Chapter 158: Collapse

Chapter 158: Collapse

Every Witch who could lose control and go berserk made such preparations, though the methods differed. Those who didn’t prepare were the kind who had lived long enough and wanted to die, but such Witches were extremely rare. Very few Witches held such a negative, life-weary view.

“Did that Little Dragon do something wrong too?” Dan Marina chuckled softly. She could pretty much guess Loris’s situation. The power Loris currently possessed was likely less than one percent of her peak. Once an individual’s power was completely depleted, recovering it was not so easy. The more excessively power was consumed, the slower the recovery speed.

Seeing Loris’s preparations being triggered as well… She didn’t wait any longer. Safety measures for dealing with a loss of control and going berserk would definitely not be placed too far from the site of the rampage; otherwise, they wouldn’t be effective enough. Now these preparations were activating additionally in the absence of the person concerned… Loris had probably already arrived near the Lockdown Zone.

Dan Marina pinched two small vials between her fingers and took them out. They contained a deep black liquid that sloshed unsteadily as the crystal vials shook. She casually tossed the two small vials toward the Lockdown Zone, and then without pause, she herself left this place.

“Good luck~ Goodbye~!”

“Huh? What’s that?” A member of the Sanctuary Church at the edge of the Lockdown Zone looked slightly puzzled at the two small black dots flying over. As the black dots approached, he saw clearly what they were—two small vials containing an unknown black liquid?

He casually caught the two vials and looked warily in the direction they came from. The area he looked at was empty, with no one in sight. With sufficient training, he immediately made a judgment. Carefully holding the two small vials, and after confirming the vials were sturdy enough and had no leaks, he immediately reported the matter upward.

For matters beyond one’s understanding, one shouldn’t try to solve them with petty cleverness on one’s own. That often made things worse, and could even be exploited by the enemy.

Fortunately, the Lockdown Zone had just received reinforcements from the Sanctuary Church, even including an Archbishop and a Saintess. With them present to oversee things, even if there was some emergency, it could probably be resolved immediately, right?

“Huh? Wait! The thing in your hand… Don’t move!!!” The Archbishop, who had already emerged from the Lockdown Zone to focus on handling the escaped Witch Power, said intently, staring at the Sanctuary Church member holding the two crystal vials. The member immediately froze in place, one foot even suspended mid-air.

It wasn’t that he stopped abruptly; he simply couldn’t move at all, not even speak. The people following the Archbishop were also staring warily at the two crystal vials in his hand. The young girl had even acted before the Archbishop spoke. Several Light Ribbons swiftly shot toward his hand, trying to bind the crystal vials…

But as a product of full calculation, how could they be so easily controlled? The moment the Light Ribbons touched the crystal vials, the vials abruptly shattered. The black liquid inside, upon contacting the air, scattered into countless substantial black threads that enveloped the entire Lockdown Zone. Guards outside the Lockdown Zone stared dumbfounded at the black threads. Some wanted to draw weapons to cut them, but were stopped by a voice resounding throughout the area!

The Archbishop stared fixedly at the spreading black threads before him. These black threads fluttered irregularly. Although there were gaps between them, these gaps were less like openings and more like traps luring people to pass through. If anyone tried, they would definitely touch the black threads. These manifested black threads were just a deceptive spiderweb.

The power that covered this place was actually omnipresent.

Substantial white-gold light lit up on his hand. The Archbishop stopped the young girl’s action and reached out to grab one of the floating black threads. The black thread, seemingly dancing in the wind, revealed its ferocious side the moment it was touched. His gold-trimmed sleeve silently turned to flying dust. The Archbishop grunted, and the black threads wrapped around his arm instantly shattered.

But his face aged a touch. “Everyone, don’t move recklessly. This is the power of Fate Backlash!”

A single thread had such a great effect on him. Forcing a breakthrough wasn’t impossible… but if he succeeded, he probably wouldn’t have much time left to live. The cost was simply too great. Fate Backlash power generally targeted a specific subject. Now it had manifested in the form of a dome, trapping everyone here. Clearly, it had been exploited. To exploit the power of Fate… one needed an extremely high level of mastery in Prophecy Art.

But to exploit Fate power in a backlash state, only one person could do that…

The method to break it was both simple and extremely difficult. They just needed to find the target of the backlash. Once the backlash target came within a certain distance, these backlash Fate powers would immediately transfer to that person. Even if Dan Marina used some method to block the backlash’s inherent distance-ignoring property, she definitely couldn’t block it at close range.

But since she had done this, she definitely wouldn’t appear here!

So they were temporarily trapped here. The state of existence of Fate power was more ethereal and hard to grasp. It was only this backlash-form Fate power that manifested. Fate Backlash power without a target wouldn’t manifest for long. Without a target, it would completely dissipate soon, returning to its ethereal state.

Being trapped here was a minor issue; not provoking these backlash Fate powers meant they were safe. The real major issue was: how dare Dan Marina do this!? Could it be she no longer cared about the Contract restrictions and had lived long enough?

Considering that woman’s usual pleasure-seeking style, she didn’t seem like a Witch who had lived long enough. “Perhaps it’s an even worse situation…”

The young girl said softly. Maybe they had all been set up by Dan Marina. The Archbishop nodded seriously. Dan Marina wouldn’t seek her own death. Since she dared to ignore the Contract restrictions and do this, it meant she was confident enough to deal with the Contract’s constraints.

At the Sanctuary Church headquarters, a girl wearing nearly transparent silk clothing stared in shock at an extremely important piece of parchment kept in the Secret Vault. The material of this parchment wasn’t sheepskin or the skin of some creature, but the skin of a Witch—specifically, Dan Marina’s skin. A powerful Contract was inscribed on it. And now, this long-preserved Contract, stored in the Sanctuary Church’s most secure Secret Vault, was changing.

Faint scorching red marks appeared at the edges of the parchment. These red marks slowly ate away at the parchment. This Contract was collapsing!