Chapter 739: The First Head

Chapter 739: The First Head

“Then what a pity, Minister Karen. Do you know that your head has already been reserved by us, haha.”

“Oh, is that so?” Karen smiled faintly. “It is my honor.”

Sometimes, people deliberately perform completely meaningless actions just to display their own uniqueness and superiority.

For example, spending time talking nonsense right before a battle where life and death would likely be decided.

However, during this interval, Demetri had arranged a curtain of night in the air, beneath which the followers of the Goddess of the Night could receive a tremendous blessing.

Karen, on the other hand, had laid down three layers of disposable formations beneath the sand. Beneath the sand dune where he had previously been sitting lay the core of the formation; the greatsword thrust into the sand served a purpose akin to a paperweight while the formation was being set.

On the surface, the two were speaking words that almost bordered on flirtatious banter, but in secret, neither had stopped making preparations to kill the other.

“Eternal Night—Shadow Guard!”

Accompanying Demetri’s chant, a beam of shadow that formed a distinct contrast with the surrounding environment enveloped her, then slowly parted to both sides. Soon, at her flanks, two identical versions of herself appeared.

“Eternal Night—Dawn Strangle!”

As the second spell was chanted, the two identical Demetris beside her performed the exact same chant.

“Hum!”

A black wheel appeared before Demetri’s chest. Once it cracked open, it turned into a splash of black ink that splattered directly onto her body. The blackness spread rapidly, forming a suit of pitch-black armor upon her.

After casting two spells in succession, Demetri cast her gaze upon Karen. She was somewhat surprised, because she had originally thought Karen would launch a surprise attack on her while she was preparing her spells, but he had not.

The handsome young man before her, who was even younger than herself, just stood there quietly, completely unmoved by her spell preparations.

Demetri cast a spell once more:

“Eternal Night—Dawn’s Roar!”

“Ah!!!”

A piercing, shrill shriek rang out, and a woman with disheveled hair emerged from Demetri’s own body, gradually floating upward.

Soon, above Demetri’s head, the woman floated there entirely, her feet pressed together, her arms lightly raised. Her messy hair seemed to possess a certain special rhythm, drifting like seaweed, while her eyes revealed a chaotic, ashen white.

“Haha.”

Karen smiled. This smile was not meant to deliberately display contempt; rather, this girl’s combat habits were very similar to his former self.

Shadow Guard was a blessing spell. The two clones it formed could help the original cast spells more quickly and efficiently, and likely possessed other abilities as well.

Dawn Strangle was a high-level defensive spell of the Church of the Night. That suit of armor not only possessed extremely high physical defense but could also greatly weaken the impact of various negative attributes.

Dawn’s Roar provided a spiritual blessing, capable of launching spiritual attacks and also helping to ward off spiritual offensives.

Neo had once teased him that every time he fought, he was accustomed to wrapping himself in one layer of turtle shell after another. She was exactly the same.

However, Karen’s smile was absolute provocation in Demetri’s eyes, yet she did not break her rhythm because of it. Instead, she extended both hands forward and began to press downward.

The color of the sky above grew deeper and deeper, and it also became lower and lower, like a collapsing canopy.

Karen spread both of his palms upward. He did not chant, appearing completely unprepared to an outsider, but the spell took shape directly.

The reason lay in the fact that Karen’s soul attribute was far too resilient. The early chanting of the vast majority of spells was to lay the groundwork and make preparations; forcibly and rapidly triggering them would cause the soul to suffer a backlash. Yet Karen basically had no need to worry about such things. Speaking of backlash, what could possibly compare to the sculpture of the Hungry Addiction residing deep within his own soul?

If there really were something that could destroy that sculpture of the Hungry Addiction through backlash, Karen would actually welcome it with open arms.

Therefore, having an uninvited guest living in one’s house was not entirely without benefits. At least when the roof leaked, he would help you fix it, or at the very least, he would take a basin to catch the water.

Accompanied by the lifting of Karen’s palms, giant black stone pillars grew out from the surface of the sand, a full thirty-odd pillars, each requiring three men to span with their arms.

The rapidly growing forest of stone pillars soon made contact with the collapsing canopy above. The two spells began a fierce collision; the canopy trembled violently, and the stone pillars cycled continuously between being shaved away and growing back.

A pure spellcaster was an opponent Karen liked very much, because this was originally the field he himself was best at; the kind of opponent that gave Karen the biggest headache was someone like Neo, who was both adept at using spells and rich in close-combat experience and superb physical conditioning. No one wanted to encounter such an opponent. Of course, to a certain extent, Karen also belonged to this type.

The stalemate continued.

The two sides were like two spiteful children, neither willing to take a step back.

Every time Demetri increased the weight of her spell, she could soon perceive the exact same amplification from the opponent. Moreover, the opponent only followed her rhythm to keep pace, but never surpassed her.

After another short while, the canopy became even deeper, and thick, viscous black churning began to appear, like a swamp turned upside down in the sky.

As for the stone pillars summoned by Karen, their upper sections took on a scorched red color, giving off a feeling as if they were about to melt.

Yet even so, neither side had any intention of retreating or withdrawing their hands, instead creating an atmosphere as if their first move was the final stroke of a decisive battle.

Demetri’s gaze was grave. She had already perceived the terrifying foundation of spiritual power possessed by the opponent before her, and could not help but begin to ponder whether she should continue this stalemate, because once both sides piled their spell power to a very high level, it would very likely lead to a situation that neither could afford to lose.

When that time came, despite both being spellcasters, they would be like duelists engaged in a one-off confrontation with revolvers; victory or defeat would come very quickly.

On Karen’s side, there was an additional layer of other considerations, because among the three layers of formations he had arranged, one was a perception formation, which could greatly amplify his outward perception range for a short period of time.

He sensed that at a distance not very far on the periphery, two auras had already approached.

One of the two auras belonged to Rango, who had deliberately stopped his steps, refusing to come forward.

The other aura belonged to a young man from the Church of Life named Dariwenluo. He was not a Son of God, and did not even have a father, because his mother had conceived him while napping beside the Pool of Life; from childhood, he possessed an affinity for the power of the faith of life that surpassed ordinary people.

Both of these auras remained stationary. They had certainly noticed the anomalous commotion here, yet they had absolutely no intention of rushing over to support.

Karen did not find this strange. When he saw that the pursuer before him was a follower of the Goddess of the Night, many conjectures had formed in his heart.

In essence, his, Karen’s, participation in the investigation team was a journey for political capital that he had deliberately vied for. The young girl before him should be exactly the same.

The rebel commander outside the teleportation formation hall had used the most cruel means to deal with the Order Investigation Team, which almost explicitly indicated that there was a power he deemed more formidable standing behind him to support him.

A single orthodox church was impossible; there was no single orthodox church in this world that dared to independently provoke the majesty of Order.

Coupled with this sort of pursuit process, Karen believed that, with a high probability, this should be a hunting game directed against him, carried out by a group of outstanding young people from various major orthodox churches who had come to gain political capital.

Karen did not possess the eye of heaven, but because a large portion of his subordinates were the young masters of the Church of Order, it was not surprising what seemingly naive things people of this sort would do when gathered together.

Since those two auras had not taken action yet, it meant the other party intended to watch the show.

What was reflected in this group of young people was actually the essence of the alliance of various major orthodox churches within the religious circle.

Karen fixed his gaze upon Demetri: Come, keep increasing the weight, let us decide victory or defeat a bit faster.

In the next instant, Karen took the lead in strengthening his spell power. The red-hot stone pillars began to push the downward-pressing canopy back upward with an even more violent force.

But during this process, Karen deliberately applied a trace of obscure fluctuation of spiritual power, intentionally giving the other party a hint to make her believe that he was currently barely holding on.

Demetri noticed the message Karen "sent" to her and, with hardly any hesitation, increased the weight again. The canopy that had been pushed up was pressed back down once more.

At the same time, while continuing the stalemate, Demetri actively initiated a new round of engagement.

The clones on both sides of her body began to chant, and two shadows spread out from beneath the clones' feet, heading straight for Karen.

Karen left his original position and began to weave between the stone pillars, but the speed of the shadows was very fast; no matter how Karen evaded, they continued to close the distance between them.

Yet Demetri discovered that although her opponent was being forced to move by her, the confrontation between the canopy above and the stone pillars was not noticeably affected.

In this instant, Demetri instinctively began to doubt the problem with the information she had previously perceived.

However, Karen did not intend to grant her too much time, because he believed those two peripheral auras were happy to watch the show from the sidelines, disdaining to come in and join forces to help, holding onto their so-called ridiculous pride. But he could not guarantee that after Demetri fell into an absolute disadvantage, those two would still watch indifferently as she was killed by him.

Therefore, for Karen, the time for laying the groundwork in this clash could be long, but when wrapping it up, it had to be as brief as possible.

The previous pursuit by the shadows had allowed Karen to close the distance between himself and Demetri. He turned his body and charged straight toward Demetri, the Sword of Diamance in his hand already gathering power.

The doubles flanking Demetria instantly accelerated their chanting, and the two shadows that had been pursuing Cullen dissolved at once, only for two massive silhouettes to materialize, blocking Cullen’s path forward.

Yet, the very moment the shadows loomed, a pair of Chains of Order burst from the earth, binding them tight.

Shadows possessed no true substance, and their most terrifying quality lay in their ability to solidify in an instant; though many conventional means proved useless against them, they could manifest lethal force the moment they struck.

But Cullen’s Chains of Order were almost perfectly tailored to counter such shifting, elaborate parlor tricks; whether tangible or intangible, so long as a thing existed and fell within his perception, he could bind it.

Ensnared, the shadows could no longer impede him; rushing past them, Cullen closed the distance until less than twenty meters separated him from Demetria.

It was a perilous proximity, a threshold to which any exceptional mage would be acutely sensitive.

Hovering above Demetria, the long-haired woman immediately unleashed a piercing shriek, a formidable tide of psychic energy surging toward Cullen.

Cullen’s eyes turned a deep black as he withdrew his consciousness from all else, drawing himself infinitely close to the state of his former Hunger addiction; in this state, a man became as pure as a blank sheet of paper, minimizing the friction of any psychic assault against his mind.

Yet, because of this, the Hunger buried deep within his soul misread his intent, seemingly believing Cullen was answering its call, and the illusory silhouette of a colossal statue began to manifest.

"Ahhh!"

Seeing that her psychic onslaught had failed to yield a sufficient effect, the long-haired woman’s eyes flushed crimson, and an even more potent wave of mental shock erupted anew.

This time, Cullen began to buckle; his consciousness flickered and fractured, a dense smog seeming to envelop his brain and smother his thoughts.

Even so, at that precise moment, Cullen willingly relinquished his mental defenses, allowing the succeeding wave of psychic force to strike unhindered against his soul.

A mental storm raged within his soul space, but then, a massive figure materialized and brought its foot down with a crushing stomp...

"Ah... ugh..."

The long-haired woman’s shriek cut off abruptly; a network of vast fissures webbed across her body, and she began to crack apart, teetering on the verge of dissolution.

Cullen took a deep breath, forcibly sealing his soul space as a streak of fresh blood spilled from the corner of his mouth—this injury was the consequence of him suppressing his own power.

The distance shrank from twenty meters down to three.

Demetria parted her lips, and a beetle gleaming with a golden luster flew from her mouth, hurtling toward Cullen before exploding in his face to form a pitch-black wall radiating a dense aura of corruption—a Forbidden Insect.

The Church of the Goddess of Night had once swallowed many minor churches skilled in the breeding of insectoids, consolidating their resources and integrating them into their own sequence; this was one of the fruits of that research.

In truth, every orthodox church took a profound interest in the cultivation of insectoids; Mr. Philias, whom Neo had devoured, had also bred insects, and the sole surviving success now resided within Richard.

This was because in the previous epoch, the Eternal Faction counted among its ranks a main god whose true form was an insect, and she had once brought a genuine nightmare upon the Light Faction—a nightmare so severe that the gods of Light, who eventually claimed ultimate victory, ordered their respective churches to develop insectoid sequences.

Having deployed this corruptive barrier, Demetria prepared to disengage, intending to break off the ongoing clash of spells above and put sufficient distance between herself and Cullen.

To her astonishment, however, Cullen completely ignored the corruption born of the insect's self-destruction, plunging straight through it and emerging from the other side.

Even in the past, Cullen had never truly feared corruption, given the alterations wrought by Ranedal and the integration of the Dark Moon Bone; as for now... he had even less cause for dread.

His current vessel was one that had dragged itself out, piece by piece, from divine corruption.

Though the insect’s corruption was dense and of a high order, to the Cullen of today, it posed no threat at all; upon contact, it gave him an almost familiar sensation, like the scent of soybean paste from home.

With her most dependable defense suddenly rendered useless, panic finally gripped Demetria, just as the Sword of Diamans came cleaving down toward her.

The black armor upon her body expanded, rising to meet the blow, and with a heavy, muffled thud, the armor held without shattering, successfully shielding her from the strike—yet blood began to seep from Demetria’s eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.

Having once been fond of utilizing the Sea God's Armor, Cullen knew well that no matter how excellent a protective spell might be, it could only diminish and offset a portion of the damage rather than block it entirely; the caster still had to endure a measure of the impact, and mages were notoriously frail of physique—much like his aunt and uncle, who served as Inquisitors and had required Cullen's intervention to survive an assassination attempt by an enemy captain.

Grit teeth, Demetria turned her palms downward; the doubles at her sides instantly sprouted black fur and bared long fangs, transforming into malevolent spirits as they lunged at Cullen, desperate to buy time for the prime body at any cost.

"Order—Cage!"

A cubical cage materialized, expanding outward from Cullen to bar the two doubles from reaching him.

Immediately after, a gash opened across Cullen's palm where it gripped the hilt; as his blood spilled, it instantly formed blood-red runes.

"Order—Spear of Judgment!"

"Order—Spear of Judgment!"

"Order—Spear of Judgment!"

Layer after layer of the Spear of Judgment's illusory form was stacked by Cullen onto the blade of the Sword of Diamans; each new duplication demanded double the sacrifice and strain of the last, causing a succession of small bubbles to churn within the pool deep inside Cullen’s soul.

Finally, just as Cullen himself was on the verge of losing control over the weapon in his grasp, he shifted from a slash to a thrust, driving it straight toward Demetria before him.

The tip of the blade pierced through the armor on Demetria’s body, and the power of the Spear of Judgment expanded into a massive black sphere, poised to detonate.

At that instant, Cullen triggered the other two layers of spells he had prepared beforehand; one erupted with an immense pulling force, dragging him back toward his previous position on the sand dune, and the moment he was pulled back, the final protective spell activated, enveloping him in a defensive shroud.

"Boom!"

A terrifying explosion erupted, and with it, the stalemated spells in the sky above reached their resolution; stone pillars pierced completely through the black canopy, causing a simulated meteor shower to rain down upon the vicinity.

Demetria was forced to endure not only the catastrophic damage of her shattered armor spell but also the horrific backlash of her failed magical confrontation.

When the dust finally settled, the only spot in the entire area that retained the yellow of sand was the dune where Cullen stood; everything else had been scorched to a blackened crisp.

Cullen stepped down from the dune and walked back to his previous position; he bent down to retrieve the Sword of Diamans from the ground, giving the blade a gentle blow.

Then, using the sword, he poked at the steaming ground before him, revealing Demetria's form beneath; once quite elegant and lovely, the greater part of her was now charred black, her white bones exposed.

Yet she was not dead; though immobile and gravely wounded, her eyes still projected awareness—she had lost, and she was begging Cullen for mercy.

If Neo were here, he would likely kneel down and cast a healing spell on her, restoring at least her ability to communicate so he could listen to her offers for her life; if the price were right, he might even cater to her subsequent needs, placing an exorbitant price tag on every cup of water and piece of bread.

Regrettably, Neo was Neo, and Cullen was Cullen; Neo preferred to be rational when he should be emotional, whereas Cullen tended to be emotional when he ought to be rational.

Though war had not been formally declared, the battle had in truth begun the moment those five Inquisitors of Order were burned alive before the teleportation array hall—at least, it had in Cullen's heart.

To wear the robes of Order and walk the path of Order’s faith meant one could never avoid being swept into the vortex of slaughter between conflicting identities.

"Since you took me as a target to play your headhunting game, very well, I shall respect the rules; now, I harvest my spoils."

There was no interrogation, no bargaining, and no civility; with a sweep of the greatsword's edge, Demetria’s beautiful head was severed cleanly away.

Cullen picked up the head, tied a knot with her hair, and hung it from his waist.

In this moment, Cullen appeared utterly unseemly, resembling more a primitive barbarian who delighted in vaunting his might and martial exploits.

Yet this was the true essence of war—tearing away all the facades of civilization to let the most primitive savagery collide, until one side was torn apart and devoured, leaving the survivor to wipe the blood from their jaws and don once more that cloak called civilization.

Even the supreme God of Order had risen step by step from the War of the Gods.

"Well then..."

Cullen took a deep breath of the acrid air, exhaled slowly, and straightened his posture to look out into the distance:

"Next."