“Boom! ” A shockwave was released by an explosion that occurred somewhere below the ground on which the Hellinger Castle stood. The already terribly broken castle was officially wiped away from existence, one could not even find an undamaged brick or tile from the building even if they tried. At the center of the giant crater created by the explosion, was a small dome of energy that was made of dark red and dark blue energy, with an opening on top of just the right size allowing a beam of orange and golden energy to come through and keep an unstable dark orb in place and keep it from expanding.

The shockwave also propagated upwards and reached all the clouds and smog in the air in no time. With the cries and moanings of thousands of voices, the clouds made of distorted faces were instantly reduced to thin traces of vapor and ashes. The dim sky seemed to be lit up just for a brief moment, but then it went back to its previous dark red gloomy state.

On the relatively flat and even land around the crater, Jianmen circled the crater while waving his meat cleaver and his broom in the air, writing and drawing various symbols, True Words and mini arrays that would end up engraved on the energy dome.

The theory behind this dome was something he observed in the Clearwater Municipal Hospital - whoever that mage was, though now that it seemed quite probable he was a Hellinger, it was clear that he actually found a way to suppress a Defiler scout using the massive clustered malice that haunted the hospital. From how things unwinded, the mage seemed to have sacrificed himself to serve as the malice’s maintainer, thus keeping the malice from imploding and serving as a prison for the Defiler Scout.

This theory was later somewhat confirmed by what he encountered during the fight against the living curse - the curse cast by the Hellingers in a desperate attempt to drive the invaders off their home, and somehow gained sentience and self consciousness after decades of being here. The power of the curse was no match for his, but when it exerted its will to defy his command, or harm him or to break free, it was able to, even though slightly and barely noticeably, shake and impact Jianmen’s hold on it. It was from having observed this two times did he decide to really try and incorporate the living curse itself into the barrier, instead of just striking a deal with it and asking it to guard against the incoming Defilers - for one, he had no confidence in the living curse’s loyalty anyways, and for two, if the living curse displayed the ability to corrupt the construct of his power, there would be very little guarantee that it wouldn’t try to get out of the deal and possibly damage Jianmen’s ward spell in the process. At this stage, even a little bit of damage to the spell could lead to catastrophic disadvantage on their part.

It took around two Earth hours for Jianmen to finally finish the entire spell, which created another layer of warding and protection outside of the dark red and dark blue energy dome, which would serve as a buffering mechanism to temporarily create enough pressure on the dark orb when the orange and golden stream of energy inevitably dried out and the dome might not be fully sealed at the time.

The glow from Jianmen’s eyes gradually went away and the aura around him dimmed down after he completed the spell due to exhaustion and discomfort from abruptly gaining this much of his powers back, and he had to sit on the ground for a brief moment of rest. The wine from his flask would serve very little use for him now, and drinking it all up only lessened a small part of his feelings of unease.

Just by a quick count, he still had three more bigger pieces of white crystals stored in Xianshi Inn’s basement, or the “tokens” he gained for cleansing the karmic pollutants out there. The biggest piece he had already reserved for the upcoming fight, and the other two would be put on standby and ready for use whenever he needed, which he was still hoping would not be needed because mending the broken karmic chains when he conjures another portal to go home would probably cost him those two, if not more.

After taking about half an hour to rest, Jianmen left an observation spell and an energy anchor in this realm so that he could watch over this place at all times and teleport back should anything occur.

With a swing of his meat cleaver, a portal with orange and golden edges appeared before Jianmen. He took a short moment to adjust his clothes, dial back his aura, his external energy signature and sense his own status, then retrieved the meat cleaver and his broom and walked into the portal empty-handed.