Chapter 297: Devil
Compared to the Xuanhua Stage of the Spirit Hub System, the advancement for Super-class Mages was far more arduous. To this day, only the two of them in the Luminous Holy Church had succeeded.
Chris Ding excelled at enchantment spells. She possessed a natural talent for this type of mind-control magic, but it was utterly meaningless against Gondor's unshakeable will. Thus, she had no choice but to engage him with other spells.
After their initial probes, the two powerhouses gradually escalated the intensity of their battle. Disregarding the fierce fighting below, they each used levitation spells to ascend thousands of meters into the sky, to avoid inadvertently destroying the entire ancient city of Florence.
In reality, the battle of their subordinates was irrelevant to the larger picture; the true determinants of victory were the two of them. Initially, Chris Ding even intended to challenge Gondor one-on-one, directly deciding the new leader.
It was only after Wu Zhi remarked, "If you don't even involve your most loyal subordinates in a rebellion, what do you think they'll make of it?" that she changed her mind. If their leader didn't even include them in a rebellion, then what kind of "confidant" were they truly? Would they still be willing to risk their lives for such a person in the future?
The entire Luminous Holy Church boasted three individuals with five-tier combat strength: Pope Gondor, Saintess Chris Ding, and Knight Commander Richard.
As for the conflict between the two, Richard, who was inspecting the borders of the newly occupied territories, had no intention of interfering. Compared to such trivial matters, he preferred to dedicate his efforts to aiding the refugees from the former Maysuo.
Leading his knights, he sought to help those poor, tormented souls, guiding them towards true faith. He found this task far more meaningful than any struggle for power.
Once in the high heavens, the two, now unhindered, unleashed their terrifying destructive power for the first time.
Then, he removed the black glove from his left hand, revealing a pale palm wreathed in red light, the tips of his five fingers subtly deforming.
With his right hand, he wielded the staff, each swing cleaving through a swarm of charging rune-beasts dozens of meters away. His left hand, meanwhile, alternated shooting crimson light from his fingertips, causing the very air to violently tremble in its wake.
The crimson light was, in essence, the manifestation of particles accelerated to near-light speed by the immense magical power within Gondor. Even with their infinitesimally small rest mass, at near-light velocities, they possessed an incredibly vast kinetic energy. The power contained within each beam of light could effortlessly blast a one-meter radius hole through a modern concrete wall.
Furthermore, these particles, moving at over one-tenth the speed of light, surpassed any human reaction time; they were virtually guaranteed to hit once aimed.
Their only drawback was that each aiming sequence required nearly half a second of preparation time. This might not be a flaw for ordinary individuals, but for experts of the same caliber, half a second was more than enough time to accomplish a myriad of things.
Having spent many years with Gondor, Chris Ding naturally understood his standard tactics and had long since devised countermeasures. Under Wu Zhi's guidance, she mimicked the cultivators of the Eastern Xuanhua Stage, using her shapeshifting runes to create an amorphous, gigantic rune-creature that covered her like a mecha, serving to defend against any attacks she couldn't parry in time.
Thus, Gondor discovered that his high-energy particle stream, firing over a hundred rounds per minute from his left hand, did not inflict any damage to Chris Ding's main body, merely continuously dismantling the rune-creature meat shields she summoned.
"Gondor, you're getting old. Even your attacks are so feeble. Hand the Church over to me,"
Chris Ding said, simultaneously directing hundreds of rune-creatures to charge at her opponent. Without mass, existing in a semi-illusory, semi-real state, they surged forward from all six directions—front, back, left, right, up, and down—treading on air.
These mutated beasts, outlined by runes, not only possessed terrifying strength but also could unleash simple magic. Under Chris Ding's unified command, hundreds of multi-colored energy masses, each representing a different attribute, caused the entire sky to lose its color.
Yet, facing such a spectacle, Gondor remained unhurried. He closed his eyes, pulled out a Bible from his pocket, touched its cover, and then silently uttered a phrase.
"God said, 'Let there be light.'"
Before his words fully faded, his entire body began to emit a faint light. As he cast his spell, the light's intensity rapidly grew, his body now like the lampshade of a desk lamp, the radiance emanating from within illuminating him completely.
Rune-beasts, lacking self-awareness, naturally had no concept of fear. They continued to charge from all directions towards the massive sphere of light at the center, following their instructions.
But like moths drawn to a flame, whether it was the spell attacks previously unleashed by the beasts or the beasts themselves, exposed to the increasingly intense and ultimately all-consuming light, they all met the sole fate of annihilation, leaving not a trace.
"And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness."
Gondor continued to chant silently, his right hand, grasping the staff, swept across the sky. Then, Chris Ding found that the area around her gradually plunged into darkness, despite it clearly being daytime.
No matter where she fled, the darkness followed her like a shadow, as if her entire being was sealed by it. Daylight, representing light, was just within reach, yet she could never touch it.
The light reflecting off her grew scarcer, and to the naked eye, it appeared as if she was being continuously swallowed by a cage-like darkness...
"You've come this far, and you still can't bring yourself to kill her?" A pulse emanated from the gem in his pocket.
"'It's not her fault; it's the devil on her,' Gondor replied. He had noticed that the seal he'd placed on the gem had broken early in the battle, but he hadn't had time to re-fortify it."
"'Devil? Can holy men even be possessed by devils?'"
"'I sensed something amiss eight years ago. Her divine magic talent was too extraordinary, so I had to investigate personally. It turned out that child, Chris Ding, had actually picked up a bracelet containing an otherworldly devil.'"
Gondor wasn't worried about Bai Mo harboring other intentions. He might not be able to defeat Bai Mo elsewhere, but at least within the Church's headquarters, he had spent countless manpower and resources to deploy a grand defensive array fueled by the faith power of 800 million people. All infidels and heretics here would be no match for him.
Unfortunately, this grand array was only effective against those who did not believe in the Luminous Holy Church, rendering it utterly useless in the current internal strife. Of course, it was precisely because Chris Ding knew the array wouldn't affect her that she dared to instigate a rebellion within the Papal Palace.
"'Choosing to burn your life to cast a sealing spell is far less sensible than making a deal with me.' Bai Mo's will, residing within the gem, observed Gondor developing a few strands of silver hair after casting this light-and-dark sealing spell."
"'Impossible.'"
"'I'll wait and see.'"
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