Chapter 712: The Holy Judgment Descends, Blinding Radiance Advances

As the solemn words fell, Lyra suddenly felt the moonlight above her head turn searing hot. A scalding, stabbing burn landed on her cheeks, as if rows upon rows of fine cotton needles were pricking her skin without end.

Even through the sacred radiance and the heavy armor forged from the [Sword of Light], the pain was still unmistakable. Worse, this wasn’t even the spell’s true power. It was only the opening act, with Moserria simply gathering clusters of light-element particles in the air. Nothing more.

Realizing the incoming magic was very likely something even the holy light armor covering her body couldn’t block, Lyra’s gaze beneath the helmet grew grave and resolute. The longsword in her hand churned the tide of light, sketching a thin, gauzy curtain of radiance around her.

In the next second, the crown above Moserria’s head blazed brilliantly. Behind him, the silvery moonlight in everyone’s view became a lake of light overturning the heavens, a celestial waterfall plunging down, like the Milky Way hung upside down.

Seeing the onrushing waves of light and flame, Anthony’s staff flashed faintly. Arcane factors carrying a stagnation effect instantly filled the space before the holy light knight.

Light specks washed over; the clusters of light-element motes slowed as they passed through the distorted air, further reducing their accuracy.

Lyra spread her wings of light and quickly flew out of the impact area. Blazing holy fire descended from the heavens, striking the ground with radiant force. Its ethereal light melted the frost and evaporated the moisture, carving a deep crater into the frozen landscape.

Only then did Moserria finally notice the one obstructing him, the imperial mage floating in midair.

Judging by the aura, the caster from before was the strongest presence here besides him and Brennild. And now that the other party had acted to stop him from judging the blasphemer who had stolen a divinity, their stance spoke for itself.

Without exchanging further words with Brennild, Moserria, having confirmed friend and foe, swept his gaze indifferently across those present. The holy light burning behind him illuminated the entire night, and with the infusion of spirit power, grew even brighter.

"Shielding one who usurps a divinity, hindering the judgment bestowed by a god... you... share her."

The moment Moserria’s voice fell, the blazing light-flames behind him abruptly spread, like the first dawn spilling over the horizon, rapidly extending along the edges of everyone’s sight. In less than a single breath, it wrapped the whole world.

As a holy light knight who had once faced Hebrew head-on, Lyra knew this spell all too well.

A light-attribute spell that drew people into an independent boundary, preventing escape or communication with the outside, thus enabling annihilation operations, [Holy Light Manifestation Torrent of Light].

The person standing before her probably had the same objective as before: to eliminate the Empire’s strongest combat forces here in a single, decisive move.

Her gaze dropped unconsciously for an instant. Seeing that silver-haired beauty was also covered by [Holy Light Manifestation Torrent of Light], the pink-haired knight pressed her lips together and swiftly looked away.

Although Lyra had no idea what Moserria’s series of ancient incantations meant, his behavior, the way he wielded the holy relic, and the familiar presence emanating from within the holy sword all pointed to the same conclusion: the "Hebrew" before her was most likely no longer the Pope of Light, but a puppet under Moserria’s control.

And the [Holy Light Manifestation Torrent of Light] he released was very likely not the common-tongue version of a light spell at all, but an origin spell from the ancient era, chants of the gods, closest to the laws of the world.

In other words, even if Lyra unleashed her full combat power and hammered the boundary with everything she had, as in the battle at White Maple Town, she still might not be able to break the barrier forged by Moserria, the ancient old god who once held the Authority of Light.

Either crush Moserria head-on and force him to stop maintaining [Holy Light Manifestation Torrent of Light]...

Or kill the flesh he had descended into, behead the Pope of Light, Hebrew.

Whichever road they chose, the fight ahead would inevitably be brutal.

Unlike earlier, when the Empire’s forces had held a slight advantage thanks to Lyra’s clean, decisive beheading of a low-ranking Crusader and Anthony’s long-term suppression of Hebrew, now the balance tipped into disadvantage. With Moserria and the Light holy relic fused into one body, bolstered by this miracle, the Kingdom’s troops in their decline quietly regained momentum in morale.

High above, some diehard bishops of the Church of Light saw the change in the Pope’s appearance, an aura more sacred and majestic than before. The crown transformed from the holy relic left no doubt: the descent of a god, rare in the Church’s history and perhaps existing only in scripture, had truly appeared before their eyes.

It could mean only one thing.

Destiny stood here.

Sword met sword. Commander Kales’s knight captain clearly felt the force on the opposing weapon grow heavier. The previously faltering offense now became swift and dense, as if injected with blood.

Faith not only nourished gods, it also, at the right moment, fed back into the faithful, granting stronger will and combat power. Within the independent boundary of [Holy Light Manifestation Torrent of Light], light-element clusters were extremely dense, greatly suppressing other elemental motes’ activity, especially opposing elements like darkness, ice, and water.

To a certain extent, this boundary spell shared traits remarkably similar to Moserria’s divine kingdom. Thus, in the ancient era when early humans lived, it had another name:

[The Glorious Bridge Leading to the God of Light’s Kingdom].

On the other hand, because the boundary’s range was enormous and indiscriminate, Brennild, who specialized in dark-element magic, was also pulled into the sacred brilliance. Sensing the drastic drop in the activity of dark-element motes around her, she frowned, in no particularly pleasant mood.

Lower dark-element activity meant her strength would be sharply weakened. She was not whole; her control over death, plague, and darkness was far from even one-tenth of what it once was. Moserria, the God of Light who held half a divinity, had completely constrained her authority on the level of reality.

Still...

It wasn’t a big deal.

Brennild believed her elder sister, once at odds with her, and also the Right Seat of the gods, was more than capable of dealing with everyone present.

Before the absolute power of a god, all existence was but ants.

The arrogant thought had only just surfaced when the frost-covered ground beneath her suddenly began to tremble. Then several ice spikes burst up from the earth, instantly piercing through Brennild’s flesh.

Astrid lightly stroked her brooch, crimson eyes reflecting the shattered corpse, silently calculating the shift in strength between both sides.

[Holy Light Manifestation Torrent of Light] covered the land, leaving dark-element motes nowhere to hide, nearly impossible to draw upon, severely impacting Brennild’s performance.

But the vast amount of remaining ice-element motes on the frostland was still controllable. With Grace’s brooch and her own boundary-breaking affinity for ice, it might not be impossible to finish off Brennild, who had already been cut down by the head maid for a full bar of health and was now in a weakened state.

Kill her first, then join forces to deal with Moserria. Brennild had laid an ambush to eliminate Astrid and Lyra, yet she had also exposed herself to risk.

For both sides, this was a gamble.

Astrid stared at the corpse impaled by the icy thorns and acted without hesitation. The compressed frost exploded in an instant, forcing the blood to gush out violently. Astrid had deliberately prevented it from freezing completely by severing the neck artery, allowing the lingering warmth within the blood to keep it liquid.

In an instant, it was as if blood rained over the silver-white frostland. Stark white bone was exposed, threaded with chilling strands of red.

If Astrid’s guess was right, within this bright, glorious holy-light boundary, Brennild couldn’t remain in an incorporeal dependent state for long. Otherwise, she would never have needed, after Elise destroyed her body, to possess a battlefield corpse once again.

In fact, Astrid’s inference was correct. Before the boundary fully expanded, Brennild could indeed use the shadows cast by moonlight to perform short-range rapid movement, and draw upon the infected patients in surrounding cities to quickly replenish life force.

But now, she had to rely on the corpse in hand to maintain her existence. If she lost her anchor and dispersed into black mist, Brennild would suffer severe damage to her vitality. Even if she wouldn’t vanish immediately due to the Authority of Death, she would still need a great deal of time to regroup. Unless forced, she did not wish to slow her recovery.

Seeing that Brennild hadn’t been forced out in her true form, Astrid was about to continue chanting when she suddenly heard that corpse unleash a piercing scream.

Unlike the deep, powerful voice typical of men, this cry was thin and sharp, nothing like something produced by a throat. It was more like a mimetic soundwave dispersed through spirit power.

Brennild’s only targets were Astrid and Elise, the two who had been relentlessly pursuing her. Once she confirmed that her attack had sufficiently disrupted their spellcasting, a thick black aura wrapped around the corpse, swiftly reassembling the broken limbs and restoring the skin where the ice spikes had pierced through the abdomen.

But no matter how fast Brennild moved, she was still slower than a prepared head maid with an iron-hard physique.

Having lost her usual maid’s sword, Elise swiftly drew two daggers from beneath her maid dress, sprinting out the moment Astrid poured in high-intensity frost empowerment.

White light reflected off the daggers. As the distance closed, Astrid, still in high-speed chanting, wordlessly blessed the head maid with strength and frost protection, helping share the spirit output required to resist black-mist corrosion.

Feeling the rushing wind, Brennild quickly picked up the longbow that had fallen beside her after her earlier failed strike on Lyra, using the bow’s rigid body to meet Elise’s thrusting daggers.

Though this body’s soul had largely dissipated, it was still far from rotted in the snow and ice. The formidable physique of an early tier Crusader had not been overly affected. As Brennild’s spirit power reasserted control, the body gradually "came alive" again, following muscle memory to help its new master resist an external foe.

Metal collided, scattering sparks. Black mist wrapped the meridians, replacing tendons to drive force. Brennild was knocked back several meters, and the gray-black flow dispersing in the air surged back toward Elise.

Sensing the aura of death, the head maid immediately retreated. Astrid followed up at just the right moment, frigid high-altitude currents carrying fine ice grit formed a bone-chilling gale that howled forth.

At the first instant of contact, Brennild’s fingers were coated in frost, unable to move. Only by driving black mist to resist did she barely endure it. But when she tried to feed more mental power in, the hand gripping the bow had already become an ice sculpture, unable to receive commands. It then shattered with the spirit’s attachment, dropping together with the bow to the ground.

Within the holy-light boundary, facing two early tier Arcanist-mage-level powerhouses at once, even with a new body Brennild still felt some strain.

If she could obtain a divinity... even half, like Moserria...

These two ants would be nothing more than something she could pinch to death at will.

Silently reciting the incantation of an origin spell, Brennild spread black mist across the frostland, forming a vast gray-dark region to block Astrid’s control over the ice elements beneath their feet.

Then she raised a hand and gently blew out a breath. Part of the black mist transformed into phantom attacks that struck toward the head maid not far away, while the blood that had just erupted from the corpse surged upstream toward Astrid.

Before it could touch those night-sky-colored, red-soled high heels, Astrid tapped her heel lightly to the ground and formed wings of wind to rise into the air. The sticky blood on the ground continued, turning into red serpents that chased her, breaking the laws of physics as they tried to pierce the target.

Unlike the probing, evasive tug-of-war on the flank, in the frontal high-altitude fight Anthony was already struggling under Moserria’s rapid-fire origin spells.

Facing the Pope of Light Hebrew, this pinnacle human powerhouse could still seize openings whenever the opponent’s focus slipped, maintaining suppression from start to finish, ultimately even defeating him.

But the one before him now was the God of Light Moserria, bearing the holy relic. A casual light arrow already condensed extreme heat and destructive power, easily disrupting the arrangement of arcane factors in the air and piercing through arcane-shield defenses.

If not for the fact that the possessed vessel was merely Hebrew, whose peak strength was that of a high-tier Arcanist mage, and thus could not fully unleash combat power, Anthony likely wouldn’t have been able to last even a few minutes.

If Moserria’s true body revived with the holy relic in hand, those light arrows would no longer be mortal flame, but heat like the surface of a blazing sun, so much as a light graze would be enough to vaporize someone on the spot.

Seeing these mortals still resisting, Moserria, greatly constrained, stopped speaking. He only stared at them with cold indifference, arrogance filling his eyes.

’This body really is too frail... even my judgment is not even a fraction of what it once was...’

Looking at the blue-eyed girl who had shifted from heavy armor to light armor, revealing cherry-pink long hair, Moserria sensed Lyra’s aura. Watching those light-element motes that, even with him present, still hovered near her, a rare trace of puzzlement surfaced on his face.

Even compared to a purely light-element lifeform, Lyra’s affinity for light was on par, such astonishing talent appearing in a mortal.

Was it because of this talent that she dared commit blasphemy, seizing glory that did not belong to her?

Dazzling radiance surged like a tidal wave, erupting in space. The overflowing destructive energy pierced the defensive field Anthony had laid near Lyra, blasting straight toward the pink-haired girl.

[The Holy Judgment Descends, Blinding Radiance Advances].