Witch, Fireball and Steam Evil God

Chapter 476 The Wind Element Protects You

"This is……"

Mary ran to Carlo's side immediately.

Her skin was pale, blood was seeping from her eyes, ears and mouth, she was clutching her chest tightly, and she was also experiencing symptoms of her magic power being cut off. All these signs reminded her of the terrible plague that had lasted for hundreds of years.

The intense pain made Carlo tremble all over; he was drenched in cold sweat and could no longer utter a complete sentence.

Without hesitation, Mary placed her palm on Carlo's chest. The warm green fluorescence seeped into his body. Although Carlo's crimes warranted execution ten times over according to papal law, Mary did not want him to die in the dock in this way.

"So that's how it is...!"

Carlo's mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, occasionally uttering intermittent murmurs.

"Come back to life! You haven't faced judgment yet, don't think you can get away with this!"

Mary gave Carlo stern orders, but in reality, her hand, which was pressed against Carlo's chest, was trembling uncontrollably as she noticed that the whites of Carlo's eyes had turned red, and her first aid measures had no effect.

The onset of the disease was much faster than the scarlet plague she remembered. Carlo's internal organs were rotting, and massive bleeding could kill him at any moment. The time to death had now been reduced from seven days to just a few minutes!

Mary quickly realized that this was likely a new disease with symptoms similar to, but not quite the same as, the scarlet plague.

but……

How can it be?

The Crimson King is long dead. Even that evil tyrant took many measures to spread the plague across the continent—setting up rituals, developing followers, and boiling plague cauldrons…

Mary's intuition told her that this time the one spreading the plague was far more powerful than the Scarlet King.

It was so powerful that it was as if the evil god Bazartos himself had personally unleashed a plague.

She couldn't help but glance at the seven-eyed woman in the last row of seats.

"...Too late!"

Carlo's rough hands gripped Mary's wrists tightly, his blood-red eyes fixed on her, the intense feeling of suffocation making each word he uttered require immense effort.

He still couldn't forgive Ethan, and would never trust him, but that heretic saw the same distant future as him, or even further, and also glimpsed those hidden corners that he was unwilling to acknowledge.

What Carlo found even harder to accept than his crumbling body was that Ethan was the right one.

Ethan's question was still echoing in his mind.

How can you be sure that you haven't gone from being a puppet of the goddess of life to becoming a puppet of another group of people?
He could neither answer nor guarantee, but could only firmly believe that he was on the right path.

However, reality has now dealt him a cruel blow.

How ironic that he was devoured by the very power he believed in, witnessed by the goddess of life and leaders of many sects.
With his death, all his discoveries and the secrets buried in this land will be covered up. The most terrifying thing is that even now, Carlo has no way of knowing who the real enemy is or where he is.

He once firmly believed that the Empire and Ethan, who was lauded in "The Truth of the Empire," were his greatest obstacles, but now it seems that the real enemy has been lurking beside him all along.

Every future he glimpsed was perhaps meticulously planned by the other party.

Carlo knew this tactic all too well.

Even if the facts are all captured, selecting different parts can lead people to completely different conclusions.

He used these methods to rule the far west for the past few years.

His heartbeat became increasingly rapid, and Carlo could feel as if something was about to rip open his chest.

"heart……"

He gritted his teeth and, with his last ounce of strength, instructed Mary, "The heart is in the Eternal Play—"

The next moment, Carlo's eyes narrowed, and as if in a final burst of energy, he exerted force with both hands, strong enough to fling Mary's spirit away. When Mary regained her balance in shock and anger and looked at Carlo again, what she saw was a scene she would never forget.

Carlo's robes suddenly burst open, and something seemed to be contracting and expanding beneath his skin. A giant claw, made of countless twisted blood vessels and pale finger bones, tore open his chest, its claw tightly gripping his heart, which was already wrapped in root-like flesh!

Immediately afterwards, the claws clenched, and the still-beating heart turned into a scattering mist of blood.

More fleshy tentacles shattered Carlo's ribs and spine. Amidst the tooth-grinding sounds of bones breaking and flesh tearing apart, a massive, filthy freak, before everyone's eyes, tore open the former pope and descended upon this sacred court of judgment.

The belatedly aware sect leaders scattered and fled, lacking even the courage to confront this monstrous creation.

All of this happened in the blink of an eye, and Mary's mind was still a little dazed.

The blood mist stained her face, dragging her back into the plague's inferno.

At that moment, she confirmed her thoughts.

This was not the Scarlet Plague she knew.

The caster transformed a disease that needed to be spread and spread into a spell that could instantly distort the human body—a feat that even the Crimson King had never achieved.

Powerful to the point of being terrifying, but compared to her self in the Third Age, her magic and the resilience of her soul have diminished over time.

Now she...

Could another, more ferocious and terrifying scarlet plague be dealt with?
The woman with seven eyes in the last row of the seating area was also trembling, but not out of fear, but out of excitement.

He witnessed in its entirety the process by which the distorted creation tore apart Carlo.

Wonderful, absolutely wonderful!

This is the highest masterpiece in the field of flesh and blood art. The excitement is no less than when He created the Colossus from the flesh and blood of 376 different species. The bloody art on stage is another extreme. It only uses Carlo's body and soul as raw materials, yet it has created such a beautiful work of art. This method of simplifying complexity is enough to show a lot.

For example, the caster of the spell was a minimalist artist.

Unbeknownst to Him, another rising star was born whose artistic achievements could rival His and Ethan's!
Bazartos is eager to meet this rising star in the arts.

The roar of the mutated monster echoed throughout the sanctuary, bringing Mary back from her daze.

As she looked up, the mutated creature's claws slammed into her like a falling meteorite. Mary also noticed that the plague spread by the mutated creature was no longer limited to humans; the walls and pillars that had been torn apart by the claws instantly sprouted menacing tentacles.

This reminded Mary of the Colossus—the Crimson King's ultimate weapon. A single Colossus could easily destroy a large, densely populated city. The only way to completely defeat this monster was to unleash a spell of the magnitude of the "Sword of Damocles" to annihilate the Colossus along with the source of the contamination.

Not to mention the destruction that would be caused by casting a spell of this magnitude in the Holy Capital, even when she was at her peak during the Third Era, she would fall into a long period of weakness after casting a spell on a city. Now, she only has one chance left.

Once the spell is activated, her remaining soul will inevitably be completely consumed.

However, they still know nothing about the mastermind behind it all.

Mary transformed into a spirit and retreated rapidly. The claws that crashed to the ground like meteorites immediately created a blood wave several meters high when they touched the ground. The flying debris, impacted by the blood wave, quickly transformed into indescribable flesh and blood creatures.

The only thing that made her feel fortunate was that the three-headed serpent, who had previously appeared as a "witness," swallowed the miner and Solaris the moment the mutated monster appeared, then burrowed underground and disappeared.

The fact that these three giant serpents were creations of Bazartos confirms at least one thing—the caster of the spell was not Bazartos himself; he followed his agreement with Ethan and harbored no ill will towards the far west or human civilization. Mary made her decision.

The sword of Damocles that had been hanging over the capital, never falling, will finally fall today.

Fortunately, she has friends like Ethan by her side, so she is no longer fighting alone.

She gathered her magic and looked at Ethan.

"I'll leave the rest to you."

She gave Ethan that look.

Mary stopped in her tracks, but the waves of blood were still rushing toward her. Since she had decided to use the exhaustion of her soul as the price to cast the spell, there was no need to hide anymore.

The immense magical power gathered in mid-air, gradually coalescing into a giant sword that hung suspended in the air.

Mary awaited the tsunami of blood-red waves crashing upon her, watching the fleshy creatures writhing within the spray.

Just as the blood-red wave was about to engulf her, all the creations stopped writhing at the same time, even the rolling waves stopped moving forward, and in their place came a soul-chilling cold that instantly turned everything in front of her into an ice sculpture.

"I cannot interfere in the internal disputes of the Church of Life."

A reassuring voice came from beside her. Mary was startled. The Sword of Damocles floating above her head was beyond her control. It was no longer a mimicry made of magic, but a long sword made entirely of pure energy, radiating a silvery-white light, which slowly descended in front of her.

This reminded Mary of the legends that circulated in the Nesseril Sanctuary.

Knights have a long-standing tradition that whenever calamity strikes, the knight lord will personally hand over the holy sword to the savior.

"This is a sword of wind element."

Ethan said, "She's been waiting for you for ages."

For more than half an hour, the wind elemental girl, who was lying in ambush as the "axe-wielder," would ask him every few minutes, "Why hasn't the fight started yet?"

Not interfering in the internal conflicts of the Church of Life is both Ethan's principle and his instruction to the elemental spirits, because this situation is somewhat special, as several of the most warlike elemental spirits he knows are present.

"Moriko, I'm not a knight."

Mary's lips curled up slightly, her tense nerves easing a bit. She gripped her longsword tightly and said, "Thanks."

Unlike the priests of the Church of Life who are dedicated to healing today, fighting against flesh and blood creatures was also part of their duty in the Crimson Age. She used everything from longswords to bows and arrows, maces, spears, and even plows for tilling the land.

“If this monster is allowed to continue its rampage, your thousand-year-old cathedral will probably be reduced to ruins… Fine, I’ll give you a boost today.”

Support Elemental Shaper.

Even the well-informed Mary found it a bit strange.

Elemental Enchantresses have been known since their inception as "glass cannons." They use spells that are highly destructive and have direct killing power. From the perspective of class and path, the most reasonable combination should obviously be her, a priest of the Church of Life, to assist in the battle and heal and protect Ethan, the Elemental Enchantress.

What kind of inverted combination of the Heavenly Stems is this?
Even so, you should still be careful.

Ethan reminded her seriously.

"I know."

Mary gave him a reassuring look. "This thing is probably a monster on par with the Colossus."

"is not what it means."

However, Ethan was too late. By the time he spoke, Mary had already gathered a great deal of magic power and mustered all her strength, forcing him to swallow back the words, "This sword is very sharp, be careful not to cut yourself."

When the strike was completed, he was still behind Mary, maintaining the "Erkang trying to persuade her to stay" posture.

After the sword was swung, Mary also realized that something was wrong.

The church was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop.

The mutated monsters that had previously roared and rampaged through the Sanctuary were now frozen in place, as were all the fleshy monsters that stood in their way.

Time seemed to stand still at that moment.

"Moriko..."

Just as Mary noticed Ethan's strange posture and was about to ask a question, a sudden change occurred, almost making her eyes pop out of their sockets.

The distorted creation was split in two by her slash.

However, the damage caused by the slash was far more than that; it was followed by frozen waves of blood and flesh-like creatures lurking within the waves.

Then came the stone pillars, the walls, and the barrier personally set up by the goddess of life to protect the hymn church.

Mary saw the azure sky and the clouds that had been cleaved open by the sword for the first time in a long time.

Standing here and looking up, the cross-section of the clouds keeps rolling inward, but it can never fill the gap that stretches across the sky.

The broken objects did not fall, but were lifted up by the omnipresent breeze and floated slowly into the air.

Mary saw the Cathedral of the Dawn through the broken crack, or more accurately, the ruins of the cathedral, and half of the city floating in mid-air with it.

That's why she was able to see the scene outside the church at that moment.

The streets and squares that were once paved with clean stone slabs are now completely covered by a layer of writhing, dark red fleshy fungus. The buildings on both sides of the street, which once hung with the emblem and flag of the Goddess of Life, are now tightly entwined by twisted fleshy vines. These vines, like living blood vessels, pulsate rhythmically. They climb over stained glass windows, crawl into cracks in the stone, and some even extend out from inside the windows, with slightly trembling fleshy tumors hanging from their ends like unripe fruits.

And on a broken building somewhere, there is a figure etched deep in Mary's memory.

Even through the veil, she recognized the woman at a glance.

Long green hair, gentle eyes.

As recorded in the Holy Scriptures, even a single glance can bring immense comfort to people.

The woman standing atop the building was also observing her, clearly drawn to the devastation that had severed half the city.

However, the woman at this moment was engaging in blasphemous acts that were completely contrary to those described in the scriptures.

Her index finger gently moved toward the people in the sanctuary, and at the same time, the flesh and blood creatures that had already undergone transformation swept toward them from all directions.

These were all once residents of the holy city, the most devout believers in the world.

"goddess……"

Mary murmured, her eyes filled with disbelief. So many things had happened today that were beyond her comprehension, leaving her mind a complete mess. "Why is the goddess here?!"

(End of this chapter)