Knight and Wand

Chapter 374 Opening Prayer

The beam of tactical lighting swept through the deep corners of the tunnel, and a team armed to the teeth moved forward quickly in the darkness.

"Boom" a loud noise.

An explosion-proof gate that everyone had just stepped through suddenly fell down. The huge noise made the knights who were on alert turn around and look instantly.

The two soldiers of the Order who were originally leading the way hurriedly turned around, passed through the team of armed knights, came to the password lock valve on the gate, and tried to open the passage at the rear.

However, after pressing a few times to enter the emergency code, I discovered that the gate had no power to start.

Another soldier of the cult called to the rear with a nervous look, but the communication was also completely cut off for some reason.

Canis raised his gun and watched the two local warriors constantly calling out to the magic devices hanging on their ears, so he also tried to message Leon outside. Sure enough, there was only a rustling sound in the headphones and no response.

The warrior's instinct told the knights that the sudden cutting off of their retreat was no accident. However, he and the other holy war knights, who were already dead souls, were not at all nervous about the possibility of falling into a trap.

The soldier with sweat on his forehead finally confirmed that the communication was interrupted. He had to give up this futile attempt and said to the leader Canis:

(Tassa) "Come with us to the control center. We may be able to restart the power reactor in the base."

"Keep leading the way." The young master of the Wolf family raised his chin. Although he didn't understand the local dialect, he could roughly understand some simple communication phrases in the past few days.

The knights' calm and composed appearance was quite infectious. The two cult soldiers remained calm in this strange and unexpected situation and continued to lead everyone towards the base's command center.

In the darkness, they did not encounter any enemies, nor did they see other survivors in the shelter. When they arrived at the command center, the soldier leading the way pulled the door handle hard and found that the door was locked.

He raised his gun to destroy the bolt, but was patted on the shoulder by the knight behind him.

"Let me do it." Regardless of whether the other party understood or not, Canis stepped forward, raised his steel boots, and kicked the thick door panel with all his strength.

The gate caved in with a sound, and the knight's huge force kicked a deep hole in the iron gate, which flew out.

The knights drew their spears and swords and rushed in first.

The soldiers of the Order followed closely into the command center.

Looking at the empty hall, he asked his comrades to go to the control area to turn on the backup energy and open the tunnel gate. He then went to the monitoring area and tried to turn on the camera to investigate the log videos and communication records of the shelter.

A buzzing sound came from the backup energy room, the lights in the hall came on, and when the control terminal screen started up, the cult soldiers couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, then opened the surveillance records and retrieved the last footage before the shelter fell silent.

Canis and several Crusade Knights came over and looked at the imaging device that seemed to be made of glass crystal.

I saw several groups of images quickly rewind and then replay, showing many people, who were densely gathered in a certain area.

The soldiers of the Order of Dawn could not understand the strange collective actions of the crowd on the screen, so they turned to check the base logs in the database, but all they saw was a bunch of nonsense about seeking salvation, quite similar to the style of the cult that predicted the end of the world before the disaster three years ago.

Turning forward to the last conscious text record, the last event is that the shelter took in a group of people with respiratory diseases who were seeking refuge in the wilderness.

Kanis patted the soldier on the shoulder and pointed to one of the screens on the crystal instrument.

The cult soldier looked up and saw the crowd gathered in the square inside the base in the surveillance video.

It was as if everyone was rushing to the center of the underground square. There stood a vague figure in the crowd. Countless survivors of the shelter bowed down in front of him, until the last image also fell into a black screen.

"Take us there." Canis pointed to the area shown on the crystal screen.

The team left the command center, and the rapid clanging sound of metal broke the silence in the corridor.

Led by the soldiers, the knights ran quickly towards the end of the tunnel.

At this moment, the shaking searchlight in front illuminated something, causing the cult soldiers to stop suddenly.

The light on the muzzle side extended forward until it illuminated the outlines of strange figures standing in front of the passage.

More than a dozen human-like figures looked like statues carved from sparkling crystals. Under the light of tactical lighting, they reflected colorful halos, as exquisite as some kind of artistic masterpiece.

As the crowd got closer, the hands of the cult soldiers holding their rifles began to tremble instinctively, and an indescribable fear spread from the bottom of their hearts.

Looking at the familiar bulletproof armor and equipment outlines on the sculpture, this is not a crystal sculpture.

These are the special forces soldiers of the Dawn Squad who were previously sent here!
The two cult warriors felt a chill down their spines, and their legs felt as if they were filled with lead and they could no longer move them, as if they were stunned on the spot by fear.

But Canis and the Crusade Knights walked past the soldiers without stopping.

".The dirty tricks of witchcraft, I knew there were wizards playing tricks and putting up shields."

The young master of the Wolf family summoned with his left hand, and the spiritualized knight's kite shield condensed out. The wolf-head helmet covered his head. He raised the gun barrel with his right hand and placed it on the side of the shield like a weapon.

"Strictly speaking, we are also doing dirty witchcraft tricks now, Baron Gunnar." The Crusade Knight who set up the kite shield beside him teased.

"Ha, thanks for the reminder, Sir Sandy, your sense of humor has become even better after your death." Canis grinned.

Kite shields condensed in flashes of light were arranged in a row, and the fully armored knights advanced towards the square with steady steps.

After leaving the last crystal figure with outstretched arms behind, the tactical light illuminated a vast expanse of "crystal sculptures" refracting colorful rainbow light.

Countless crystallized figures were bowing down, worshipping the black shadow in the center of the square.

All the muzzle lights were immediately focused and pointed at that place.

The light revealed a middle-aged man with his eyes closed.

Seeing the only guy who still had a human form, Canis had no intention of communicating with him and shouted without hesitation: "Kill him!!"

The deafening gunfire instantly merged into one, and the heavy machine guns in the hands of the Knights of the Order of Arms spewed out tongues of fire, turning into a storm net made of metal.

However, the fierce arrow caused ripples in the air when it hit the target several meters away, and collided with the dazzling crystal that appeared out of thin air, blasting the crystal fragments into pieces.

The figure that was shot had opened his eyes at some point, and rainbow-like light appeared in his crystallized eyeballs.

Overlapping demonic sounds shrieked out of his mouth, almost drowning out the roar of the machine gun array and making the knights dizzy.

Several colorful lights shot out in an instant, hitting the steel shields and causing the knights' arms to go numb.

At the same time, a dense series of "clicking" sounds suddenly rang out in the hall. The surrounding crystalline human bodies screamed as if they had regained life and stood up one after another. Those who were close ran towards the wizard in the center, trying to use their bodies to block the knights' gunfire like a human pyramid.

Waves of strange chanting sounded from the mouth of the wizard who was buried in the pile of crystal humans.

More crystal people stood up and pounced on the Holy War Knights who broke into the place.

The knights turned their guns and fired at the strange crystal people who were blocking their gun line, blasting them to pieces one by one. However, tens of thousands of crystal people still kept pouring in like waves.

Canis and several knights threw down their guns, waved their hands to summon the spirit-like long weapons, roared and knocked away a group of enemies blocking the way, and decisively launched a charge from both sides. The others immediately concentrated their firepower to clear a path for their comrades.

The knights, led by the young master of the Wolf family, rushed forward like a hurricane and broke through the obstruction of the crystal people. A knight roared and waved his halberd, smashing the crowd that was wrapping the wizard with one blow.

Canis thrust his spear fiercely into the gap created by his comrades, piercing deeply through the body of the wizard hiding in it. The chanting that resounded throughout the square paused for a moment.

The knight shouted loudly and used terrifying brute force to wield the lance, shaking off the crystalline human body pressing on it, and swung the wizard pierced on the lance blade to smash it hard at his comrades behind him.

The body that was almost torn apart by the force of the gun blade rolled over and flew sideways, and when it landed on the ground, it let out bursts of terrifying laughter.

The knights holding spears swung their shields to smash away the enemies coming from all directions, and the muzzles of their guns were constantly pointed at the wizard on the ground.

Tongues of fire instantly turned it into flying pieces of limbs and flesh that had no human form.

However, the laughter continued on the almost shapeless piece of rotten meat.

(Tasa)

". Found him. I found him first. My supreme master."

A bright light suddenly burst out from the twitching mass of rotten flesh, and a dark purple crack appeared in the twisted energy.

The knights stepped back, lowered their guns and opened fire, trying to destroy the strange witchcraft on the ground with unknown purpose.

However, the bullet fired at the crack seemed to be swallowed up silently, disappearing without a trace the moment it touched the crack.

The cracks grew longer and longer, and the knights slowly retreated while destroying the enemies around them, until the laughter of the dead wizard's spirit came to an abrupt end, and a deep crack appeared in the center of the purple light.

When the crack expanded in the blink of an eye, Canis felt that everything in front of him lost its color.
wrong!

Feeling the surging tide of magic power rushing towards him, Leon suddenly raised his head and looked towards the dark base tunnel.

By the time he realized the nature of the trap, it was too late.

A visible dividing line of time and space passed by at a rapid speed, wiping out all the colors of the world in the blink of an eye.

He raised his eyes and saw that the dark clouds in the sky had disappeared, replaced by a colorful and distorted chaotic sky.

The Jihad soldiers who remained outside the base took up their weapons.

The strange environment that suddenly changed before them was very familiar to them. This was the cursed area where the knights experienced the last battle in their lives.

The cult soldiers next to Sasha seemed much more panicked. They looked around in horror, not knowing what to do.

Leon cursed inwardly, speculating in his heart that the enemy's real target might not be someone else, but most likely himself.

If the current situation is not an accident, then the Dawn Cult, which is struggling to survive in despair, will not pose any threat to the vampires or demons in the world. They can be left to perish on their own, and there is no need to make any elaborate calculations.

On the contrary, considering that the Blood Demon had managed to pull me into this plane, I must have some value that the Blood Demon could use.

Whoever had set the trap must have known that he was with the Order of the Dawn.

Leon looked into the gray distance.

Judging from this spiritual-like field that can only be formed by out-of-control chaotic magic, the shelter had lost contact before, most likely because it encountered an out-of-control spiritual wizard. In this case, the tens of thousands of survivors are likely to be in great danger.

Looking back at the tunnel again, he wondered if Canis and the others had encountered the core of the rift that caused these kinds of spiritual fields to appear.

But no matter what, he had to activate the wayfinder first, otherwise he and others would be able to wander around in the cursed area like headless flies.

Sasha stared blankly at the sky above her, which was as dark as spilled ink. She looked around blankly at everything that had lost its color. She felt as if she was in a nightmare.

"Sir Leon, what's going on around here?" the female officer asked with forced calmness.

"We've been ambushed. This is not something that ordinary people can do. We are now in the gap between reality and the spiritual world." Leon said seriously.

"The person who ordered you must not stray too far from me. Time and space are disordered here. Once you get lost, you will never be able to return to reality."

Sasha was shocked by Leon's words, but faced with such a bizarre situation, no matter how unbelievable it was, she could only choose to trust the other party's judgment, so she turned around and shouted to the warriors to gather together.

Leon took off the magic lantern from his waist, turned the wheel, and switched the soul-guarding holy lamp to the pathfinder mode.

Although I'm not sure whether the wayfinder will be effective in this plane where it's unknown whether there are earth veins, I can only try it for now.

He squatted down, placed the lantern on the ground, and injected magic power into it.

The prefabricated summoning magic pattern quickly unfolded under Leon.

The interior of the lantern is activated by a soul bait simulated by magic, and begins to attract the souls of the dead wandering here.

Leon glanced calmly at Olivia and the knights.

The girl nodded in understanding, and quietly approached the soldiers of the Order with the Crusades.

If any locals showed signs of being possessed by evil spirits, she would subdue them immediately.

Fortunately, Leon is right next to him, and if the exorcism is done in time, there is a chance that the life of the possessed person will not be endangered.

Leon clapped his hands and stood up, waiting for the local ghosts to take the bait while looking at Colonel Sasha.

"I will find a way to get you out as soon as possible, but it will take some time. During this time, you'd better pray devoutly in your heart to the faith that can strengthen your will.

This time and space has a great impact on the mental state of ordinary people. If one's mind is empty and one is still thinking about random things, it is very likely that one will become 'mentally ill' without realizing it."

Sasha felt a little calmer when she heard that Leon had a way out, so she asked tentatively, "Are you saying that we should pray to Suvel, the god of dawn, and ask him to protect us?"

"Well, if you are pious enough and have strong wills... Hey? Wait! No! You can't pray to him." Leon suddenly reacted and quickly stopped them.

If the god believed by the locals was really, as he guessed, an ancient Lorelit wizard...what if the other party had already ascended to demon status together with those fallen magic kings in ancient times?
Calling out the name of a high-level spirit demon in a spirit-like field is tantamount to courting death.

"I've thought about it again. There may be some risks in praying to your ancient gods here. Let's change the target. Apart from the God of Dawn, don't you have any other national, cultural and political beliefs?" Leon asked helplessly.

Sasha touched the scar on her face in confusion and had to turn back to remind her soldiers again.

Several Dawn Warriors seemed to say something, and the female officer's expression became strange. She turned her head awkwardly and looked at Leon:
"My warriors would like to ask you...if they can pray directly to you?"

Leon, who was drawing the exorcism formation for use, turned back in surprise.

".I?"

(End of this chapter)