Chapter 78: The Tsunami of Chaos (Part 2)
The rain fell in torrents, drenching the ground already ablaze with infernal flames, emitting a harsh “hiss hiss hiss.”
In front of me, the collapsed earthen wall glowed a fierce red, with stones melting into a scorching sludge. Steam and heat waves like a mist suddenly enveloped the area, followed by a loud “splash” as a burning hand stretched out from the molten rock, resembling a demon’s skeletal claw.
“…Wow…strong.”
The fiery claw clawed and waved around, grasping a half-melted stone nearby. With a hefty tug, it pulled a growing head and a small part of a shoulder out of the blazing magma. Its crooked mouth gaped as it spoke in a raspy, eerie voice.
“You… are not your average… Pope Knight. You’re incredibly strong… ah… it hurts, it hurts…”
The heretic bowed his head, rainwater trickling into his unhealed skull, only to be evaporated by the flames. His bloody, mangled face began to regenerate at lightning speed. He wrenched half of his body from the scorched sludge, his twisted chest writhing as if swarming with countless insects, the dark red flames flowing like bl**d beneath his exposed ribs.
“Who are you, who are you… from the First Knights Order, right? Ah, that’s it, you must be from the First Knights Order…”
The heretic raised his head, one eye regenerating under the flames, spinning wildly, then fixed on Isaac, curling his lips into a manic grin: “Oh no, I’m getting excited…”
But Isaac ignored him and turned to me, asking, “That’s the third phase, are you up for it?”
I shot him a glance.
Wow, am I getting a bit underestimated here…
“Judgment Fist, obey! Form up into a corner cavalry formation!”
“Sin Barrier, Holy Lance ready—”
“Captain, Lord Isaac… it seems like we’ve already won?”
From the mist of rain not far away, accompanied by a flurry of hooves, the knights appeared to be encircling the area. I looked up at Isaac and said, “Take them and keep your distance.”
But the bald head shook in refusal: “No, little one, let me handle this. Just watch from the sidelines.”
As he spoke, he raised his hand to crack his neck and spun his thick neck around with a loud “crack, crack” sound.
“To be honest, that last fight was pretty unsatisfying; I didn’t even get a chance to draw my sword…” His goofy smile twisted into a wicked grin, and he took a step forward, “I’ve been stuck in the Holy City too long; it’s stifling… Plus, I have some questions for him. Little one, you stay here—”
Ugh, no time for your rambling…
Before Isaac could finish, he barely took a step forward. With his fists clenched, his fighting spirit surged, and golden light burst around him. However, in the next moment, I raised my foot.
The black little leather boot, its toe shining from the rain, quickly wiped past my head; first gently, then with a forceful push against the giant man’s side.
“Get lost!”
“Wait, what—”
Isaac didn’t expect it and wasn’t prepared, his massive body bending at a near 45-degree angle as he let out a muffled grunt, soaring like a cannonball towards the knights.
I did hold back a bit…
But that kick sent him flying far enough…
At that moment, from the corner of my vision, the heretic, wrapped in infernal flames, stood up from the flowing scarlet sludge. His body and face were still squirming, but his head had reshaped, his new skin rapidly forming over the dark red flesh.
“Ha ha…”
In the intense flames, the demon twisted its body, repairing broken, misaligned bones, chuckling eerily.
So gross…
“Ah—”
I watched the demon reborn in the inferno, exhaling deeply.
Once, in the cellar of Cataloma, I had seen a similar scene.
Thoughts of Sister Teresa and the children she had killed—Lucas, Abe—flooded my mind…
I thought of them.
Those children displaced by disasters and misfortunes, just like the villagers here suffering from floods, all ultimately meeting their demise.
They struggled and fought for their lives, yet never saw much hope before they fell to such demons.
“You…”
And that demon, now wrapped in flames, stepped out of the magma.
“Is just a little girl, ha ha… a Pope Knight?”
Boom—
In the biting rain and thunder, the demon’s long gray-white hair swirled in the flames, its grinning face lit up ghastly pale by flashes of lightning.
“Upon closer inspection, you seem quite beautiful… little girl, you’re so pretty… but why aren’t you afraid of d*ath?”
“Heh.”
I chuckled softly.
Clang—
I tightened my grip on the scythe.
Using the words of the Frost Order…
That might be a bit exaggerated, right?
“It’s okay… it’s okay. Mr. J likes little girls like you, so I won’t k*ll you—I’ll break your two legs… and after I k*ll that Pope Knight, you’ll come with me to meet Mr. J… he’ll like you, ah ha ha ha—”
Boom!
The infernal flames roared from the demon, igniting large patches of grass and the houses behind it.
“He’ll reward me—”
He laughed maniacally, suddenly charging at me.
The next moment, dazzling blue light erupted from my body. The once blistering air around me cooled instantly, with ice crystals and frost mist swirling at my feet like a whirlwind.
Crack!
I grasped the air with my left hand, and a radiant icy scythe formed instantly.
Compress, compress, compress…
The vast power of Order surged within me, rapidly channeling into the blade’s edge. The ferocious wind pressure made my skirt flutter, and the burning inferno nearby extinguished in an instant, white frost expanding quickly from beneath me, covering the ground in silver.
The heretic ahead suddenly slowed his steps.
The flames on him flickered wildly in the gale of cold that swirled around, and his previously grinning face turned to shock, “You…”
In the next moment, I swung the scythe forward.
Boom boom boom boom—
The thunderous sound was no longer the crisp, dull thud of compressed ice, but the earth-shaking crash like an avalanche.
In that instant, terrifying ice explosions and unprecedented frost erupted in front of me, sweeping away the blazing inferno, extinguishing the lava, and shattering the half-melted wall that the heretic had burnt.
The demon attacking me harbored no chance against such a terrifying chill, being swept away like a light piece of paper, “whoosh,” flying off while the shockwave expanded, tearing apart rows of houses, sending countless debris—wooden stakes and stones—soaring into the sky.
In my line of sight, this shocking scene unfolded in slow motion.
The dreadful destructive force spread outward like a trumpet, freezing everything in sight—the grass, the puddles, the muddy ground—all encased in ice, the thunderous roar still echoing away in my ears as the rain slowed, with ruined stone and wood wrapped in frost falling like raindrops.
In the next instant, massive ice spikes shot up from the ground, covering the sky, curling sharp talons that stabbed into the air, stretching thirty, even forty meters high, rooting to the earth below. From afar, they looked like ten-meter-diameter sharp little mountains, causing greater second waves of catastrophic destruction in a formation reminiscent of “Blade Mountain”, extending a hundred meters ahead into the areas I couldn’t see.
The ground beneath me still trembled.
The scythe in my hand shattered into a pile of ice shards.
I brushed off the icy debris from my hands, tore at my stiff skirt a few times to shake off the frost, lightly touched my chest, and tiptoed to peer through the crevices between the blades… um, couldn’t see anything.
I might have gone a bit overboard…
I hope I didn’t k*ll him outright…
Tap, tap, tap tap tap…
Raindrops turned to hail, pelting down on me.
This time, it was nearly a true full-force blow.
To be honest…
I was a bit scared of myself.
When I practiced in the Woods outside the Royal City, I never dared to unleash my full potential like this, nor did I think that this full strike of mine… could reach such a magnitude; and this was just the power of the Frost Order…
What about the other two?
That thought flashed briefly in my mind before being cast aside. My left hand gleamed with blue light again, and an ice pillar thrust up beneath my feet, propelling me into the sky as I looked down.
Below was a hazy mist of ice, countless huge, sharp ice blades extending from my feet into the village, almost destroying half of it. Through the icy fog, I could vaguely see the ruins of houses between the blades.
“Oh my god…”
“Miss Silvya… such power…”
The knights in the distance seemed to shout.
In the chilly wind, I couldn’t hear them clearly, just finding it noisy.
What about the heretic…
Suddenly, I spotted that flickering ember amidst the frost, just a few dozen meters away among the blades—an intermittent flash of scarlet, like a candle flickering in the icy wind.
Over there…
Still not dead.
I leaped off the ice pillar, stepping across the icy platforms forming beneath my feet, quickly advancing toward that faint glow, and as I got closer, I heard the heretic roaring like a wild beast.
“Ugh… ah ah ah—”
“Pope Knight—!”
His chest was pierced through by a massive ice blade, and he was skewered like a piece of meat, bl**d burning with fire trickling down the ice, “hiss hiss hiss,” steaming as his body endured the torture of alternating searing heat and frost, the cold ice forming, then melting in the flames, only to reform again.
I tossed Captain Gray, who landed with a snap on the nearest ice spike, stepping onto the last remaining ice platform, spreading my arms, gently leaping, landing precariously on the dark blade, arms extended, wobbling a bit before steadying.
“Who are you! Who are you!”
A few meters away, the skewered heretic had his twisted face turned toward me.
“Who are you really—”
He struggled with all his might, hoarse voice screaming out.
But it was utterly useless; the freezing cold made his body stiffen, his movements slow as he fought to escape the massive ice spike protruding from his chest.
It seemed the heretic quickly realized that; before long, he calmed down.
I kept staring at him, locking eyes with his bl**d-red gaze, and noticing he finally stopped screaming, I gently asked, “So… you killed the people in this village, right?”
