“That Puchi... why...?"
Gini, suffering from the backlash of the [Sword Heart], had her consciousness shattered to pieces. Unable to even control her body, she could only let the other believers carry her on their backs and flee.
She couldn't be blamed for being unprepared.
Mental-type mages were rare to begin with. Even if encountered, facing the power bestowed by the Goddess, most could only passively defend and barely protect themselves.
Such a swift and fierce counterattack was simply just like that dead Sword Saint?!
At this moment, Gini couldn't even focus her mind to think about this matter, because she saw them.
In a daze, those faces emerged from the void, one after another, swarming around her in overlapping layers.
There were elders, children, men, and women. She knew all of them; she had personally sacrificed all of them.
They stood in that hazy gray halo at the edge of her consciousness, becoming increasingly clear like reflections rising from water.
Someone frowned in confusion.
Someone clenched their fists in anger.
Someone stared at her with hollow eye sockets.
Those voices were very soft at first, as if separated by a thick layer of water, but gradually became clear, sharp, and piercing, torturing Gini's already fragile mind.
"Gini... why?"
One voice pierced through all the clamor.
That voice was too familiar, so familiar it made her tremble uncontrollably.
In the grayish-white halo stood a young man. His face was still so clear, so young, as if forever frozen in the year he was seventeen.
Her childhood friend, Kord.
"Gini, why?"
His voice was very light, without blame, just a simple inquiry.
She wanted to speak, wanted to explain, but her body could only let out vague babbles.
Kord...
This was... the only way to save your soul...
...
"Gini."
"Gini!"
Calls after calls pulled Gini back to reality. She opened her eyes. At first, her vision was just a blurry halo, then gradually condensed into two faces.
Crescent's furry cat face was full of worry, her eye sockets even somewhat red. And the High Priestess... the High Priestess always had that gentle appearance.
The High Priestess's hands cupped her cheeks. A milky-white spiritual light glowed on her hands, seeping into her forehead wisp by wisp, picking up the shattered fragments of her consciousness piece by piece and carefully piecing them back to their original places.
"High Priestess... the enemy... Puchi..."
"Crescent has already said everything." The High Priestess gently comforted her. "Focus your thoughts on yourself first. Try hard to recall your past, remember who you are, remember those important things. This will help heal the injuries on your soul."
Under the High Priestess's guidance, Gini gradually regained her stability.
Only then did the High Priestess retract her hands, stand up, and walk toward the ritual that was already prepared not far away, waiting for her to preside over it.
At the same time, the believers began to take action.
A portion of the people walked toward the ritual, knelt on the sacrifice nodes, lowered their heads, and prayed silently.
Another portion gathered around Crescent. They were going to block any enemies that might be tailing them, at least guaranteeing that the ritual wouldn't be interfered with.
"My Lord, please bless us."
Following Crescent's prayer, a puff of black mist sprayed from the tip of her staff. That black mist attached to Crescent's own body, then spread to every believer behind her, shrouding them from head to toe.
Scents disappeared, mana fluctuations disappeared, and sounds also disappeared. All information that could possibly expose their tracks was swallowed by the black mist.
Once prepared, they left the hideout.
...
On the other side, Lin Jun and the Sword Saint, who had already locked onto the Hand of Passage's hideout, didn't rush over in a hurry.
Wanting to catch them all in one fell swoop, relying solely on two combat units was obviously very difficult.
On an uninhabited patch of fungal mat that had spread out, a massive number of Puchis were popping out one after another.
Simultaneously, the Puchis continuously scattered spores forward. Under the effect of a massive amount of mana, the fungal mat advanced at a speed visible to the naked eye, closing in inch by inch on the Hand of Passage's hideout.
Looking at the Puchis packing the surroundings full in a short time, the Sword Saint couldn't help but ask: "Is this really okay? The scale is too large; it will leave behind quite a few traces. As for No. 13's side..."
Although he didn't like No. 13, they were ultimately in the same camp. The Sword Saint wouldn't go so far as to hope something bad happened to it.
"It's fine, it's fine. No. 13 is a smart mushroom; it will figure out a way to cover it up itself." Lin Jun's tone was full of trust in No. 13.
Once everything was ready, the Sword Saint and the Lizardman puppet led over a thousand Puchis toward that hideout.
The voice Puchi wrapped around the Lizardman puppet's waist let out low "hehe" chuckles from time to time along the way. This made the Sword Saint Puchi extremely uncomfortable, always finding it very difficult to immerse himself in the role of punishing evil and eliminating wickedness.
Arriving at an open clearing in the forest, the soil beneath the Sword Saint Puchi's feet suddenly exploded!
Four pitch-black figures darted out from underground, attacking simultaneously from front, back, left, and right!
This unexpected attack—not only the Sword Saint but even Lin Jun hadn't noticed it beforehand.
Not only that, Lin Jun also shockingly discovered that facing these sneak attackers, his status panel actually failed!
Did the Hand of Passage control monsters from the mist?
This was the first thought that popped into Lin Jun's mind.
The ambush was very successful, and the timing of the sneak attack was perfect.
If the target had been the Lizardman puppet, it probably would have succeeded.
But the cultists obviously wanted to take out the most threatening Sword Saint Puchi first, which meant they chose the wrong target.
Facing the sneak attack, the Sword Saint Puchi didn't panic in the slightest.
He lowered his mushroom cap very low, his tentacles stretching out along with the rotation of his body. The two long swords drew two arc-shaped sword auras in the spin.
[Wind Pressure Slash LV10]
The sword aura struck later but arrived first. Four heads flew up almost simultaneously.
Only then did fresh blood spout from the severed necks. Those four headless bodies still maintained their charging posture, stumbling forward for two more steps before collapsing limply to the ground. Their weapons flew from their hands, landing on the ground with a few muffled thuds.
However, the target of the sneak attack wasn't just the Sword Saint.
While Lin Jun's attention was focused on the gradually dissipating black mist on those corpses, more enemies broke out of the ground. A large number of Puchis were killed before they could react.
Even the Lizardman puppet encountered an attack.
Crescent leaped high into the air, the tip of her staff pointing at the Lizardman puppet.
A pair of large hands formed of rock drilled out from beneath the puppet's feet and slammed together fiercely with a clap.
At the very last moment, the puppet smashed two fingers and escaped the fate of being flattened, but its head was still injured.
Shattered scales and the sealing cloth wrapped around its head fell to the ground together.
Crescent stared blankly at the Lizardman puppet whose true face was revealed, forgetting her next move for a moment.
And this was just the beginning.
A voice she was incomparably familiar with came from the opposite side:
"Heh, I... will not yield..."
"Wait, where is this?"
"Crescent...?"
(End of Chapter)
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