At night, over the vast land of Buserite, as tens of thousands of people tormented by the "Wasting Decay" celebrated and gave thanks for the departure of their illness, in a desolate desert where few people tread, a long-lasting entangled battle was still ongoing, but by now, this battle was finally entering its final stage.
High in the sky, thousands of meters up, Amuyaba, transformed into a giant, bizarre insect, was currently vibrating its massive insect wings, soaring through the night sky mixed within the thick fungal mist. At this moment, it had recovered from the brief Spirituality chaos just now and was preparing to continue challenging the distant steel warship.
Although Amuyaba didn't know why its vast external Spirituality supply from the plague had suddenly been interrupted, in the preceding period, it had already acquired a considerable amount of Spirituality from the plague. Even with the supply cut off, Amuyaba's total accumulated Spirituality at this moment was still quite high, many times higher than its normal state.
With such a massive amount of Spirituality still as its backing, Amuyaba naturally wouldn't easily give up the fight. After all, in the series of battles using the plague Spirituality before, it had already established an advantage over Evi. Evi's combat capabilities had been somewhat damaged, and it would be a great pity to give up now.
What's more... perhaps "that Lord"'s gaze was still watching it. She had taught it such powerful strength, so Amuyaba didn't dare to simply escape easily...
Just like this, Amuyaba, wrapped in thick fungal mist and still possessing powerful combat capability, charged towards the distant steel warship. Its target position was very clear: it was Evi's port side, which had been previously attacked by fungal bombs, the weak point in Evi's defenses.
Because Evi had revealed a weakness in front of Amuyaba while trying to receive Vanya's return, part of the port side's close-in defense system was corroded and disabled by the fungal bombs. Some of the propulsion nozzles were also affected, and the power system was impacted. Not only did maneuverability become sluggish, but a clear loophole appeared in the defenses, resulting in a noticeable lack of firepower from one angle.
Amuyaba flew rapidly towards Evi's weak point. At this moment, Evi's port side firepower was completely unable to stop Amuyaba's rapid approach. Sparse energy cannon fire penetrated the fungal mist and struck Amuyaba's body, only causing some not-so-large damage before quickly healing, essentially unable to truly harm it.
"It's coming, Sister Vanya, please get ready..." Inside the steel behemoth, within the spacious chapel, the translucent Evi projection said solemnly to the white-robed Sister not far away, and the other party also nodded.
"I know, we don't need to be troubled by it anymore..." Standing in the center of the chapel, within the temple's ritual area, Vanya, emitting a faint soft light from head to toe, said with a smile.
Although her body had undergone subtle changes due to the ritual of soaking her body in special purified water on the Holy Mountain before, Vanya had spent nearly a year in the world of virtual history with almost no change to her body and appearance. However, at this moment, she was much more mature and dignified in terms of temperament, more serene and holy than before, making Evi feel for a moment that she had become a different person.
Facing Amuyaba, which was flying rapidly from afar, Vanya gently extended one of her hands towards the direction from which the bizarre flying insect was attacking. Due to the obstruction of the fungal mist, Vanya couldn't see the monster's hideous appearance, but she could still sense Amuyaba's form within the fungal mist.
In an instant, the massive green fungal mist cloud enveloping Amuyaba surged towards Evi. Its giant pincer claws, like scythes, were raised high and swung fiercely towards Evi's hull. Their momentum seemed capable of instantly slicing a large gash into the corroded part of Evi's hull.
Facing Amuyaba's pincer limb slash, the few remaining energy close-in defense cannons on Evi's attacked port side fired back one after another, hitting Amuyaba's pincer limbs. However, they only caused some relatively small damage and were unable to stop the pincer scythe's cutting.
Just at this moment, Vanya opened her eyes, and an invisible force suddenly spread out from her. On Amuyaba's pincer limbs, the countless small wounds caused by the close-in defense energy rounds suddenly worsened one after another at this moment. What were originally just minor scrapes suddenly ripped open, automatically tearing into large wounds.
The countless centimeter-long wounds on the pincer limbs suddenly expanded to several meters or even tens of meters long. The originally sturdy pincer limbs were instantly covered in a large number of horrifying wounds. The giant scythe-like pincer limb couldn't withstand so much massive structural damage all at once and suddenly exploded entirely, scattering countless yellowish-white thick fluids.
What were originally insignificant wounds instantly expanded into extremely severe damage. Under the powerful Extraordinary force from Vanya, Amuyaba's entire pincer limb was directly blown away. Not only did Amuyaba's attack on Evi miss, but its entire massive body shrieked in pain. Then, unwilling to give up, it manipulated its second pincer limb to smash towards Evi. This pincer limb quickly developed many small wounds under Evi's firepower. Subsequently, these wounds, under the same powerful invisible force, rapidly worsened and expanded, ultimately directly shattering the entire pincer limb completely, turning into fragments and fluids scattering everywhere.
This wasn't over yet. After both pincer limbs were broken, wounds on other parts of Amuyaba's body also began to rapidly worsen. Large areas of wounds spread across its body, causing Amuyaba to howl in pain while moving away from Evi. At this moment, it suddenly discovered that the closer it was to Evi, the stronger the power catalyzing the wounds on its body became. Now, only by moving further away from Evi could the influence of that power be lessened.
'What's going on? Why does that steel bitch suddenly have this kind of power?'
Having flown to a distance, Amuyaba thought anxiously to itself like this. At this moment, it began to busily spend Spirituality to rapidly heal the numerous horrifying wounds on its body, trying its best to heal all those terrifying wounds.
However, when Amuyaba began its high-speed regeneration, it encountered another problem. At this moment, it suddenly discovered that there was a problem with its regeneration process. The wounds that should have quickly recovered as before were currently growing a pile of corrupt giant tumors and rotten flesh like crazy. Under the influence of some kind of power, although all the wounds on its body were indeed recovering and growing, the recovery process was extremely abnormal. Flesh and tissue were indeed growing, but what was growing was not healthy flesh, but a large pile of bizarre things!
Under the blessing of Amuyaba's regenerative power, various pustules, tumors, rotten flesh, and granulation tissue piled up from its many wounds, becoming denser and larger. The shattered and lost double pincers should have quickly grown back new ones, but what was currently growing from within Amuyaba, replacing the original pincer limb positions, was not sturdy and sharp keratin scythes, but two huge, soft, fleshy white tentacles. Moreover, they were the kind that couldn't even move, just hanging there swaying and shaking in the wind, which, combined with those tumors, made the already disgusting Amuyaba even more repulsive.
'What is this! How could my body become like this!'
Looking at the disgusting things proliferating all over its body, Amuyaba thought anxiously to itself. At this moment, it still didn't know that besides Evi, there was another powerful Scarlet Tier force opposing it on the entire battlefield. In the chapel inside the distant steel warship, a Sister in white robes was silently looking towards its direction with a solemn expression, a golden shimmer appearing in her pupils.
"Don't think about using this Spirituality you plundered to save yourselves..." Looking into the distance, Vanya murmured silently. The sudden worsening and spread of Amuyaba's wounds just now, as well as the current deterioration of its wounds, were all her methods, all abilities of a Crimson Tier Extraordinary, the Holy Emissary of Pity.
Wound Amplification, this is one of the abilities of the Holy Emissary of Pity. Within the range covered by the Holy Emissary of Pity's ability, any form of "wound," whether small or large, new or old, can be directly worsened and amplified. This can turn originally insignificant minor injuries into fatal deadly wounds in an instant. Amuyaba's two pincer limbs were disabled this way. The small scrape Amuyaba sustained from the close-in defense energy cannon hit was worsened by Vanya to the point of needing amputation.
The ability to prevent Amuyaba from using Spirituality for regeneration and recovery afterward was Malicious Healing, which Vanya had learned long ago. This is an attack ability that causes enemies to heal wounds in the wrong way, leading to wound proliferation and deformity. It is very effective against Extraordinary individuals with super-fast physical regeneration.
Vanya actually learned this move back in Black Earth, but at that time, she could only perform Malicious Healing on wounds she came into contact with, limiting its usage. However, now that she has become Scarlet, she can cast this move remotely instead of needing contact. The range of casting is very far, and the ability's casting process is similar to a curse; there's no need for projectile trajectory design. As long as the target can be perceived and is within the skill's range, it can be 100% affected.
Wound Amplification and Malicious Healing. Just by using these two moves, Vanya directly neutralized Amuyaba's offensive and suppressed its regeneration. Of course, these abilities were able to achieve such effects largely because Evi's temple was helping to amplify them.
After its wound regeneration was hindered, the giant flying insect that Amuyaba had transformed into couldn't help but let out a sharp wail. Subsequently, its entire massive body vibrated its wings and flew towards the distance, enveloping the massive fungal mist cloud. Clearly, Amuyaba had now sensed that the situation was somewhat wrong and wanted to escape.
"Sister Evi... please shoot it down, deploy your full firepower!" Seeing Amuyaba's situation, Vanya said directly. Evi also nodded and then seriously operated the turrets on the ship's hull, aiming at Amuyaba, which was fleeing in the distance.
Amidst a roar, several cannons mounted on one side of Evi's hull fired simultaneously. And this time, the shells fired by Evi were not just the glowing energy rounds like before, but also physical shells that hadn't been used for a long time!
The shells fired by Evi quickly and accurately flew towards Amuyaba, which was fleeing in the distant sky. After the sturdy physical shells passed through the fungal mist surrounding Amuyaba, a wisp of golden soft light suddenly appeared on the already high-temperature, scorching shell bodies. Under the protection of this soft light, Evi's physical shells successfully passed through the fungal mist without being corroded and directly hit Amuyaba's body, drilling into it and causing a violent explosion.
"Boom!"
Under the immense power brought by the special physical shells specialized for killing large creatures, Amuyaba's hundred-meter-long body was exploded and disintegrated into countless sparse small fragments in a massive internal-to-external explosion, scattering down from the sky like raindrops. After the physical shells took effect, Evi destroyed Amuyaba's flying insect body with just one round of salvo.
Extermination Blessing, this is one of the abilities Sister Vanya possesses as the Saint Emissary of Compassion. This ability allows Vanya to bestow a transcendent protection upon herself and her allies, enabling them to resist countless 'abnormal interferences' on both the material and certain spiritual levels. It can accurately identify and prevent various 'harmful' substances resembling sewage, toxic gas, bacteria, etc., largely protecting the recipient from 'abnormal states' on the material level.
This blessing can be applied not only to living beings but even to inanimate weapons. While not as effective as when protecting life, it still has a significant effect. Just now, Vanya blessed Awei's cannon shells, giving them a certain anti-bacterial mist capability, allowing the shells to penetrate the not-too-thick bacterial mist.
Awei's salvo of physical shells directly shattered Amuyaba's giant flying insect body, but neither Awei nor Vanya believed Amuyaba was finished just like that.
After Amuyaba's giant insect body was destroyed, Vanya looked down, as if seeing through the ship's floor, observing the continuously surging bacterial mist cloud sea. She could sense that beneath the bacterial mist, on the shrouded earth, and within countless underground spaces, there were still large-scale abnormal Spirituality life reactions. Just like their first encounter with Amuyaba, it would never go all out in a direct confrontation with the enemy; it would definitely have backup plans. Although Captain's meticulously crafted giant insect body was destroyed, a large number of 'backup plans' remained on the ground and underground.
"Ground... and underground, and the massive swarm of insects that guy transformed into. The bacterial mist it has laid here is too thick. Even if I bless your cannon shells, I'm afraid they won't last long down there..."
Feeling the vast bacterial mist below, Vanya said solemnly, and Awei also replied directly.
"Don't worry, besides those shells, I have other ways to deal with it... and I don't need to fear these mists..." Awei responded to Vanya like this. The method she spoke of was naturally the main cannon she had been charging for some time! When her main cannon fired, the existence of these bacterial mists would be irrelevant.
"Sister Vanya, I'll be ready right away."
"Understood... Leave it to me..." Vanya said seriously. Then she began to carefully use her ability to scan the situation underground and on the ground. As expected, Vanya found several eggs incubating in a cave dug out underground.
Vanya remembered this type of egg because she had detected it before. These were used by Amuyaba to incubate Captain's escape insects. When Amuyaba transformed the original escape insects into giant flying insects to fly into the sky and fight Awei, Captain had already begun to re-incubate more escape insects in Captain's underground section as backup, and with the support of massive Spirituality, Captain quickly produced many eggs for incubation. By the time the giant flying insects were destroyed, Captain had already successfully incubated one or two escape insects, thus avoiding direct death. These escape insects, in a sense, were the nodes through which Amuyaba controlled the entire swarm; they were Captain's scattered brains within the swarm. As long as these escape insects were not completely wiped out, Captain would not die.
At this moment, Vanya, relying on the blessing of the temple, saw that about twenty to thirty of the more than three hundred escape insect eggs left by Amuyaba had successfully hatched. These hatched insects had already begun to flee in various directions, and nearly two hundred more insects were about to complete incubation and break out of their eggs to join the fleeing army.
Seeing this situation, Vanya focused Captain's Spirit once again, and with the temple's amplification, spread Captain's ability into the insect swarm to the west. She directly applied Captain's malicious healing ability to the insect eggs that were still in the process of incubation. While accelerating their incubation process, she interfered with and distorted their correct growth trajectory, causing them to mutate during the final growth process within their eggshells. After breaking out of their shells, they all became deformed insects, lacking this or that, completely unable to move normally, only able to fall to the ground and make sharp screeching sounds.
"I've dealt with most of that guy's escape insects, but some nimble ones have already fled before." Vanya said to Awei like this, and Awei nodded and said.
"It's alright, it's easy to catch and eliminate one or two if they leak out, as long as not too many are released at once. Once I finish dealing with everything here, I'll go take care of it..."
Awei said this, and at this moment, she had already begun to tilt the angle of her ship, aiming the open muzzle at the bow downwards. Even Vanya in the chapel could sense the massive Spirituality accumulating within the muzzle.
It was almost time for Awei's main cannon to fire. At this moment, Amuyaba, who was transforming into a dense insect swarm with a pile of escape insects too deformed to move, couldn't help but feel anxious and took out the large amount of Spirituality Captain had accumulated to risk everything.
Amidst a rumbling, deep roar, the earth covered by the thick bacterial mist suddenly began to tremble, and then deep fissures cracked open in the vibration. From these deep ground fissures, countless flying insects surged out like a tide, flying rapidly towards the sky.
Looking closely, one could see that these flying insects were all fungus bomb flying insects with swollen sacs. At this moment, they were flying out in massive piles from the ground fissures, like several thick black pillars supporting the sky, transforming into a large patch of pitch-black cloud.
To buy Captain more time to incubate more escape insects, and to interrupt Awei's main cannon bombardment, Amuyaba used almost all of the large amount of Spirituality Captain had remaining to incubate fungus bomb flying insects, and controlled this countless, terrifying number of fungus bomb army, ordering them to rush towards the sky in one go.
Under Amuyaba's will, the fungus bomb flying insect swarm, roughly the size of a sandstorm, flew upwards, and after flying out of the thick bacterial mist, launched a fierce attack on the steel giant ship suspended in the sky.
The incubation time and Spirituality cost of fungus bomb flying insects were much less than that of escape insects. With Amuyaba's investment of Spirituality on such a scale, the size of the incubated swarm was extremely frightening. Looking down from Awei's warship, one could see a black 'ocean' floating out of the green bacterial mist cloud sea amidst a dense buzzing sound. It was rapidly approaching Awei. Looking closely, these flying insects were all self-detonating fungus explosion insects.
With so many fungus explosion insects approaching Awei from all directions, Awei naturally unleashed full firepower with dense close-in guns to greet them. Amidst barrages of bullets and dense cannon fire, the approaching flying explosion insects exploded in large numbers, releasing clusters of floating bacterial mist.
Although Awei's close-in defense system was powerful, the number of fungus bomb flying insects was simply too large. The explosion insects, surging like dark clouds, actually pushed steadily towards Awei despite such dense firepower, approaching Awei's hull step by step.
Facing this situation, Awei's best plan would be to maneuver immediately and shake off these insect swarms, which were not particularly fast flyers. However, at this moment, she had reached the critical moment for the main cannon's launch, and various auxiliary rituals had been deployed. High-speed maneuvering now would directly affect the main cannon's firing process.
Finally, the dense fungus bomb flying insects truly approached Awei's hull. Due to the damage to Awei's port side weapons earlier, large numbers of fungus bomb flying insects surged in from the weak point in the firepower, rapidly approaching Awei, and preparing to detonate at close range.
And when the fastest flying fungus bomb flying insect flew to the side of Awei's port side, when its entire body began to swell extremely, about to self-destruct in a form of self-sacrifice to cause damage to the enemy, an unexpected event occurred.
Light, a soft orange-yellow glow shone out from within Awei's hull, illuminating these fungus bomb flying insects that had approached Awei. After being illuminated by these lights, these ugly, bloated flying insects all stopped. Their planned self-detonation actions completely ceased, and they remained completely suspended in place.
"The Lord once said, whether tiny... ugly... or incomplete... are all forms of life, and all have their meaning. Since they are life, they have value in being redeemed..." In the chapel inside Awei's hull, Vanya, bathed in soft light, was at this moment in a praying posture, softly murmuring words remembered from the sacred scriptures.
"Humble insects, although you have no essences, you are also a form of life. As long as it is life, it has its own meaning. Your meaning is not in self-destruction. You have the right to feel the beauty of this world together with other normal beings.
"Now, follow my guidance, and I will let you obtain salvation..."
Along with Vanya's words, a power understood as "salvation" spread out from her towards the surroundings. Affected by this power, the fungus bomb flying insects that were about to self-destruct and perish were miraculously "saved". Under the influence of this saving power, they avoided their innate demise, and their entire bodies began to change.
The swollen sacs of these fungus bomb flying insects gradually receded, and their originally hideous appearance gradually became normal. In this process, these flying insects born for self-destruction slowly lost their self-detonation function and gained a little bit of their own will, directly separating from Amuyaba's large swarm and becoming free flying insects. They broke free from the humble fate of certain death and were "saved"!
Subsequently, these saved giant flying insects, which had lost their self-detonation ability, began to turn around and fly outwards, flying towards their former companions who were continuously attacking from behind, obstructing and even attacking them. Although these free flying insects did not have high intelligence, under the influence of that power, they could understand a simple emotion, which was "gratitude". The flying insects "saved" by that miraculous power would first perform an act of repayment here before truly embracing their new lives...
Under Awei's close-in firepower, under Vanya's saving radiance, and with the grateful efforts of the "saved" flying insects, the insect tide surging towards Awei like a raging storm was stopped. After reaching a certain red line, they could not advance even an inch.
And during this process, Awei's main cannon preparation was finally ready again.
"Saint Steel Ship, Sister of Annihilation, Sin Purification Light ready, Bombardment Mode, Fire..."
Located at the top of the spire bridge, Awei looked at the insect sea and fungus sea below and said coldly. Then, an extremely dazzling golden-white scorching beam of light shot out from her ship's bow, piercing through the insect sea and fungus sea, directly hitting the ground.
Subsequently, amidst a burst of light rising from the ground that was even more dazzling than the sun, both the insect sea and the fungus sea were directly dimmed and swallowed up in the brilliant light.