Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 129 Flesh Devouring and Soul Beach
Goris, the City of Grace, is located deep underground in the Privy District of the Inquisition.

Pope Pope Francis XIII and Cardinal Tossa Ismael stood in a hall, staring at the three giant crystal columns standing in the center in silence.

These three artificially polished crystal pillars are hollow inside and filled with a light red transparent liquid. Three strong and muscular men are immersed in them, and their bodies are connected by a large number of fine black tubes inserted into their bodies.

These black tubes, like blood vessels, are connected to a black crystal stone fixed on a bracket at the top of the crystal column.

As time goes by, the black crystal is slowly losing its original color and gradually turning into an ordinary stone that is gray and dull.

"Your Majesty... have we succeeded?" Ismail stared at the black crystal hanging on the crystal column with complicated eyes and asked hesitantly.

The old-looking and hunchbacked Pope remained silent, while a middle-aged man in a pure white robe standing behind the two of them spoke first.

"The three of them are among the most powerful demon slayers trained by the Inquisition in the past thirty years. I believe they will not fail." As the Supreme Inquisitor of the Inquisition, he has enough experience to make predictions about this operation.

The three people present knew very well how much effort and resources the church had to devote to training a qualified demon slayer. They had to select children with dark blood talents from among thousands of believers and have them continuously take a secret medicine specially made by the church for ten years.

This secret medicine will greatly enhance their ability to perceive and locate the magic network space, but the price they pay is that they will lose most of their ordinary perceptions in reality and become a lifelong cripple without hearing, smell, or vision.

The Judgment Army, responsible for their training, will use a special tactile perception method to teach them how to cast divine spells and hone their combat skills until they grow into qualified demon slayers in the endless darkness and silence, with absolute enthusiasm for the God of Light.

In their entire lives, they will only follow the Pope's decrees and carry out the glorious mission of dedicating souls to the Lord once, and there will be no return.

Because before these demon slayers completely enter the magic network to carry out cross-dimensional combat, all the blood in their bodies will be extracted and condensed into the church's soul-transferring stone using secret methods, directly transforming their flesh and blood bodies into pure spiritual constructs.

Regardless of success or failure, they will never be able to return to the real world.

"At times like this, we can only pray to our Lord..." The Pope was silent for a long time, and finally spoke in a low voice.

Ismail bowed his head reverently as he was told and began to recite in a low voice the glorious prayers inscribed in the holy book.

"Wait! Look... why is this happening?" The presiding judge suddenly widened his eyes, pointing at the sudden changes in the crystal column, and said in a trembling voice of horror.

Ismael looked up again and was shocked to find that the three demon slayers' bodies immersed in the crystal pillars suddenly began to disintegrate. First the skin... then the muscles underneath, and finally even the internal organs and bones, all dissolved rapidly like weathering, until no trace of their existence could be seen in the light red liquid.

After entering the magic net, demon slayers cannot return alive, but their bodies can often be preserved and buried as gods' favored ones in the Holy Relic Hall under the Glorious Church. In Ismail's decades of experience, he has never encountered such a strange scene as today.

"We... failed." The Pope also looked at this scene with a complicated expression. "The soul fire representing the upper demon on the lamp of divine revelation has not been extinguished..."

……

Harvey could never let go of the beach in his spiritual anchor, and he felt vaguely uneasy.

Generally speaking, a spellcaster's spiritual anchor comes from their accumulated knowledge or belief cognition. These illusory anchor points only exist in the magic pattern in the form of various directional runes. Most of them are common symbols such as books, gems, and swords. Some powerful spellcasters' spiritual anchors also appear in the form of rare towers, giant beasts, and trees.

Harvey accidentally saw in the forum that Mr. "Heart of the Forest", whose real identity was suspected to be a high-level natural spellcaster, mentioned in a private conversation that his spiritual anchor was a giant jungle bear.

Harvey's spiritual anchor, a massive planet representing his origins and past, was perhaps unprecedented. Furthermore, his spiritual anchor actually manifested a strange beach from his past life. The more Harvey thought about it, the more strange things seemed to him.

Logically speaking, if the spiritual anchor of the time traveler is bound to undergo this degree of change, then shouldn't the scene and space that appear be some place he is more familiar with and has deeper ties to?

For example, the old tube-shaped building where I have lived for more than ten years, the cozy two-bedroom home, or the small bedroom that belongs to me alone.

Even the school he was extremely familiar with, the nearby internet cafe, the snack street he went to every day...

But this was the deserted beach where he had only been once and was extremely disappointed and did not want to recall it at all.

If you want to completely solve this mystery, in addition to finding the right opportunity to learn about the research knowledge about the Spirit Anchor from the spellcaster forum, you have to personally enter it and actively seek the answer.

……

After actively connecting to the energy gathering array, Harvey once again entered the spiritual anchor located in the magic pattern.

Fortunately, this time he did not fall directly into the sea from the air, thus avoiding the torture of choking on water and having to swim back to the shore.

However, this time on this deserted beach, there were no three demon slayers who had somehow locked themselves in the magic web plane, so Harvey was much calmer.

Anyway, this space cannot sense and absorb the energy of the magic network. If there is any unknown danger, he can choose to leave at any time, or try to stimulate the strange cracks and mutations in his body, which can be used for observation and research.

Harvey found himself at the beach again in his previous life, with the slender figure of a newly grown-up and wearing oversized swimming trunks. It seemed that entering this place would automatically change a person into the appearance and state of the time when he experienced this scene.

However, this is not the case for the demon slayers who invade this place, probably because they are not time travelers themselves, but have only one identity in the real world.

He stood on the beach and looked around cautiously for a while before he stepped barefoot on the rough sea sand and began to slowly explore along the coastline.

The sea water was very turbid and the sky was still gloomy, as if a storm was about to come.

Harvey could hear the rhythmic sound of waves crashing against his ears, and he felt strangely peaceful and relaxed, as his heart recalled more fragments of memories about this beach.

A slightly larger wave hit the beach. Harvey's eyes narrowed and he found that after the waves receded, there seemed to be something extra on the beach, which was brought up from the sea by the wave just now.

He quickly walked closer to observe and found that three round, transparent crystal balls the size of fists suddenly appeared on the beach.

Harvey didn't dare to reach out and touch it directly, so he had to squat down and observe it closely.

The three transparent spheres seemed to be filled with liquid, and inside them was a miniature baby embryo.

These strange embryos, no bigger than pigeon eggs, are immersed in an unknown liquid inside the sphere, just like real babies in their mother's womb, curled up with their eyes closed.

(End of this chapter)