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Saer de, wielding the "Scepter of the Sun," did not rush to attack. Instead, he fully deployed his Divine Arts formation. Holy light flowed everywhere, dragging the battlefield into another plane of space. With the home-field advantage, he naturally had no intention of letting a possible battle between two Legends destroy the city.
At the same time, he deflected the question with a smile: "As for Lake Elsinoe and Her Highness the Princess, there is no need for Your Excellency Tivertis to worry. Naturally, someone is handling it on behalf of this old man, so that I may patiently await your escape from the seal."
"Who?" Tivertis detected a hint of something unusual in Saer de's tone. At the same time, its "Aura of Frostdeath" expanded outward, easily blocking the Divine Arts formation. However, it did not see any other Cardinals or Commander of the Church Knight Order appear, and so it arrived at a possibility. "Yalolan? Hathaway? Saer de, you actually cooperated with the Grand Archanist! You actually helped her return early from the outer planes?!"
Saer de's smile was warm and amiable: "There are no eternal friends, nor eternal enemies."
He sighed lightly and continued: "Only the Lord's glory is eternal. For the sake of the Lord's kingdom on earth, cooperating temporarily with magicians is not something inconceivable. Your Excellency Tivertis, I am very interested in what you and Your Excellency Apysis know about the Legend mages like Muskin and the secrets of that 'Dead Spirit World.'"
"Ha ha, humans are truly greedy. No wonder you learned of my plan and yet didn't have the Pope or the other Cardinals come through the teleportation array." Tivertis's pale horse-face laughed so hard it rocked back and forth. "Do you really think you alone and Altor's Divine Arts formation can withstand my true body's descent? If Hathaway were here, that might be a different story! I'm sure you didn't tell her that secret."
Though teleportation in the Primary Material World was difficult, a place as important as the City of Sacred Hymns certainly had a bidirectional teleportation array connected to the Holy City of Lands.
Saer de paid no heed to Tivertis's mockery, as gentle as a kindly grandfather: "I am not the only one who wants to know."
The crisp, sharp sound of leather shoes echoed from behind Tivertis. Midair, dressed in a black shirt and red coat, Rhein walked as though strolling upon solid ground.
"A small vampire who hasn't even reached the realm of Legend dares to meddle in such matters." The Silver White Lord Tivertis sneered with contempt.
Behind Rhein, two pairs of enormous black bat wings unfurled, casting half of Altor in shadow. The dark, sinister aura blended impossibly well with the sacred, pristine holy light, yet his eyes remained as beautiful as silver moons — not the bloody crimson of other vampires. "It's been so many years, Tivertis. It seems you've forgotten me. I hope you won't be so forgetful in the future."
"The Observer, the Silver-Eyed Count." Tivertis recognized him from those seemingly unchanging eyes, and his demeanor turned serious. Though his true body had descended, he had only just been freed from the seal and might not be able to handle two Legends plus Altor's meticulously arranged Divine Arts formation.
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Above Lake Elsinoe, the Cardinals, Golden Knights, and Night Watch members who had surrounded the enemy had not yet struck. They simply watched warily as Ilya and the black-robed monster coalesced from that blood-red liquid.
And before them, two figures stood in the void.
The man had brown hair and deep blue eyes, and wore black arcane robes. He was none other than "Rogério," whom Lucian had seen before — the same "Rogério" who, together with another Sky Knight, had cornered Camille!
His expression at this moment was utterly indifferent.
The woman was beautiful and elegant, with a striking pair of silver-gray eyes. She wore deep violet arcane robes and, expressionless, pointed at the bewildered Ilya, the Silver White Horn priests, and the Dark Knights. Two brief, arcane-laden words left her lips:
"Elemental Disintegration."
Without a sound, Ilya — a seventh-rank Grand Priest — felt his body splitting into all manner of strange substances: black solids, billowing gases, flickers of sickly green phosphorescence, and pungent sulfur. Even the evil power he had accumulated was undergoing irreversible decomposition.
As the voice — neither Common Language nor any ancient tongue — fell silent, a seventh-rank Grand Priest, six priests, twelve clerics, and the Dark Knights all vanished on the spot. Apart from some solid residue, everything else had dissolved into tiny, multicolored motes of light that drifted and diffused into the air.
The black-robed monster was also disintegrating into red, black, white, and gray points of light — but those motes did not vanish. Instead, they returned and coalesced back into its body.
"Apysis, return to your Wasteland of Bones." The silver-gray-eyed lady spoke with brevity, and before the black-robed monster, a phantom door suddenly materialized — as if crafted from black velvet embedded with countless diamonds.
The black-robed monster cast one long look at the woman opposite, weighed its current condition after being sealed for so many years, and stepped forward through the door.
Lake Elsinoe returned to calm. In the town of Borne, the vast majority of adventurers had perished, though the townsfolk were considerably better off, for they had been asleep during the earlier events and had not yet been turned into undead. By the time the undead began killing, the Church had already arrived.
"You may leave." The lady who had banished the black-robed monster spoke to the surrounding powerhouses as though issuing orders to her own subordinates.
Amarton, Hayward, Lafati, and the others did not protest. They silently turned and headed back toward Altor. Though they had no idea why she had appeared here, the fact that they hadn't been disintegrated along with everything else was the Lord's blessing. The bishops of the Church of the God of Truth had been especially terrified — under normal circumstances, she would have been the enemy.
On the ground, the Night Watch members glanced up at the lady, committing her appearance to memory. This was the sixteenth-ranked Grand Archanist on the Purification List — the "Elemental Dominator," Yalolan Hathaway.
Once the Church and the Duchy's forces had departed, the indifferent-faced Rogério stepped before Hathaway and demanded, angry yet controlled: "Your Excellency Grand Archanist, this was a decision passed by the Council's Supreme Review Body. How can you violate it?"
Hathaway's silver-gray eyes glanced coldly at Rogério. "A decision I did not agree to is, as far as I am concerned, nothing but a scrap of waste paper."
"Your Excellency Grand Archanist…" Rogério attempted to argue on principle.