Multi-coloured lights swamped the streets and buildings, enveloping them in a far-reaching presence. The power of Evil Punisher Grand Formation gathered at the centre as a massive silhouette of a variegated tree. Its invisible might suppressed the Monster Girls and cultists, freezing their movement, halting their thoughts. Silence squeezed the atmosphere with a terror greater than the prior battle.
As the hooded cultist fell to his knees, unable to withstand the pressure, he raised his head, glaring at the flying Iris. Trembling, he clutched his chest and held his breaths. A blade of crisis loomed above him, ready to swing down and sever his head from his neck.
The suffocation presence frightened him, but it also excited him.
If the pressure on him was this powerful, what would it be up there?
On the sky, Iris lowered her head. Her gigantic wings lightly waved, shaking off a few of her beautiful feathers. The gigantic guardian of light behind her gripped his sword handle and bowed his head. His illusory figure disintegrated into sparkles, dispersed by the gales.
Iris’s aura dimmed to the verge of invisibility, yet her expression never changed. Her calm gaze swept the battlefield below. All Monster Girls had already concealed their powers. If she, too, concealed hers, The Grand Formation would not strike. But if The Grand Formation found nothing, a powerful being might come to investigate.
She didn’t fear them, but she couldn’t implicate her subordinates. These attendants were hers; they followed her orders and satisfied her desires. No harm must befall them.
“Grand Formation, your power once struck fear into me, but I’ve grown since then. I’ve witnessed power you could never hope to reach, glimpsed at secrets you could never hope to bear.” Iris raised her left hand. “I’ve danced with death so many times it all starts to become numbed.”
Above her palm, an intricate seal manifested. The Mark of Concealment gently rotated, flashing bluish-purple flares. As her Corruption Power surged, Iris stepped back. Her blurry figure separated in two, one of phantasmic appearance, the other the corporeal Iris.
Her head hanging low, the phantom grinned. A wicked aura exploded from her cloaked body. Bloodthirst painted the sky crimson and deadened the atmosphere. Muffled laughter and evil screeches soundlessly rang, amplifying her diabolical disposition. Even the world distorted around her, giving her an unfathomable impression.
The cultists and the Monster Girls shivered. They struggled to raise their heads, to peek at the new terrifying existence. Such temperament pulled them into an illusion, where a hellish landscape replaced Donhalgen, and a demonic entity controlled all.
The illusory tree violently pushed back the fiendish aura. Its all-encompassing branches and leaves shook, sending invisible shockwaves throughout the sky and land. The impact quaked the street and stirred the clouds. Standing behind the phantom, Iris paled. She clenched her left hand. The Mark of Concealment emitted soft light, concealing her existence.
“Show me your dread, believers of virtues and sins,” the phantom Iris said. “No matter what you did, the prophecy will not change. We shall return!”
The illusory tree screamed. Its melodic tone vibrated through the air, falling gently in the ordinary ears, torturously in the sinful ears. The divine might washed away the bloody air of the phantom, forming tens of weapons of holy light. Each blade towered over Iris, judging her crimes and sentencing her to death.
No sinner could escape the punishment. When the Holy Power descended, all shall falter. Regeneration would be futile, resistance meaningless.
“I stand before his eyes,” the phantom said. “Please answer my call, Lord Masolis!”
A bloody wall of eyes manifested behind the phantom, furiously trembling. Its bulging eyeballs glared at her back, then shifted their sights to other cultists. Everyone under the gazes could feel their blood boiling, their hearts stopping, and their minds losing grip of reality.
It was as if Masolis had descended onto the Main Material Plane.
Laughing, the phantom Iris raised both her arms, welcoming the divine weapons. Their tremendous forces cleaved through the sinister air and purified the corrosion of the Evil Power. Their momentum increased ten folds, yet Iris revealed no hint of fear.
She closed her eyes and snickered. She would soon perish, but she’d already completed her mission, to show the world of Masolis’s magnificence, to challenge the Churches using the Eye of Masolis!
Her current appearance was of a mad cultist; her action and air reflected it. Even the Monster Girls couldn’t differentiate her identity. If they didn’t witness her transformation, none would believe she was a Monster Girl and not a servant of Masolis.
The hooded cultist below Iris gritted his teeth and screamed. His hoarse, infuriated voice faded into the background of the thunderous impact. The fabric of reality trembled under the magical shockwaves that touched no landscape but rattled the flows of magic powers.
Dust storms and blizzards kicked up, spreading chaotic mists throughout the streets. The Monster Girls and the cultists retreated to their safe spots, disengaging the battle. They lifted their heads and stared at the origin of the impact, waiting, searching, anticipating the figure who instilled so many emotions into them.
Iris hovered in the dispersing dust and clouds. Her phantom clone was no more, but her main body suffered no injury. Not a speck of filth landed on her pristine body, only gentle breezes and soft sunlight.
“Impossible.” The hooded cultist, his eyes widened, staggered backwards.
Iris looked down at him. “Why would The Grand Formation hurt its people?”
“You cannot be one of them!” The hooded cultist threw his dagger at Iris. As it headed toward her, black flames ignited on its blade.
Iris pointed at the dagger. Holy Power gathered at her fingertip before launching outward. The purifying spell extinguished the flames and turned the dagger into golden ashes.
The hooded cultist was about to strike again when a thought came to him. He stopped himself and glared at Iris. Her faint, knowing smile gave him a shudder, creating a strange notion in his mind.
“You’re . . . one of them?”
Iris giggled. Her crisp voice filled the battleground. Corruption Power emerged around her, revolving, preparing. She swept her gaze at the Monster Girls below.
“You all, why aren’t you killing them?”
Lorient grinned and shouted a warcry. Her excited voice woke up the crazed spirit of other Monster Girls. Their Corruption Power exploded with unmatched intensity as they charged toward the cultists. The battle resumed, but the tide of war had turned.
The cultists feared Iris, while the Monster Girls revered her. Her blade-like presence hung above the board, waiting to strike down any who resisted. Even the hooded cultist, the strongest of the operation, shivered when facing her.
“Witch, I don’t care whether you are a Monster Girl or a believer. Your impersonation of Lord Masolis will not go unpunished.” The hooded cultist tensed his hands and smacked his chest.
His fingers easily penetrated through his flesh, shattering his ribcage, and reached his heart. Twisting tentacles gushed out of his torso. A bloody, nasty scent flooded his being. Even the air distorted before this presence, afraid of getting close.
The hooded cultist’s face gradually dissolved into a blank slate. His bloodshot eyes bled, tainting his messy red hair with a metallic scent. He pointed his withered right hand forward. His fingertips rapidly inflated before they burst open. Countless parasites jumped at Iris, their sharp fangs bearing.
Iris flapped her wings. A ripple of Holy Power pushed onward. The air cried praises of her beauty and purity. The winds sang songs of her accomplishments, and the illusory tree swayed with her gesture, dissipating under her command.
Dark clouds congregated above her. From their flashing mass, yellow lightning struck the ground. Its intense heat and shockwave ripped apart the foundation of the street, flinging fragmented bricks and stones everywhere. Even the windows on the nearby terrace houses shattered, screeching noises which got overwhelmed by the resounding thunders.
Roasted by the heat, the parasites contorted before they crumbled. The red-haired cultist groaned, but his voice echoed not. His vocal cord failed him. The yellow lightning cooked his flesh, darkening his body, rupturing his blood vessels. If not for the tentacles taking the brunt of the damage, he would have died.
The strike wouldn’t have been this devastating if not for the property of the Holy Power, which purified the Evil Power. Still, so long as he remained alive, the tentacles, the unholy gift of Masolis, would heal his body.
“You’ve already lost,” Iris said. “The evil seed inside you will devour you.”
The red-haired cultist merely smirked. The crazed glint in his eyes expressed his disdain. To offer his life for Lord Masolis was an honour, more so when he could receive his lord’s unholy power.
“You can no longer feel pain, can you?” Iris shook her head. Her gaze lifted from the red-haired cultist to the battlefield.
While observing the battles, she retracted her power, no longer bothering herself with the red-haired cultist.
He had already died.
A hint of weariness sparked in his dull heart. He tilted his head down. The tip of a dark purple dagger penetrated his neck from behind. A shadowy lady dressed in pitch-black tight clothes stood behind him, her indifferent eyes fixating on her mistress’s beautiful figure.
The red-haired cultist swiftly turned around and struck the assassin. His mind commanded his body and the tentacles to kill her, yet he couldn’t move. Purple dots appeared on his neck and crawled beneath his skin, infecting his organs.
He could feel no physical pain, but the mental and spiritual pains caused him to shudder. When he screamed, only muffled winds seeped out of the gaping wound in his throat. No matter what he did, no matter what the tentacles and the parasites did, his body inevitably melted into a puddle of dark purple fluid.
Even Ludmint was weary of the Heart Stirrer’s poison.
Secain retrieved her dagger, smiled, and stepped forward. Her figure dissipated into the shadow of the buildings, hiding, waiting. Her brief appearance and disappearance captured all attention, and her faint smile, one which she directed at her mistress, engraved itself in everyone’s mind.
The Monster Girls roared, their seductive voices echoing along the street. Their spirits rose higher than before, their presence overwhelming the crumbling cultists.
With Iris’s majestic figure hovering above and Secain’s enigmatic threat lurking beneath, the cultists gave up. They turned their backs against the Monster Girls and fled, unable to muster any courage.
Most of them fell, while some of them successfully escaped. Though the Monster Girls wanted to hunt the escape, Iris ordered them to stay their hands.
“The Churches will soon arrive,” she said. “The battlefield isn’t where you all should be.”
The Monster Girls swiftly treated their injuries, took care of the dead, and entered their carriages. Soon, they vanished from the site.
Amidst the wreckage, chilly winds softly blew. Their currents spiralled, carrying the vague scent of blood outward. Sunlight gleamed above the clouds, penetrating a translucent film of atmosphere, landing on the carcasses scattered on the ground.
In the middle of the battlefield, a pretty flower blossomed, releasing a fascinating scent. Its purple petals converted the orange radiance to dark purple, corrupting the purity of the world, announcing to all that The Court had been here.
What a rout! Did she just remove and sacrifice the mark of Masolis that had been engraved on her? So she's no longer under threat of his direct influence?
If only the mark of a Transcendent is that easy to get rid of. She "merely" took advantage of its aura to mislead the upcoming investigation.
@GDLiZy Tch, and I was feeling clever, too!