The Blue Knight’s aura actually surged with each clash she blocked, rising to the point where even Kraus, standing nearby, took two steps back instinctively.
The special ghoul also noticed the abnormality in her. Its attacks grew increasingly frantic, spraying sheets of pollution toward her. However, the Blue Knight remained calm and composed. Her rapier, trailed by the blue threads coiling around her body, wove an airtight barrier around her, preventing any pollution from getting close.
With every blow she blocked, her own offensive momentum grew a fraction heavier.
The instant the special ghoul’s onslaught faltered, a blood-red torrent of gore erupted from its chest cavity.
The Blue Knight's aura suddenly skyrocketed.
In the next moment, a visible sword light erupted from her body. Slender and tinged with a crimson hue, it slashed upward against the rising torrent of blood. The bloody stream was split clean in two, yet the sword light's momentum remained undiminished as it sliced straight toward the special ghoul.
Just as it instinctively raised its arms to block...
Kraus suddenly thrust both hands forward, a blinding light flashing from his palms.
I've finally found my opening.
In the next instant, the green crystals it had barely managed to suppress back into its flesh erupted violently. They burst forth at a speed it could not control, pinning it to the spot like a series of nails.
Illuminated by the holy light, the ghostly green glow refracted with a somewhat dreamlike luster.
Reflecting off the special ghoul, it highlighted the creature's monstrous features.
Immediately after, the Blue Knight's sword light descended.
It was sliced clean in half by the single strike.
The special ghoul let out a wail of utter resentment.
Its body began to collapse and twist. A massive amount of flesh erupted frantically from the severed edges, seemingly about to reform into another shape... It was about to reveal its true form.
But Kraus and the Blue Knight gave it no such opportunity. The moment it began to change, the two of them closed in and lunged forward.
On the other side, the Great Ascendant, whose chest breach had been resealed by a layer of alloy that had grown from somewhere, also glided over to join them.
A brutal, merciless gang-up began.
At that exact moment, Lu Yuan stepped forward without hesitation.
He wanted to take advantage of this opening to touch the bronze pillar... to see if the fragment was inside this one or one of the nearby ones.
The green crystals on the special ghoul, which had now dissolved into a mass of writhing flesh, were still spreading frantically.
The Blue Knight's rapier flashed through the mass of flesh again and again. Kraus, however, had sheathed his bone sword; the corrosion was something even his bone sword could barely withstand.
He simply stopped using it, choosing instead to stimulate his own transcendent characteristic. He manipulated the green crystals growing inside the creature, carving and separating its flesh piece by piece.
The Great Ascendant also joined the fray with a hint of resentment, slamming beams of light onto the flesh one after another.
The writhing mass of flesh was surrounded and pummeled by the three of them. At this rate, it would sooner or later be minced into meat paste.
Lu Yuan could not care less about that.
The pressure radiating from the bronze pillar was slowly dissipating. Having lost the control of the special ghoul, the wooden roots wrapped around the pillar seemed to have lost their direction, staying in place, unable to even feed instinctively.
So it isn't actually a living thing, Lu Yuan thought. It was just granted this ability.
Compared to the world of trees he had seen inside the wooden man back then, the things before him were far too weak.
Where on earth did this thing come from?
Lu Yuan had no time to ponder further and pressed his hand against the bronze pillar.
In the next instant, a brand-new vision rushed into his mind.
Dust filled the sky, shrouding the entire world in a grey haze, with corpses strewn everywhere.
In the distance, a thin line was writhing.
No, what kind of wave was that composed of?
Lu Yuan turned around.
Not far behind him, a massive city wall towered high. Many armored soldiers stood on top of the wall, their expressions frantic, their eyes filled with sheer terror.
Several flags he had never seen before fluttered on the wall, featuring golden stars set against a blue ocean.
In the next moment, the distant wave drew closer.
Lu Yuan finally saw it clearly.
Were those... ghouls?
He froze for a moment, then quickly realized. Those things were not ghouls, or rather, they were creatures that closely resembled ghouls. Instead of saying they looked like ghouls, it was more accurate to say they looked like the special individual currently being pummeled before him.
Is this a war? Lu Yuan wondered.
Sudden, dense footsteps echoed on the city wall as more people rushed up.
“Fire!”
Countless long cannons roared, their shells drawing arcs through the air and plunging into the ghoul-like tide.
Violent explosions blew them off their feet, yet failed to kill them. Blood, a mixture of red and black, splattered across the entire battlefield.
In the next instant, Lu Yuan snapped awake.
Before his eyes, two lines of grey-white text surfaced one after another.
【High-risk pollution source detected approaching, please be careful.】
【High-risk pollution source detected approaching, please be careful.】
New individuals, Lu Yuan realized immediately.
Right after, another line of grey-white text appeared.
【Bronze City: 3/5】
The new fragment was now in his possession.
This time, there was no need for Lu Yuan to sound the alarm.
The attendant's purple net had already enveloped the entire void. The very moment the two special individuals charged out, the network woven of purple light emitted a loud sizzling sound.
One lunged from the side, while the other surged from a deeper opening. The two figures appeared simultaneously.
The attendant's face fell instantly.
In the next moment, all the purple light flared intensely, and the swaying tentacles on the ground swelled violently.
At the same time, a silver-white light shone on his body. He had to avoid the backlash from the bronze pillar's suppression while desperately holding up the net.
Kraus and the others noticed it too. Ignoring everything else, they struck even harder, determined to mince and kill the special individual in front of them on the spot first.
However, in the next instant, the attendant's net shattered with a bang. More than half of it vanished, though the remaining purple light painted the entire void in its hue.
A visible pollution was spreading rapidly along the attendant's purple light.
It was an even stronger pollution.
The attendant realized immediately that of the two newly emerged creatures, one was far stronger than the one they were currently fighting—immeasurably stronger.
“Watch out!”
As he sounded the warning, all the swaying tentacles wove into a wall of light, interposing themselves between the extremely strong individual and Kraus's group.
Crack.
The wall of light shattered. The attendant was jarred back two steps, and the silver plate tucked against his body faded away.
Lu Yuan had already made his escape.
He ran frantically toward Adrian and Margaret, not caring if he exposed himself. If he didn't run now, he would surely die here.
The moment the wall of light shattered, Adrian began to murmur prayers, golden light overflowing from his body.
A faint, ethereal silhouette slowly materialized behind him, and the pages of the tome on his chest flipped rapidly without any wind.
Several blessings fell upon everyone present simultaneously.
Except for the Great Ascendant.
A series of text popped up before Lu Yuan's eyes.
【You have received the Angel's Blessing.】
【You have received the Angel's Favor.】
【You are enveloped by the Holy Light.】
【You shall enjoy the power of light.】
【Your Sanity has been anchored.】
Seeing the last line, Lu Yuan's eyes lit up.
Without hesitation, he utilized a capability he rarely used—the skill granted by Guard, which could temporarily reduce his own Sanity limit in exchange for a massive boost of extra Sanity.
At the same time, Lu Yuan activated Timekeeper.
In the next moment, the power of the pocket watch began to turn, applying its effects to the Blue Knight and Kraus respectively.
His Sanity began to drain away like a receding tide.
【Sanity: -5... 135/140】
【Sanity: -5... 130/140】
Yet Lu Yuan did not panic in the slightest. He immediately activated Guard again to reduce his Sanity limit.
【Your Sanity limit -20. Deduction failed due to Sanity anchor being locked.】
【Your Sanity limit -30. Deduction failed due to Sanity anchor being locked.】
【Sanity: +50... 180/140】
【Sanity: +50... 230/140】
In an instant, Lu Yuan's Sanity surged to 230/140.
Even if Timekeeper drained ten points of Sanity per second, with such a massive pool, he could easily hold out for quite a while. He was even prepared to use Guard a third time.
The reason he did not trigger it a third time immediately was because his head was currently feeling heavy and bloated. The originally calm river of Sanity now seemed to be overflowing like a raging flood.
And just then, before his eyes...
【Sanity IV: +1】
【Sanity IV: +1】
Lu Yuan's eyes lit up. His Sanity experience bar, which had been dormant for so long, was actually rising.
He casually applied another layer of Acceleration to himself, speeding up his steps even further.
Over on the other side, the Blue Knight, who was charging head-on toward the two special ghouls, erupted with blinding golden light.
The moment she lunged forward, her speed exploded so violently that she failed to control her body for a brief second. She crashed straight into the approaching special ghoul, impaling it on the spot.
The Blue Knight froze for a moment, then understood. She had experienced a similar sensation back when she was at the Knight Academy.
There was no room for hesitation. She began to count down in her mind: she only had five seconds.
Five.
The Blue Knight lunged at the special individual that had broken through the purple wall of light. Her silhouette stretched into a thin line in the air, vanishing and reappearing in an instant. At the same time, the special individual's arms were severed cleanly from their roots.
Four.
On Kraus's side, two afterimages had already stacked behind him as he met the other special individual. Blessed with this empowerment and further enhanced by the acceleration of Timekeeper, Kraus estimated his speed was at least twice as fast as before.
His bone sword materialized once more, purple light flashing along the blade while golden light coiled around it. The special individual's body swelled violently as massive amounts of blood and pollution churned, but Kraus ignored it entirely and crashed straight into it. This blessing had given him absolute confidence.
Three.
On the Blue Knight's side, she had already sliced the special individual into a limbless torso. Yet it showed no fear at all, or perhaps it simply could not feel pain.
Its severed limbs actually began to squirm at a visible speed. The severed parts seemed to possess their own consciousness, desperately crawling back toward the mangled torso.
Meanwhile, the Great Ascendant watched the two glowing, hyper-accelerated figures and clicked his tongue in slight annoyance.
But there was nothing he could do about it. As a member of the Ascension Society, he was inherently incapable of receiving any blessings, just as he was immune to pollution—he stood completely outside both forces.
The energy in the Great Ascendant's chest gathered once more, continuing to blast the minced, twisted flesh.
The energy exploded within the flesh, burning it to a carbonized, well-done state, but in the blink of an eye, it regenerated back to its original form.
On the attendant's side, purple light danced between his fingers as he continuously sealed off the escape routes of the two creatures for Kraus and the Blue Knight.
Two.
At that exact moment, another line of grey-white text popped up in Lu Yuan's vision.
【High-risk pollution source detected approaching, please be careful.】
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