Chapter 259: World-Class Barrier

Cress’s [Gravity] was always active, so she was the first to notice the changes.

At the same moment Olivia snapped out of her thoughts. Looking at the empty surroundings, her body trembled once.

“We’ve been pulled into a barrier.”

“If it’s a barrier, then we just need to find the edge and break it,” Isabella said.

There were indeed people in this world who could use magic to construct spaces that existed between illusion and reality. Such spaces were called “barriers.” Of course, the amount of magic required was enormous, so they usually served only as a way to display the terrifying darkness within one’s body.

Gabrielle sighed.

If her guess was correct, the strongest combat forces in the world were all gathered here. Just who was toying with so many powerhouses?

Unlike before, many stone statues now stood around the edges of the room. Each was roughly seventeen meters tall, towering over everyone like giants from the beginning of creation.

The ash-gray stone giants all possessed female forms. Tall crowns covered their eyes, leaving only exquisitely carved cherry lips exposed. Their clothing resembled that of the nuns outside, only more sacred and ancient.

Besides that, the flow of magic in the air had completely vanished.

Cress manipulated gravity.

Boom—

With nothing more than the posture of a single punch, the great doors were torn into several massive fragments of stone. Those fragments shattered further before they even hit the ground, turning into dust that scattered into nothing.

A pair of silver wings unfurled behind Olivia. She shot out of the Holy Sanctum. Her figure became a silver-white line in the sky as she flew toward the farthest distance. Isabella and Cress stayed behind to guard the area.

At that moment the always-composed Letitia turned deathly pale. She suddenly dropped to one knee. Her attendant supported her body while murmuring something under her breath.

“It’s all right, my lady… it’s all right… please forget it.”

The attendant’s voice was slender and mixed with gentle emotion, as if this scene had played out countless times before.

“I…”

Letitia’s eyes were wide open. She trembled as though still trapped inside an illusion, her face full of residual terror.

“A trap?” Hertitz examined the surroundings. Hidden magic-restraining devices still remained on her body, but in the end she could not be of much help among so many powerhouses. She looked out the window, and a cold sensation crawled up her spine.

Just then Olivia crashed back in through a side window, ignoring the wall and blasting a massive crater through it.

Before her feet even touched the ground she said seriously, “There is no boundary here.”

“You mean this barrier is infinite, and its range covers the entire world?” Hertitz asked.

“No. The size of this barrier… is a world.”

The moment those words left her mouth, the air fell into deathly silence.

The size of the barrier was a world.

Historically, the strongest user of dark magic—Isabella—could create a barrier the size of a city.

Even then, the price was half the magic in her body. Isabella had only used a barrier once, when cleaning up traitor demons.

A single city versus an entire world. The difference was heaven and earth.

“Miss Letitia, are you all right?”

Gabrielle looked in her direction. Everyone else’s gazes also shifted to the girl who was still on one knee and in poor condition.

Letitia struggled to her feet. Her voice had grown weak.

“I’m fine. But everyone must leave this place at once. We cannot continue like this.”

“Does Miss Letitia know something?”

Gabrielle stared at her deeply.

At the same time, out of the corner of her eye, Gabrielle saw the statue of the God of Sacred Feathers begin to change.

The corners of its mouth lifted. Two trails of bloody tears flowed from its scarlet eyes. The wings behind it turned pure black, like polished obsidian. Its praying posture became outstretched arms, as though offering everyone an embrace—or perhaps descending a gospel of destruction.

Cress had been staring fixedly at the sky. After hearing Letitia’s words she shifted her gaze to the girl as well.

“If we don’t leave, we will all die here.”

There was no time for further thought. Everyone began searching for a solution.

They suddenly realized the Holy Sanctum itself seemed different from only a few minutes ago.

Earlier the Sanctum had been vast and magnificent, yet still not large enough to contain these stone statues. Ever since Olivia flew back from the distance, the exit had grown farther and farther away.

Suddenly a ten-meter-tall stone statue came to life. Accompanied by several violent tremors of the earth, it closed the distance in two or three steps. Its three arms creaked and groaned. White dust slid down through the smoke and settled on the ground. The massive cylindrical crown on its head now looked like a flying warship, and its fists were the shells.

Then the second. The third.

In just a few short seconds they were surrounded by countless living stone statues. The Holy Sanctum had become a toy, and the living statues the mischievous children playing with it.

Shing—!

Isabella created a silver-white magic sword. With a single controlled slash, the terrifying sword energy split a living statue cleanly in two.

Battle was about to erupt at any moment.

The statues were enormous, yet their speed was not slow at all. Gabrielle realized every single one of them possessed Emperor Rank strength. In the real world, the simultaneous appearance of so many Emperor Rank powerhouses was as absurd and eerie as pure gold mines lying everywhere beneath a city.

Of course—this was someone who could create a world-class barrier.

The attendant beside Letitia crushed a stone tablet at her waist. A faint, pale shield wrapped around everyone. She then crushed two more tablets. The legs of two statues exploded, yet the statues continued to crawl slowly across the ground like zombies.

Cress merely manipulated gravity and crushed two statues into spheres, then flung them outward to shatter three more behind them, blocking their advance.

Two of the statues suddenly opened their mouths to an inhuman degree, revealing a terrifying energy of interwoven black and red heat. They released a beam of death light.

At that exact moment Olivia’s magic array was ready. In an instant the entire floor of the palace was covered by a silver-white magic circle.

A brilliant light flashed. Every stone statue toppled to the ground like robots that had lost their power, producing deafening crashes. Their magic had been completely “drained” by Olivia.

Gabrielle did not join the fight. She kept her eyes fixed on the statue of the God of Sacred Feathers.

The smile on that statue grew more and more pronounced. Compassion and mercy had vanished, replaced by pure mockery. It tilted its head and sneered with contempt, as though looking down on all living beings.

Its pupils flashed. The giants that had been killed stood up once more. Olivia’s magic array vanished in an instant. The enormous gap in power made Olivia’s delicate brows furrow. The meaning in her eyes was especially clear.

I have to go all out.

Olivia intended to use her full strength—the new power she had acquired after being eroded by shadows. The price, however, was exposing her identity.