This was no ordinary individual.
It was a size larger than the others, its shoulders and back covered in a layer of dark brown keratin that acted like natural armor.
【Environmental Perception: Detection of a strengthened individual... greater ghoul (semi-metamorphosis stage)...】
The moment it landed, the copper floor beneath its feet cracked from the impact.
The surrounding Nightwatchers opened fire simultaneously.
Bullets struck the keratin layer, sparks flying in all directions, but not a single one penetrated.
It did not even slow down.
With a single swipe, the greater ghoul batted away the wreckage of a barricade blocking its path and charged straight for the center of the position.
Another Descendant stepped up to meet it.
The metal skeleton screeched under its black robe, and a long blade sprang from its forearm, thrusting directly at the greater ghoul's throat.
The blade tip pierced the keratin layer.
But it only went in an inch.
The greater ghoul grabbed the Descendant's arm, gripped it tight, and twisted.
The sound of twisting metal was enough to set one's teeth on edge.
The Descendant's left arm was twisted into a spiral, gears and springs flying out from the ruptures.
Yet it still did not retreat.
The short spike in its other hand stabbed toward the greater ghoul's eye socket.
This time the greater ghoul could not dodge; it let out a roar, released its grip, and stumbled back two steps.
Black blood flowed from the eye socket as it growled, the keratin layer on its body beginning to swell.
The wound was healing at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Just as everyone thought the defense line was about to collapse completely.
A voice drifted over.
It was a chant.
Coming from behind.
Coming from a higher place.
【Environmental Perception: Detection of a small number of divine pollution sources...】
Several voices rang out simultaneously in perfect unison, carrying a penetrating power that could not be ignored.
"Lost lambs, you require the guidance of the Angel and the blessing of the Lord Angel."
The voices were not loud, but in this night filled with roars and gunfire, every word pierced clearly into everyone's ears.
Lu Yuan looked up sharply.
On the roof behind the Alchemy Workshop outpost.
Four figures stood there.
Their white robes with gold trim shimmered with a soft glow in the light of the march lamps.
Each held a scripture book in their hands, the angel wing patterns on the covers glowing faintly in the darkness.
Nuns.
They were nuns from the Holy Church.
Lu Yuan watched them. Were they all pollution sources? And when did they arrive?
One had to know that the Bronze City had no established foothold for the Holy Church.
They stood on the roof, looking down at the battlefield of blood and fire with calm expressions, as if they were performing a routine morning prayer in a cathedral.
The lead nun raised her right hand.
Her palm faced downward.
Golden light surged from her palm. It was holy light.
Pure, scorching holy light.
The light spilled down from the roof like flowing mercury, covering the entire position.
Lu Yuan felt a wave of warmth fall from above his head, spreading down his shoulders, arms, and all the way to his fingertips.
Looking down, he saw a layer of pale gold light film clinging to his body.
It was as thin as a cicada's wing and nearly transparent, but its presence was unmistakable.
Warm, yet not burning.
It was as if he were being gently wrapped in something.
At the edge of his vision, greyish-white text flickered:
【You have received the Angel's Blessing. For a short time, your attacks will carry holy light attributes.】
【Note: Holy light attributes have an extremely high suppression effect on polluted creatures.】
It was not just Lu Yuan.
Bo Er was also covered in the same golden light, as were the Nightwatchers.
Everyone.
Except for...
The three members of the Ascension Society.
The two Descendants in bird-beak masks and the grey-haired woman.
When the golden light spread near them, it was deflected as if by an invisible barrier.
The light film dissipated automatically half a meter away from them, failing to attach.
The same happened to the grey-haired woman.
The golden light bent slightly as it passed her, like water flowing around a stone, without a single trace of it clinging to her.
She seemed not to care at all, not even sparing it a glance.
Seeing this, Lu Yuan thought to himself that the friction between the Ascension Society and the Holy Church was indeed as rumored...
By now, the lead nun's chant had changed.
"Lord Angel, your most loyal apostles entreat your protection. Grant strength to the lost, courage to the helpless, and to the watchers of the night, the holy light that severs the darkness."
With every line of the prayer, the golden light on the position grew richer.
Lu Yuan felt the temperature of the revolver in his hand rising.
It was a sensation permeating from the inside, a gentle but undeniable radiant heat.
A faint golden luster appeared on the gun barrel.
The other Nightwatchers noticed similar changes.
The copper swords were coated in golden light.
The muzzles of the short-shotguns were glowing.
"What is this..." Bo Er paused, staring down at the gold shimmering on his copper sword.
He was a Nightwatcher of the Bronze City and had almost no contact with the Holy Church...
The second round of blessing followed immediately.
The other three nuns opened their scripture books simultaneously, their voices merging with the lead nun's chant as a four-part harmony echoed through the night sky.
"The Lord Angel grants his believers and warriors the hardness of copper walls, the blaze of holy fire, and an immortal soul."
【Additional blessing effect detected: Physical endurance threshold briefly increased.】
【Additional blessing effect detected: Melee contact carries holy light burning.】
【Additional blessing effect detected: Mental resilience briefly enhanced.】
Three greyish-white prompts popped up in succession.
Lu Yuan felt the golden light solidify on his skin, no longer a weightless film but possessing a certain thickness and hardness.
The blessing ended.
The four nuns stopped their voices at once.
The lead nun turned her scripture book to a new page.
Her lips moved slightly as she began to recite a completely different prayer.
This time, it was not a blessing for others.
It was for herself.
"Lord Angel, may you cast down your merciful gaze and sweep away the filth of this world..."
Her voice grew lower, but her speaking speed increased, the final syllables nearly squeezed through her teeth.
Lu Yuan could not understand the words.
But he felt the change.
The golden light on the nun exploded.
The originally soft pale gold became a blinding bright gold, and her entire being seemed wrapped in a ball of holy light.
Her eyes snapped open.
Lu Yuan saw them.
Those eyes were no longer human.
The pupils had vanished, replaced by two spheres of pure golden light.
It was as if something was looking at the world through her eyes.
【High-level divine spell release detected: Angel's Eye (Temporary)】
【Note: This nun has briefly obtained power output far exceeding her own rank.】
The nun raised her scripture book.
The pages flipped automatically, golden light seeping from every one of them.
A beam of golden light shot from the book, landing straight into the ghoul swarm in front of the hole.
Boom.
The golden light exploded.
Ghouls within a five-meter radius were swallowed by the holy light.
There were no screams.
Because they did not even have time to scream.
Their grey-red bodies disintegrated instantly in the holy light, like boiling water poured over a candle, melting into a puddle of charred ash that emitted white smoke.
The first strike.
The nun did not stop.
The book flipped a page.
A second beam of light shot out.
A third.
A fourth.
The frequency grew faster and faster.
Golden beams poured from the scripture book like a rapid-fire cannon, each landing accompanied by the instantaneous annihilation of a patch of ghouls.
White smoke rose in sheets in front of the hole, the smell of charring overpowering the stench of blood.
The other three nuns acted simultaneously as well.
They did not release a powerful divine spell like the leader, but each flipped through their scripture books, murmuring incantations.
The density of their beams was lower, but they were precise.
Not a single one missed.
A ghoul circling in from the left flank was pierced through the chest by a golden light, falling to the ground and turning to ash.
Those flanking from the right were hit by intersecting beams, decomposing on the spot.
Those trying to leap over the corpse piles were blasted back toward the hole by a head-on golden strike.
On the position, all the Nightwatchers were stunned.
Bo Er stood with his mouth open, forgetting to pull back his copper sword.
Even the two Descendants tilted their bird-beak masks slightly.
"Nuns from the... Holy Church?"
A Nightwatcher's voice was filled with confusion.
"People from the Church? When did we call for outside help?"
No one answered.
But Lu Yuan did not waste time thinking about it.
Holy light attributes.
Extremely high suppression effect on polluted creatures.
Lu Yuan raised his gun.
He aimed at a ghoul climbing the edge of the hole.
He pulled the trigger.
Bang.
The moment the silver-plated bullet was fired, a visible layer of golden light coated the bullet head.
The bullet bored into the ghoul's chest.
In the next second, golden light spread from the bullet hole to the surrounding area, as if a fire had been lit inside it.
The ghoul's body began to crack from the center, golden fissures spreading along its skin.
Two seconds later, its entire body shattered into countless charred fragments, drifting into the air.
One shot.
One kill.
Ghouls that previously required two or three silver-plated bullets to deal with now only took one.
A glint flashed in Lu Yuan's eyes; back in Gelimu Port, the effect had not been this strong.
"Don't just stand there! Open fire!"
His voice was not loud, but it was enough for the surrounding Nightwatchers to hear.
Bo Er was the first to snap out of it.
He glanced at the golden light still lingering on the edge of his copper sword.
Bo Er did not wait for confirmation.
He charged at the nearest ghoul and swung his blade.
The copper sword sliced into the keratin layer.
Sizzle sizzle sizzle...
The sound of burning was ten times louder than before.
The burning of copper combined with the holy light attribute, a double stack.
Wherever the blade passed, the keratin layer was sliced open like paper, the edge cutting all the way through from shoulder to waist.
The ghoul's body split in half down the middle.
The tissue on both sides of the cut charred rapidly in the golden light, before the black blood could even flow out.
Bo Er was startled by his own strength.
The keratin layer he had been unable to cut through all night was now cleaved in a single strike?
The surrounding Nightwatchers also came to their senses.
"Fire! Everyone fire!"
The sound of gunfire rang out again in unison.
But this time, every bullet fired was wrapped in golden light.
Each one was several times more lethal than before.
Ghouls fell in swathes under the rain of bullets shrouded in gold.
The greater ghoul with the dark brown keratin on its back was still struggling.
One of its eyes had been blinded by the Descendant, but the other was still rolling, flashing with a look of extreme rage.
Three Nightwatchers opened fire on it simultaneously.
The bullets imbued with holy light struck the keratin layer.
This time, they penetrated effortlessly.
The golden bullet heads bored into the muscle tissue, exploding into a patch of burning inside.
Golden cracks began to appear on the greater ghoul's body.
It roared and retreated, but Bo Er had already arrived.
His copper sword stabbed into its abdomen from below, the soft belly that had no keratin protection.
The holy light burning exploded within its internal organs.
The greater ghoul's roar stopped abruptly.
The rage in its eye turned to terror.
Finally, it turned into a blank void.
When it fell, its entire body had already begun to shatter from the inside out, golden light seeping from every crack, burning it into a massive, charred empty husk.
Bo Er pulled out his blade and flicked off the debris on the edge.
He turned to look at the nuns on the roof.
The four white-robed figures were still constantly outputting power.
The lead nun's scripture book was more than halfway flipped, the frequency of the golden beams showing no sign of weakening, turning the area in front of the hole into a sea of golden fire.
Ghoul remains piled up around the hole.
White smoke billowed.
The smell of charring was pungent.
But no one cared about that.
Because everyone felt it.
The pressure was plummeting.
The number of ghouls surging from the hole was sharply decreasing.
It was not that there were fewer of them.
It was that every one that came out was instantly blasted and killed.
The golden beams had locked down the hole.
The bullets and copper swords imbued with holy light cleared the flanks.
The two Descendants held the front.
The grey-haired woman held the far left flank. She had no blessing enhancement, but she did not need it at all.
Even though there had never been any tactical coordination between the Nightwatchers and the Holy Church.
A cooperation had already taken shape.
"Counterattack."
Lu Yuan's voice was calm.
Bo Er looked at him.
Then he laughed.
It was the kind of smile an old soldier gives when a sudden turning point appears in a desperate situation.
Coarse and smelling of blood, but it was real.
"Heard you!" Bo Er turned and barked at the Nightwatchers, "Stop dazing around! Push up! Clear the corpses off the barricades!"
The Nightwatchers moved.
Three men rushed to the front line, using copper swords to pry the charred corpses off the barricades, exposing the copper spikes once more.
Two others patched up the crushed copper wire mesh.
Under the cover of the nuns' fire, Bo Er led the remaining men and began to push toward the hole.
Every blade swing carried the burning of holy light.
Every shot was fatal.
The ghouls retreated step by step under the Nightwatchers' counterattack.
They were driven back from the flanks to the front, then forced back toward the hole by the golden beams from the front.
Trapped between two fires.
A dead end.
Lu Yuan stood in the center of the position, revolver raised, calmly picking off every ghoul that tried to break through from the side.
He did not waste a single bullet.
Every shot took a life.
At the edge of his vision, the greyish-white text flickered quietly:
【Sanity: 69/120】
【Angel's Blessing is dissipating...】
It was enough.
At least enough to last until the next chance to catch a breath.
Lu Yuan looked at the nun on the roof.
The lead nun's face had turned pale to the point of being nearly transparent; the output of holy light was consuming her own power, and it was consuming it quickly.
But her eyes were still two spheres of pure gold.
The scripture book in her hand was still hovering and flipping pages.
The golden beams were still pouring out.
They did not stop.
Not for a single shot.
Lu Yuan watched her for a few seconds.
【Detection Target: Church Nun (believer transcendent)】
【A vessel of holy light who has offered her everything to the Angel, absolutely pure...】
Lu Yuan looked at the prompt, withdrew his gaze, and raised his gun again.
This was the Nightwatchers' battlefield.
The Church had come, no matter who had invited them or for what purpose.
At this moment, they were comrades.
Anything else could wait until after surviving tonight.
Gunfire and holy light intertwined.
The roars of the ghouls grew more and more sparse.
The white smoke at the hole grew thicker.
The defense line was being rebuilt.
The position was stabilizing.
The counterattack had begun.
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