North Tivian, Church District.
Beneath the hazy sky, outside the archives building of the Saint Chant Church in the Church District, an unfair battle was underway. Facing the Light battle line with its powerful suppressive fire, three Chalk-tier "Cup" Extraordinary from the Fetal Garment Cult were completely suppressed. After sustaining numerous injuries, the werewolf Brand finally found an opportunity. By using the heavy impact on the ground to launch stones, he inflicted significant injuries on the mortal soldiers on the battle line, which drastically reduced the line's suppressive fire.
Seeing this, Brand and Vaughn immediately roared and charged towards the Light position. The two Scarlet Monks on the Light position, seeing this, immediately ignited their longswords with flames and, carrying the power blessing granted by the Granted Priest, stepped out of the formation to meet the charging werewolves.
The reduction in gunfire suppression also gave Sand, who had been almost immobile, a chance to breathe. Looking at the Light position ahead, the blood-soaked Sand's expression turned serious. Then, from the rainwater drain near the Light position, a swarm of red-eyed rats squeaked out!
These were rats Sand had arranged in the Church District's sewers long ago, his scouts for Saint Chant Church. Now, he was using these rats to launch a sneak attack on the Light position, attacking them from behind.
However, as "Lamp" Extraordinary, the perception abilities of the Church Chalk on the position were not to be underestimated. When the rat swarm approached the position, they had already detected the anomaly and warned others around them, alerting them to the presence of the rat swarm.
But now, the two Scarlet Monks in the position had gone to face the charging werewolves. Facing the numerous rat swarm, they temporarily lacked effective means of clearing them. Fortunately, the Church was wealthy, and when Extraordinary abilities were insufficient, they had enough Extraordinary items to compensate.
Facing the rat swarm, many soldiers in the position directly pulled out iron throwing objects that integrated talismans and Spirituality storage devices. They threw them towards the rat swarm. The throwing objects quickly burst into flames upon hitting the ground, sweeping out a large area of fire, engulfing all the rats carrying deadly diseases within the range in one go. Those rats struggled and scurried painfully in the flames, finally burning and falling to the ground.
Sand's surprise attack was foiled. At this moment, the soldiers on the Light position who had been injured and fallen were basically fully recovered under the healing of Extraordinary abilities. They returned to their posts, operated their weapons, and aimed the muzzles of their heavy machine guns forward.
After receiving the signal, the two Scarlet Monks who were entangled with the werewolves, at the cost of their sturdy plate armor being almost completely destroyed by the werewolves' sharp claws, drew a wall of fire in place and quickly retreated. The werewolves, who had a great advantage in close combat and had been suppressing the Scarlet Monks, wanted to continue the pursuit. However, what they saw after bypassing the wall of fire were countless dark muzzles aimed at them.
Suddenly, the gunfire in front of the Forbidden Library erupted again. The heavy machine guns on the position roared and opened fire again under the operation of the healed soldiers. Instantly, dense metal projectiles poured out like rain towards the front of the position. Large areas of blood splattered again on the two werewolves, completely hindering their charge. Under this hail of bullets and the fire attacks of the Scarlet Monks, they couldn't help but scurry around again, seeking new cover.
Unlike many secret societies that prioritize only Extraordinary, for large organizations like the Church and the state, mortal armed forces are also an important part of the organization's military strength... especially grassroots military strength. The armies of the Church and the state will specifically train mixed units of Extraordinary and mortal soldiers. Usually, Extraordinary protect the mortal units using high-firepower weapons for attacks, creating output space for the mortal units under the endless Extraordinary interference.
If such mixed units cooperate well, they can exert great effectiveness on the front lines. Even when slightly disadvantaged in the number and tier of Extraordinary, they can still achieve overall advantage by cooperating with mortal units. More crucially, because a large amount of attack behavior is borne by mortal units, the Spirituality consumption of Extraordinary is greatly reduced. In terms of sustained and long-term combat, they have a great advantage compared to secret societies that usually only prioritize Extraordinary. This is one of the reasons why almost all secret societies are reluctant to directly challenge official Extraordinary agencies.
For example, right now, the three Chalk of Placenta are suppressed by the Light troops with almost no ability to resist, suffering a large amount of damage, while these three Chalk can hardly inflict effective damage on the Light position. Although the number of Chalk-tier Extraordinary on the other side is not less than their own, if this were a pure Extraordinary melee, they wouldn't be so miserable. Werewolves, as beings with almost the strongest frontal killing ability among the Chalk of all Extraordinary paths, can cause very considerable damage in a frontal melee.
However, the current situation is that much of the werewolves' Spirituality is directly wasted on healing wounds caused by bullets, and they cannot even achieve a one-to-one exchange of consumption in Spirituality with the Light Extraordinary. They cannot even trade injuries for injuries or lives for lives, and can only be unilaterally suppressed, constantly restoring injuries with precious Spirituality. If this continues, the werewolves' Spirituality will be exhausted while Light's consumption is very minimal. Exchanging bullets for Spirituality is too profitable for Light.
"Damn it... there's no other way..."
Facing the suppression of the hail of bullets, Brand, who was constantly fleeing, found that his side was slowly falling into a desperate situation. Under these circumstances, he finally couldn't care about other things and prepared to use his final means.
Taking advantage of a gap, Brand retched and spat something out of his large mouth, grabbing it in his claw. Upon closer inspection, it was a test tube, containing a dark red liquid.
After getting the test tube, Brand threw it fiercely towards the Light position without hesitation. Among the "Lamp" sharpshooters in the Light position, one who discovered Brand's anomaly immediately raised his hand and fired a shot, hitting and shattering the test tube while it was still in mid-air. The liquid inside instantly splattered and fell to the ground.
Subsequently, a pungent smell diffused into the air. Brand, seeing this, breathed a slight sigh of relief. All he could do now was wait.
...
Somewhere in a vast, continuous forest in the northern suburbs of Tivian, Duval, dressed in a black raincoat, stood alone, gazing at the distant sky. When his extraordinarily powerful, anti-logical Extraordinary sense of smell detected the change in the distant scent, he had received the signal.
The marker is set, the situation is critical, he must act.
After interpreting the signal, Duval finally began his action. Along with the surge of Spirituality within his body, his body began to undergo drastic changes.
"Click, click, click, click..."
Amidst a strange sound of muscle Creep, Duval's physique began to swell exaggeratedly. The expanding muscles burst through the black raincoat, revealing deep black fur. His original teeth turned into fangs, his fingernails into sharp claws, and his face protruded extremely exaggeratedly. Duval began his wolf transformation.
Expanding... expanding... expanding again... After beginning his wolf transformation, Duval's physique continued to expand uncontrollably. Two meters, three meters, four meters... eight meters, nine meters, ten meters... Duval's figure continued to grow even after expanding to about ten meters, finally stopping when his entire body reached about twelve or thirteen meters.
Appearing between the trees at this moment was a giant beast taller than many trees. Its sharp claws and teeth, firm and bulging muscles, black fur covering its entire body, and a powerful wolf tail behind it all demonstrated its immense strength and wildness. On the shoulders of the wolf-like monster sat two large, bizarre wolf heads, both opening their mouths wide, from which viscous saliva continuously dripped.
Two-Headed Giant Wolf—this was the terrifying form Duval took after his werewolf transformation was complete. Once the transformation was finished, Duval began to move his massive body. He first lowered himself, landing on all fours like a true beast, and stared fiercely into the distance.
Then, Duval suddenly exerted force, and his whole being surged forward explosively. In just an instant, this enormous beast turned into a blurry afterimage, speeding towards Tivian in the south.
Accelerating, running, Duval used all four limbs to constantly sprint forward at high speed. His immense force stepped on the ground, crushing it into pits, and when his massive body encountered trees, he effortlessly broke them in one go.
As he continuously accelerated, Duval's speed grew faster and faster, even kicking up a strong airflow on the ground that scattered large areas of leaves behind him. In a short time, Duval covered a distance of several kilometers, directly breaking out of the forest and entering an open field, from where he could already see the densely packed buildings towering in the distant south.
Finally, Duval ran up a hill. At the top of the hill, he suddenly used all four limbs with force, driving his entire massive body to leap high, jumping directly towards the sky.
"Boom!!"
Amidst a thunderous sound, the entire hill was directly trampled into a large pit by the force of Duval's final leap. Then, Duval's figure shot straight into the sky like a black rocket, flying directly towards Tivian with an extremely high ascent arc and angle.
Driven by immense force, Duval flew diagonally upwards to an altitude of several thousand meters. Looking down, he saw the densely spread, tiny city buildings. This powerful hunter soared high in the sky, instinctively pouncing towards the direction from which the target's aura came with a hunter's precision. Soon, he saw the tall Church towering on the ground ahead.
After reaching the limit of his jump height, Duval began to dive down at high speed. When his altitude dropped to a certain level, Vanya in the Archbishop's office suddenly started, looking out the window at the sky with a stunned expression.
"That is..."
Jumping—this was the method of entry Duval chose, and it was the only way he could quickly bypass the Rank Sight and reach the Tivian City.
The nodes of the Rank Sight were ordinary Light believers living in Tivian. Within a certain maximum range with St. Yong Cathedral as the origin point, any Light believer could provide a wide-area monitoring range of about one to one point five kilometers for the Rank Sight. All Light believers were the eyes of the Church; no matter which direction the Crimson Tier existence approached Tivian from, they would be detected near the city's outskirts.
However, this characteristic of the Rank Sight also led to a problem. Because the basic detection nodes were believers who lived on the ground and spread outwards from the city, the detection range of the Rank Sight, although very wide, was inevitably relatively flat, forming a flat, elliptical detection circle. It could detect ground and low-altitude units far away, but it was difficult to detect high-altitude units.
Therefore, if Duval had directly run into the Tivian City, he would have been immediately discovered by Vanya's Rank Sight in the Church District, and the An Yin Bureau's Crimson would have been notified for emergency reinforcement. Duval might have been intercepted by the urgently arriving Crimson Wind Art User before he even reached his destination.
But entering by jumping was different. The upward detection range of the Rank Sight was only about one point five kilometers. As long as he jumped high and far enough, he could keep most of the entry process outside the range of the Rank Sight until he descended near the destination. By then, however, it would be too late. For high-altitude flying targets, the Church's "Light" Extraordinary could usually easily see them and react in time, but with the Church District in chaos, no one cared what was flying in the sky.
Just like that, Duval transformed into a black swift Shadow, plummeting straight down from the sky of Tivian, accurately falling onto the open ground in front of the Archives building, following the scent of blood.
"Boom!!!"
Accompanied by a loud roar, the ground trembled violently, and large amounts of dust surged up from the powerful impact, instantly spreading across the entire square. The Light forces were suddenly unable to see their targets to fire, and everyone watched what was happening before them in astonishment.
"What is... this?"
Looking at the sky-high dust before him, Gaspare couldn't help but speak in confusion and astonishment. And in the next second, a terrifying howl swept away the confusion in everyone's hearts.
"Roar!!!!"
A heaven-shaking wolf howl spread from the center of the dust, completely scattering it. In an instant, the massive, ten-meter-tall monster appeared before the Light forces. It stood in the huge crater formed by the impact, roaring loudly with its two heads. After a run-up of several kilometers, the Fearful Demonic Wolf, with absolute powerful strength, leaped an ultra-long distance of nearly twenty kilometers, arriving at its hunting ground.
From the start, Duval unleashed a Crimson-level fear howl. The powerful wolf howl instantly spread throughout the entire Church District and the surrounding streets. The affected believers and citizens immediately felt an inexplicable fear in their hearts, screaming and fleeing blindly in all directions. The entire Church District and a large area of the surrounding City instantly fell into chaos.
And in front of the Archives building, the Light position directly suffered the impact from the center of the fear howl. The Discipline Guards were temporarily unable to resist such a powerful mental shock for everyone, and they were all on the verge of collapse. In the end, they had no choice but to shrink the range of the discipline they applied, removing the discipline protection from most ordinary soldiers and low-level Extraordinary, and concentrating their Spirituality and experience on protecting themselves and the few Chalk colleagues present, thus barely resisting this fear impact.
This approach also caused the minds of all the lower-level Extraordinary, ordinary soldiers, and the Holy War Army forces on the position and in the surrounding area to directly collapse. They screamed and threw down their weapons, fleeing the battlefield. Some people too close to Duval were even directly affected by the fear psychologically and physiologically, convulsing and collapsing to the ground, foaming at the mouth. In just an instant after entering, Duval destroyed the Light's low-level Extraordinary and ordinary auxiliary forces, leaving only a few Chalk still standing at the scene.
"This really is... a distinctive way of entering..."
In the carriage outside the Church District, Dorothy looked at the chaotic scene outside the window and couldn't help but remark.