Winter Lord: Starting with Daily Intelligence

Chapter 464 Louis vs. Eduardo
The crown of golden thorns suddenly lit up, and a blinding emerald green poisonous light burst forth from the depths of the crown.

Like a signal flare that has been forcibly ignited, the entire Temple of the Sacred Tabernacle responded.

The pink tongue-shaped ground beneath Louis's feet suddenly lost its shape, its surface instantly collapsing and melting, turning into highly viscous digestive fluid.

At the same time, the golden ribs on both sides began to close inward at a tricky angle, as if to nail the intruder directly to the center.

Crimson battle aura erupted from Louis's feet, forcibly pushing away the viscous liquid that rolled around him, yet failed to touch the soles of his boots.

He then used the momentum to push off the contracting bone wall, using the immense force of the inward compression to accelerate in the opposite direction.

"boom--"

The crimson footprints cracked open on the golden ribs.

Louis's figure was like a cannonball, pointing straight at the twisted golden tree in the center of the hall.

However, in the instant he was suspended in mid-air, the temple completed the next phase of defense switching.

A deep, resonant hum came from deep within the ceiling.

Countless translucent, emerald-green thorns drooped down, piercing the back of the necks and spines of the twenty-four shriveled corpses on the fleshy walls on both sides.

The corpse suddenly convulsed.

Eerie green flames ignited in their empty eye sockets, and thorny threads tightened, transforming them directly from exhibits into weapons.

The twelve corpses were the first to break free of the flesh wall. When they landed, their bones pierced through their withered skin, their movements stiff yet carrying the instincts they had retained from their lives.

In their lifetimes, they were the most powerful Templar Knights commanders, sword saints, and adjudicators...

They were all the most outstanding talents in the Papacy, but now they were just combat puppets being used repeatedly.

The other twelve bodies remained embedded in the wall, their remaining chest cavities expanded and their throats forced open by thorns, emitting inhuman chants that served as a form of mental attack.
The air deteriorated, and corrosive toxic fog and compressed light bullets formed around them, beginning to predict their impact points.

The first melee puppet was already approaching. In life, he was a peerless sword saint of the Papacy, but now he was broken and had no dignity left to speak of.

Even so, he still possesses the strength of a peak knight.

The moment the twin swords were swung out, they sealed off all possible landing points for Louis; it was an unavoidable golden whirlwind.

But at that moment, in Louis's eyes, the world stood still.

[Bloodline Talent - Trajectory] Unfolds.

The colors have been stripped away, leaving only lines and the expected path.

All the movement lines in the next few seconds unfolded simultaneously on his retina, like a pre-drawn anatomical diagram.

He made an almost imperceptible sideways movement in mid-air.

It was only off by one centimeter.

The golden sword energy grazed his temple, severing a few strands of hair.

In the instant they crossed paths, Louis's wrist flicked.

The longsword, coated in a pale purple mist, grazed precisely across the back of the swordsman's neck.

"Snap." The sound was barely audible; the hard, iron-like emerald green thorns snapped instantly.

The puppet, still charging forward, collapsed forward due to inertia, then slammed its face into the ground and completely lost control.

Almost simultaneously, emerald green spiritual tendrils spread through the air.

The Crown of Thorns began to intervene directly, attempting to read Louis's thoughts.

The next moment, a layer of white-gold starlight shone on Louis's body.

The moment the spiritual tendrils touched the light barrier, they instantly disintegrated, like snowflakes falling into lava, leaving no trace.

His consciousness was calm and closed off, with no emotional anchors to grasp.

Louis did not break the connection; instead, he followed the mental channel and sent a stream of pink feedback back.

The twelve magic-based puppets in the air convulsed simultaneously.

The chanting stopped abruptly, and an extreme and distorted expression of ecstasy appeared on his face, as if he had fulfilled a wish that he could never achieve in a lifetime in an instant.

The next second, their mental network completely short-circuited, their bodies lost support, and they detached from their physical walls, falling like kites with broken strings.

However, this did not give Louis a moment's relief, as the heavily armored golems followed closely behind.

Three enormous bodies covered in thick golden bone armor crashed in a triangular formation, without any skill, just pure power. The temple floor undulated violently under their impact.

The trajectory instantly found the optimal solution. Louis gripped the hilt of his sword, and crimson power was directly poured into the blade.

The metal groaned under its strain, yet Louis still swung it like a baseball bat.

"Get out of here."

A sweeping strike doesn't pursue any technique, only the result.

The shockwave exploded in the air, shattering the bone armor of the three heavily armored golems simultaneously. Their bodies were thrown into the air and embedded deeply into the fleshy walls on both sides, like specimens nailed into the wall.

And other attacks followed in quick succession.

Poisonous rain, bone spurs, self-destructing bodies, assassin-type puppets emerging from the ground... Wang Guan unleashed all his methods.

Louis raised his left hand, and the dark purple mist swirled into a miniature vortex, engulfing all the attacks that filled the sky.

He deliberately stepped into the group of puppets and began to fight back with ease.

Every turn and every strike landed precisely at the crucial moment.

The blade, trailing a purple light, sliced ​​through the air, severing the green thorny vines that controlled them.

The puppets behind him remained frozen in their attacking stance.

Half a second later, a series of rapid cracking sounds rang out.

All the puppets fell down at the same time.

But Louis didn't even catch his breath.

Louis raised his gaze and it fell on a face among the golden trees that somewhat resembled his own: "If they were still alive, they might be able to hold me off for a while."

He casually tossed the cracked longsword to the ground, the clanging of metal echoing in the empty chamber.

“But the things you control…” Louis took off his gloves and threw them at his feet, “are not even enough to make me exert my full strength.”

Eduardo, seated in the center of the throne, did not fly into a rage as expected.

Instead, his expression gradually relaxed, and a deeply unsettling sincerity emerged on his sallow face.

His features were like those of a wax figure softened by high temperature, slowly and unnaturally shifting, the corners of his mouth curving into a gentle arc, as if trying to recall an expression long forgotten. He opened his arms, his voice soft and almost loving: "Little brother, you are too tired. The outside world is too noisy, too dirty, and too unfair."

His gaze fell on Louis, whose eyes were now indistinguishable between pupil and iris, only a murky golden-green.

"Come and become one with us."

In stark contrast to the gentleness on Eduardo's face, the crest began to twitch wildly.

The thorny wings no longer maintained their original rhythm, but instead trembled rapidly, making a sharp sound like teeth grinding, as if they were crushing something unseen.

Louis didn't even react; he simply stared coldly at the figure on the throne.

Eduardo suddenly clasped his hands together.

"Buzz—!!" A distorted roar exploded in the hall.

The golden ribs supporting the spatial structure began to rotate as a whole, the originally stable chamber was forcibly twisted into a ball, and everything in sight began to flip.

The pink coating on the ground was the first thing to be torn off.

Immediately afterwards, all the matter inside the palace was thrown into the air at the same time, where it was stirred together in the disordered gravitational field, forming an ever-expanding vortex of flesh and blood.

Countless golden thorns emerged from the vortex, trying to drag the person standing in the center into it.

Faced with this insanely spinning scene of hell, Louis didn't even adjust his stance.

A burst of crimson battle aura erupted beneath his feet, pinning his body firmly to a fixed coordinate.

No matter how space flips and twists, he remains perpendicular to the ground he perceives beneath his feet.

At the same time, the Primordial Heart slowly released a layer of white-gold light curtain as thin as a cicada's wing.

The flying rotten flesh, acid, severed limbs, and thorns were forcibly repelled less than three centimeters from his body.

The whole world is spinning and tearing apart.

Only the spot where Louis stood remained quiet, tidy, and immovable as a mountain.

It was this aloofness that caused the Golden Crown of Thorns to completely spiral out of control...

Eduardo's barely maintained gentle expression finally crumbled completely.

His lips twitched, and his voice was torn into a shrill, incoherent scream: "Why?! Why are you different?!"

The Crown of Golden Thorns trembled violently, and its green light surged.

"Since I can't destroy you..." His voice suddenly lowered, filled with hysterical greed, "then I will become you!!"

The next instant, Eduardo's body suddenly swelled up.

"boom--!"

The waxy yellow shell burst open like a broken sack.

Countless golden-green thorns, using that body as a springboard, shot out simultaneously from the tree trunk and the crest, like a group of out-of-control giant pythons, rushing straight at Louis.

The tips of the thorns changed rapidly as they flew, revealing familiar yet unsettling outlines... faces that looked remarkably like Louis's.

They opened their mouths and pounced on Louis; if they could get close, even for a moment, it would be enough to complete the final exchange.

And at this moment, Louis finally raised his hand, calmly spread his five fingers, and faced the oncoming monsters that looked just like him.

The dark purple mist erupted in that instant.

When the first thorn touched his palm, it did not pierce his skin.

It melted instantly, and the purple mist spread backward along the thorns, rapidly flowing back in.

The light inside the hall suddenly distorted.

The purple mist spread rapidly, forming a black hole that swallowed everything around it.

Even the little life force that originally belonged to Eduardo could not escape and was dragged into that dark purple.

A low, continuous sizzling sound echoed in the air, like some kind of unpleasant chewing sound.

The Golden Crown of Thorns finally began to feel fear, and the countless thorns began to tremble violently.

Louis raised his head. His pupils no longer retained their human form; the molten gold vertical pupils, set against the dark purple mist, were cold and cruel.

The thorns, which were frantically retracting, froze instantly.

The remaining body of Eduardo, having lost its support in the air, plummeted heavily to the ground.

Louis put away the purple mist and walked forward.

The distorted expression of half-crying and half-laughing still lingered on Eduardo's face.

But when his gaze truly met Louis's, a brief clarity returned to the depths of his eyes, an expression like a belated relief.

Louis raised his right hand, and red light gathered at his fingertips, condensing into a thin, sharp blade of light, like a scalpel.

"It might hurt a little."

He spoke softly, reaching his hand into the still-wriggling clump of thorns and accurately grasping the wildly beating green core.

"Rip—!!!"

Louis, expressionless, ripped the core of the Golden Thorn Crown out.

The moment the core was lost, everything that was maintained within the hall simultaneously failed.

Flesh, bones, membranes, and ribs lost their support in mid-air and collapsed rapidly like ashes from a fire.

All that remained was a rain of falling debris.

Louis stood in the center of the ruins, looking down at Eduardo, who was rapidly weathering away.

The body could no longer maintain its shape; flesh peeled off the bones like sand and scattered in the wind.

Louis reached out and gently closed his eyes.

He then looked at the green core in his palm, which was still pulsating faintly.

Without hesitation, Louis closed his fingers.

"Click".

The core was crushed into pieces in his palm.

Green mist then dissipated and slowly seeped into his mind.

(End of this chapter)