Witch Troupe and the Undead

And as the battle raged and more people poured in, the Punisher's arms multiplied, the golden cup spilled filthy corrosive liquid, the stone slabs emitted blasphemous sounds, and the black blade transformed from a dagger into two giant curved swords, each over a meter long.

"Hold your formation! These are just remnants of the apocalypse!" The elders of the Doomsday Judgment Council, who had finally arrived after hearing the news, were shocked by the scene as soon as they entered. What the hell was this? They had never seen anything like it before!

The Punisher Demon had grown so tall it almost touched the ceiling, its blood-red eyes filled only with the souls of sin. "Awooo!"

"What is that?" A resident of the capital stopped in confusion, as if something was roaring.

"The Punisher Demon!?" The Elder Guardian of Secrets had just finished moving and hadn't even had time to light the Goddess's brazier when the torch in his hand fell to the ground, almost setting the carpet ablaze.

"Someone has summoned the Sin Demon down below!" The Sin Demon was a common summoning creature used by the great sin mages of the past. After all, not everyone will confess their sins, and not every sinner needs to be secretly executed by the Night Hunters. In such cases, the Sin Demon is a very good solution.

In addition, for Sin Mages who are very bad at melee combat, the Sin Demon is also a common way for them to deal with those Sin Warlocks, because it will continuously absorb the sins of the opponent and grow stronger.

In certain circumstances, the Punisher can also serve as part of the judgment in a duel; if the opponent can defeat the Punisher head-on, they can be pardoned.

After all, for truly heinous people, the demon of punishment they face will soon become a terrifying thing. However, such summons also have weaknesses. They will quickly weaken and eventually turn into a wisp of smoke if they cannot absorb enough demonic power.

At the same time, the Sin Demon will prioritize attacking souls at the scene who have sins corresponding to its summoning ritual. For example, Lilith used the Three Evils Summoning Ritual: Murder, Betrayal, and Theft, the three oldest sins of mankind. In other words, a completely upright person would not appear in such an underground secret base.

"Could it be that there are other judges?"

"Go and see!" At the same time, the priests of the Holy Lord Church felt a chill run down their spines, as if something bad was about to happen.

Lightning, fire, frost—various magical and physical attacks tore wounds into the Punisher Demon, but they healed instantly. "No good, Elder, this thing can't hurt anything!" The black curved sword swung violently, shattering a row of tabletops and severing the chains one by one.

"Don't panic, it's already starting to weaken..." The Punishing Demon will continue to grow stronger, but conversely, every minute it exists requires more of its demonic power to maintain. So, as long as there aren't enough sinners for it to absorb, it will rapidly decline. Moreover, the faster it grows, the faster it declines.

"This is it, Priest..."

"I have a very bad feeling," the priest in his ornate robes took a deep breath. "Have the people around been dispersed?"

"They've all been driven away. There just happened to be a cavalryman from the Inquisition nearby who had just returned." These cavalrymen, who had just finished their campaign against heretics, were called to the scene to seal off the area, as the roaring sounds from underground could be clearly heard. It was either some kind of monster or someone had summoned something extraordinary.

"Roar!" The scarlet muscles suddenly bulged, and the entire Punisher Demon became even larger. Beams of light shot out from its three vertically aligned eyes, and anyone who was shone on them exploded into a pile of minced meat in the next instant.

"Elder, is this what you meant by becoming weak?!" The knight of the Doomsday Judgment Council, wielding a large shield, desperately resisted the constantly shooting beams of light; the immense impact nearly caused the shield to slip from his grasp.

"Just now, he seemed to be getting weak, so why did he suddenly become so strong?"

"Not good, the summoner is still nearby. I'll hold him off here, you guys go find him!" The elder erected a new defensive barrier, letting the curved sword smash against it, creating large bursts of light.

At the sewer outlet, "Whoosh~ Whoosh~" "He's out! Big sister, where's your ritual dagger?"

“I’ve lost it,” Lilith said after catching her breath. “I’ve relinquished control. Now it’s up to them to see how deep their sins are!”

"They haven't caught up after all this time, they're probably some kind of cult. Should we report them?" Even the Great Sin Masters need to eat, and their biggest benefactor is the Holy Lord Church—the reward for reporting cults. That's right, their ways of making money are sometimes quite legitimate.

They are mostly rats in the shadows, and they are practically colleagues with these cultists. However, they are treated completely differently by God and secular regimes, and making a living from whistleblower rewards is nothing to be ashamed of.

Many Sinners are very enthusiastic about doing this – it was even a tradition among Sinners in ancient times. Modern Sinners may not understand why reporting is encouraged, but it has continued as a tradition.

As for why, joining a cult is blasphemy, reporting a cult is betrayal, and murdering a cult member and then infiltrating the cult is murder plus fraud. Theoretically, you could gain a lot of magical power from this sin. However, if you report the other party in the end, the entire magical power of sin is filtered out and is no longer just a simple sin.

To obtain the power of evil demons for free and avoid the distorted punishments—this was the approach of the "fighting evil with evil" faction, one of the most radical and dangerous schools of great sin mages at the time. Their aim was to combat crime in a way that was no different from committing crimes themselves. Each of them was an excellent undercover agent, and this is basically the root of the lineage of the great sin mages who have survived to this day.

The current great sin mage doesn't remember or understand why he had to report it in the end. He only remembers that his predecessors were notorious for committing all kinds of evil, but they didn't show any signs of mutation.

Of course, not to mention that goddesses and other gods would help purify sins (except for the god of judgment and justice), even if they themselves were not truly corrupted by sin, they would only collect the byproducts of fighting sin. After all, this is just a means, and the real purpose is to fight evil.

However, this method is also the key point of conflict between the God of Night and the God of Judgment. If the Church of the God of Night only executes sinful sorcerers, then anyone associated with the power of sinful demons is a target for the Church of Judgment to kill.

The former emphasizes outcome justice. Regardless of whether I wiped out an entire reinforced company of cult members, disemboweled them, and hung them on streetlights, you can say that I have achieved remarkable results in combating cults. In this process, planting spies, torture, impersonation, and treating oaths as mere empty words are all minor flaws. In short, in the end, I either reported the criminal gang or eliminated the criminal gang.

For a god of judgment who values ​​procedural justice and a complete trial process, this is completely unacceptable. This is contrary to his divine authority. If you do this, what's the point of having him?!

What angers God even more is not the "evil-controlling faction," but the "ritual faction," because they value ritual. In other words, they are the scum of the earth to the fullest extent within the bounds of rules and laws, and they exploit loopholes in various ways to cause trouble in ways that make both God and humans unable to bear it. Sometimes they can even get the magic of justice for free (evil is a kind of illusory magic, and so is justice, only it is more difficult to obtain).

Therefore, the relationship between believers of the God of Judgment and Justice, pastors and the Church of Night God, and the Great Sin Mage is roughly equivalent to that between cats and dogs. Unless there is a common enemy that both sides hate more, they will fight each other whenever they meet.

“Report? Of course we’ll report! We haven’t made any money these days!” Lilith skillfully pulled out a pen and paper and began writing a report, signing it as a sewer worker’s name, based on information she had obtained while working in the slums.

However, the address for mailing the prize money was her own. It has to be said that, in a sense, she did grasp a bit of the core essence of the cultivation of the great sin mages back then—impersonation, is it a sin? Yes! But is it really impersonation? If so, it's neither too close nor too far from sin, just getting magic power for free.

“Hmm, I’ll deliver this letter.” “Who!” The companion behind him turned around abruptly, but before he could cast a spell, he was kicked in the face by a small foot. The bridge of his nose made a crisp cracking sound. Lulua rolled forward half a circle and swept her leg to knock down the second one. Lilith was about to run away when she saw several guys with broken hands appearing from the alley entrance. She could only obediently raise her hands in surrender.

“A letter of complaint…” The elder picked up the letter from the ground, flicked it with his finger, and a slight smile appeared on his face. “It’s been so many years since I’ve seen one like this.”

“Yes, these days, those who play evil magic are all incredibly twisted. I never thought I'd see this thing in my lifetime.” A Night Judge nodded in agreement. Back then, they were the main force in collecting these reports, and they could collect a huge stack every night. After all, in that barbaric era, many people could only place their spiritual hopes in gods, regardless of whether those things were real gods or not.

In addition, the harsh environment and poor living conditions naturally lead to a large number of unruly people. After all, when people can't survive, it's hard to talk about morality and shame.

"It's still a fake name, and it has a bit of that shady, ritualistic vibe about it."

"I bet the Grand Arbitrator is going to be furious again, right?" The Grand Arbitrator is essentially the Pope who judges the Church. If he knew that this old adversary was coming again, he would probably be furious and furious.

"Unfortunately, there's just one thing. If it were me, I would apply for a job as a sewer worker first, then report the issue in the name of the sewer union, but I would put my own address as the receiving address, and then resign after reporting it."

"Yours is still a bit rough, but given the limited resources, it'll do."

"Who exactly are you guys..." Lilith looked at the group of people who were discussing how to get free Sin Demon Power and jumping up and down in anger at the Church of Judgment, somewhat confused. What kind of strange organization was this? Could it be some ancient organization of Great Sin Mages?

"I'm here to catch you~" Lulua gave her a bright smile.

"Alright, take out the sacrificial dagger, Sin Demon... you're quite creative." The elder stretched out her hand, summoning the Sin Demon to deal with the cult. She was truly unafraid that the sins on her body were greater than those of the cult, and that the Sin Demon would cut her down first.

"Lost"

"Gah!?"

“I left the dagger down there,” Lilith said calmly. “Is that not allowed?”

"..." "..." All the members of the Church of the Night God stared at her in disbelief, then looked at the signal flare of the Holy Bishop's plea for help blooming in the sky, and the groups of town guards rushing over.

"How many of these people are free from the three evil deeds?"

"There are probably very few people who aren't affected at all, and more who are only affected by one, but as for the Holy Lord..." Everyone has heard about the shady things they did outside the city during the previous inquisition, so those who are only affected by one are probably quite few. And now, for the Sin Demon... it's like a bonfire that was gradually dying down has been doused with two buckets of gasoline. It's no longer a matter of it burning fiercely, but rather its magical power has increased dramatically, surged, and surged. "Luckily, she didn't use the sin of blasphemy to summon the Sin Demon."

"But he committed the crimes of theft and betrayal!" The elders were a little numb. There were plenty of people who weren't guilty of murder, but few who weren't guilty of theft, and to be completely free of betrayal... that's a rare breed! Dude, in this era's town guards, someone who isn't guilty of any of these three ancient vices is a true dragon among men!

Then consider those religious inquisitors outsourced by the church… “It’s over!”

"Boom!" The sewer exploded violently, and amidst flying bricks and excrement, a huge red demon stood on the ground, and the entire magical vortex of the capital city tilted towards it.

"Holy crap!" Gregory opened his mouth, a wisp of desire escaping from the corner of his lips. He even forgot to absorb this escaping ball of lustful magic. Coming to the capital was definitely the right decision; he actually witnessed two battles of this level of power! Twice!

In a metropolis entangled in sin and desire, a demon is summoned, and this demon is completely out of control, acting purely on instinct. The church and the nobles seem to know nothing about this, frantically sending people to add fuel to the fire—either they don't know what the demon represents, or they have no idea what they've done or the quality of their subordinates.

"Wow, that's really amazing!!!" Grigori felt like he had eaten more gossip in a year than he had in the past thousand years.

Chapter 358

The Punisher Demon has grown to almost the height of the city wall. Even inside the academy, the huge red-skinned monster in the North District can be seen. Its back arms have grown to more than a dozen, each holding a different magical artifact representing evil.

"How could it grow so big?" The Dark Night Judges looked at each other in disbelief. Even the Punishing Demons of the past could not have grown this big! "The Royal City of Luster has a population of less than 5, while the Imperial Capital alone has about 20 registered residents." The elder rubbed his forehead. It's because there are so many people now. With so many people, all sorts of things naturally appear, and the byproduct of civilization, the power of the Punishing Demons, becomes exceptionally abundant!

"Now what?"

"We can only wait until it runs out of magic." The Punisher's magic consumption rate increases with its growth rate; simply put, its health will drop faster and faster. As long as the situation drags on, it will naturally burn through its magic quickly and then disappear. The problem is: how much devastation can it cause before it burns out its last bit of magic?

"Awooo!" The black curved sword swept across the street with seemingly slow but actually fast movements, and a squad of town guards who couldn't dodge in time disappeared, leaving only pairs of small legs on the street.

"Fire!" Heavy crossbow bolts struck the skin of the Punisher, leaving only shallow marks. Very few could penetrate, but for an enemy of this size, arrows were as threatening as needles.

"Awooo!" The Punisher pulled its foot out of the sewer and stomped down, turning a three-person team operating a heavy crossbow into an indescribable form mixed with the filth of the ground and sewer. Then, with a second foot, the Punisher stood upright on the ground, its dozen or so arms holding various magical artifacts and weapons, all enveloped in a magical aura.

"What the hell is going on?" On the academy's spire, Roach forcefully lifted Livia up in front of him. The latter also looked at the Punisher Demon in the distance with surprise, her light golden eyelashes trembling slightly. Then she turned to look at Roach, angrily knocking him on the head, "Put her down!"

"Can you see it?"

"Put it down!"

“Oh,” Roach put the little witch on the ground. She thought for a moment, then gently tapped the ground with her staff, and the bricks automatically stacked into a small staircase, allowing her to peek out from the edge of the wall at the top of the tower.

"Hmm!" The little witch happily perched on the wall, watching the great battle in the North District, seemingly with no intention of interfering. The academy's defensive barrier had been deployed, the Imperial Guard Knights were rushing to the battlefield, and the church priests were preparing their divine grace rituals. However, the Punishing Demon, despite its demonic appearance, was actually immune to Holy Fire attacks.

"Get out of the way!" The judge, wielding a two-handed sword, leaped from an overturned freight wagon to dodge the falling black curved sword, his entire body flying upwards along the blade. "Clang!" Sparks flew everywhere. Even with his superhuman physique activated and the weapon in his hand being blessed and enchanted, he was still knocked to his knees, his left hand desperately bracing against the blade to block the falling black curved sword.

"Whoosh!" A series of holy flame arrows swept past the judge, striking the edge of the golden goblet that was about to tip over. The putrid liquid barely grazed him as it hit the ground, instantly engulfing the unfortunate civilians and guards' corpses.

The corpses, after sinking into the putrid liquid, quickly reappeared. They seemed to retain some of their instincts and rationality from when they were alive, but regarded all normal people as enemies.

"Bang!" A corpse, almost entirely half-body, was sent flying by a powerful punch. "Does the Punisher Demon have this kind of mode and function?" Lulua dodged a heavy crossbow bolt, then spun around and kicked a corpse with only one hand remaining. "How come I didn't know about this?"

“This summoning ritual has been altered, and we’ve never seen a Punisher of this caliber before!” Another Night Inquisitor pierced a writhing corpse with his long blade and severed its tendons with his short blade.

"Something's wrong, these guys are completely unkillable!" The adult Night Clan warrior stared at the writhing flesh in the crater before him. He had just used his extraordinary martial arts to smash the enemy into a pile of minced meat, but the flesh was now showing signs of regeneration. The garrison knights who arrived at the scene decisively raised their shields, activating their extraordinary power to block the sweeping attack, but many infantrymen were still sent flying, their arms broken.

The soldiers wielding spears thrust forcefully at the enemy's calves, but it was as if they were attacking a solid block of steel; they did nothing but make noise. However, these attacks at least restrained the demon of punishment.

"Block those zombies! Give this to the knights!" the infantry captain shouted, ordering his troops to retreat and block the zombies emerging from the mud. These zombies included civilians and dead town guards. Compared to zombies resurrected by necromancy, what made them terrifying was that they seemed to possess some kind of rationality, only their world was completely different.

"Monster, monster, die, monster!" Black, foul-smelling liquid flowed from its facial features, and its body, pieced together from shattered flesh and clad in deformed armor, roared "Monster, die!" as it charged forward. The sight of it deftly attaching itself to a spear and then struggling forward against the spear shaft was enough to terrify even the squires of the front-line garrison knights, let alone the ordinary infantry behind it.

"Monster, you can't kill me, monster..." the corpse mumbled incoherently, fragments of internal organs spitting out from the corners of its mouth, and reaching out with a hand made of twisted flesh and blood to scratch.

"Aaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!" Finally, someone broke down, dropping his weapon and running backward. The officer supervising from behind drew his sword without hesitation and killed the deserter. "Don't panic, these things are just unkillable! They don't have any special abilities. Knock off their weapons and cut off their limbs!"

The Imperial Capital Garrison and the border troops stationed in the Northwest Mountains rotate every 3 to 4 years. Originally, they would rotate with the troops of the Deathwhisper Fortress every few rotations. Unfortunately, due to the incident at the graveyard, the troops there have been wiped out. The new troops have not yet been trained and are still under the command of the Knights of the North.

In other words, these soldiers were elite, or at least were elite. After the officers found a way, they could at least barely carry out the orders. But the town guards were completely incapable. When faced with monsters that were impossible to kill charging at them, shouting all sorts of things that would lower their sanity, their morale collapsed completely at the first contact.

It could be said that even the giant blade of the Punisher did not break them; on the contrary, it was these zombies, whose actual lethality was not that great, that caused their morale and spirit to collapse completely.

After all, everyone knows that the pressure of dealing with giant monsters like the Punishing Demon is on the experts in the capital. They only need to keep it in check. Such monsters wouldn't target an ordinary guard and relentlessly pursue him. However, these unkillable monsters are truly relentlessly chasing after him.

In particular, some of them were former comrades who had died earlier. They rushed over, dragging their mutilated or even pieced-together bodies, shouting slogans such as "Monsters! They're all monsters!" and "Brothers, drive these monsters out!!!"

In particular, those squads that were wiped out even formed a familiar yet unfamiliar battle formation, as if in their eyes, they were still the guardians of the empire, while the humans in front of them were a group of twisted and incomplete monsters.

"So complicated..." Livia's mouth opened slightly. In her eyes, the complexity of the Sin Demon's spell was constantly increasing and evolving. Mortal nightmares rushed into it along with the Sin Demon's power, outlining an unfamiliar spell structure, and then turning into powerful "false life" to power these zombies.

In addition, there are other techniques and structures mixed in, such as sensory confusion and mind control, which she couldn't quite figure out for the time being.

"Your Highness Livia!" Lady Elena's message arrived, "Please help me!"

"Oh~" The little witch finally snapped out of her reverie, holding her staff in both hands and inserting it into the center of the tower's magic circle. The witch began to compete with the Punisher for magic power.

"Roar!" Lady Elena left her post only after seeing that the academy's defensive array and fortress attack array had been activated. Her small, grayish-white figure fell from the academy's spire like a falling leaf, twisting and deforming in mid-air.

When they landed, they were giants with two horns, resembling both sheep and cows, their bodies covered in grayish-white fur, each wielding a greatsword made of bone and flesh. "Bang!" The two giants collided violently, and the Punisher was thrown backward, his attention immediately shifting away from the knights.

Immediately following, amidst the tolling of the cathedral bells, chains of holy flame wrapped around the limbs and body of the Punisher, the flames scorching the skin and digging deep into it.

"Hold it back! Create an opportunity for Ms. Elena!"

"No, it's creating an opportunity for Miss Livia!" Elena still had time to reply. In the distance, the little witch had already taken over the vast magical power provided by the academy's magic circle circuit and coordinated the entire academy's competition-level attack spell chanting process.

"Boom!" A dim beam of light shot out from the tower in the north corner of the academy, and a magically constructed arm was severed from the Punisher Demon. It turned to ashes and disappeared upon landing, but a new arm was quickly generated.

“Continue…” Livia nodded. The Sin Demon had consumed a large amount of magic power to regenerate his arm. Now, the vortex of Sin Demon magic power around him had shrunk a little. If it continued, it would soon consume all the external magic power and then enter a self-consuming state.

"The Tower of Spirit has run out of magic, switching modes." "The Tower of Elements is ready..." After several beams of light struck, the Tower of Spirit's magic reserves were exhausted. It began to draw power from the negative emotions of fear and panic that permeated the capital, while simultaneously suppressing the spread of panic.

The purpose of all city defense magic systems starting with mental magic is to replenish mental magic power, which will dull the minds of humans or intelligent beings with higher thinking in the magic ritual field, making them less likely to experience fear, panic, tension and other emotions, and reducing the psychological pressure caused by negative emotions.

Of course, the side effect is a significant decrease in reaction and perception, similar to the numbness and dullness experienced after working overtime for more than 10 hours.

The elemental vortex hovered above the city, and anyone who looked directly at this chaotic vortex without first using up their mental magic would likely suffer a mental breakdown. The vortex quickly engulfed the battlefield, with lightning, frost, and fire bombarding the Punisher and the undead in turn, annihilating them time and again, only to have them reborn from nothingness once more.

"Pfft!" The blade of flesh pierced through the chest of the Punisher Demon. Elena decisively activated the life-based secret domain spell, pouring a large amount of life magic into it, interfering with the already unstable spell. Finally, with a loud bang, the Punisher Demon fell to the ground and gradually evaporated and disappeared.

However, this does not signify the end, but rather the beginning, because the created undead did not disappear with the disappearance of the Punisher; they seemed to have been transformed into some kind of stable existence.

The infantrymen of the garrison knights were almost at their breaking point, falling to the ground time and time again only to get back up again. The most terrifying thing was that these zombies would kill the civilians and then turn into new zombies. It seemed that the worldview of the resurrected people had been completely distorted.

"Seal off the entire block!" Elena reverted to human form, and countless strands of flesh beneath her feet seeped into the shattered ground, then transformed into roots that expanded in all directions, creating a high wall of plants that enveloped the area affected by the zombies.

"Your Highness Elena, how is the situation?"

"This is bad. These zombies have been transformed into some kind of secondary life form, rather than summoned creatures, and will not disappear when the summoning entity disappears."

"Then..." the Imperial Guard commander hesitated, "how did this demonic monster appear?"

"According to the initial reports, it appeared from the underground sewers near the North District Church. It wasn't this big at first, but when the people from the Holy Lord Church were preparing to seal off the area, the monster suddenly grew to a huge size."

The commander of the garrison knights, his face covered in blood, wiped it away. The soldiers on the plant wall frantically stabbed down those who tried to climb. Fortunately, Elena quickly adjusted her spell, imprisoning the zombies on the plant wall and continuously drawing their blood, causing their muscles to dry up and rendering them unable to resist.

"Could this be something the church is behind?"

"It doesn't seem like... it's more like something done by heretics, I mean real heretics."

“Alright, prepare to search the neighborhood, then enter the sewers for a cleanup. Your Highness Elena, these things…” “Their physical attributes are not much different from when they were alive, but their intelligence is also the same. I don’t know how to kill them right now, but at least imprisoning them is feasible.”

"Okay, everyone take your nets and chains. If you can't kill them, then capture them alive. At least these guys aren't undead."

"Your Highness Elena, is it possible we'll encounter a magical attack?" "There's a possibility, so it's best to involve the adventurers and the academy's mages." Elena didn't really want the students to participate, but it was indeed a very good way to train and develop right now. Those zombies were scary, but their combat strength wasn't actually that strong.