Volume 6, Chapter 71 – A Sudden Reversal — Lianyue’s Presence Has Vanished?

“Thud! Thud!”

Two dull, wet impacts rang out simultaneously.

Polana hadn’t even managed to piece together what was happening before she could draw on her curse power to mend her wounds — thick black thorns as wide as a person’s arm came surging in from every direction, driving through her ravaged body: her right arm, chest, abdomen, both legs, and her right eye. The jagged barbs sank deep into her flesh and pinned her to the ground. For the first time in anyone’s memory, Polana actually let out a wail of anguish.

Blood sprayed everywhere.

On the other side, Ulutiel had noticed the anomaly but couldn’t react in time. Thorns punched back through the hole in her chest, and both her half-transformed draconic claws and her freshly unfurling dragon wings were locked down tight. Not even a single spark of pale white flame could ignite.

“Tch…… this, this is……

“This isn’t the old hag’s power…… This power…… is even more sinister than hers……”

Polana bit her lip, her violet-purple eyes flooding with shock. She frantically drove what remained of her water-element curse power outward, trying to shatter the thorns — but the moment it surged, the putrid aura coating the thorns swallowed it whole.

“These thorns…… they absorb curse power?! Damn it all……”

Ulutiel, too, let out a furious snarl. Her pale-blue slit pupils were fixed on the spreading black mud as she twisted and thrashed trying to wrench free — but she could only watch helplessly as the barbs burrowed deeper and deeper, puncturing her internal organs, grinding through her spine. Her curse power was ripped out of her body like water through a broken dam.

“Let go of me…… what in the world is this repulsive thing……”

Ulutiel did not mind pain itself.

If it were Bai Lianyue doing the killing — if it were Bai Lianyue consuming her — she would have welcomed it gladly.

But being devoured by this thing that had just crawled out of nowhere?! That was absolutely unacceptable.

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The only one who could eat her…… was her most beloved Big Sister……

Even so, whatever resistance Ulutiel and Polana could muster was meaningless. They were both utterly spent, teetering on the edge of complete collapse.

In that state, even throwing everything they had at it accomplished nothing.

The black thorns grew thicker and more numerous, winding completely around both bodies. The barbs gorged themselves frantically on their strength and vitality. Polana’s body shriveled rapidly as her curse power drained away. The gaping wound in Ulutiel’s chest stopped closing — instead, as the power was siphoned out, black mud slowly began to creep over it.

As the two evil gods were stripped of their power, a pair of crimson eyes rose slowly from within the churning black mud.

It was Valerdis — the one who had earlier slipped free of Ailiya’s grasp and seized full dominion over the power of the earth. Its pupils were threaded with webs of red. A dark, lightless halo swirled around it. Its voice carried no trace of warmth whatsoever:

“The power you carved up between yourselves a thousand years ago…… it is time now…… to give it back, heh, heheh, hehehehe——”

Accompanied by that unsettling laughter, the suction of the black thorns surged explosively. Searing agony detonated inside Polana’s mind, and she let out a shrill, piercing scream.

“——AAAAAAAAAH!!——”

With that cry, Polana’s body disintegrated into drifting wisps of black mist amid the unbearable pain, and she was entirely consumed by the thorns and the black mud.

On the other side, Ulutiel’s struggles slowly stilled. The last vestiges of obsessive longing and defiant frustration lingered in her pale-blue eyes — and then she too was swallowed completely by the surging black mud, leaving behind only the faintest whisper:

“So in the end…… it’s this thing that swallows me…… How truly…… unpleasant…… I’m sorry…… Big Sister……”

In moments, as the black mud roiled and churned, both Polana and Ulutiel’s presences vanished entirely.

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The black mud and thorns receded somewhat, like a tide pulling back, and Valerdis’s crimson eyeball settled upon the vast, shadowy form of the monster taking shape from the black mud below it.

The putrid power surrounding it grew more immense by the second. It slowly rotated its eye, and what spilled out from within it was unmistakable satisfaction.

After savoring the moment, that cold gaze locked onto the elf girl kneeling on one knee.

“Hehehehe~”

A sinister, echoing laugh rippled outward.

Having been empowered by that entity, Valerdis’s strength had grown vastly — more than sufficient to swallow all three of them in one fell swoop.

So why leave Bai Lianyue for last?

The reason was simple……

Because it needed to settle accounts with this damned human knight — a full reckoning, down to the last debt.

Listening to Valerdis’s chilling laughter, feeling the curse power aura radiating from it spike higher and higher——

Bai Lianyue bit down hard on her lip. Though her expression remained outwardly calm, her heart had sunk to the very bottom.

Her dark-red pupils were slowly going hollow.

That giant eyeball’s consciousness from back then……

It really didn’t disappear completely after all.

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She wanted to raise her sword. She wanted to cut it down.

But her curse power was gone. Her meridians were being corroded by the soul flame. She couldn’t even stand — let alone swing a blade…… She might not even have the capacity to resist anymore.

“Bai Lianyue…… look at the state you’re in. Truly pitiful.”

Staring at Bai Lianyue’s exhausted, defeated form, Valerdis’s voice dripped not only with deep, festering resentment — it positively radiated contempt.

“This time…… it will not be like a thousand years ago. This time…… I will make certain that you die.”

With those words, the black mud surged again and began spreading rapidly in Bai Lianyue’s direction.

“Of course, don’t expect…… to die easily, heh, heheh, hahahahahahaha!!”

Faced with the encroaching black mud, the elf girl gritted her teeth and tried to raise her hand to swing the White Horizon Sword — only to find her arm as heavy as if it had been filled with hundreds of tons of lead. She could not move even her fingertips.

Her vision was dimming further and further. The power inside her continued to seep away. Valerdis’s putrid aura wrapped around her like an invisible set of shackles, binding her utterly in place.

I didn’t manage to deal with the disaster that Corruption had brought……

And instead I let something even more terrifying loose.

After everything……

I’ve failed again, haven’t I?

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“I’m sorry, Ai’er…… Xing Wu……”

The White Horizon Sword fell from her grip and clattered to the ground. The elf girl’s eyes grew wet, and she slowly closed them, her heart overflowing with guilt.

And almost the very instant Bai Lianyue’s eyes shut——

Something crashed down upon her, carrying with it a nauseating stench of rot. The black mud and thorns closed around her body with ravenous hunger, drawing her in——

Meanwhile, far above——

High in the sky over the passage from the Robusta Basin toward the central battlefield, Ailiya — still holding her magical girl form — gripped her longsword and beat her silver light-wings furiously, tearing through the air at full speed toward where Bai Lianyue had been.

The moment she sensed Polarvitan and Ulutiel’s presences vanish one after another, and felt the intensity of Valerdis’s aura skyrocketing——

Ailiya’s anxiety spread through her like a fast-acting poison. Her face had gone a color she had never worn before.

The silver-haired girl could only pray silently in her heart.

But she had barely gotten a few words into the prayer before the faint, familiar thread of presence that she had been tracking — the one that belonged to Bai Lianyue — was snuffed out like a candle in a gale.

“Lianyue?!”

Ailiya’s entire body lurched to a halt. Every trace of desperate urgency drained from her cherry-colored eyes in an instant, replaced by disbelief — by sheer terror. She wrenched herself to a stop mid-flight. Her light-wings beat wildly, whipping up gust after gust of frenzied wind. The violently destabilized Augury Force fluctuations that poured off her were enough to make Luolin — still inhabiting the rabbit ear pendant — shudder down to her very core.

——”No…… this? This is impossible…… Lianyue’s presence…… has vanished?”——