silver when he had been absorbing his treasures earlier.
"The ability to control metal? Hmph, no wonder..." Frederico said with a cold snort. When he was absorbing treasures just now, he felt that someone was trying to snatch some metal currency. Fortunately, when he was absorbing treasures, he had a very strong attraction to his own valuable treasures, and that controlling force did not hinder him for the time being.
Seeing that the Thief still escaped by climbing out the window, Frederico immediately took action again. He flapped his wings, creating a strong current of air and suddenly flying upwards, directly breaking through the ceiling of the hall with great force and rushing outside to chase the escaping Thief. Inside the hall, Angri and others, who were charred black from the fire, also wanted to go outside to help immediately after seeing Frederico's actions.
And just as Angri, who was at the front, was about to take off, a figure rapidly plummeted from the damaged ceiling, crashing heavily into Angri, who had just taken off, and stepping firmly on Angri's chest. Immediately, Angri felt an incredibly powerful impact. Having just taken off and reached mid-air, he was violently smashed towards the ground under this impact, creating a large pit in the floor with a roar.
"Who is it!"
"Does that guy actually have a helper?!"
Upon seeing this scene, Dok and Kleven, who were still on the ground, couldn't help but shout loudly. In their eyes, they saw the figure that had brought Angri down leap with a certain amplitude in mid-air after stepping on Angri, and finally landed lightly on the charred floor of the hall. At this time, Angri, who had been directly stepped into the pit on the ground, also struggled to climb out of the pit. With several deep cracks clearly visible on his chest, he looked forward resentfully, in the direction where the figure had landed.
What the Dark Gold Society trio saw there was a tall, mysterious woman wearing a dark red fitted top and skirt, a mask and a Madam's small hat, with her hair tied up. It was she who had brought Angri down just now.
"I'm very sorry, the three of you. There's a show outside, and there's a show here. The characters in different shows had best not interfere with each other... unless we finish our own show first..."
Looking at the three Stone Gargoyles in front of her as if facing a formidable enemy, Adele, in disguise, stretched her shoulders and loosened her joints as she spoke.
Now, Adele wanted to verify how much her power surpassed ordinary Chalk.
...
Outside the main hall of the castle, under the night sky, Frederico, who had just broken through the roof and pursued the Thief, immediately locked onto the figure of the Thief who had just flown out of the main hall. From her appearance, she seemed to want to continue flying, flying out of the castle's range.
"Don't even think about escaping, little Thief..."
Looking at the flying Thief in the distance, Frederico muttered, then he flapped his wings, and immediately sent out several fireballs towards the Thief in the distance. Sensing the danger coming from behind, the flying Thief quickly dodged, successfully avoiding several fireballs. The flying speed of these fireballs was not fast, and with the Thief's flying speed, there was no problem in avoiding them.
Seeing that all his fireballs missed, Frederico let out a low roar, and then flapped his wide wings even more frequently. Then, gusts of fierce wind were summoned from between his sturdy stone wings, mixed with chilling cold air and water vapor, attacking the Thief in the sky. In an instant, a violent ice and snow storm swept towards the Thief.
The ice and snow storm, mixed with the power of multiple elements, had a very wide range, and even if the Thief was nimble, she would be affected. After noticing signs of her body rapidly freezing in the ice and snow, the Thief immediately changed direction and flew towards the castle below, moving between the castle buildings and bridges, using the tall buildings to provide cover and block the direct blowing of the ice and snow storm.
Frederico's ice storm followed the Thief as she flew, and wherever it swept, the surface of the buildings used as cover were covered with a thick layer of solid ice. But even so, Frederico still failed to trap the Thief; his own castle became an obstacle to his own attacks.
Facing this situation, Frederico was not angered. While continuously unleashing the ice storm, he opened his mouth again and continuously sprayed out fireballs. These fireballs predicted the Thief's escape route and hit the castle buildings on the ground, then exploded one after another, creating roaring explosions and firelight. In an instant, many buildings shattered in these explosions.
Although these fireballs did not directly hit the Thief, the area impact waves and fierce fire they generated after hitting buildings and the ground severely affected the Thief's actions. These impact waves, carrying high-speed flying stone fragments, became deadly bullets. The Thief found it difficult to maintain her footing under this series of impact waves and flying stone fragments from all directions.
The explosion's impact wave caused the Thief to lose balance and made maneuverability difficult. After her maneuverability decreased, her body was pierced by several openings from the debris carried by the impact. The Thief couldn't help but slightly bleed from the corner of her mouth.
This was Frederico's tactic. The primary purpose of the ice storm he unleashed was not to freeze Thief K, but to force her down from the sky. The ice and snow storm had a huge coverage area, and the Thief had nowhere to hide when flying at high altitude; she could only come to the ground to find cover.
Once Thief K approached the ground, Frederico's fireballs could be put to use again. Frederico's fireballs had no advantage in the air; they were slow and easily dodged. However, they gained a huge advantage when targeting the ground because they could explode upon contact with the ground and buildings. The strong area shockwave from the explosion, carrying numerous building debris, could generate powerful lethality, leaving the agile Thief with nowhere to escape. Since this castle belonged to Frederico, no matter where in the castle the Thief hid, behind what kind of cover, Frederico knew it clearly.
Several explosions occurring nearby caused the Thief, who could easily cope with crises, to suffer several not-so-small injuries. Fortunately, the Thief's vessel was Naifnis, possessing the physique of a second-tier "Cup", and there was also a magical power within her body that instantly healed her more severe injuries by transferring them away. Therefore, although the Thief was severely damaged, she recovered shortly after, and then continued her difficult escape in the sky amidst Frederico's ice and fire bombardment. Although she possessed the powerful teleportation skill of Escape Magic, this skill could only be used three times an hour. She had already used it once before, and the remaining two times could only be used at a more critical moment.
Just like this, the Thief continued to move at high speed within the castle, advancing with difficulty amidst Frederico's relentless elemental bombardment. And just as Frederico wanted to continue this continuous bombardment, the situation on the scene underwent some changes.
From within the castle, from rooms in various corners, from various windows and doorways, countless items floated out. Upon closer inspection, one could see that these were all metal objects such as weapons, armor, tableware, wine cups, chains, etc. These items, originally located throughout the castle, all flew out at this moment, condensing into blocks of iron, attacking Frederico, and intercepting the fireballs he shot out in mid-air. After hitting the fireballs, these iron blocks caused the fireballs to prematurely burst, igniting clusters of flames in the air.
The intercepting projectiles made of metal objects intercepted Frederico's barrage one by one. For a time, the number of fireballs that could successfully bombard the ground was greatly reduced. After the interference of the explosions decreased, the speed of the Thief within the castle soared dramatically, and she instantly rushed to a greater distance, seeming as if she would soon rush out of the castle.
"It's this ability again... It seems that ordinary methods cannot deal with you, little Thief..."
Seeing the countless metals obstructing him, Frederico couldn't help but frown slightly and ponder. It was obvious that these strange and bizarre metal intercepting projectiles greatly hindered the performance of his fireballs. He had to find more powerful and effective attack methods to kill the Thief.
Under such thoughts, Frederico began to significantly increase the output level of his Spirituality. At this moment, within his body, a peculiar organ similar to an engine or a stomach was accelerating its operation process, converting the treasures Frederico had previously swallowed into vast elemental power.
Stone Gargoyles have the ability to absorb external high-Spirituality elemental attacks, store them, and then reuse them. However... this ability is actually unstable. While it greatly restrains Elementalist of various paths, it also greatly relies on Elementalist to provide elemental power reserves, which causes it to encounter various restrictions in many cases. Stone Gargoyles cannot generate elements themselves. Once they run out of elemental power, it is difficult to replenish it in time. After all, Elementalist are the main forces of other extraordinary organizations and cannot replenish elements for the Dark Gold Society people anytime, anywhere.
However, this phenomenon will be alleviated after the Stone Gargoyle reaches Scarlet. After reaching Scarlet, the Stone Gargoyle will be promoted to "Haolin Shigui". Haolin Shigui possesses a certain perception, attraction, and control over treasures recognized by the world. It can swallow various valuable handicrafts, precious metals, gems, and other treasures with high value in the mundane world, and then store and digest them in a certain organ within its body. Digesting different types of treasures can produce different types of elemental power.
In other words, Frederico can directly generate elemental power by digesting the large amount of treasures within his body, without needing to rely on the power of Elementalist. This allows him to control elemental power, both in terms of power and reserves, countless times greater than that of a Stone Gargoyle, and even use his own body structure to complete some powerful elemental skills that Scarlet Elementalist do not possess.
Frederico obtained a large amount of elemental power by extracting countless treasures within his body. He focused these elemental powers in a specific structure on his eyes. Subsequently, his obsidian-like eyes immediately emitted a dazzling bright light, and two orange-red hot rays shot out. These two ultra-high temperature rays shot downwards at extremely high speed. The iron shield intercepting projectiles that came to block were instantly penetrated and melted through, creating a hole. These two rays directly melted through all obstacles blocking them and shot towards the distant Thief.
At the critical moment, the Thief seemed to receive some premonition and narrowly dodged the molten rays that shot directly down through the ceiling. Seeing that the rays did not hit, Frederico in the sky began to rotate his head, making the rays follow the Thief as if they were two hot cutting knives.
Facing the pursuit of the hot rays, the Thief, while dodging, waved her cloak, wanting to transform the ray closest to her into a harmless form. However, because the ray was extremely high-frequency continuous damage and very powerful, the Thief only managed to transform a small section of the ray into a clear spring before the subsequent rays that continued to shine instantly evaporated the clear spring, compensating for the loss caused by the transformation and continuing the high-temperature cutting.
Using that small section of transformation, the Thief successfully dodged the hot ray cutting again. The hot rays that missed their target followed Frederico's gaze and cut into the distance, slicing a towering tower horizontally into two halves in a single sweep, causing its upper part to collapse with a roar.
The first ray missed, but Frederico did not give up. After stopping the first round of rays, he readjusted his position and began to prepare for the second round of rays. This time, he stopped the ice storm that his wings were releasing before, and aimed both his eyes and wings at the target below. The countless gems embedded in his eyes and wings simultaneously emitted a dazzling bright light at this moment.
At the same time, nearly ten hot rays emitted from Frederico's eyes and wings simultaneously struck the Thief within the building below. These hot rays collectively wove a cage of light for the Thief, fast, dense, and wide-ranging, leaving her nowhere to escape.
Facing the high-density rays shooting down, the Thief had already started dodging in advance. However, during this dodge, she had some other actions. She took off the top hat she was wearing, held it in her hand, and pulled it, splitting it into two. She held one in each hand. It turned out that these were two top hats stacked together and worn on the Thief's head.
As the rain of hot rays penetrated layer after layer of roofs and fell on the Thief's head, the Thief also dodged with all her might. However, although he dodged most of the rays, there was still one that shot directly towards him, seemingly intending to penetrate her body.
When that unavoidable ray truly hit the Thief, what it struck was a top hat that the Thief held in front of herself with her right hand. With precise calculation, that hot ray hit the opening of the hat almost without deviation.
Logically speaking, with the power of this ray, it would immediately pierce through the Thief's chest and this hat. However, incredibly, the ray that could penetrate countless steel and hard stones, after shooting into the opening of the hat, showed no intention of passing through the hat at all. It seemed as if the thin top of the hat blocked this powerful ray, and the entire ray seemed to disappear completely after shooting into the hat.
And just at this moment, the Thief's other left hand flipped over, turned the other hat she was holding, and extended it forward, aiming the opening of the hat towards the ceiling above. Then, from within the dark opening of the hat, an orange-red light shone.
A ray, a thick and hot ray, shot out from the opening of the hat in the Thief's left hand, instantly piercing through the ceiling above, and shooting upwards at high speed in the opposite direction of the surrounding rays, towards the sky. After passing through the roof of the building, it shot into the night sky, and before Frederico could even react, it hit him. For a moment, an even stronger dazzling light shone in the sky.
"In a magic show on stage, the audience never knows what the magician can pull out of a hat. They are always curious, why would an item placed in one hat be taken out of another?"
"This... is also a classic magician's trick, 'Hat Magic'"
In the sky not far from the castle, Dorothy, wearing a cloak, looked at the flashing light in the distant sky and couldn't help but murmur.