NOVPUBA chilly autumn breeze drifted through the air, the colors of the setting sun gradually swallowed by dull clouds, coating the world in shades of dark gray and black.
The dense forest was shrouded with an eerie, dim atmosphere, the scant light growing increasingly incapable of dispelling the thickening shadows surrounding it.
The breaths of the Goddess of Destruction were quick and low as she stumbled through the woods.
By now, the cooldown of the [Forced Dissipation] was over, and she managed to remove all status effects inflicted upon herself.
Her throat no longer ached like it was being scraped by a knife, and all the various types of imposed reductions in healing and blood loss states were also lifted.
Her footsteps continuously pressed on the squishy soil below, damp and cold.
All she needed was to get further away, hide until night fell, and recover from her current condition. Once the Blood Lord awakened, she would have the chance to exploit the powers of the Blood Clan and make a devastating comeback.
She would slaughter at least two people tonight… rip open their stomachs and hang them in the chapel to bleed to death in agony!
It would be even better... if she could capture the half-demon duchess, who was always by Lanci’s side, flay her skin, and display it on the banquet table in the chapel. That way, Lanci would personally witness the gruesome and tragic death of the duchess.
Would he still maintain his detached demeanor then?
Just imagining Lanci’s reaction encouraged a trembling smile on the face of the Goddess of Destruction.
Even if she couldn’t kill Lanci tonight, once she has taken out all of Lanci’s minions and left him as a general without an army, even if Lanci had numerous epic cards, he would no longer pose a threat to her!
As for the detective whose brain was full of nothing but brawn, he probably returned halfway with his tail between his legs after discovering the information from the Shadow World.
He must be elated, thinking that his teammates had preemptively solved all the problems.
However, he wouldn’t expect that the moment he managed to climb the cliff again would be his moment of death—
The Goddess of Destruction would be waiting on the edge of the cliff. Watching the detective painstakingly climb up, she would use the Blazing Demon Sword to cut off his hands and let him plummet off the 800-meter cliff, smashing into a pile of bloody pulp in a state of shock and despair!
"Your mistake… was provoking the Rebirth Church… and encountering me..."
The voice of the Goddess of Destruction was cold and cruel, laced with a vindictive determination.
However, while she was indulged in these thoughts, she didn’t realize something was wrong beneath her feet.
Suddenly, she stepped into a void and was enveloped by a sensation of weightlessness.
The next moment, it felt as if she fell from a tangible world into a void.
A deep, dark pit swallowed her like the gullet of a monster in the night!
"Bang!!!"
Accompanied by a deafening sound that sent tremors through her eardrums and brain, she landed hard at the bottom of the deep hole.
Lying in the pit, her body shuddered in pain.
"Aaaaah——!!!"
The sharp poison spikes in the pit pierced through her skin and muscles, penetrating to her bone marrow.
The Goddess of Destruction’s face twisted, her pupils contracted violently, her eyes filled with disbelief and dread.
This was the work of third-order Earth Magic, capable of creating pits in the ground in an instant.
But the pit wasn’t the deadliest part. What’s terrifying were the poison spikes and animal traps lining the pit.
Then came the pain. The sharp agony felt like millions of needles were puncturing her flesh. Her screams echoed through the forest, filled with boundless suffering.
At this moment, her trembling gaze was drawn to the elongated shadows above the pit.
Accompanied by ghost-like footsteps, each stride sounded like whispers of death.
A tall figure appeared slowly, standing calmly like a statue carved in the darkness. His long coat rustled in the wind as he peered down into the pit where the Goddess of Destruction lay.
When she saw the face of that figure, her heart, as if it was being tightly clutched, skipped a beat.
It was a face, a face she was familiar with.
Standing on the edge of the pit, holding a heavy crossbow in his hand, his face appearing and disappearing in the shadows. Only the violet pupils above the half-draped sunglasses, like the cold light overflowing from the night sky, were always incomparable.
Frey watched the Goddess of Destruction, as if looking at a struggling deer.
Incredulity filled the wide eyes of the Goddess of Destruction, her heart immediately sinking into an icy lake.
The world around became silent once again.
Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion, merciless and ruthless.
"You for..."
Before the Goddess of Destruction finished speaking, the next moment a heavy arrow had punctured her shoulder and pinned her against the wall of the pit, immediately followed by a shrill scream.
Frey stood on the edge of the pit, wordlessly shooting an arrow at her.
Although the quantity of arrows is limited after each entry into the Shadow World unless a Battlefield Card Maker repairs it, the heavy crossbow itself is slow to fire and each hit is extremely deadly.
"Why are you here?!!"
The Goddess of Destruction gasped heavily and howled with all her strength.
"Are you stupid? According to the mechanism of the Shadow World, you should not have climbed the mountain to solve the case."
Frey asked back as if doubting the intelligence of the Goddess of Destruction.
"...?"
The Goddess of Destruction listened to Frey’s taken-for-granted tone.
Felt like her intelligence was violently rubbed against the ground.
She then recalled the detective’s unhesitant bluff this morning, which fooled everyone.
Finally, she understood that the detective just wanted to change everyone’s mental pressure in the morning, and then handed everything over to Lanci in the More Sword Tombs, while the detective became a hunter, ambushing the escaped in the jungle, all the way until now.
"Give up resistance, my strength is absolutely above you now."
Frey reloaded a new arrow for his heavy crossbow, the crossbow directly pointed at the Goddess of Destruction, and the tip of the cold arrow sent out a strong scent of death.
"Ha ha...ha ha ha——!"
The Goddess of Destruction violently pulled the arrow out of her shoulder, letting flesh and blood splash out, then holding the Blazing Demon Sword, she started to laugh hysterically,
"Die with me!!"
After understanding the fact that she was purely played by these two today, it seemed like the last string in the spirit of the Goddess of Destruction also snapped.
No matter Lanci or Frey.
This humiliation was unbearable for her!
Even if she died, she would kill this detective who had made a mockery of her!
...
In the hall of the church, people’s hopes were like the afterglow of the sunset, about to sink into the pitch black night.
In the corner under the rose window, another Resurrection Believer - the Imperial Priestess who was still being watched over by Hyperion and her guard sister, finally slowly woke up from her coma.
She saw the people in the church with suppressed expressions.
Then she looked around at the wounded and exhausted challengers, and the missing Goddess of Destruction.
She immediately threw her head back and laughed insanely, knowing that the Goddess of Destruction, Adelis, had them badly injured and also successfully left.
Tonight is the time for the blood sacrifice!
