The Blue Knight said nothing. She held her rapier horizontally before her once more, her gaze returning to the massive beast.
Kraus had told them to keep it busy, so keep it busy they would.
Since he dared to go down there, he had to be confident he could return—or at least, he believed he could.
The Great Ascendant's silver-grey eyes flickered. The beam of light on his chest recharged and blasted directly into the front of the massive beast.
Margaret let out a cold laugh, the blue light around her body flaring outward. She had drawn almost every trace of moisture from the cave.
“Fine, keep it busy it is.”
The attendant's purple light nets spread out again, closing in from both sides to corral the massive beast back into the center. Though his expression was grim, his movements did not falter for an instant.
The group's strategy was no longer to kill the creature. The threads surrounding the Blue Knight ceased clustering together, instead scattering in all directions.
With every pass, she left a shallow cut on the giant individual. The Blue Knight had no illusions of actually wounding it; she only needed to keep its attention fixed on her.
Margaret's water needles rained down continuously from various directions, forcing it to turn repeatedly. The moment it spun around, the Blue Knight would sweep back in from the opposite side.
The creature's speed was indeed not its strong suit. As long as they prevented it from focusing its frenzy in a single direction, several Rank 4s could easily keep it at bay.
The instant Kraus vanished, the massive beast suddenly froze.
Even though the Blue Knight's threads were still wrapped around its right leg and its underlying rage remained palpable, it stood rooted to the spot.
Its two misaligned eyes stopped looking at the Blue Knight and Margaret. Instead, it wrenched its head downward, both eyes staring fixedly at the fleshy ground beneath its feet.
The Blue Knight sensed that something was wrong.
An unusual vibration traveled up the threads in her hands, originating from deep within the massive beast's body and surging all the way to her fingertips.
In the next instant, the massive beast's body began to swell.
Waves of flesh surged across its surface, and the dark red flesh-membrane bulged violently. Its entire frame expanded further into the darkness where the holy light could not reach.
It threw its head back, its two misaligned eyes widening in unison, and the giant mouth on its stomach tore open to its absolute limit.
A roar thundered from the depths of its maw.
This roar was different from any of its previous shrieks. Those sounds had merely echoed in their minds, causing irritation and unease, but this one physically slammed into them.
The roar erupted in a visible shockwave that blasted in all directions. The moisture surrounding Margaret was blown outward, though she forced it back under control, and the attendant's purple light net bulged violently outward under the force.
The threads in the Blue Knight's hands tensed simultaneously. Instantly realizing she could not take this blow head-on, she retracted her threads, stepped back, and widened the distance once more.
Before the roar could even fade, an even greater disturbance arose.
The bronze pillars around the void lit up in unison.
The long-dormant patterns on the bronze pillars jutting haphazardly from the flesh suddenly glowed with a golden light. One by one, they all ignited within a single breath. Golden light burst from every pillar, illuminating the entire void.
A crushing pressure descended.
This pressure was countlessly more oppressive than what they had encountered in the channel. That time, they had only faced the weight of a single pillar, which they could bear with some effort.
Now, seven or eight bronze pillars were erupting simultaneously. The combined pressure made the very air feel viscous, dragging down the flesh on their faces.
The Great Ascendant's mechanical body let out a harsh grinding noise of gears, and his knees bent slightly under the weight.
The beam of light on his chest dimmed significantly, a strange light flickering within his silver-grey eyes.
The water needles and blades hovering around Margaret shattered instantly the moment the pressure hit. Her floating figure plunged half a foot, her feet slamming back onto the fleshy ground.
She gritted her teeth and tried to draw moisture again, but the water vapor in the air had become incredibly difficult to manipulate under the crushing weight. With great effort, she managed to condense a few water blades, but their shapes were warped and unstable.
The attendant was on the verge of collapse.
The purple light nets trembled violently, several of them beginning to dissolve from the edges. He twisted his wrists repeatedly, veins bulging on his forehead, as he barely managed to keep the central net active. However, its coverage had shrunk to barely thirty percent of its original size.
Adrian's tome hovered motionless in midair.
The holy light was compressed into a paper-thin layer under the pressure. The golden barrier could barely shelter them, showing signs of shattering at any moment.
Yet, the Blue Knight remained standing where she was.
Her figure merely faltered for a fraction of a second before her threads snapped back up from the ground, her rapier still held horizontally before her. Though the pressure that crushed everyone else weighed on her, her movements were only half a beat slower than before.
The Great Ascendant looked up from his bent knees, his silver-grey eyes locking onto the Blue Knight. He stared at her for two breaths, the gears deep within his eyes spinning three times.
This knight was actually virtually unaffected by the pressure of the bronze pillars.
The Blue Knight paid no heed to the Great Ascendant's gaze. Her focus was entirely on the massive beast.
While everyone was pinned down by the pressure, the creature had already begun advancing toward the attendant. Though its steps were slow, each one was heavy enough to shake the ground.
The threads beneath the Blue Knight's feet snapped taut, catapulting her forward to slam straight toward the massive beast's knee. Crimson sword qi erupted from her rapier, carving a deep wound into the back of its knee.
The creature's knee buckled for a moment, and its body listed to one side, bringing it to a halt.
Though the wound was already healing, the Blue Knight had bought them precious seconds. Taking the opportunity, the attendant cast his purple light nets once more, the warped mesh blocking its path once again.
Margaret drew the water mist back, wrapping it entirely around her own body.
Her ranged attacks had become completely useless, but she had already funneled most of the moisture in the cave into the massive beast's body.
All she could do now was slow its movements as much as possible, sharing whatever burden she could with the Blue Knight.
Yet, everyone knew they could not hold out like this for long.
The golden light of the bronze pillars pulsed unevenly, the pressure waxing and waning.
Every time the pressure peaked, the attendant and Margaret were pinned down, unable to move, and the Great Ascendant's beam of light could not fire at full strength.
Only during the brief seconds when the pressure waned could they catch their breath and readjust.
The rhythm of the entire battlefield was dictated by the flickering of the bronze pillars, with only the Blue Knight immune to its cadence.
Even at the peak of the pressure, when everyone else was completely immobilized, she could still raise her sword. She was now the only one left in the void capable of engaging the massive beast head-on.
The Blue Knight's threads stretched longer and longer, blanketing over half of the void. She was single-handedly anchoring the entire defensive line.
Adrian watched the Blue Knight hold the line alone, unable to flip the pages of the tome in his hands any longer.
The golden holy light had grown translucent, the barrier clinging precariously above their heads, trembling violently every time the pressure from the bronze pillars spiked.
He knew he could not last much longer. If this continued, the holy light would fail first, followed closely by his own body.
The Archbishop closed his eyes.
His lips moved, but he was no longer reciting prayers.
With a slight raise of his hand, the tome hovering in midair snapped shut. The pages slammed together, and the golden light instantly went out. The tome plummeted from the air, caught firmly in his palm.
The holy light was gone.
The residual gold clinging to everyone vanished in an instant, plunging the void back into darkness, illuminated only by the flickering golden glow of the bronze pillars.
Margaret and the attendant looked up at Adrian almost simultaneously, and the Blue Knight's threads ahead faltered for a beat.
Adrian tucked the tome into his robes, and his tightly closed eyes slowly drifted open.
Those eyes had changed.
All trace of his former benevolence and warmth had vanished. A layer of cold, dark purple-black light welled up from the depths of his pupils, carrying an inexplicable, aggressive aura.
In the next instant, flames erupted from the Archbishop.
The fire began burning from his back first—a thick, pitch-black color that was the absolute antithesis of holy light.
The black flames crept up his spine, quickly enveloping his arms and his entire upper body.
The edges of the flames flickered with a deep, eerie purple, warping the surrounding air.
Behind him, a single wing unfurled from the flames.
The wing was pitch-black and massive. The faint outlines of feathers were visible, yet they possessed not a single shred of luster.
There was only one wing, unfurling from behind his left shoulder, its tips trailing in the air and burning with the same purple-black fire.
Adrian's entire appearance had transformed.
With the tome sealed against his chest, the benevolent facade of an Archbishop peeled away from him piece by piece.
The purple-black flames swallowed him whole, even burning his white hair to an ashen black. A highly aggressive aura of pollution erupted from his body, spreading in all directions.
The Great Ascendant's pupils contracted violently.
He was closest to Adrian. The moment that wave of pollution swept over, the sensory inscriptions on his mechanical body flared to life, flashing warning after warning.
The grinding of the Great Ascendant's gears paused for a beat, his silver-grey eyes locking dead onto Adrian.
In an instant, he understood.
This old fossil actually served another faith.
It was an absolute rule that Believer transcendents could only serve a single faith. Yet the fire burning on Adrian and the single wing sprouting from his back were clearly the products of a second belief.
And judging by the aura, the entity he worshiped was a mortal enemy of the Angels.
A Fallen Angel?
The second entity Adrian worshiped was a Fallen Angel.
Was this not a product of the Second Church? The Second Church occupied the southeastern part of the empire, standing as a rival to the Holy Church.
Adrian actually believed in the doctrines of both churches at the same time. If the Holy Church ever found out, he would be excommunicated on the spot.
The Great Ascendant silently looked away.
He had no desire to tangle with the lunatics of the Second Church.
Adrian had no time to worry about who was watching him.
The purple-black flames dripped from his body, falling onto the fleshy ground beneath his feet.
The moment the flames made contact with the flesh, the results were exceptionally effective.
The dark red flesh shriveled and charred rapidly within the purple-black fire, carbonizing from the surface down to the deepest layers. It was far more devastating and efficient than the Blue Knight's crimson sword qi or the Great Ascendant's beam of light.
Rate on N.U.
