Tina pulled her dragon tail out. Black Lotus's pupils dilated, then shrank, before finally losing all light. Remarkably, not a single trace of blood remained on Tina's tail.
The gruesome, bloody hole that should have been there was completely gone, leaving no wound at all. Instead, a pulsing, cyan-blue heart could be faintly seen beneath the girl's fair skin.
“Lotus...”
Before drawing her last breath, Black Lotus struggled with all her might to say something. However, she quickly lost her footing and plummeted downward, eliminated from this battle alongside her sister.
Tina looked at Aether with interest.
After “eating” Black Lotus's heart, she felt her power grow significantly once again.
Aether.
Tina remembered him.
He was the culprit who had ordered the destruction of Lystra, the most brutal scum in the Church.
After witnessing Sathya being trapped, she had felt a sudden rush of heat to her head. Many things that had once been blurry were finally starting to become clear.
Her inner voice screamed, wanting to obliterate any existence that wished to harm Little Ya.
Then, she remembered.
No matter what, she had to establish a kingdom of magical beasts and make Sathya happy.
But that alone was not enough.
She also needed to plunge humanity into absolute despair. And the way to make them despair was not through simple military suppression.
Having Sathya become the Saintess of humanity was the most secure way.
Because no matter what decision she made, the only one she wanted to dedicate herself to was Sathya.
However, that annoying Aether was not his true body. This guy was something akin to an avatar.
How irritating~
Everything would have been so simple if they had just stopped resisting.
Aether was still staring at her. His brow was furrowed, as if he were searching for a weakness in her. During the few seconds it took to deal with Black Lotus, he had shown no intention of making a move.
But to Tina, this meant absolutely nothing.
“And also~”
Tina smiled faintly, turning her gaze toward the archmages of the First Knight Order behind her—the humans who were currently constructing the Divine Lock.
With just a casual glance from her, those humans let out shocked, panicked cries. They had been channeling magic into the magic circle to accelerate the creation of the Divine Lock, but now, their legs trembled as they collapsed to the ground.
“Are you all joining in too~?”
Tina extended a single finger, gathering a massive amount of chaos energy. In the eyes of the humans, the beautiful figure flying in the sky suddenly vanished into the darkness once more.
The black and blue flames swirling around her suddenly began to compress, forming a sphere of light at the tip of Tina's finger. Then, with a gentle flick of her finger, the sphere of light bloomed like a flower, transforming into a ray of death.
Creating this extremely high-temperature flame was the simplest way to unleash the power within her body. To be honest, she hadn't expected the first time she used such powerful magic to be at a moment like this.
The technique wasn't flashy, but Tina liked it very much.
The ray of death made no sound as it shot forward, as if it could swallow light and even consume sound itself.
Fortunately, the First Knight Order had a shrewd leader who ordered the Divine Lock to activate before Tina's technique could be completed.
It was a golden chain, a spell constructed from highly malleable light-attribute magic.
Because of its ability to suppress chaos and magic, it was one of the Church's best methods for dealing with magical beasts.
But the downside was that it required too many people to cast simultaneously, leaving them as sitting ducks during the process.
That shrewd leader was Caesar, who had been accompanying Black Lotus and Blood Lotus. He was a young man. Like an ant, this guy stood in front of the incomplete Divine Lock.
And most interestingly, he actually blocked it!
He gripped his sword with all his might. When the ray of death struck him, it shattered into countless smaller rays that ricocheted outward, utterly destroying a massive area of the ground. The grand, towering buildings of the Holy Academy collapsed with a crash, as easily as ocean waves washing away a sandcastle.
The sword in Caesar's hand was heavily damaged, unable to bear the burden any longer. Steam billowed from his arms, the fingers gripping his sword were a bloody mess, and his dust-covered face was streaked with blood.
If he hadn't used all the magic and power in his body to block the attack, he would have been completely consumed by the ray of death.
A faint smile still lingered on his face.
“The Divine Lock is about to be completed. It seems you are nothing special after all, magical beast!”
However, hearing those words, Tina blamed her overly sharp hearing for the first time. She flicked her finger again, sending out another ray of death.
“Boom—!”
He wasn't so lucky this time.
He hadn't expected the second attack to come so quickly, and he blacked out the instant he made contact with the extreme heat.
But just as the attack landed, a force of distorted space neutralized most of the ray of death, allowing Caesar to survive.
He lay collapsed on the ground in a pool of blood, his right hand that had been holding the sword completely gone.
By now, Tina had lost all interest and turned her gaze toward Cardinal Aether, the one who was “interfering.”
It was this guy who had saved Caesar.
His ability was space distortion, which allowed him to fly using the power of warped space or create a cage of distorted space.
Tina unfurled her sky-blotting dragon wings. These appendages, which did not belong to humans, could now be felt clearly, feeling even more powerful than her arms.
Flapping the dragon wings was even easier than waving her arms.
Driven by her dragon wings, Tina's body reached Aether in an instant.
“This isn't your real body, Aether. It seems you're still a coward~”
She didn't give Aether any time to prepare; she reached out and effortlessly pierced his chest.
This hypocritical guy even needed a living human body to create his avatars.
Though this method did share senses, allowing him to experience the pain of death.
“Hehe...”
A trace of fear appeared on Aether's deathly pale face, but it was quickly overshadowed by rage.
“Humanity has spent thousands of years fighting your kind! Do you think it will end this easily... cough...”
The Divine Lock was now fully constructed, serving as a beacon of hope for humanity.
They knew that many magical beasts were ultimately bound by the Divine Lock and burned by holy fire to end their incredibly resilient lives. Once the Divine Lock was complete, it seemed to spell the end of the magical beast.
The Divine Lock bound the arms of the Dragon Magical Beast, latching on tightly like leeches. Soon, more chains began to wrap around her neck and wings, forcing her to let go of Aether.
The moment she was bound by these sturdy chains, she felt a large portion of her chaos energy being suppressed.
Yet, the power within her did not diminish in the slightest. She could still feel her strength as the Dragon Magical Beast erupting and surging from her body in an endless stream.
—I am terribly sorry, humans, but the Demon King will not be so easily bound by such things.
She simply twisted her wrists and tore them apart with her sharp dragon claws, as if the chains were nothing but soft ribbons draped over her.
“How... can even the Divine Lock fail?! Is this... the Demon King!” Aether said in despair.
Meanwhile, several kilometers away, Elcalan witnessed everything from beneath the ruins.
Clutching her head, she fell to her knees in tremors, questioning her own mistakes.
“Why... why did it turn out like this?”
And the humans who had not yet blacked out from the magical beast's overwhelming pressure, including the members of the First Knight Order, lost all hope one after another, even wanting to lay down their weapons.
Yet, at that very moment, they watched as the Dragon Magical Beast flew in front of a young girl.
The Saintess, Sathya.
Sathya had regained her strength at some point. She emitted the only shining light in this dark night, which grew progressively larger until it covered the sky that had long been swallowed by the miasma.
The forces of miasma and light met in the sky, forming dreamlike, colorful clouds that split the heavens, turning it into a dividing line between light and darkness.
Tina did not seem angry. Instead, she smiled at the light blooming from the Saintess.
She smiled gently and said:
“Let's begin, Little Ya~”
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