Silence.
Only silence.
Before the invisible dividing line in the center of the stage, the front half of the theater remained dim and dilapidated. However, behind that line, the tiered audience seating that could accommodate three hundred people, the thick load-bearing walls, and the dome sealed with black lead plates had all vanished.
The blue sky and the piercing noon sunlight poured down without obstruction.
The cultists gaped in a daze.
They stared at the empty ruins, unable to comprehend what had just happened.
Wasn't this supposed to be a ritual duel?
How did it turn into a fight?
And it was a battle at a level of martial power that defied all understanding.
One second, the summoned High-tier Vampire, emitting a terrifying pressure, had been raising a giant crimson scythe to harvest the Saintess.
The next second, the space itself, along with that invincible enemy, had evaporated.
So, what exactly happened?
The cultists looked at one another, but none could find the words.
Modi stood with his mouth hanging open.
He didn't understand rituals.
But that level of power... without a doubt...
The moment the light faded, Sophie immediately looked at her logs with anticipation.
Come on, old thing, drop some loot.
【Log: The ritual [Moon Rite] can no longer sustain the power. The ritual has failed.】
【Log: [Phantom Viscount] has died.】
【Due to the ritual failure, the projection has disappeared.】
Huh? Where's my loot?
And where are the death notifications for Maid A and Elizabeth?
If their status is unknown, does that mean they're alive?
Sophie reacted instantly.
Those two had fled.
Her main character profile had only been simulated for a tiny bit before the magic circle collapsed because it couldn't handle the power.
This was bad. As the saying goes, if you don't pull up the weeds by the roots, they'll just grow back when the spring breeze blows.
Even if they weren't enemies before today, they were definitely enemies now.
Sophie immediately scooped up the stakes and then turned to look at the still-shocked Modi.
Undoubtedly, even with the 50% bonus from [Stealth], plus the [Light Sensitivity] health regeneration and attribute doubling triggered by direct sunlight, her explosive power still wasn't enough to sustain a high-speed, long-distance chase.
She needed physical “takeoff momentum.”
“Modi!” Sophie said decisively. “Aim at me and attack with your strongest mana torrent!”
Modi snapped back to his senses.
“Sa... Saintess? What are you saying?”
“Attack you with magic? Such a blasphemous act would bring divine punishment upon me on the spot!” Modi shook his head repeatedly.
“Stop talking.” Sophie stepped forward quickly. “If you don't attack me, I'll give you a taste of divine punishment right now.”
“Besides, you actually let vampires infiltrate the sect. We need to have a serious talk about that later.”
Modi: “...”
He had his suspicions about Elizabeth’s identity, but he couldn't exactly go and investigate it.
What if he actually found something?
Who would drop gold coins for the sect then?
Himself?
It was the same reason he wouldn't investigate the Saintess’s identity now. What if he found out the Saintess was actually the Hero?
“Those two bastards won't get far. I need to borrow your power to launch into the air and chase them. You can't hurt me, so do it now!”
Sophie commanded.
“As... as you wish.”
Modi gritted his teeth and raised his iron-bottomed cane.
The gemstone at the tip of the cane erupted with a piercing light.
After a moment's thought, he didn't channel all his mana, only half. The air around him let out a sharp hiss as the mana condensed at high speed.
A thick, silver-white torrent of mana, carrying a destructive force, blasted straight toward Sophie’s chest.
Sophie didn't dodge.
She snapped open her Oil-paper Umbrella, holding it firmly in front of her.
【Log: [Moon Bishop Modi] has cast [Greater Mana Torrent] on you.】
【Log: Skill [Seeking Defeat (Reversed) Lv. Max] has been triggered!】
BOOM!
The mana torrent slammed violently into the surface of the Oil-paper Umbrella.
The paper umbrella spun wildly.
She was clashing against this mana torrent.
Sophie deliberately adjusted her angle.
And then...
A narrow defeat.
She relinquished all her grip on the ground, allowing the massive kinetic energy to launch her entire body into the air.
Accompanied by the brilliant light of the mana torrent, she soared diagonally into the clouds.
The sound of the wind whistled past her ears.
In the blink of an eye, she reached the clouds.
Sophie looked at the clouds beside her and adjusted her posture.
The clothes on her back were torn apart by two forces.
A pair of massive, dark-red, membranous bat wings suddenly unfurled.
Vampire skill—Flight.
The broad skeletal frame stretched in the airflow, steadily supporting her body.
Sophie began to glide over the wasteland.
The noon sun shone directly on her skin. Instead of burning her, it brought a continuous stream of strength.
The New Moon Sect’s nest really wasn't in the city, but out in the wasteland.
Sophie focused her Perception.
Those two definitely couldn't have gone far. Even if that glance from her main profile hadn't killed them, they must at least be heavily injured and on the verge of death.
And once she found their location, Sophie didn't even need to go down and engage in physical combat herself.
She possessed the essence of modern warfare—precision-guided strikes.
“Once I lock onto the coordinates, I’ll immediately shout the Hero’s name. As long as Kaila hears the call for help, she’ll definitely come running.”
“When that happens, Judgment will teach you how to be decent human beings.” Sophie plotted in mid-air.
It’s time for that old lady to cough up some gold coins.
Sophie soon spotted two small dots in the air. Her eyes lit up, and the wings on her back suddenly accelerated.
...
Modi stood in the ruins of the half-leveled abandoned theater, still thinking about the Saintess’s recent actions.
In all his years, this was the first time he had seen an umbrella clash against his own magic.
But then again, considering she could level half a theater, the Saintess was certainly not as weak as she appeared...
Just then.
The sunlight vanished.
The originally brilliant sun had disappeared at this moment.
In its place was a red color that inspired fear and awe in everyone.
It was as thick as blood.
“Is this your doing?”
A soft voice sounded in Modi’s ear.
The voice wasn't loud, but it made Modi freeze.
“This... this voice is...”
Modi turned around stiffly.
Behind him stood a barefoot girl.
She wore a complex and magnificent ancient sacrificial dress. Her long black hair drifted freely in the windless air, and a red glow saturated the entire theater.
“You... you...”
Meaningless rattling sounds came from Modi’s throat.
He was completely stunned.
He had prayed day and night, longed day and night, yet he never expected to face the true form of the goddess in such an abrupt situation.
“Aren't you my Bishop? We’ve met before. I recognize you. Have you already forgotten me?” Miaoyue furrowed her brows in annoyance.
An irritable emotion flickered in her eyes.
“I’m asking you, who left this aura behind? Is this ritual your doing?”
That aura, that power, without a doubt...
It had just appeared here.
Modi’s legs instantly lost all strength, and he hit the stone-covered wooden floor with a heavy thud.
“God... Goddess! You’ve finally... No, your business is more important. It was the Saintess!” Modi reported incoherently, his forehead pressed against the ground in terror. “She... she just flew off to chase two traitors who were hiding in the sect...”
“Saintess?” Miaoyue tilted her head slightly.
There was a hint of doubt and inquiry in her gaze, but more than anything, there was an irrepressible anxiety.
“I’ll go find her.”
The moment the words left her mouth, the crimson moonlight enveloping the entire ruins, along with the girl in the sacrificial dress, vanished without a trace in a sudden breeze.
The abandoned theater returned to the noon sunlight, leaving behind a dumbfounded Modi and cultists who had no idea what had just happened.
...
“The sun... the sun... don't let the sun shine on me... my... ahhhh...”
A dying bat let out a pained cry.
“Sorry, the ground is shaking... I’m a bit...”
“Blegh—”
The red-haired Maid A leaned against a rock and spat out a large mouthful of black blood mixed with organ fragments.
Her originally crisp leather armor was now soaked in her own blood.
If not for a magic item that took the hit for her, she would have died in the recent attack.
Her mistress was in even worse shape. She seemed to have suffered an irrepressible injury, and her proud vampire self-healing ability was suppressed. Her thousand-bat incarnation was now reduced to a single bat, which Maid A held in her arms as they fled the theater.
“Mistress... if you have any more trump cards... use them quickly...” Maid A panted heavily, shielding the bat even more closely.
“That monster... what kind of monster did Modi find...” Elizabeth’s voice trembled uncontrollably. “The being that was summoned...”
She could no longer clearly remember what she had seen.
Her memory itself was resisting it.
“Mistress... I’ll put you in a safe place and then go stall her...”
“Don't go throw your life away, you idiot.”
Elizabeth snapped back to her senses and immediately cursed, panting as she spoke: “That monster can't catch up for now.”
“Besides, I’ve already summoned the family ancestor, a Tenth Generation High-tier Vampire, my sire. He can crush that pathetic little vampire into dust with a single glance.”
“That woman is only good at rituals, but no matter how powerful a ritual is, you can't just carry it around and use it whenever you want...”
Elizabeth spoke without much confidence.
To be honest.
Not a single one of her methods had worked.
That lowly, low-tier vampire fledgling, how could she... how dare she?
“So you really do have a trump card,” Maid A said.
“What?” Elizabeth asked, confused.
“What should we do then, Mistress?” Maid A asked. “Should we run while we have the chance?”
“Impossible.” Elizabeth shook her head. “I won't be at peace until I see that wretch dead.”
With that, she immediately began observing her surroundings again.
But the sunlight was too bright; she couldn't see clearly.
“Listen. What you need to do now is prepare sharpened wooden stakes. They must be made of ash or oak!”
Elizabeth wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth.
“If the ancestor fails, you’ll have to sacrifice yourself for me. As long as you find the right moment to drive the stake into her heart, you can completely paralyze her! No matter how many strange spells she has, a vampire with a stake through their heart can only be at our mercy.”
Maid A’s eyes lit up when she heard this countermeasure.
“That’s all it takes?”
“Yes, now find a place to hide me,” Elizabeth urged. “Don't stay too close to me, or you’ll give away my position.”
Maid A immediately took the command, found a shaded spot, and ran toward it with the bat.
But halfway there, she looked up.
The airflow was wrong.
“Aha, found you.”
After discovering the dialogue in the logs, Sophie, who had been flying aimlessly in the air, searched desperately for the two people fleeing on the ground.
And now, she had finally found them.
“Hehehehe, you finally got what was coming to you.”
Flapping her wings, Sophie descended from the sky triumphantly.
She didn't waste a single moment on trash talk.
“Hero Miss, come save me!”
Sophie immediately performed her strongest summoning technique.
Schwing.
Maid A drew the longsword from her waist and looked at Sophie warily.
Then she watched as Sophie sneered bit by bit.
Sneering.
Sneering as she landed on the ground.
Sophie looked around blankly.
No... that’s not right. She had tested it.
No matter where she was, as long as she called for Kaila, the Hero would come.
Looking at the sword-wielding Maid A in front of her, the sneer on Sophie’s face suddenly turned into a warm smile.
“You finally got what was... uh, have you eaten yet today?”
“Maybe you should go grab some food first. I won't bother you. I'm leaving now, bye!”
Maid A: “?”
...
On the other side.
The vast, boundless wasteland.
Withered yellow grass swayed in the dry autumn wind.
A pillar of crimson light descended from the sky without warning, slamming heavily into the center of the wasteland.
“Who are you? Why do you keep pestering me?” Miaoyue was very annoyed.
In this world, no one but that person was qualified to block her path.
She raised her hand, and pure crimson mana danced at her fingertips.
“A Witch must be purged.”
Kaila’s emotionless voice echoed across the wasteland.
As the words fell, an extremely piercing pure white holy light erupted from all around Kaila.
A massive double-edged scythe, condensed from pure white light, appeared in Kaila’s hand.
There were no redundant pleasantries or probing attacks.
This was a life-and-death struggle.
Kaila’s legs bent slightly, and the ground of the wasteland instantly sank, forming a massive crater.
BOOM!
The air was violently compressed, letting out a deafening sonic boom.
Kaila’s figure turned into a streak of blazing white light, charging straight toward Miaoyue.
The massive holy scythe pulled a white arc that tore through space in mid-air, aiming straight for Miaoyue’s head.
Miaoyue’s purple pupils constricted slightly. She didn't dodge, nor did she chant any spells.
She simply raised her slender, pale arm.
A solidified crimson moonlight shield condensed in front of her.
CLANG—
The tip of the pure white scythe slammed violently into the crimson shield.
Two diametrically opposed peak powers collided violently at a single point, and a terrifying shockwave expanded outward in a visible ring.
All the wild grass within a radius of hundreds of kilometers was uprooted, and the rocks on the ground were instantly ground into fine powder, flying through the air.
“Die.”
Miaoyue’s wrist flicked suddenly, and the shield instantly disintegrated, turning into thousands of deep-red moonblades that spun back toward the nearby Kaila in a 360-degree, no-dead-angle formation.
Each moonblade pulled a rift in the reality of space.
Kaila’s body twisted forcefully in mid-air as she swung her scythe.
CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG—
A series of crisp and dense metallic collisions rang out.
Every red moonblade that was shattered triggered a small-scale explosion.
But this couldn't hurt the Hero.
Charging out of the distorted space was the Hero, whose speed had increased once again.
“Judgment!”
Kaila let out a low shout.
The light scythe suddenly elongated as it spun, turning into a hundred-meter-long Holy Light Greatsword, which transformed into a sword light carrying an unstoppable might.
The earth began to tremble under the pressure of this strike, and a bottomless crack spread into the distance along the path of the blade.
Miaoyue’s figure became illusory where she stood.
She turned into moonlight.
The greatsword cleaved into the ground.
BOOM!
The earth roared and shook, leaving behind a trench hundreds of meters deep.
However, Miaoyue’s voice appeared above Kaila.
“How annoying.”
In the sky, a massive crimson magic circle suddenly unfurled, covering the entire ceiling of the wasteland.
“If it weren't daytime, I would have killed you long ago.”
Thousands of red meteorites composed of concentrated moonlight, trailing long tails of flame, poured down like a rainstorm toward Kaila’s position.
The entire sky was dyed blood-red.
Kaila looked up, the apocalyptic scene reflected in her eyes.
She didn't retreat a single step.
“Sentence.”
A pillar of light shot into the sky from Kaila’s body.
The blinding light and roar of the explosions turned the wasteland into an ocean of light, and even vision lost its meaning in this extreme brilliance.
The moment the light dimmed slightly, the two clashed again.
Their movements could no longer be captured by the naked eye.
In the sky and on the ground, white holy light and crimson moonlight intertwined and collided frantically.
It was pure slaughter.
SHING!
CLANG!
The two clashed thousands of times in an instant.
The geography of the wasteland was completely reshaped; hills were leveled, and rivers were severed.
The earth roared and trembled.
The two bodies counterbalanced each other at close range.
Kaila’s right fist, carrying holy light, punched toward Miaoyue’s face without reservation.
A ball of high-density blood light condensed in Miaoyue’s left palm as she met that punch.
Fist met palm.
Time stood still for 0.01 seconds.
Then, an explosion that exceeded the sum of all previous collisions occurred.
A transparent ripple spread through the air, followed by a hurricane that swept everything away.
It was an energy detonation powerful enough to destroy a city.
Both were simultaneously pushed back by this massive reaction force, sliding thousands of meters in mid-air.
Kaila landed steadily, the light sword in her hand becoming even more solid. Her breathing remained steady, without any sign of fatigue.
Miaoyue stepped barefoot on the scorched earth, fury burning in her purple eyes.
She wasn't worried about whether she could defeat her opponent.
She just felt she had wasted too much time.
Teacher’s aura was about to disappear!
“Get lost!”
Miaoyue let out a hysterical roar.
“I can fight you for three days and three nights,” Kaila said as she jumped out of a massive crater.
Suddenly, she frowned, and a look of hesitation appeared on her face.
“I’ll kill you... next time.”
“Hehehe.” Miaoyue couldn't be bothered with her and didn't linger. With a turn, her body merged into the moonlight...
Then.
“Why are you still following me???”
“Maybe... we’re going the same way?”
Kaila said.
Rate on N.U.
