All the creatures that were attacking left and right just a moment ago suddenly became docile, freezing like statues in various positions. They looked like puppets with their strings cut off as if there was nobody left to control them anymore.

*Tap*tap*Tap*tap*

One weak, one heavy. What sounded like footsteps came from somewhere within the forest. The fog parted, giving way to a large reptilian figure (Ch 694). It crawled forward with skeletal legs but the sound of footsteps was not coming from them.

There was a person walking right next to it. If any of the barbarians were still here they would have instantly recognized him as Niko who was thought to be lost before the battle began.

Only he wasn't very much 'him' anymore. He was walking side by side with the creature. There were some long strands of hair connecting his head to the Djinn.

Both of them walked through the frozen four-legged human deformities that were attacking the barbarians and stopped right in front of the tree trunk.

The hair connecting them pulled back and forth making Niko twitch with every movement. It looked like he was trying to put up a fight but that resistance did not even last half a minute.

His body relaxed and he raised his hand, pointing towards the trunk.

"They already left through there."

The hair strands jerked again, digging deeper into Niko's skull.

"Marks in the walls, runes. I heard them overtalking once..."

He blurted out one thing after another, everything he knew. There was nothing he could hide, not from the djinn.

They stood there for a few minutes until Niko finished speaking and fell to his knees. There was blood leaking from his eyes, nose, and ears.

He was gritting his teeth so hard that it sounded like nails being dragged across a chalkboard. He forcefully turned his head towards the djinn, "Kill....me..." he begged.

The Djinn's horrendous humanoid face twisted into a wicked smile. It nodded.

Niko stood up again with some effort and walked closer to it. He bent forward as if bowing to it. The Djinn opened its toothy maw and took a quick bite, tearing the entire upper half of the barbarian's body clean off.

It chewed slowly, the crunching noises of the bones being broken down and the distinct popping noises coming from his skull and eye sockets were enough to make even the bravest of men keel over right then and there.

When it had finished chewing, it moved into the tree trunk and looked around. The only thing of note left were the distinct markings on the wall that were placed in an arc, creating quite a distinct shape of a doorway.

The yellow light of its puss-filled eyes suddenly brightened and concentrated in the middle. It slowly forced its massive head forward trying to get a clearer picture but for some reason, no matter how hard it tried the exact shape and design of the runes continued to elude it.

In its eyes, the runes constantly changed shapes, blurring into one another and many other things all at once. There was no way to tell what each individual one looked like.

But from what it had heard from Niko, there was no need to understand them. Niko had seen Hao Xuan open the doorway many times and remembered the peculiar movements he made, especially the ones at the end.

And since the Djinn knew everything Niko knew, it did the same. It moved used its claw to connect the left and the right side together but...nothing happened.

It tried a few other times but the result was the same. Having had no luck, it was about to turn around when it paused and turned back around.

It extended a claw, this time covered with a dark purple energy, and made the same movement.

*Woosh*

The doorway opened.

It let out a satisfied smile, that nightmare-inducing smile that no one should ever have to witness.

"Ra'ur isk a lao ma!"

It uttered a sentence in some strange language. All the four-legged creatures outside came to life and formed a line behind it one by one. The djinn pressed onwards, disappearing into the gateway that seemed to be a few sizes too small to hold its body

The four-legged creatures followed their master and did the same, at least until the portal closed by itself leaving the rest of them stranded on the planet that had served as a prison for the one that was once called the "Lazarus the Eternal" in the language of its people.

Back when it had not strayed from the righteous path.

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