Volume 6, Chapter 72 – The Ice Lotus in Bloom

Within Wishaven——

Yelena leaned on her bloodstained staff, one knee pressed to the ground, using it to prop up her swaying body. Her black hair was plastered to her cheeks by sweat and grime. Her crimson eyes were fixed hard on the sky — where the Vassals of Sky’s Corrupted Beasts were perishing one after another.

Not defeated by Wishaven’s garrison, nor by the Terrabond Lineage. They were simply ceasing to exist on their own.

First, a golden roc vassal with a wingspan of a hundred zhang let out a piercing shriek and dissolved into scattered motes of light. Then three circling dragon vassals collapsed simultaneously, their dark-green flames snuffing out like dying candles and dispersing on the wind. These creatures, which had been rampaging just minutes ago, now went out without a sound — as if every last thing sustaining them had been cut away.

“Has Ulutiel been dealt with?”

Yelena murmured under her breath.

Between vassals, Corrupted Beasts, and evil gods, there exists an unbreakable thread of spiritual connection. The collective annihilation of the Vassals of Sky’s Guardian Beasts could only mean that Ulutiel’s power had suffered a catastrophic blow — or that she may have already fallen……

Fallen for good.

“Big Sister? Did she succeed?”

Yelena clenched her fist and whispered, her feelings tangled and conflicted.

She could sense it clearly — the curse power inside her was crumbling away. She was losing her identity as a vassal.

She had not been born from Corruption. She was a witch who had received an evil god’s power of her own accord.

And so, even if the evil god perished, she would not die alongside the other Corrupted Beasts the way they did. She would simply lose the power and revert to her original self.

Yet——

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When she turned her focus toward the direction of The Veiled Domain, this Black Witch’s brow knotted itself into a hard crease.

“No…… something’s wrong.”

It wasn’t as simple as she had imagined.

Because the curse power fluctuations emanating from that direction — the kind belonging to a Terran Malevolence — hadn’t weakened in the slightest. If anything, they had grown more immense, more terrifying than before. That putrid power crouched within the heart of The Veiled Domain like a colossal beast lying in wait, radiating a suffocating pressure……

The Terran Malevolence’s power was growing ? While her own was fading?

And though the fluctuations were of a Terran Malevolence’s order, they were distinctly different from Big Sister’s presence……

“That…… isn’t Big Sister’s power……”

What on earth had happened?

At this moment, a powerful unease spread through Yelena like a contagion, racing wildly through her mind——

At the same time, on the only passage between the Robusta Basin and the central region of The Veiled Domain——

Silver wings of light cleaved through the sky, trailing a sharp howling wind. Ailiya held her magical girl form, Augury Force swirling around her and forming a faint golden shield that repelled the waves of putrid energy assailing her from every direction.

Her cherry-colored eyes were scorched with anxiety. Her light-wings were beating at their absolute limit, whipping up gales that sent the black mud spattering across the ground below.

The moment Bai Lianyue’s presence had vanished, it was as though an invisible hand had closed around her heart and squeezed. Every second of delay could mean consequences that could never be undone.

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“You reckless little fool!! You are not allowed to be in danger!! If you dare to be in danger — I swear I will never forgive you!!”

Ailiya gritted her teeth and whispered it like a vow. The longsword in her hand blazed with blinding golden light, and she swept it out, cleaving through a thick black-thorn root blocking her path.

Ever since she had felt Bai Lianyue’s presence disappear, she had been pushing toward Lianyue’s location with everything she had — but the obstacles along the way were far worse than she could have imagined.

The earth beneath her writhed and heaved. Fissures kept splitting wider. Black mud erupted like boiling magma. Jagged, unnatural black plants tore up from below at irregular intervals, striking at her from all angles, trying to knock her from the sky. More relentless still were the endless Corrupted Beasts — as though controlled by some force that felt nothing and feared death even less, they poured in from all sides without pause.

These creatures of the Terrabond Lineage that had once treated her with utmost deference now radiated an unmistakable, savage hostility.

“Honestly——!”

Ailiya bit down and let her Divine Graced Realm Augury Force roar outward.

She swept the longsword in a wide arc. Golden sword energy fanned out like crescent moons, slicing through hundreds of Corrupted Beasts surging toward her in a single stroke. But the moment that wave was cut down, more clambered out of the black mud — limitless in number, clinging to her like rot eating into bone, steadily grinding away at her Augury Force reserves.

The spiritual corruption in her mind still hadn’t disappeared, flaring every so often into spasms of acute pain that disrupted her power flow. Ailiya endured the agony of her consciousness being torn at, continuously rallying her soul force to resist, while simultaneously deflecting the attacks in front of her. Fine beads of sweat seeped from her forehead and tracked down her cheeks, dripping onto the hem of her torn dress.

“Get out of my way!!! I don’t have time for you right now——”

Ailiya’s voice crackled with a fury that could overturn the sky. A flash of crimson cut through her cherry-colored eyes. She slammed her Augury Force into a sudden surge. Her silver light-wings erupted with blinding radiance, and her speed spiked again, forcing her way clean through the encirclement. Tens of thousands of Corrupted Beasts were flung back by the shockwave and sent tumbling in every direction.

But just as Ailiya was building up for another strike, preparing to scatter the next tide of Corrupted Beasts——

Something changed.

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——!!

“Huh?! Now what?!”

“Hmmm——————”

The heaving earth beneath her abruptly stopped churning. The spewing black mud solidified on the spot. The bizarre plants that had been lunging out of the ground froze mid-air. Then the Corrupted Beasts that had been throwing themselves at her in a frenzy seemed to have everything drained out of them all at once — they stumbled and fell, one by one, their bodies rapidly withering, until they crumbled into black powder and dissolved into the air.

The sudden change made Ailiya pull up short. Her silver wings fanned slowly behind her as she hovered there, her face written over with disbelief and confusion.

What’s happening?

Why did these Corrupted Beasts suddenly——

Has Valerdis given up on blocking her? Or…… had something happened on that side?

Countless questions flickered through her mind. Ailiya instinctively spread her senses outward to search — and still could not feel Bai Lianyue’s presence anywhere……

Tch……

“Doesn’t matter!!”

She shook her head sharply. The confusion in her eyes was swept aside by urgency. Whatever had happened, what mattered now was finding Bai Lianyue. She didn’t hesitate another moment — wings going full force, she became a streak of silver light and shot toward the battlefield at the heart of The Veiled Domain.

As she drew closer to the center, the weight in Ailiya’s chest only grew heavier. Even as the battlefield came nearer and nearer, she still couldn’t feel even a trace of Lianyue’s curse power presence……

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She bit down harder. Her speed climbed higher and higher — terrified that arriving even a single moment too late would mean facing the one thing she most desperately did not want to see.

Tens of seconds later——

She reached the core of the battlefield.

But the sight that greeted her eyes made Ailiya freeze in midair, every ounce of frantic urgency replaced in an instant by utter stunned bewilderment.

“This…… what is this??”

There, reflected in Ailiya’s cherry-colored eyes——

The black mud that had been churning across the battlefield, the dense thicket of black thorns — all of it had collapsed and gone inert, strewn across the ground, stripped of all vitality, no different from ordinary mud and dead branches. The creatures of Corruption that had consumed Polarvitan and Ulutiel were now utterly harmless. Clear moonlight had even broken through the clouds, spilling down onto the scorched earth and driving away the last wisps of black mist.

Valerdis’s form and presence had vanished completely. No crimson eyeball. No immense putrid power. As though the malevolent entity that had just awakened with all its talk of revenge had never been here at all.

And there, in the very center of the battlefield——

A single enormous ice lotus bloomed in silence.

It stood a full zhang ¹ Roughly 10ft in height. Its petals were formed of pure ice — crystalline and translucent, radiating a soft, faint halo of pale blue. Each petal was encrusted with delicate ice crystals that caught the light and scattered it into dazzling, refracted brilliance.

And nestled at the heart of that ice lotus, a breathtakingly beautiful elf girl lay perfectly still, in quiet repose——

——”Lian, Lianyue??!”——