Chapter 267: Lartomia

A heatwave surged toward her porcelain-like face.

The roar of an explosion made the girl suddenly widen her eyes as she looked at the disaster-like scene before her.

Firelight cast Gabriella’s figure across the brown wilderness.

The once-great human city had already turned into ruins under continuous warfare and the bombardment of powerful magical explosions.

Surging magical cannons continued to sweep across this graveyard of a city.

The only sounds in her ears were the successive cracking of stones and the collapsing of buildings.

Smoke covered the starry sky that should have been brilliant, leaving only an impenetrable blackness.

The gray-brown city walls turned into ash-white and blackened remnants beneath the raging flames.

Several watchtowers toppled one after another, producing a crisp bursting sound.

The wild wind that rose, accompanied by several tongues of fire, became the final straw that shattered the castle, which then collapsed with a loud crash.

Boom—!

At her feet, the family crests and emblems on several fragments of rubble had already been scorched by the scorching flames into patches of black and white, blurred beyond recognition, telling of the city’s former prosperity.

Gabriella instinctively looked behind her.

A massive figure stood within the flames.

Accompanied by the violent trembling of the ground, she finally saw clearly what it was.

A giant?

No. It was another kind of special existence.

Orange-yellow light cannons shot from the “giant’s” hands.

Wherever they passed, towering explosions occurred, turning everything into a torn canyon.

Pii pii pii!

They triggered crustal movements, as if declaring that she was the one who had started this disaster.

That head, as large as a water barrel and also like a skyscraper, swayed left and right before finally locking onto Gabriella.

Even amid the raging flames, Gabriella still felt a chill run down her spine.

This was a pressure completely different from that of the God of Holy Feathers—the pressure of the strongest in the world.

Gabriella lightly pressed down her fluttering white dress and gazed into the distance at the giant’s figure with those calm eyes.

“Wait.”

Gabriella’s pupils suddenly contracted.

What had she come here to do again?

“Purge.”

Gabriella carefully tasted that word, yet she quickly realized that not long ago she seemed to have encountered the God of Holy Feathers and had almost seen her true appearance.

And now she was standing within the raging flames…

That’s right. This was a dream.

Gabriella remembered.

She suddenly recalled that she had already returned to the mansion together with Isabella, Olivia, and even Roselyn—the newly arrived maid.

After greeting Morphis and Philina who were “watching the house,” she had returned to her own room and fallen into a deep sleep under the comfort of Mother Creis.

After all, she had used too much mana.

After that, she had arrived in this dream—that is, memories of the past.

“This place… is still the God War, isn’t it?” Gabriella murmured to herself.

Then the stone tablet at her waist—a magical device that looked somewhat similar to the rune tablets Roselyn had used—emitted a sound.

Behind the sound was Olivia’s anxious voice.

“Gabriella!!!”

Gabriella picked up the communication tablet, held it in her hand, and brought it to her ear like a mobile phone.

The giant’s gaze did not shift, yet Gabriella’s sense of tension vanished completely.

As long as she knew this was a dream, then no matter what happened, it seemed not to matter?

“Mom, what is it?”

The voice on the other end of the communicator was intermittent, as if interfered with by mana.

“Hurry… leave… trap…”

The static completely drowned out Olivia’s pleasant voice.

“Mission failed… do not… continue… that is… Lartomia…”

Then Olivia’s voice completely disappeared.

A wild wind blew Gabriella’s silver-white long hair apart.

Gabriella instinctively looked toward the giant that was slowly approaching.

A crack on that water-barrel-sized head radiated intense orange-yellow light.

Only when Gabriella looked carefully did she discover that the giant’s body structure was sharp-edged, like a magically constructed puppet clad in armor, equipped with many external armor plates that made it appear somewhat cumbersome.

It was the one that had interrupted the communication.

“Who are you?”

Gabriella said softly.

Yet the giant was still several thousand meters away from her, so the words were more like talking to herself.

She was not simply curious about the other’s identity.

After all, this fellow radiated a pressure that surpassed the Emperor level.

When that gaze approached Gabriella, the killing intent was enough to make even her feel a slight sense of suffocation.

The other must be some powerful individual who had existed in history.

“God.”

That word floated into Gabriella’s mind.

Celestial God, Evil God, and the God of Holy Feathers.

At present this world had already produced three gods. Adding the divine woman would make four. One more god would not be a particularly important matter.

Then the “giant” slowly walked out of the flames.

Every step made the earth tremble a little more.

Unlike the stereotypical heavy body of a giant, the mechanical giant’s steps were agile when walking.

In only an instant it crossed several thousand meters and arrived in front of Gabriella.

Those massive mechanically armored legs sank more than ten meters into the scorching ground.

Even when looking up, one could barely see the position of its knees.

Gabriella’s expression remained light and unconcerned.

She simply adjusted her skirt and hair, then smiled.

“You are Lartomia, aren’t you? Divine Offspring, Lartomia.”

It was the first time she had heard the name, and it only appeared within the memories of this dream.

Creis had mentioned Lartomia, describing her as a formidable enemy.

The two weapons [Soul Severing] and [Blazing Soul] were both legendary relics of Lartomia.

In other words, Lartomia should have been a powerful individual who fought using magitech.

As for whether she truly deserved the title of “Divine Offspring,” Gabriella felt a sense of affirmation in her heart.

After all, that was an existence that had given even the entire group of Heavenly Oracle Envoys a headache.

Gabriella had never imagined that one day she would hear Olivia issue the order to “retreat.”

Indeed, after Gabriella spoke the five characters of “Lartomia,” the other’s footsteps stopped.

She raised her head, as if a tiny point of light were slowly falling.

Gabriella took several steps back.

Indeed, a girl descending from the sky smashed a five-meter-deep crater into the ground in front of Gabriella.

Like a bomb landing, it triggered a dangerous shockwave that continued to devastate this human city that had long since become ruins.

The girl slowly walked out.

Unlike Gabriella’s impression, the girl’s body was somewhat petite.

The slits of her orange long robe revealed slender, pure white beautiful legs.

She wore white thigh-high stockings, the edges decorated with gear-shaped golden patterns that accentuated her perfect leg shape.

Both of her arms were wrapped in the metal shells of magitech, looking like a pair of beautiful white gloves, with net-like mana patterns outlining pretty shapes.

In her right hand she tightly gripped a giant cleaver that was several times larger than the girl’s own body.

Everything except the handle was part of the weapon.

Like Blazing Soul, it belonged to the same type of magitech weapon. Those precise magical patterns were already stating this fact.

Orange long hair reached her waist, with a nut-shaped hair ornament that radiated a metallic luster at her temple.

What surprised Gabriella the most was not her utilization of magitech, nor the imposing stature of the giant behind her.

It was that her appearance was extremely familiar—so familiar that Gabriella even felt this entire scene might be her hallucination.

“Loli?”