At night, in a vast desert in Buserite, it was currently a blood-red expanse. The originally barren land filled with quicksand had transformed into a hellish landscape covered in blood vessels, undulating muscles, and countless eyes and mouths. Amidst the stench of decay, the terrifying ground vomited out countless thick, deformed arms, reaching towards the sky, grabbing at targets attempting to fly away.
Facing the surging multitude of deformed giant hands, even a hundreds-of-meters-long steel warship with powerful firepower was unable to resist for a time. When the returning shells turned into viscous flesh, when the dense close-in weapon systems were completely powerless against the wall-like blood-finger barrier pressing down, the various parts of the steel behemoth were quickly grabbed by blood-stained deformed hands and were forcibly pulled down by immense force. Although Awei fully activated the propulsion system to resist, she still couldn't completely counteract the powerful pulling force from those arms. The entire warship was still irreversibly falling towards the vast red ground below.
"Damn it... what is this thing? Is it the Golden of Placenta? Why did it suddenly appear here?"
Looking at herself slowly falling into the disgusting flesh and blood, Awei's projection bit her teeth, her expression extremely serious, she said, then she turned her head to look at a man in a long robe beside her and continued.
"We can't defeat this thing. I'll fully hold it back here, you take Sister Vanya and leave first!" Awei said to Dorothy's Corpse Puppet. At this moment, she had already discovered the gap in power and realm between the opponent and her side. Not to mention winning, even escaping might not be possible.
Awei's massive steel body not only brought her powerful and sustained firepower but also made her a huge target. Her overly large body meant she was difficult to escape, so Awei voluntarily chose to stay behind and cover the retreat, while Vanya and the others left first.
"Now is not the time to talk about who covers the retreat. We might be able to escape together, Sister Awei, you should have seen some of our methods."
Facing Awei's projection, Dorothy controlled her Corpse Puppet and spoke directly, while Awei spoke with some urgency.
"It's useless! I'm too big a target, I can't escape! It's better if I buy you time. Remember to send Sister Vanya back to Holy Mountain. I will give you tokens so the people of Holy Mountain will believe what you say!" Awei continued to speak to Dorothy's Corpse Puppet. After hearing these words, Dorothy's Corpse Puppet paused slightly, then slowly replied.
"Do you... have something like a core component, like a mind core?"
"What? Mind what...?"
"Mind core... roughly meaning the decision-making module of your warship body, your brain. It's impossible for your entire warship to be critical parts, right? Even the Captain of an ordinary warship can abandon ship. You're so advanced, you can't possibly not have an emergency detachment and avoidance function for the mind core..." Dorothy continued to control her Corpse Puppet and said to Awei, and Awei immediately replied after a pause.
"Yes, there is, but similar information is a very high-level secret of the saint church. In front of this thing, even if I activate emergency avoidance, I probably can't escape... persisting longer will allow you to buy more time."
"Stop talking nonsense, now is not the time to worry about secrets! If you want to live, tell us the location of your mind core and cooperate with us in dismantling it. We've already cooperated to this extent, do you not even have a little basic trust?" Dorothy continued to have her Corpse Puppet speak to Awei in a serious tone. Listening to Dorothy's words, Awei for the first time showed a hint of hesitation, then gritted her teeth, sighed, and nodded, saying.
"Alright, the key information is all here, you go ahead!" After Awei finished speaking, with a wave of her hand, lines of shimmering, dense small characters appeared before Dorothy's Corpse Puppet. These small characters contained information related to the construction of her mind core, including its location and dismantling method.
"Okay, you hold on for a while longer, we'll be ready soon!" After seeing the information provided by Awei, Dorothy had the Corpse Puppet respond in this way, and then mobilized all the Corpse Puppets inside Awei's ship to run together towards the deck below Awei.
And Awei, after seeing Dorothy's actions, continued to work hard to clear the arms trapping her with her close-in defense systems, while also fully activating her thrusters, trying to break free from the entanglement of these arms.
At this moment, Awei suddenly saw that Vanya in the distance had also been captured by that evil and powerful Golden of Placenta. After she approached Vanya, she seemed to want to do something. Awei's heart tightened when she saw this, and she turned her few remaining turrets to provide fire support to Vanya, but the firepower she unleashed, along with the countless terrifying lightning bolts striking from the sky, were quickly and easily intercepted by countless deformed giant hands, basically having no effect.
"This is bad..."
Seeing Vanya in the distance being approached by the Sister who called herself Faith, Awei's heart grew heavier. Just then, a familiar light burst forth from Vanya's expression, actually forcing back the approaching "Faith" and the arms controlling herself.
'This is... the Captain's power, the amulet she gave Vanya is working... If that's the case...' Seeing "Faith" being forced back, Awei thought with a slight relief in her heart. However, when she saw the appearance of "Faith" after her face melted due to the glare, she couldn't help but widen her eyes.
Behind "Faith's" melted face was another female face. Unlike the setting of being active outdoors for many years, with a slightly rough and dark face, this was a fair and soft, more delicate and beautiful face, looking around twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, clearly younger than Faith's original face, but inexplicably more mature. Her lips were bright red, her features were Stereo, her eyes were long and narrow, and although her expression was serious, it also revealed a strange natural charm.
At this moment, the face that "Faith" revealed had magic. Ordinary people would probably be deeply attracted just by looking at it. However, after Awei saw it, it awakened certain memories deep within her heart.
This memory, buried deep in her heart, only a tiny trace, at the moment it was awakened, turned into a prairie fire, instantly igniting an incomparably fierce rage deep within Awei's heart. This rage instantly swept through her entire inner being, prompting Awei to shout the name that she remembered and resented so deeply.
"Yunina Dotina!!!"
The moment this name was shouted by Awei, her entire massive steel ship body seemed to be stimulated by Awei's inner rage, and her Spirituality suddenly surged. Countless sacred symbols and patterns suddenly appeared on the outer shell of her ship, and then the steel hull suddenly heated up as a whole at this moment, quickly turning red and even bright. This overall heating directly melted the weak and heat-resistant structures on the outside of Awei's ship, and many secondary weapons were scrapped on the spot.
Awei, whose temperature was rapidly rising, burned the deformed blood hands that were holding her tightly, causing them to ignite. Amidst a scorched smell, they were burned into green smoke on the spot.
After burning off the blood hands restraining herself, Awei immediately turned all her thrusters backwards and went full throttle. She manipulated the huge steel warship into a massive crimson-gold arrow, rapidly colliding with the woman called Yunina in the distance.
Facing Awei's high-speed surprise attack, Yunina, who was covering her face, coldly glanced sideways at the golden-hot arrow that had already approached her eyes, then extended a finger and pointed at Awei, who was charging towards her.
Just like that, the four-hundred-meter-long steel behemoth, with its outer shell at thousands of degrees Celsius and full power, crashed its ram's tip directly onto Yunina's finger. Then, the massive ship body suddenly stopped in place. No matter how powerful Awei's engines were, she couldn't push Yunina back even a little, who was supported in mid-air by blood hands. She couldn't even cause her body to move an inch. Although Yunina's finger was smoking from the high temperature, there were no signs of burning or melting.
"The quality is really good..."
Slightly raising her head, Yunina looked at the massive ram that was not crushed or penetrated by the impact force of her own warship, Awei couldn't help but whisper, then she gave a look, and the blood-red ground below her wriggled, two tentacles with sharp keratinized tips grew out rapidly, accurately stabbing towards the scorching Awei.
These tentacles directly penetrated the high-temperature, sturdy outer shell of the ship, piercing Awei's hull. Awei's projected body couldn't help but become blurry at this moment, the output power of the entire ship's thrusters suddenly slowed down, and the entire ship began to tremble unstably.
"But, other parts besides the front don't seem to be so hard..."
Yunina continued to speak, and then, from the blood-red ground, many hideous and terrifying giant human heads grew out. These heads, covered in blood, full of teeth, with missing or extra features, rapidly grew upwards, supported by long necks, quickly reaching Awei's height, and then they all opened their large mouths and bit down on Awei's ship. The white, neat, human-like teeth seemed to be completely unafraid of the high temperature on Awei's body. With a forceful effort, Awei's sturdy hull began to be bitten and deformed, and the entire hull began to emit the sharp creaking sound of bending steel. Awei's projection also began to flicker and blur extremely.
"Trai... Trai-trai-trai-traitor... you... will be de-de-de-de-destroyed... your spir-spir..."
On the bridge, Awei's flickering projection was even starting to stutter and pause in her speech. Although there were problems with the projection's voice and display, Awei's infinite anger was still being expressed at this moment.
Looking at Awei's projection on the bridge, Yunina withdrew the hand that was blocking Awei, and while letting the strange human heads continue to restrain Awei's ship, she also pointed her hand at Awei's projection. Then, a tentacle grew out from the blood-red ground behind Awei, flew towards the projection, and wrapped around it.
Then, something strange happened. Awei's projection, which should have been incorporeal, was actually dragged over by the tentacle after being wrapped around it, dragged in front of Yunina, and the flickering situation actually eased somewhat.
"You've been like this for four hundred years... still working so hard for Holy Mountain, even going so far as to make yourself look like this. It's truly pathetic... Sister Emerigo..."
Facing the restrained Awei in front of her, Yunina spoke as if reminiscing about something, while Awei muttered in weakness.
"I... I must be responsible for my mistake back then... If I hadn't trusted Angelo too much... you... you and him... and Fabrizio's plot would not have succeeded... The saint church would not have suffered such great damage..."
"Responsible? Heh heh... You actually think the success of our actions back then was due to your dereliction of duty? Don't overestimate yourself, back then you were just one of the guards of the Papal Court. Whether you were there or not, the result of that battle would have been the same... Rather, Angelo transferring you away actually saved your life. You should thank Angelo, he was your teacher and savior..." Looking at the angry Awei in front of her, Yunina said with a smile, while Awei responded mercilessly.
"Bah! You are all traitors, heinous great traitors! Everyone else has been destroyed by Divine Will Judgment. Although I don't know how you survived until now, since you have chosen to reappear, you won't live much longer..."
"Divine Will Judgment? Huh? How ridiculous... Phaeton, that liar, actually dares to claim he is executing divine will? He is the biggest liar, he is the biggest blasphemer. He was the one who first deceived us, he was the one who first deceived the entire world. We are not blasphemers, we are not betrayers, he is..." Listening to Awei's words, Yunina continued to retort. Although her tone of refutation seemed calm, it contained a hint of subtle excitement. Listening to Yunina's words, Awei continued to respond coldly.
"Demonic words to mislead the masses..."
"Stubborn and unyielding... Since you won't listen to my persuasion, then I can only make you listen in other ways..." Yunina said this, then her expression condensed, staring at Awei in front of her. Then, where she stared, thin blood vessels grew out of thin air on Awei's projected body and quickly spread outwards.
"Ah... Ahh! Stop! What are you doing?!" At this moment, Awei directly let out a cry of pain and struggled desperately with wide eyes, but no matter what, she couldn't break free.
"You've been like this for a long time... you haven't felt pain, have you... How does it feel to experience it again?" Silently gazing at the struggling Awei, Yunina said indifferently, she began to enjoy the painful expression of the illusory Sister in front of her.
"Ah... the demon of the evil god... This pain is nothing, I... will not yield, even if Pain Lady descends today, so what..."
"I didn't say I only wanted to use pain to make you submit... Sister Emerigo... Remember, all flesh in this world is a gift from the Lord, and discarding it casually is not good... Let me make you 'resurrect' again... Perhaps you who are 'alive' will be more reasonable..."
As Yunina said this, the moment her voice fell, the speed at which the blood vessels on Awei's illusory body spread suddenly accelerated, which greatly intensified Awei's painful screams.
Just like this, Yunina began to appreciate Awei's current performance, appreciating the trace of tenacity and stubbornness that still remained in the depths of her eyes.
Yunina understood that Awei was trying to buy time for Vanya to escape, but in front of herself, where could that little Sister escape to?
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She couldn't escape, not only could Awei not escape, that little Sister couldn't escape either, and even the person behind the scenes who had been secretly helping them. Using the mysterious power of """enlightenment""" to manipulate the whole situation secretly, couldn't escape either...
At this moment, Yunina not only had a pair of eyes looking at the Awei in front of her, but also many pairs of eyes looking at other places, such as the little Sister who, after breaking free from her restraints, was now rapidly flying towards the distance, and such as the threads of Spirituality that existed in the invisible air, linking to the distance...
Facing these, Yunina was prepared. Her flesh and blood land was constantly expanding, and the speed of expansion even exceeded the flying speed of the little Sister. Now, the marketing woman still had residual Holy Light protection, but that Holy Light was becoming weaker under Yunina's erosion. In the end, she only needed a thought to restrain that little Sister again.
As for the invisible threads of spirits in the air, Yunina was eroding them in a more invisible process. The erosion had unknowingly spread towards the source of the spirits threads. Her erosion would not only not be felt by the owner of the spirits threads, but the speed of the erosion was also very fast, and it would soon reach the source through multiple layers of nodes.
At this moment, Yunina seemed to have everything under control, and just as countless blood hands grew out of her flesh and blood land again, reaching out to grab the completely eroded Vanya, and just as the erosion of the spirits threads approached the source, inside the core cabin of Awei's scorching hull, a group of people finally disassembled an iron Western-style coffin from a large pile of connections.
The moment the steel coffin was disassembled, the thrusters on the Steel Sister ship completely lost power, and the entire hull became completely silent. The illusory image of Awei that Yunina had bound, like a computer screen that malfunctioned and couldn't shut down automatically, and had its power forcibly unplugged, completely died out and disappeared after a flash, and the blood vessels that had grown on her body also directly fell off.
In the next moment, Dorothy on the distant sand dune directly wrote the last paragraph of text on a long-prepared piece of paper. Immediately after, she herself, the escaping Vanya, the Corpse Puppet inside Awei's hull, and the things they were carrying, all disappeared from where they were at this instant, leaving only a spatial distortion.
Just like this, after seeing Awei disappear, Yunina saw Vanya suddenly disappear. However, there were no signs of surprise on her face. At the moment Vanya's body disappeared, the moment the space was disturbed, a thin tentacle that had been following behind Vanya and emitting a strange red light suddenly exerted force and stabbed straight into the disturbed space after Vanya disappeared. In the end, it was actually "nailed" onto the space like this, and then many thin blood threads grew out of the disturbed space.
Just like this, that tentacle fixed the space that should have disappeared and been disturbed, making it seem to "grow" and be fixed in reality...
After this, Yunina silently descended onto her flesh and blood ground, and her entire body sank into the flesh and blood underground, then slowly rose again in front of the disturbed space that was fixed by growth. At this moment, she silently observed this strange space in front of her that was fixed by the tentacle, with blood threads spreading, seeming to be growing flesh.
At this moment, she had lost Vanya, lost Awei, and all clues between her and the mysterious person behind the scenes were cut off, but it didn't matter. As long as she had this small fixed spatial disturbance, it would be enough.
In her eyes, this was a rift, a channel rift that could lead to the most ancient and mysterious secrets contained within this land.
Looking at this rift, Yunina reached out and pressed it, pouring her power into it. Instantly, the blood threads near the space began to grow even more rampant, and countless chunks of flesh proliferated in the air out of nowhere, instantly turning the area into a pulsating tumor.
"No... It seems I can't get in with just my power... This is a space created by ancient divinity. Apart from the chosen ones, only other divinities of the same level can interfere..."
Looking at the huge tumor that had proliferated in front of her, Yunina whispered, then she silently knelt on the flesh and blood ground, assuming the standard prayer posture of the Shining Light Church.
Then, dressed in a Sister's habit, she began to pray.
"Ah... My Lord... My Holy Mother... Mother of Humans... Mother of Beasts... Mother of All Beings... Mother of All Things...
"I pray here... I thirst here... I cry out here... Please open your eyes... Look at your daughter... Grant me sweet milk... Your daughter will bring you the ancient sleeping mystery... As a gift... Dedicated to you..."
Yunina prayed devoutly on her knees like this. After her prayer lasted for a short while, she silently stood up, then closed her eyes, tilted her head back, and opened her mouth.
Blood plasma, thick blood plasma surged out from Yunina's mouth at this moment. In this blood, countless minced meat and finely fragmented tissues were mixed, making it very viscous, very rich, and very foul-smelling.
The blood plasma continuously surged out from Yunina's mouth. After covering her entire face, it spread and fell from the sides of her face, spreading along her skin all the way, eventually covering all of her skin. Her clothes automatically dissolved during this process.
After being covered in blood plasma all over her body, the blood plasma began to become smooth and flat, and finally looked like bright red glowing skin, making her whole person look like she was wearing a bright red reflective leotard. In the end, Yunina became a strange figure with no face or hair, covered in bright red blood all over, her lower abdomen slightly swollen, and her standard body completely outlined.
Then, Yunina slowly walked towards the spatial disturbance fixed by the blood threads, and extended her bright red hand into it.
The moment Yunina's hand was inserted into the spatial disturbance, a sharp sound suddenly erupted all around. The spatial disturbance instantly expanded, and the blood vessels that had proliferated on it instantly grew wildly into the void. The sky suddenly flashed with abnormal lightning and thunder, and the entire land began to tremble slightly.
"Holy Mother... Let the legacy of the departed divinity become our meal..."
Feeling the out-of-control intense electric light in the sky, Yunina murmured with her mouthless face.
...
Different from the real world, inside Buserite in a certain historical void world.
Still in the desert at night, Dorothy, wearing a long robe and having just been teleported from the real world, couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief as she looked at the peaceful desert scene before her.
"Finally escaped in..."
Dorothy said with emotion like this. She had already anticipated the scenario where she would need to quickly transfer to the historical void world for refuge after encountering some urgent crisis, so she had already written a pseudo-history for refuge early on, and distributed the pages to Vanya, Neff, and some of her Corpse Puppets. At the critical moment, as long as Dorothy completed the pseudo-history, she could take people into the historical void world for refuge, just like before.
The only difference from the original plan was that Dorothy tried to save Awei, who was more than half an ally, this time. The action of saving Awei prevented Dorothy from immediately transferring to the historical void world after realizing that Yunina was not easy to provoke. Instead, she maneuvered with her for a while. Of course, the capital for maneuvering was the amulet Amanda gave to Vanya. Dorothy had used appraisal magic to check the effect of this thing long ago and knew its power.
That amulet was filled with a huge amount of Spirituality. It could dispel all external Spirituality that infringed upon the wearer in an instant of activation, whether it was inside or outside of Vanya's body. When activated, it could even radiate to a range of more than ten meters outside of Vanya, until the Spirituality inside was exhausted. This powerful dispel spell belonged to the Golden rank, and its effect was very overbearing.
"I didn't expect to encounter the Golden rank of the Placenta here in the end, and it's even that mysterious High Priestess of the main cult. More importantly, that person was even a high-ranking member of the Church before... Things in the world are truly unpredictable..."
Scratching her head, Dorothy said helplessly like this. Regarding Yunina's secret transmission, she had read it before. She really didn't expect that the High Priestess who had recently prompted the Taiyi Three Teachings to unite was actually a high-ranking traitor from the former Church, and originally a staunch believer of the Holy Mother...
'I really don't know what that person went through to become like this today...'
Dorothy thought in her heart, not understanding. Although she had a million questions in her mind now, she also knew that now was not the time to think here. The top priority now was to gather.
Dorothy used magnetism to make herself fly, and flew towards the coordinates where Vanya was sent after being brought in. Soon after, she saw Vanya sitting on the sand in the distance, panting.
"How are you, Vanya? Is there anything wrong with your body?"
Seeing Vanya sitting on the ground, Dorothy said directly, while Vanya stood up after recovering and replied, shaking her head.
"I'm fine, Miss Dorothea, I'm very well now, thank you for saving me and bringing me in..."
"You don't need to thank me, but others need to thank you... If you hadn't taken a risk with that amulet, she wouldn't have been able to escape anyway..."
Dorothy said this, then looked towards the distant sky, and then a long object was flying towards her, finally landing on the ground.
This was a normal-sized steel coffin, covered with various sockets and interfaces. Some broken pipelines were still inserted into the side of the iron coffin. On the iron coffin, various dense inscriptions were engraved. In the center of the iron coffin, a large Shining Light Church Sunflame mark was printed.
Looking at this iron coffin, Dorothy, wearing a long robe and a headscarf covering her face, walked directly to the edge of the iron coffin, looked it over, and then spoke.
"How is it? Can you speak, Sister Awei?"
"Barely... barely... In my core coffin... there is... a temporary communication device. Even if the physical function is lost, simple communication is possible. This is the first time I've used this function... Thank you for saving me. I thought it was time for me to be martyred..."
Awei's voice came intermittently from the iron coffin. After finishing her thanks, she seemed to be observing the surrounding environment.
"This is... amazing power... I, we seem to have left the real world. Where is this? Is it some inner realm?"
"You can think of it that way. In fact, I'm not quite sure how this place should be defined... In short, as long as this place can help us escape from your great traitor..." Shrugging, Dorothy said directly, while Awei continued to speak.
"You... are you the master of those puppets? Are you the Judge of Heaven... the general person in charge sent to Buserite? I... I didn't expect it to be a young girl... The Judge of Heaven is truly full of talented people. May I ask what you are called?"
"You can just call me'Scholar'. Alright, let's not chatter about other nonsense now. We should prepare to leave..." Dorothy said this. Now, she planned to leave together with Bastis after gathering Neff, who had already been transferred over, run far away, and then leave the historical void world and return to reality, in order to escape the completely unprovokable disaster outside now.
And just as Dorothy was about to set off, the ground suddenly began to tremble slightly, thunder suddenly rumbled in the sky, and the entire historical void world seemed to vibrate.
"What... what happened?!"