Spur's mental world had now been split cleanly into two halves.
One side was filled with birdsong, blooming flowers, and vibrant life. The other lay beneath a blood-red moon, the ground littered with corpses.
Yet if the living world occupied three quarters of the realm, the land of death had been reduced to a pitiful quarter—and even that portion was steadily shrinking.
"Fragile. Weak. You give me the impression of a nouveau riche who suddenly gained power, like a child recklessly wielding strength that doesn't belong to them.
You lack both the heart of a Saint-tier powerhouse and any real combat experience against one. Despite possessing an Authority higher than mine, you're still being completely suppressed by me.
Are you really a Saint?"
Spur sneered as he mocked Hel, though his hawk-like eyes never once left her.
As a veteran Holy Judicator Knight who had spent half his life dealing with witches, Spur had seen his share of "wolves in sheep's clothing."
In particular, Hel's mental world showed an extremely high degree of compatibility with her body—nothing like the rejection reaction seen in those pseudo–Saints who merely inherited someone else's mental world.
However, her control over it was shockingly crude.
So crude that even a newly advanced Saint would handle a mental world better than she did.
It felt like a non-Saint ant forcibly controlling a Saint-tier puppet.
Wait…
At that thought, Spur finally caught onto something crucial.
It's too similar. Far too similar.
Hel's current state reminded him of an incident from long ago.
Was it a hundred years ago? Or two hundred? The time was so distant that many details had faded.
Yet he still clearly remembered that expressionless face at the moment of death.
A pitiful nun, toyed with like a puppet by the weak.
She, too, had possessed an extraordinary compatibility with her mental world—and used it just as clumsily.
And the kind of being capable of that was no ordinary transcendent, not even a typical Death-lineage witch.
Only one person could do such a thing.
The Witch of Death.
"Heh… So the Witch of Death has revived after all. I thought the one we purged eighty years ago wouldn't return anytime soon.
Still, your disgusting habit of playing with corpses really does resemble your predecessor."
"So?" Hel sneered.
Gigantic skeletal puppets slowly rose from the sea of blood, charging toward the raging vine giants.
At the same time, undead knights that had fallen into the blood sea climbed back out, shrouded in terrifying resentment as they ravaged the distant flower fields.
Yet their destruction was far slower than the flowers' regeneration.
"I don't think a madman who uses living people to cultivate magic potions has any right to call me 'disgusting.'"
"Hahaha! That was for the sake of creating greater lifeforms—a contribution to the world's progress!
Even those fertilizer flowers should rest in peace, knowing their value.
But you lunatics who only bring death? You spread destruction and slaughter, dragging the entire world toward extinction. That's your true goal."
Spur sneered again and raised his staff.
"I'm done playing with a filthy heretic like you.
I know this is just a puppet body, but acquiring a Saint-tier corpse must have cost a pathetic ant like you dearly, didn't it?
Don't worry. To spare you the grief that might drive you to harm the world,
After I destroy this Saint-tier puppet, I'll report your whereabouts to the Church.
Then we'll mobilize its full power and scour the entire continent.
No matter where you hide, no matter what disguise you use—we will find you."
With a cold laugh, Spur began chanting an intricate spell.
[Supreme Life Magic: Flora's Ball]
Illusory vines spread around him. Petals appeared and vanished along their lengths, rapidly spiraling around his body.
In moments, a massive petal tornado formed, the faintly glowing petals dancing within the storm like tiny fairies.
With another wave of his hand, the petals shot out from the cyclone at extreme speed, transforming into flaming meteors that slammed toward Hel.
The sky of the entire mental world became a sea of petals.
Whoosh—whoosh whoosh…
What looked like soft flower petals were now razor-sharp blades, slicing through everything in their path.
Bones, death knights, even the blood moon hanging high in the sky—nothing was spared.
In the blink of an eye, Hel's mental world was torn to pieces.
She was forced to transform into a raven and hide inside a metal sphere forged from aurichalcum.
The storm of attacks raged like a torrential downpour for dozens of minutes.
When Hel finally crawled out of the battered sphere, the battlefield had changed drastically.
Before the spell, she had still controlled a quarter of the realm.
Now, only a tiny patch beneath her feet remained.
Even the aurichalcum sphere—crafted with top-tier alchemy—was riddled with holes.
Had Spur focused his attack on Hel herself rather than her mental world, even this shelter wouldn't have saved her puppet body.
"To think you survived my attack. That's rather surprising," Spur said with amused interest, like a cat toying with a mouse.
In his eyes, Hel—her mental world severely damaged and unable to recover quickly—was nothing but prey.
No matter how she struggled, escape was impossible.
Yet Hel showed no concern.
She opened her status panel and glanced at the grayed-out Mental World entry, smiling knowingly.
"Mental worlds…Aren't they something you can have as many of as you want?"
With a casual motion, she swapped in a different mental world entry from her unused collection.