King’s Avenue in front of the palace had turned into a brutal battlefield. The combatants were now clearly divided into three camps: the side led by Ye Chui, Elisa and the endless army of Spirits of Faith he had summoned, and the awkward believers caught in the middle who were absorbing an absurd amount of damage.
Almost every mage and swordsman in the capital had now gathered. They fought ceaselessly against what seemed to be an inexhaustible tide of Spirits of Faith. The believers either trembled in fear or groaned in pain, huddled in corners praying for God’s forgiveness. Many of them were wounded, all of it done by Elisa himself.
As for Elisa… he was currently chasing a blue-haired, blue-clothed girl and attacking her nonstop.
The girl was, of course, the paper-tier goddess Akuya. She wailed dramatically, letting out pitiful screams. From time to time she was struck by blasts of faith power that could reduce even a top-tier expert to ash, yet when they landed on her they only made her shrieks grow louder and more tragic. She would scramble back to her feet and continue running around crying senselessly. Even her clothes, though dishevelled, remained completely undamaged.
The defensive properties of a goddess’s feathered raiment were naturally top-class. It was just that the wearer was somewhat unreliable.
By now many people understood that this girl was one of Ye Chui’s summoned heroic spirits. She did not appear to have any real power and her brain seemed rather questionable, yet she was proving enormously useful: as a mobile target for Elisa, perfectly drawing the Red Archbishop’s aggro and attention!
Of everyone present, Elisa was by far the greatest threat. With his strength he could instantly annihilate most people on the field. Yet right now the vast majority of his fury was directed at Akuya. Thus Akuya was flawlessly pinning down the most terrifying individual on the battlefield…
“Aaah, stop hitting me! I’m a goddess…” Akuya sobbed as she charged towards a group of mercenaries who were holding off a wave of Spirits of Faith.
The mercenaries’ faces filled with horror the moment they saw her. They shouted in panic, “Don’t come over here! Stay away!”
“I wanna go home! This place is scary! Aaaaaah—” Akuya veered off and ran towards a formation of black-armoured guards defending the palace entrance.
A bearded guard among them immediately bellowed, “Don’t you dare come closer! Keep moving or we’ll attack you along with him!”
“Kazuma, come save me… Aaaaaah—” She charged screaming towards several magic mentors from a three-star guild.
The guild master saw the wildly expressive girl sprinting straight at them and nearly dropped to his knees. “Miss, please don’t drag us into this! We beg you, go away!”
“Aaaaaah—”
…
Ye Chui had successfully slipped away from the battlefield. His figure appeared on a distant street. He quickly cast a spatial summoning spell. With a soft white glow, Celti’s head materialised in his hands. The head was damp, her reddish-brown hair still dripping. The moment she realised Ye Chui had summoned her, Celti’s stunningly beautiful face let out a shrill scream. “Pervert! I was taking a bath! Don’t look!!!”
“…You’re literally just a head, you know?” Ye Chui said, sweat pouring down his face.
“…Oh, right.” Celti instantly calmed down.
“…”
Ye Chui waved a hand and conjured a warm breeze with fire magic to dry the water from Celti’s hair. At the same time he explained his plan. The current Elisa was too terrifying. Even Akuya probably could not keep him occupied much longer. So Ye Chui needed Celti to open a gateway to the Realm of Death and lure Elisa inside.
In that world, no matter how strong he was, he could never escape without Celti’s permission. The immortal undead legions within could inflict horrific damage and bury him there forever. In effect, Ye Chui would be sealing Elisa away with sealing magic.
“That could work, but that Elisa is no ordinary man. He may not rush blindly into the Realm of Death,” Celti said, straining to glimpse the battle on King’s Avenue, her brows furrowed.
When the Spirit God King had once drawn Ye Chui and Booth into the Realm of Death within the secret realm, he had first needed to exhaust a huge amount of their power before succeeding.
“That man’s power seems very special. He has become a holy incarnation. That makes him even harder to deal with…” Celti could sense just how fearsome Elisa was.
“The more devout he is towards his god, the more he will loathe Akuya. Later we’ll just use Akuya as bait and kick her straight through the gate. He’ll follow,” Ye Chui said confidently. The reason he was certain he could deal with Elisa was precisely this ultimate weapon called Akuya. The idiot goddess had practically zero combat ability and was a champion teammate-killer, but her aggro-drawing skill was maxed out…
Celti immediately agreed. “Then hurry and help me open the gate to the Realm of Death!”
With only her head remaining, Celti had long since lost the power of the God race. Although she controlled the Realm of Death, she could not open a portal by herself. She needed the assistance of a specialist-space mage.
Ye Chui was just about to begin when a petite, lovely girl appeared beside him. It was Guibo.
She glanced gravely towards the battlefield and said to Ye Chui, “Leave opening the portal to me.” Guibo possessed a natural gift for space magic. Her attainment in spatial magic even slightly surpassed Ye Chui’s.
“Alright. Tell me the moment the entrance is ready,” Ye Chui said, handing Celti’s head to Guibo. “I’ll be responsible for getting Elisa inside!”
“I’ll need about five minutes,” Guibo replied seriously. Opening a gate to the Realm of Death was no simple matter.
A large group of Spirits of Faith was already surging towards them.
“I’ll buy you the time,” Ye Chui said coldly, walking forward to meet them.
His earlier fight with Elisa had been pure theatre, meant to let the people of the empire witness the Church’s tyranny. Summoning the modified Avengers to battle the Spirits of Faith had been to make the fight look sufficiently intense. The performance was now more than enough. Black dots appeared around Ye Chui. One modified weapon after another emerged from them: the King’s Armoury.
The next instant the roar of gunfire merged into a continuous thunder. Under bursts of flame and explosions, the withered-corpse-like Spirits of Faith collapsed in droves, utterly powerless before Ye Chui’s mobile arsenal.
Ye Chui advanced steadily, sweeping everything in his path. Several ferocious Spirits of Faith had somehow climbed onto nearby tall buildings. Moving on all fours like beasts, they suddenly leapt at him with a whoosh.
Ye Chui flicked his wrist and scattered a handful of gold coins. Under the effect of magnetic magic and golden sword aura, the coins turned into deadly projectiles. Golden beams shot in every direction, shredding the Spirits of Faith one by one.
His body vanished, then reappeared directly on the battlefield, eyes fixed on the spatial gate still spewing endless Spirits of Faith.
He extended both hands. Violent magical elements rapidly gathered between his palms. [Explosion is Justice]. He wanted to try blowing the gate apart directly. From the outside, the other side of the gate appeared to be another dimensional space. Through the opening he could see countless more Spirits of Faith still trying to emerge. It seemed to be a realm similar to the Realm of Death, one that housed Spirits of Faith.
Years ago when Ye Chui had faced the priest Jamil, Jamil’s Spirits of Faith had been sealed inside a holy scripture. Clearly a Red Archbishop needed no scripture; they could open that realm directly and summon an army from it.
Several Spirits of Faith roared and charged at Ye Chui. They sensed how terrifying the magic he was gathering was and instinctively saw him as a threat.
But several swordsmen and magic mentors who saw this immediately moved to protect him, buying time for his mighty spell.
“I wanna go home! Aaaaaah— Hurry and send me back! I don’t wanna stay here…” At that exact moment, accompanied by miserable wailing, Akuya came tumbling and scrambling straight towards him. She had spotted Ye Chui and knew only he could send her back to her original world.
Elisa followed close behind, still furiously bombarding Akuya with all manner of terrifying faith attacks.
In a certain sense, whenever Akuya was present, the normally wise Red Archbishop Elisa could not maintain his composure. The fact that he was chasing only her was proof. He was still heavily affected by Akuya’s “intelligence-reduction strike”.
“Don’t come over here!” Ye Chui shouted urgently at Akuya.
“I wanna go home—” Akuya howled, ignoring everything and charging straight at Ye Chui.
“For f—” Ye Chui hurriedly activated [Divine Might Void] to shift his position. The other swordsmen and mentors also scattered in panic.
“False goddess, die!” Elisa roared in fury.
This was the horrifying “words become reality” power. No ordinary person could withstand such an attack. Yet Akuya merely clutched her head and screamed loudly. Apart from that she seemed completely unharmed. She looked around in panic, spotted Ye Chui now atop a half-collapsed building some distance away, and immediately resumed her tearful sprint towards him. “I wanna go home—”
“Will you bloody stop it!” Ye Chui instantly teleported again the moment he saw her coming.
But this time, before he could complete the teleport, a terrifyingly powerful hand suddenly seized him from within the void and forcibly dragged him back into reality. Cracks appeared in space itself, the result of brute-force destruction. When Ye Chui reappeared in the real world, he found his throat gripped tightly by Elisa.
Elisa’s hair was dishevelled, yet his eyes were cold as blades, as if he had regained some clarity. “Ye Chui… what have you done to me? My mind is clouded… But you are finished!” Though still affected by Akuya’s intelligence-reduction, he had momentarily regained lucidity. With his immense power he had directly shattered Ye Chui’s [Divine Might Void] and yanked him out mid-teleport.
But just as he was about to strike Ye Chui, a cyan teleportation glow appeared at his side.
He had seen this kind of teleportation before. The image of Green, the bald brick-wielding maniac, flashed through his mind.
As if such an attack could affect him?
The instant the glow appeared, he reached out and caught whatever was emerging. “Pathetic trick. Against me… hm?”
What he had grabbed… was a magic missile.
BOOM!
Even in his sanctified form, Elisa’s body was intangible and immune to harm, but the moment he seized Ye Chui’s throat he had materialised, preventing Ye Chui from breaking free.
At that exact instant, Green, Debbie, Leisha, Jacob, and the others were aboard the flying magical construct high in the sky. Ye Chui had retrieved the craft before leaving the palace earlier. The enormous vehicle required massive magical energy to fire and needed ten “human batteries”. Debbie, Green, Leisha, Celc, Prince Geller, the old emperor, Jacob, and Dani (nine in total) were just barely enough to power it.
From the start, the craft had been hovering high above, charging a magic missile. The moment they saw Ye Chui restrained by Elisa, Green teleported the missile directly to Elisa’s side.
With the explosion, Elisa’s body was forced to sanctify once more, turning intangible and releasing Ye Chui. In that split second, Ye Chui vanished into the void.
