Inside the vast and tall main chapel of St. Yong Cathedral, a battle that seemed to be between divinity and blasphemy continued. The ferocious, pitch-black beast, under the holy light wielded by the Sister, had reached its end.
As the Lance of Light pierced Duval's heart and continuously vaporized his flesh, the Demonic Wolf, which had been battered and heavily depleted during the previous battle, finally ran out of fuel and reached the end of its life. When the Lance of Light in the hands of the White Sister was withdrawn from his body, the fragmented and massive body of the Demonic Wolf crashed to its knees, then slowly fell forward, losing strength.
'I won!'
Looking at the scene of the monster before her, Vanya couldn't help but think with a hint of joy in her heart. However, what she didn't expect was that the seemingly dead remains would undergo a strange change in the next second.
"Be careful! This guy isn't dead yet!" At this moment, in Vanya's mind, Dorothy's voice suddenly sounded. Hearing Dorothy's words, Vanya's heart tensed with vigilance. Then, she saw with her mind's eye one of the fragmented arms of the fallen Demonic Wolf smashing towards her.
Vanya leaped back, narrowly dodging the attack of the severed arm. After the Demonic Wolf's severed arm missed, the giant body that was slowly falling forward extended a hand, propping itself up with the severed sections of its arms. Then, with a squelching sound, a pair of new, hairless wolf claws grew directly from the severed ends, supporting the entire body on the ground. Seeing this scene, Vanya's eyes widened.
'This guy... can still move?!'
With astonishment, Vanya once again swung the Lance of Light in her hand, sweeping it horizontally towards the Demonic Wolf's remains that had surprisingly started moving again. However, the massive Demonic Wolf's remains leaped back, dodging Vanya's horizontal sweep with the Lance of Light while creating distance.
Following this, a scene that surprised Vanya even more appeared. On the Demonic Wolf's body, the vaporized flesh began to regenerate again. Whether it was the pierced heart or the severed head, they all began to grow rapidly, regrowing in the form of hairless, skinless flesh.
Within the Demonic Wolf's original chest cavity, countless blood vessels and muscles spread inward, eventually forming an exposed heart, larger than two or three footballs, beating like a drum. On the Demonic Wolf's right head, which had only the lower half of the wolf skull remaining, a new brain began to regrow, accompanied by a fleshy upper jaw and fangs. At the same time, the Demonic Wolf's overall body became extremely thin, with many places looking so emaciated that bone was visible. It was as if the previously solid muscles had all grown onto the vaporized organs.
"Roar!!!"
Without fur, with its brain and flesh completely exposed, the single remaining, dripping Demonic Wolf's head opened its maw and let out a terrifying roar of fear. A powerful sound wave howled from his mouth, even creating air currents that blew Vanya's robes. The stained-glass windows in the main chapel, adorned with countless mosaic religious paintings, were shattered by this roar, turning into glass fragments that scattered down.
This fear roar of the Demonic Wolf was even more intense than the fear howl he had used before. Vanya, who was directly affected at close range, even felt her inner resolve waver for a moment, and this was despite her being protected by the focused blessing of St. Yong Cathedral. Facing this situation, Dorothy directly shared the ability of her black moon amulet to resist the effects of "Shadow" with Vanya, allowing her to face this enhanced fear roar at such close range.
Death's Rage... This was the Fearful Demonic Wolf's final ability. The moment the Demonic Wolf's main body transitioned from near-death to death, this ability would be triggered. This ability would extract all the Spirituality on the Demonic Wolf that had not been fully utilized, converting it into a highly effective stimulant that would force the dying Demonic Wolf's body to revive, healing most critical wounds at an extraordinary speed.
Under the effect of this stimulant, which was somewhat similar to adrenaline, the Fearful Demonic Wolf as a whole would become thinner, and all injuries would be repaired to a state that barely allowed the Demonic Wolf to move. Subsequently, the Demonic Wolf's overall physical fitness would increase by roughly half a stage, approaching the Golden level. However, under this stimulation, the Demonic Wolf itself would completely lose its rationality, becoming a rampaging monster driven entirely by hunger, knowing only endless slaughter and feeding until it had eaten its fill, only then could it regain its sanity.
The more severe the damage and stimulation the Fearful Demonic Wolf received, the less he could suppress his beast nature. Near-death would directly cause his rationality to evaporate, leading to complete rampaging. This was Duval's current state.
After rampaging, the Demonic Wolf stared intensely at Vanya, the nearest living being, with his cruel, Scarlet eyes. Immediately, Vanya felt a sense of crisis she had never experienced before. Her mind's eye told her that she was about to die.
Mind's Eye, able to see through and even predict the movements of enemies encountered in battle, allowing Vanya to preemptively parry, dodge, or counterattack. But the current situation was that all the predictions fed back by the mind's eye indicated that she would die. Any parrying or dodging movements were superfluous. In the Demonic Wolf's attack in the next moment, there was no possibility of her survival.
This situation arose from an absolute crushing of physical abilities. The speed and strength the Demonic Wolf could display in his rampaging state had already exceeded the limits Vanya could handle. In the face of this explosive difference in physical stats, even with skill and foresight, it was all in vain. Although Vanya's body had been reinforced several times, it was still insufficient to support her in making movements that could neutralize the Demonic Wolf's attack. Although the mind's eye told Vanya how she should dodge the Demonic Wolf's next strike, Vanya's body could not perform such movements.
In the instant before the second hand on the clock had even moved forward, the Demonic Wolf, in his final resurgence, moved. He exerted force with his four limbs, creating a large, deep pit in the ground as he transformed into a pitch-black afterimage and pounced towards Vanya. At the same time, another small, pitch-black afterimage also shot out from the shadows beside him, striking the Demonic Wolf from the side.
Supported by his enhanced, powerful sense of smell, the Demonic Wolf sensed the surprise attack launched against him. With a burst of beastly instinct, he swung his wolf claws towards the black shadow attacking him, hitting it in mid-air with movements that were almost invisible. In an instant, the Anecdote Entity Nightmare was torn to shreds under the Demonic Wolf's attack, turning into a cloud of dark red smoke.
But at the same time, an invisible thread also connected from the Anecdote Entity Nightmare to the Demonic Wolf. Through this Spirit thread, Dorothy began to expend a large amount of "enlightenment" Spirituality to control the rampaging Demonic Wolf, and also transmitted an electric shock.
The control of the Spirit thread, plus the electric shock, plus the delay caused by the Anecdote Entity Nightmare, these three factors combined could restrain Gothsmore for a few seconds. But for the Demonic Wolf, whose physical abilities had soared after rampaging, the influence of these three factors only delayed him for less than a second. But it was this brief moment that allowed Vanya, through her mind's eye, to see a new possibility.
Following this possibility... Vanya would still die, but this death would bring about consequences different from other deaths.
Maintaining a solemn expression, Vanya did not dodge the Demonic Wolf, which had quickly broken free from control and was attacking her. Instead, she took a large stride forward, holding the Lance of Light and thrusting it towards the Demonic Wolf again.
The Demonic Wolf's massive claws swung towards Vanya. Vanya avoided the main part of the claws through her footwork, and in the end, only the claws on the edge of his little finger grazed Vanya's body. Under his unparalleled strength, even a mere scrape from the Demonic Wolf's attack caused Vanya's left abdomen and left chest to disappear directly, leaving a third of her torso missing. Even so, Vanya's offensive did not stop, and she continued to advance with the Lance of Light.
'Receive... the Lord's punishment!'
Finally, the Lance of Light in Vanya's hand thrust towards the Demonic Wolf, piercing his heart once again. That large heart, unprotected by skin and bone, almost completely exposed, beating like a drum, was instantly vaporized by the Lance of Light.
In the state of Death's Rage, the Fearful Demonic Wolf was actually already Spiritually exhausted, merely running on adrenaline. In this state, if the Demonic Wolf could not eat, he would not be able to recover from his injuries, let alone fatal ones. And since the Demonic Wolf rampaged until now, his feeding count was zero.
Therefore, after the Demonic Wolf's heart was pierced again, his entire body lost its vitality once more. The Scarlet and rampaging look in his eyes gradually faded, and his massive body crashed to the ground at an angle, completely entering death.
Meanwhile, after finally killing the Demonic Wolf again, Vanya couldn't help but spit out a mouthful of blood. The Lance of Light in her hand quickly dissipated, and her white body, covered in blood, also fell weakly. After losing a third of her torso and having a series of important organs like her heart destroyed, even with the enhanced healing blessing, there was no possibility of Vanya surviving.
The moment Vanya fell to the ground, a blood-red light slightly illuminated at her waist. At the top of the hilt of a slender blade hanging from Vanya's waist, a large, blood-like ruby was currently emitting a faint light, and in response to this light were the damaged areas on Vanya's body.
Just like when the Demonic Wolf came back to life earlier, a miraculous rapid healing began on Vanya's missing body.
Muscles and blood vessels wriggled as if they had their own will, spontaneously stopping the bleeding, spontaneously connecting with each other. Like growing saplings, new muscles, blood vessels, and organs regrew on the original incomplete remains. The left lung visibly regrew, and the heart, which was originally only half-remaining, began to beat again after returning to its original state.
Nerves... blood vessels... organs... muscles... skin... In just a few tens of seconds, Vanya's missing flesh completely regrew. The horrifying wounds recovered as before, leaving only damaged clothing as a trace. The fair and delicate skin beneath the damage was almost completely free of bloodstains.
"Hoo... Thank the Lord..."
"And thank you... Miss Dorothea..."
Lying on the ground, feeling her previously blurry consciousness clear up again, her previously difficult breathing become smooth again, and the extreme pain completely disappear, Vanya couldn't help but let out a long breath and sincerely give thanks in her heart.
"No need to thank me... Wasn't everything agreed upon before? No matter what happens, I will guarantee your safety. For me, this is the top priority."
"That guy's resurgence did indeed scare me a bit, but it seems to be over now. That was almost a problem."
Still sitting in the carriage, Dorothy murmured to Vanya in her heart. Duval's sudden revival had indeed startled her a little. If it weren't for her, Vanya would have been instantly killed by the Demonic Wolf before she could even react.
Although Duval's rampaging seemed to be resolved so easily, there was extreme danger contained within this seemingly perilous process. Duval's strength and speed after rampaging were simply too high. Under normal circumstances, Vanya's body not only couldn't keep up, but even her thoughts couldn't keep up with Duval's burst of strength and speed.
Although the mind's eye could help Vanya see through movements and predict attacks, this also required Vanya to be able to process the information read by the mind's eye in time. After all, the mind's eye was a skill for reading information, not for processing it. The rampaging Demonic Wolf's burst of speed had already far exceeded the normal human thinking speed. Logically, he could have torn Vanya, who was still immersed in joy, into pieces in far less than a second, not waiting for Vanya to have time for surprised emotions, not waiting for Vanya to have time to think about how to cooperate with Dorothy's actions to respond.
The reason this didn't happen was because Dorothy shared her computing power with Vanya. With the support of the powerful computing power of a Scarlet level "enlightenment" Extraordinary, Dorothy and Vanya's thinking speeds were greatly accelerated, and their information processing capabilities were greatly enhanced. High-speed thinking ability allowed Vanya to think about more things in less time, and in terms of senses, it even allowed Vanya to have the illusion of time dilation. The movement of everything before Vanya was very slow, including her enemy and her own body.
So the situation at that time was that Vanya's thinking was faster than the Demonic Wolf's burst, and the Demonic Wolf's burst was faster than the limit of Vanya's physical movements. Dorothy's subsequent auxiliary restraint allowed Vanya, with her mind's eye, to find an opportunity for effective counterattack against the rampaging Demonic Wolf, even with her incredibly sluggish physical skills, and finally successfully killed the Demonic Wolf. If it weren't for the speed advantage in thinking, Vanya would have died instantly and been devoured before she even noticed the Demonic Wolf's abnormality. If her body had been completely eaten, neither Dorothy nor the Heart-Eating Sword could have saved her.
"Okay, now that this guy is completely dead, it's time to use him for some follow-up matters."
Dorothy, sitting in the carriage, said softly. Then, her invisible Spirit threads extended out, reconnecting to the Demonic Wolf's corpse, preparing to control it for some follow-up actions. However, when she felt the condition of the Demonic Wolf's corpse, she couldn't help but frown slightly.
"This is..."
Dorothy, who had noticed the abnormality, immediately spoke to Vanya in her mind.
"Vanya, go and cut open the wolf's abdomen now, open his stomach. I'll show you the exact location. Remember to be careful."
"Open his stomach?"
Hearing Dorothy's words, Vanya, who had only just stood up, couldn't help but feel a surge of confusion in her heart. However, she still walked to the fallen Demonic Wolf's corpse and drew the sharp blade from her waist.
Afterward, Vanya cut open the skin on the Demonic Wolf's abdomen. Amidst a bloody mess, she successfully found the Demonic Wolf's large stomach. After cutting it open again, Vanya's eyes widened.
In Vanya's eyes, she saw that in the Demonic Wolf's stomach, there was a huge worm the size of an adult's arm. The fleshy, boneless worm's tail was parasitic on the Demonic Wolf's stomach wall, and its slippery body, covered in disgusting mucus, was wrapped around an open book with a dark red cover.
On the pages of the book were countless mysterious texts, and the worm's eyeless head was using countless extended tentacles to touch and scan the text on the book. After scanning a page, it quickly turned to the next page and continued to scan with its tentacles.
This book was precisely the secret transmission, "true crimson mother", and that parasitic-like thing seemed to be reading a book!?