Six Hundred and Twenty-Second Chapter: Thorn
Under the full moon over Twinkling Star Lake, the massive church floated in the sky, driven by some powerful and mysterious force. As this mysterious power spread throughout the entire church, the main structure began to change.
With rumbling sounds, the enormous sacred building started to transform. Countless arches on the church began to move, towers tilted, floors cracked, parts of the building shifted from one side to another, and the external structure opened up to reveal its inner form. This massive structure seemed to operate like a machine, carrying out precise movements.
“What’s happening!?”
“The ground is moving? No… it’s the whole church that’s moving! Has some hidden function of this church been activated? Why now?!”
Standing on the front platform of the church, Vania and almost all the weakened guards of the pilgrimage group looked around in astonishment. Amidst the violent upheaval, they held onto each other tightly to avoid being thrown off. They watched as the once spacious platform began to fold inward and transform into a standing barrier. The pilgrimage group slid down due to the tilt, landing upside-down in a hall, where they found themselves inexplicably transferred to the ceiling.
“What are you doing? Stop this!”
Gethsmoor, floating above Twinkling Star Lake, couldn’t help but grit her teeth and shout at the sight of the massive church transforming. She immediately summoned several crimson bl**d weapons and slashed at the distant church, leaving deep gashes but failing to stop the transformation.
After a series of complex changes, the massive church finally completed its transformation. It had lost its original architectural form and was now in the shape of a colossal humanoid statue.
The main body of the church, the largest single structure—the chapel—became the body. The arched dome atop the chapel served as the head, while the long corridors and side halls formed the arms and legs. Thick stone columns became fingers, and exquisite sculptures adorned every part of the body.
Under the power of Gray Hill Audric, a quasi-member of the White Stone Craftsmen Guild’s Golden Triad and a remnant of the Golden Tier, the Mirror Moon Church from a thousand years ago was transformed into a statue, taking on a new form in the world. As the Mirror Moon Statue slowly descended from the sky, its massive body landed steadily on the calm lake surface. With the aid of some mysterious force, it stood on the water without sinking.
“Are you kidding me… This church of the Moon b*tch has turned into a human form!? What extraordinary ability is this!”
Gethsmoor stared wide-eyed at the transformed Mirror Moon Statue, unable to believe what she saw. She had never witnessed such an extraordinary ability before.
“This ability… likely originates from the temple itself. It could be one of the autonomous extraordinary systems of the temple. Perhaps when the temple was built a thousand years ago, the ‘Stone’ craftsmen hired were exceptionally strong, endowing this church with this outrageous functionality!
“The alert faction of Pritt had previously manipulated the temple’s manifestation, proving they had some control over it. Now, they might have delved deeper into this control, triggering other powerful functions within the temple!”
Beside Gethsmoor, Ed also spoke solemnly, analyzing the sudden situation. In his view, the situation was largely still the work of the upper echelons of the alert faction of Pritt.
“Hmph, so it’s them again? If that’s the case, then let me take them out right now! Given they can transform this church into such a form, they must be inside!”
Hearing Ed’s words, Gethsmoor snorted coldly and spread her large bat-like wings behind her. With a flap of her wings, she shot forward like an arrow toward the distant church. Ed followed suit, releasing his wings and joining the attack on the distant statue.
“bl**d Darkness Path, Red Tier… Thorn Duke, I’ve heard of him before. Let me see this now…” Standing atop the bell tower of the Mirror Moon Statue, Audric silently watched the two figures rushing towards him and muttered. Then, he began to manipulate the giant statue to counterattack.
Under the moonlight, the dozens-of-meters-tall Mirror Moon Statue clenched its right fist and swung a punch from the side toward Gethsmoor and company at high speed. The two from Eight-pointed dodged swiftly, narrowly avoiding the massive fist that would have crushed them. The giant fist swept past, creating a fierce storm that momentarily destabilized Eight-pointed.
“That’s fast!”
“How can something this big move so quickly!?”
Just as Eight-pointed marveled at the statue’s surprising speed despite its size, the attacks didn’t cease. After missing with the first punch, the Mirror Moon Statue used the momentum from the swing to spin in place and then kicked upward at a unit the size of a fly compared to it.
This kick was incredibly fast, even faster than the previous punch. Eight-pointed barely had time to react. Ultimately, Gethsmoor managed to dodge the kick with her superior speed, while Ed, seeing he couldn’t escape, turned himself into bl**d mist, allowing the statue’s powerful leg to hit him and disperse him into bl**d mist.
“Are you kidding? Such a huge thing, yet so agile!”
Watching this scene, Gethsmoor couldn’t help but think in astonishment. The Mirror Moon Statue was nearly fifty to sixty meters tall, and such a massive construct should be slow and unresponsive. Yet, its performance was astonishingly swift and quick, making even the two Red Tier “Shadows” of Eight-pointed struggle to keep up.
Gethsmoor had seen agile large creatures before, but nothing like this. It was hard to imagine such agility in a creature of this size.
“This… is the speed of the ‘Shadow’ ritual field at the temple level, manifesting through a statue. Truly astonishing. It even rivals and suppresses Red Tier ‘Shadows’…”
Standing atop the statue’s bell tower, Audric continued to observe, hand behind his back, commenting on the battle. This was his first time seeing a “Shadow” ritual field transformed into a statue, and the results exceeded his expectations.
“Now, let’s test some other abilities…”
Audric shifted his gaze, looking toward the bl**d mist dispersing in the air. Ed, who had been kicked into bl**d mist, was now reassembling. Seeing this, Audric made the Mirror Moon Statue extend its hand toward the bl**d mist and, under his control, a whirlwind suddenly arose in front of the statue’s palm.
A tornado, a swirling vortex, formed abruptly in front of the statue’s hand, rapidly intensifying. This tornado did not spread outward but instead condensed into a sphere, swirling violently within a limited space, forming a massive vortex ball.
All the bl**d mist comprising Ed was immediately engulfed by the violent airflow within the vortex ball. The bl**d mist, which had begun to coalesce back into its original form, was blown apart by the strong wind, unable to gather again. The vortex ball trapped Ed’s bl**d mist within its confines, preventing it from either gathering or dispersing. Ed was left to be drained within this wind prison. Over time, the bl**d mist constituting his body would be blown thinner and more diffuse by the spiritual wind. If it thinned beyond a certain point, Ed would lose control over it, meaning he would be exhausted to d*ath if he didn’t find a way to escape soon.
The creation of a battlefield-level statue was a facet of Audric’s ability as a remnant Golden Tier golem master. Such statues inherited different abilities based on the nature of the original ritual field’s extraordinary defense system, even retaining some of the original system’s functionalities.
For instance, the Mirror Moon Statue made from the Mirror Moon Temple possessed exaggerated speed and agility for its size due to the “Shadow” attribute of the temple’s extraordinary defense system. Additionally, the ability to manipulate wind was inherent to the temple’s original extraordinary defense system. Of course, the Mirror Moon Temple’s extraordinary defense system wasn’t limited to wind control, but as a “Stone” extraordinary being, Audric found manipulating elements other than wind challenging, rendering them less effective in the current scenario.
Upon their first engagement, Audric’s Mirror Moon Statue directly trapped one of Eight-pointed’s Red Tiers and began to gradually wear him down. Faced with this disadvantage, Gethsmoor gritted her teeth. After glancing at the distant wind prison, she charged straight at the Mirror Moon Statue. Seeing this, Audric maintained the storm trapping Ed with one hand while dealing with Gethsmoor with the other.
The Mirror Moon Statue first released a barrage of wind blades like rain toward Gethsmoor and then clenched its right fist to strike her. Gethsmoor charged through the storm of wind blades without stopping, despite numerous wounds. When the statue’s fist came at her again at high speed, she barely dodged and spun to unleash a flurry of bl**d thorns at the statue’s arm, but only managed to create small dents without affecting the statue significantly. The statue retaliated, forcing Gethsmoor to dodge urgently once more.
Thorn Duke, at the bl**d Darkness Path Red Tier, could turn his bl**d mist into intangible reconnaissance and infiltration capabilities, capable of transforming into various weaponry. Any organism struck by these bl**d mist weapons would suffer excruciating pain, even from the tiniest cut. The pain inflicted by Thorn Duke’s bl**d mist weapons could be amplified hundreds of times, incapacitating even elephants or giant sea beasts. However, this ability was ineffective against beings without pain receptors, like the Mirror Moon Statue, which was immune to it.
With the bl**d mist weapon’s effects negated and the wind element limiting her use of bl**d mist, Gethsmoor’s agility offered no clear advantage in her confrontation with the Mirror Moon Statue. Gethsmoor, determined not to be defeated passively, made a bold decision.
Facing another punch from the Mirror Moon Statue, Gethsmoor chose not to fully evade but instead allowed herself to be hit by the statue’s corner. Instantly, her body shattered into pieces, which immediately transformed into several large bats flying toward the statue’s arm. Audric summoned a strong wind to blow away the bats, but Gethsmoor had transformed into large, numerous bats resistant to storms. Using her bat forms, she flew to the statue’s arm and successfully climbed aboard.
Gethsmoor didn’t waste any time and dashed up the statue’s arm toward its body, her target clear: to enter the Mirror Moon Statue and eliminate the operator!
Once an ant climbs onto a giant, it becomes difficult to deal with. To prevent Gethsmoor from entering the statue, Audric stirred up a storm on the arm to try and blow her off. However, Gethsmoor used her immense strength to punch through the statue’s arm, fixing herself in place like a climbing axe, making it impossible to blow her away.
Seeing this, Audric used his other hand, which was restraining Ed, to release the storm and strike at Gethsmoor on the arm. He tried to swat her away like a fly. Gethsmoor immediately detached from the arm, spreading her wings and flying into the night sky toward Ed, who had just regained his form.
Facing her freed companion, Gethsmoor shouted in command:
“Arm me, Ed!”
…
While the battle over Twinkling Star Lake raged on, inside the rapidly maneuvering Mirror Moon Statue, within the chapel section of its body, there were various interlocking stone rings and a giant stone gyroscope. At the center of the gyroscope was a stable sphere.
Inside this spherical space stood the towering Mirror Moon Goddess—or rather, the Akasha statue. In front of the statue was a ritual field. Dorothy sat with focused eyes closed in the center of the ritual field, holding her most familiar extraordinary item, “Navigation of the Literary Sea.”
