Chapter 300: The Choice
Originally, according to the plan, after the witch's sword heavily wounded Gang Duo, Chris Ding would certainly have been able to deal with him. But she never expected this enemy, who was thousands of miles away, to suddenly appear in Florence and disrupt everything, completely shattering her plans.
Although the European Union and the Luminous Holy Church were secretly hostile towards each other, they hadn't openly declared war, so their high-level powerhouses couldn't personally participate in this rebellion.
This was because most of the citizens and even soldiers within the Union were also adherents of the Luminous Holy Church, and open hostility would greatly impact stability in various regions.
But the current internal strife was different. The Union's officially controlled media could extensively report on the situation, allowing more people to understand the chaotic factional struggles within the Luminous Holy Church, thereby subtly weakening their piety.
"I can randomly teleport you a hundred kilometers, but after that, everything will be up to you. After teleporting, I'll need to sleep for at least three months. I just hope I don't wake up in that madman's hands."
Ever since Wu Zhi first met Bai Mo ten years ago, she had recognized his cold and ruthless nature. At that time, she had already warned Chris Ding not to play with fire, but Chris Ding, brimming with confidence in her own charm, had not heeded the advice, leading to the subsequent events.
"It's not the last moment yet! The power of his avatar isn't that strong. I want to give it one more try!" She felt that the severely wounded Gang Duo surely couldn't unleash his previous sealing divine art anymore, and his power must have been greatly weakened. The real enemy she had to face was actually only this avatar that had traversed thousands of miles.
As for the witch, she didn't believe an exposed assassin could harm her when she was on guard.
"Leave the bracelet, and I won't interfere in your affairs anymore." However, Bai Mo's single sentence instantly sowed a seed of suspicion between the human and the soul, who had once shared the closest bond.
Upon hearing this, Chris Ding hesitated for a moment. If the other party truly kept his word, then she, free from restraint, could indeed easily defeat Gang Duo and seize leadership of the Luminous Holy Church.
But the crucial question was, how likely was he to keep his promise?
Wu Zhi, within the bracelet, also remained silent. If Chris Ding truly chose to abandon her, she would activate her own teleportation, appearing randomly at a point five hundred kilometers away. This would mean abandoning ten years of investment, and then spending another twenty or thirty years to accomplish her own goals.
She also had a mission hidden deep within her memories: the bracelet she possessed must absolutely not fall into that monster's hands, allowing him to obtain intelligence about her mission.
"No!" She flatly rejected Bai Mo. As an orphan with no family, asking her to abandon what could be called her only kin, the soul that had helped her get to where she was today, was something Chris Ding simply couldn't do emotionally.
Furthermore, on a deeper level, the bracelet could still perform random teleportation at the last moment, which was absolutely her ultimate trump card for survival. If Bai Mo didn't keep his promise after taking the bracelet and still ganged up with Gang Duo to deal with her, she might not even have a last escape route.
Heavy-hearted, the human and the soul ultimately did not turn on each other despite the provocation, deciding instead to face the current crisis together.
"What's the point in all this?" Seeing the negotiations fail, Bai Mo's avatar began to unleash his true power.
He effortlessly unleashed over a dozen Spirit Arts within half a second, including mental-type spells like Slowdown, Soul Scream, Information Bombardment, Delusion, and Soul Storm, as well as elemental-type spells like Flame Lock, Air Cannon, and a host of other auxiliary and primary attack Spirit Arts.
A large portion of these had been created and popularized by him, so with Bai Mo's familiarity, he could use these universal Spirit Arts almost without thinking.
"An All-Element Mage?" Gang Duo, who had chosen to recover his injuries with light-element divine arts instead of joining forces against Chris Ding, watched Bai Mo instantaneously cast spells belonging to four or five different elements simultaneously and suddenly had this strange thought.
Naturally, he wouldn't join the other party in attacking Chris Ding. His immediate priority was to heal the wounds on his hands and chest. Only with sufficient power could he gain the greatest leverage in this interaction, which was both a battle and a game of strategy.
As for the white-haired witch who had struck him with a sword, Gang Duo decided to deal with that group of professional assassins later. The one before him was merely a clone; reducing it to ashes held little meaning.
Facing a torrent of over thirty different types of spells unleashed every second, Chris Ding could only struggle to resist with the rune beasts she had conjured.
She had originally thought that being able to create over ten rune creatures within a second was the pinnacle of casting speed; with just a few seconds, a small beast tide could wear her enemies down.
Earlier, if not for Gang Duo directly using a great divine art that burned his lifespan, she was confident she could have suppressed him with a tide of creatures, then slowly gnawed away at him until ultimate victory.
For mobile artillery platforms like them, mana had never been a concern, and rune creatures capable of following simple programmed commands greatly reduced her mental energy consumption for control, making them Chris Ding's preferred choice.
She just hadn't expected that someone else could cast spells faster than her, even managing to suppress her beast tide in return.
Bai Mo, already approaching the Thousand-Thoughts level, currently had nearly fifty thoughts focused on this avatar. This was the fundamental reason he could instantaneously cast over a dozen Spirit Arts at once.
Unfortunately, even after Ying Huo's previous thought optimization, this avatar was still too fragile. He didn't dare to stack more power onto it, fearing that excessive Spirit Energy output would cause the avatar to self-destruct. At a distance of over eight thousand kilometers, his next batch of arriving clones would still need several hours to fly.
Although Bai Mo didn't possess the ability to communicate with the sea of primal force at will like a Super-class Mage, the avatar he had manifested through the rune array still held a remarkably vast reserve of Spirit Energy, enough for half an hour of full-power output.
Prolonged defense inevitably leads to a breach. Chris Ding, suppressed to the point where she was almost entirely on the defensive, had already been hit by several mental-type Spirit Arts in quick succession. Compared to tangible elemental Spirit Arts, these invisible and colorless attacks were far harder to detect and defend against. Even her Life Field could only counteract a portion of their effects; the rest still impacted her body.
She could only endure the severe headache and dizziness, directing her rune creatures to launch a difficult counter-attack.
This was also the greatest weakness of super artillery platforms: once the opponent's output speed was fiercer than their own, they could easily fall into a disadvantaged state, as the speed at which they cast protective spells couldn't keep up with the opponent's rate of breaking through defenses.
While cultivators at the Xuanhua Stage had comparatively weaker output and concerns about exhausting their Spirit Energy, their extremely thick Xuanhua layer could protect them, allowing them to endure for a very long time against enemies without overwhelming advantages.
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