Chapter 143: Freys Wisdom

Chapter 143: Frey's Wisdom

A biting chill rode the desolate autumn wind. The colors of the setting sun were gradually swallowed by murky clouds, and shades of dark gray and black began to saturate the world. An eerie, gloomy atmosphere pervaded the dense forest, and the fading light struggled in vain to dispel the deepening shadows.

The Saintess of Destruction's breathing was ragged and low as she stumbled through the woods. She had finally waited out the cooldown for her Forced Dispel, so she had purged herself of all lingering status effects.

The knife-like agony in her throat had vanished, and the various debuffs, such as healing suppression and hemorrhaging, had been lifted. She pressed on, her feet sinking into the soft, cold, and slick mud. She needed only to retreat a little further until night completely fell and recover her strength. Once the vampires awakened, she would possess their power to launch a counterattack.

Tonight, she would slaughter at least two of them, rip open their bellies, and hang them in the sanctuary, leaving them to bleed out in agony as their entrails spilled forth! Ideally, she would capture that half-demon young lady who was always by Lance's side, flay the flesh from her body, and spread it out upon the banquet table. She would force him to witness his friend's wretched, grotesque demise the moment he arrived the next morning. Would he still be able to maintain that composed, indifferent air?

The mere thought of Lance's reaction to that made the corners of the Saintess' mouth quiver. Even if she failed to kill him tonight, once she had stripped away all his minions and left him utterly isolated, no amount of Epic grade cards could save him from her wrath!

As for that Detective with a brain full of muscle, he had likely spotted the Shadow Realm's notification that the Traitors had been identified the moment he reached the town and was now slinking back in defeat. He was probably delighted, assuming his teammates had already resolved everything. Yet, little did he know that the moment he finally hauled himself back up the cliff face would also mark the hour of his death.

She would be waiting at the precipice, watching as he arduously climbed inch by inch. Then, she would sever his hands with her flaming magic sword and send him plummeting eight hundred meters down the cliff to be smashed into a pulp of flesh and bone amid his total shock and despair!

The Saintess’s voice was cold and cruel, laced with a vicious, unyielding resolve as she snarled, "Your mistake was provoking the Church of Resurrection and crossing paths with me..."

Even as these thoughts crossed her mind, she failed to notice that something was amiss beneath her feet. Suddenly, the ground gave way, and a sensation of weightlessness instantly engulfed her.

The next moment, it was as if she had plunged from the tangible world into a void. A deep, pitch-black chasm, like the throat of a monster in the dead of night, had swallowed her whole in an instant!

Accompanied by a deafening crash that rattled her eardrums and brain, she slammed heavily into the bottom of a pit several meters deep. Razor-sharp spikes at the bottom of the pit instantly pierced through her, driving deep. The Saintess’s face twisted. Her pupils contracted violently as her eyes filled with disbelief and terror.

This was a Tier 3 Earth spell capable of instantly conjuring a pitfall trap in the muddy ground. However, the pit itself wasn't the deadliest part. The true horror lay in the fact that it was lined with highly toxic spikes and bear traps.

Then came the pain. It was a sharp, searing agony, like a thousand needles driving into her flesh.

"AAAAAAH—!!!"

Her scream, laden with boundless suffering, echoed through the jungle. Amid her trembling vision, she saw a shadow lengthening above the pit. It approached with ghostly steps, each one sounding like a whisper from the Grim Reaper.

A tall figure slowly emerged. He stood there motionlessly, like a statue carved into the darkness. His long coat snapped in the wind as he gazed down at her. When the Saintess clearly made out the man's face, her heart felt as though it had been seized in a crushing grip. It was a face she knew well.

He stood at the edge of the pit, a heavy hand-crossbow in his hand. His face was half-hidden in shadow, yet the purple eyes visible above his lowered sunglasses, resembling the cold, icy gleam of a night sky, remained as arrogant and imperious as ever.

Frey looked down at the Saintess as if he was watching a struggling elk he had trapped. Disbelief filled Adelise's wide eyes. Her heart sank instantly into an icy lake. The world around them fell silent once more. It all played out as if in slow motion, cruel and merciless.

"Why—"

Before the Saintess could finish her sentence, a heavy bolt tore through the air and pierced her shoulder, pinning her against the wall of the pit. A shrill, harrowing scream followed.

Inside the Shadow Realm, unless a battlefield card maker was on hand, arrows were limited to what a person could bring. Frey’s weapon was a heavy, armor-piercing crossbow, characterized by a slow rate of fire and devastatingly lethal strikes.

The Saintess gasped heavily, screaming at the top of her lungs, "Why are you here?!!"

Frey retorted, as if questioning her intelligence, "Are you an idiot? Given the mechanics of the Shadow Realm, climbing down and up a canyon to solve a case isn't exactly the right move."

Hearing Frey's matter-of-fact tone, the Saintess felt as though her intelligence had been ruthlessly trampled into the dirt. She recalled how the Detective had unhesitatingly leapt off the cliff that morning, fooling everyone in the process.

She finally understood what had happened. The Detective had merely shifted the psychological pressure off the group that morning, leaving the heavy lifting to the even more unhinged Lance. Frey then transformed into a hunter, lying in wait in the forest for any stragglers. He had been waiting patiently until this very moment.

"Give up. My combat prowess is absolutely superior to yours now." Frey loaded a fresh bolt into his heavy hand-crossbow and aimed it directly at the Saintess. The cold, gleaming tip radiated a palpable aura of death.

Adelise violently yanked the bolt from her shoulder, ignoring the spray of blood and flesh, and laughed maniacally as she brandished her blazing magic sword. "Hahaha... Hahahaha! Let's die together!!!"

Realizing she had been utterly toyed with by these two, the last thread of her sanity snapped. Be it Lance or Frey... Such humiliation was a burden too heavy for her to bear. Even if she had to die, she would personally slay the Detective who had mocked and played her so thoroughly!

***

In the sanctuary's hall, the group's hope was fading like the last rays of a setting sun, about to be swallowed by the pitch-black night. In a corner beneath the rose window that was guarded by Hyperion and the female bodyguard, the other cultist, the imperial cleric, finally began to stir from her unconscious state.

She first saw the stifled, despair-filled expressions of the people in the sanctuary. She then glanced around at the heavily wounded, exhausted challengers and noted the absence of the Saintess.

Once she realized that Adelise had successfully escaped after inflicting such grievous injuries upon her captors, she threw back her head and laughed madly. Tonight was the time for the blood sacrifice!