Chapter 67 : Chapter 67

Chapter 67 : “Maybe Nilia will get more and more pumped up the more he fights.”

The system's report was actually delayed by more than ten seconds.

The retrospection time in the main storyline was the compressed amount of information, summarizing the several months, or even a year, of each of Chu Zu's retrospections into the time of a dream.

Chu Zu now faced three choices.

He could change back to the previous compressed mode, compressing the subsequent retrospection plot into less than a second.

He could also ignore the time difference and continue the retrospection in its original form.

Or, he could immediately stop the retrospection and confirm the main storyline first.

“Hikta specifically chose Shanjielina… Polika will explode, and Nilia will never be able to sleep well again.”

The system also felt the same: “Should we adjust the retrospection compression mode? If we do, the main storyline will be paused. But the pressure on you will be very great.”

“Let’s just go with the current retrospection.”

Chu Zu said, “Let Nilia do it himself first. Speed up the pace, don't drag it out. There's not much left in this book.”

Retrospection is the future influencing the past.

Everything Chu Zu can help with is limited to the existing logic.

Since Hikta was still alive ten thousand years later, even with the number zero secret art, he was still the lucky fifty percent.

Chu Zu didn't waste his efforts.

He wanted to maximize the use of all available backgrounds.

“Help me simulate and calculate which secret arts are needed to pin Hikta outside the world like a sandbag.”

Chu Zu said, “Not just him. I want a fusion algorithm. All possible newborn gods will stay with him in the same place, lining up to be sandbags together.”

System: “I’ll calculate it right away!”

***

An ordinary long knife appeared in Zui's hand.

He had casually picked it up from Ragnarok.

Hikta was still furious with unwillingness, yet he was smiling.

His beautiful face looked terrifying and ferocious.

The next second, his neck was pierced.

The blade twisted and turned in his throat, crushing his cervical vertebrae.

Blood suddenly gushed from the god of death's original body, and in a flash, it was all burned to ashes by "Refining Flame."

Hikta's vocal cords were destroyed.

He mouthed: Are you going to kill me?

Zui pulled out the long knife.

This was an execution ground that only allowed the two of them to exist, but Zui had no intention of letting him have his way.

What he had to do was to shatter Hikta's authority into pieces.

“I won’t kill you.”

The entire Ragnarok was the background of Zui's execution.

Raging fire, thick smoke, the collapsing world tree, the surging sea of blood…

The scene was reflected in Zui’s eyes, and was all cut off by the silver-white flash of the sword.

“You will be plundered of all your power and be banished by me. You have no right to return to my world, but those who ascend the steps will be able to find you in your pathetic state.”

The king said, “Your existence is only to tell all the Sagteni people that the gods can die at anyone’s hands, easily and insignificantly.”

Hikta stared blankly at the king, who was half-covered in blood.

It took him a long time to react and understand what he wanted to do.

Zui had been stained with blood from a very young age.

He didn't have anyone in his eyes.

Sagteni was just his vassal, and the entire world should be his trophy.

He would become a god-slayer, Hikta was so sure.

A dozen years of waiting was not long.

At one point, Hikta thought that Naqiya had lived for too long.

She held an inexplicably high position in Zui's heart.

It wasn't just because of something as ridiculous as kinship—Sagteni I genuinely respected his sister.

It shouldn't be like this.

Just as a concept can only give birth to one god, the King of All Kings should not allow anyone to encroach on his authority.

It was the same now.

Zui should personally punish the usurper, not…

Hikta wanted to escape, but this was not his domain.

He had "died" at Zui’s hands too many times, and his authority had been continuously weakened.

Now he could only be torn apart, burned, and crushed again and again, with no way to fight back.

He remembered what Aturu had once said: God of death who seeks death, you will pay the price for this—we all will.

At that time, Hikta thought, what is the price?

The most serious was nothing more than death, which was exactly what he was seeking.

The prophecy of "wisdom" was rarely wrong.

It was true that he sought death, but not at the hands of those pitiful, incompetent, and foolish humans!!!

Hikta finally realized that he had been mistaken about the meaning of "King of All Kings" all along.

The monarch's stage began with patricide.

He destroyed countless countries, stepped over the corpses of countless kings.

He conquered all the way, never stopping.

And at the end of the stage, the King of All Kings took back the authority temporarily entrusted to him by Naqiya.

He was the king of the Sagteni people.

After destroying all his enemies, he became the king of humanity.

In his vision, there were no enemies, only the gods.

And his way of protecting his people was to hand a knife to every child.

Then he would say lightly, go, kill that god.

Go and kill every god that threatens you.

His body’s recovery ability was already extremely weak.

Hikta could barely speak.

“Do you really understand humans…”

Hikta gasped, his expression ferocious.

He made a vicious oath with his almost endless experience.

“The most absurd mistake you have made is to be willing to become human. Before you, no one would have had such a wild idea. After you, they will only be like vultures gnawing at your corpse, trampling on everything you have created.”

“Ashurbanipal-Zui-Sagteni, you will be denied, you will be rejected. Ten thousand years after you leave, no one will hail the King of All Kings. The world will spit on your name!”

A curse clung to Zui’s body, condensing into a fingernail-sized hard crystal on the skin near his heart.

A few strands of long hair on his left side also turned silver-white.

Zui simply cut off that tuft of long hair, leaving only the length that was close to his ear, out of sight, out of mind.

“Say whatever you want.”

He dragged the god of death into the poisonous mist of the giant serpent Jörmungandr and listened to his wails indifferently.

When the six-month-long Ragnarok finally ended, the world was left with only a great silence and an eternal, dark abyss.

The next moment, Zui and Hikta returned to Naqiya’s stone bed.

Zui ignored Hikta, who was trying to struggle.

He gently picked up Naqiya, brushed the hair that had fallen on her cheeks behind her ear, then lowered his head and touched his forehead to hers.

Hikta, who pursued death, was good at playing with death.

Sagteni I, who refused to become the god of death, chose to respect death.

“You are the winner, Naqiya.”

Zui said, “And I will let you be able to answer that child, and tell him with certainty that Sagteni is a great country.”

***

In the church on the outskirts of Saint Imolai, the time was three-thirty in the morning.

Tens of meters away from the church, a large group of secret artists and resident knights were gathered.

The headmaster stood in a position closer to the front, asking the professor about the evacuation of the students.

Lady Blythe’s face was serious, and she was on standby at the side.

When Nilia and Polika arrived, the crowd consciously made their way.

The two young men who had just come of age ran frantically amidst a sea of gazes, flustered and anxious.

From three or four meters away, Polika shouted at the headmaster: Where is Shanjielina—?

In fact, Polika couldn't hear any sound at all.

A huge fear exploded in his heart.

After traveling with Nilia for two years, Polika was all too familiar with the Death Cult.

Every time, Nilia would use "Good Friday" on them.

It was a super-standard single-digit secret art, and Polika would never be able to learn it in his lifetime.

He didn’t want to learn it either.

Because even someone with Nilia’s personality would have an expression as ugly as if he were crying after using "Good Friday."

They had long reached the same consensus: the followers of the Death Cult had no future.

Polika’s head was about to explode.

He desperately tried to think of a solution, but he couldn’t think of anything.

He couldn’t think of a way to save Shanjielina.

It was their classmate who had found Polika at the inn.

He was about to graduate, and because he had a deep impression of "Good Friday," he immediately went to the headmaster after discovering something was wrong.

The headmaster’s expression changed, and he had him go down the mountain to pick them up.

After they were brought here, the headmaster actually advised Polika not to get close.

He only let Nilia go.

“This is Hikta’s request.”

The headmaster’s expression was desolate, “Nilia, if you can, bring Leichhardt out.”

Nilia was stunned: “Leichhardt…”

Leichhardt was the marquis classmate who had stood up for Nilia with Polika in the beginning.

After they left school, Leichhardt had always been in contact with Polika and had even joked in a letter that he wanted to introduce his little cousin to Shanjielina.

Nilia subconsciously looked at Polika, hoping that his friend would tell him what he could do as he always did, but Polika looked like he was about to go crazy.

He wanted to call Zui again, but the amber showed no movement, and the voice that occasionally appeared in his mind also disappeared.

Nilia didn't know if he was ready.

He also didn't know what it meant to be ready.

What could he do in the church?

Zui had answered this question before.

What did the king say back then?

“You are always too stupid to see the future. Don’t bother me with such things. Put one foot in front of the other, and then repeat. This is not my suggestion; this is the only thing you can do.”

So Nilia walked towards the church with a blank face.

Before he had taken two steps, Polika suddenly moved and grabbed him.

“I’ll go with you.”

He was almost pulling Nilia’s arm off, his voice trembling as if he were begging, “Let me go with you, Nilia.”

Just as they entered the church, a tender voice came from afar—

“I’ve always wanted to talk to you, Nilia.”

Nilia had never seen Shanjielina Landor before.

She was twelve years old this year, sitting on a prayer bench.

She was still a small girl, wearing a light blue dress, her small leather shoes barely touching the ground.

Her facial features were strikingly similar to Polika’s, but softer than her brother’s.

Anyone who saw her would have their heart softened.

But the expression on the girl’s face was so familiar.

Nilia had seen it countless times in his dreams—Hikta’s inhuman smile.

“Get out of Shanjielina’s body…!”

Polika cried out.

After seeing his sister, he had lost all reason.

If Nilia hadn’t held him back, he might have already rushed up.

Nilia could give the Death Cult members he encountered a quick end, but he didn’t know how to deal with Shanjielina, whose body was occupied.

She was the little sister that Polika wanted to protect.

What made Nilia even more at a loss was that the amber on his chest showed no movement.

Sagteni I seemed to be watching all of this with a cold eye.

“I have nothing to talk to you about.”

Nilia’s voice was hoarse.

“I thought you would be grateful to me. After all, I have helped humanity a great deal.”

Hikta unwrapped a candy she had on hand.

It was a gift from a student of Saint Imolai to Shanjielina before she delivered the oracle.

It seemed that the academy’s Midsummer Night Festival was approaching, and the students had invited the little sister who would only be enrolling next year.

The student who had sent the invitation—Leichhardt—was now lying at her feet, no longer breathing.

Hikta put the candy in her mouth and said vaguely: “If I hadn’t been continuously eating my ‘compatriots,’ do you really think your world would only have the Death Cult?”

She smiled, her two dimples making one’s throat tighten.

“It’s a pity. Zui has never miscalculated anything, not even considering that newborn concepts would transform into gods.”

“He took almost all of my power, banished me, and made me a target, so that you would know that gods can also be killed. But it wasn’t humans who fulfilled his expectations, it was me.”

Nilia’s nails dug into his palm, and he said: “It was you who destroyed those secret artists, they only…”

“Is that so?”

Hikta didn't care, “It seems so. Then guess, why can I, who have been banished from the world, deliver an oracle?”

“...”

“Because of humanity.”

Hikta held the candy in her mouth and spoke very slowly, so that Nilia could hear the cruel truth word for word.

“Sagteni I’s will cannot change the ignorance of humanity. Zui left behind something to kill me, but humans treated it as a key to eternal life.”

“Those who have mastered power are instead afraid of death. It’s not that they don’t have the chance to kill me, but they only use that chance to come before me and call out to me, wanting to gain my favor even if it means sacrificing so much.”

“You shouldn’t be a stranger to the first group of humans who did that—that was the prototype of the Secret Art Association.”

Nilia said with difficulty: “I don’t believe what you said…”

“Don’t you find it strange?”

Hikta said, “Is the history presented by the Archaeological Secret Arts Institute of the Secret Art Association very different from what Zui showed you?”

Nilia subconsciously clutched the amber on his chest: “How do you know…”

“If you didn't know the real history, you would never have been able to find that secret art from Jalaba’s tomb.”

Hikta looked at the window, which reflected Shanjielina Landor’s face.

She was very small, being taken care of by her classmates and teachers at Saint Imolai, like a newly born flower bud.

Hikta didn't like to deliver oracles to people who were too weak.

People with weak bodies often had less firm wills, but even if they easily obtained the body, they wouldn't live for long.

Shanjielina was an exception.

This little girl seemed to firmly believe that her brother would come to save her, and she was still fighting against Hikta with her weak will even now.

But waiting to be saved was the biggest lie of humanity.

It was the evasion that was unique to humanity, something that Sagteni I could not change in his entire life.

If it were Naqiya, she would never have expected Zui’s salvation.

She would have taken up any weapon and fought Hikta to the death, even if it was like a moth to a flame.

But humans don't always think like that.

It's not that there are no humans who try to turn the situation around, but there are more who are willing to exchange the lives of others for their own dignity.

For this, they could abandon the entire Sagteni civilization, turn Sagteni I, who was hostile to the god of death, into an enemy of humanity, and even compile a history that would make Hikta laugh, passing it down from generation to generation.

Now, no one even knows what really happened back then.

The monarch who could have ruled for millions of years in the body of a god was thus abandoned by the people he had placed his high hopes on.

“This feeling is so familiar. I finally know why Katur and Aturu were always keen on playing sacrificial games with humans.”

Hikta recited the names of her former compatriots, sighing and shaking her head.

“You offered up your geniuses, first praying for immortality, then exchanging it for tens of thousands of years of stability with me. No wonder Zui was so angry that he couldn’t sit still. Logically speaking, all humans now are considered Sagteni people, but you are more like Goni people without Jalaba.”

She sneered, “I almost forgot. You call Jalaba a deserter, and you call Sagteni I a tyrant who destroyed an era.”

“Is this too much for you?”

Hikta bit down on the hard candy with her teeth, making a teeth-grinding sound.

He watched Nilia’s ugly face with great interest, laughing so hard that he couldn't stand up straight.

“Then let me tell you one more thing. Actually, most of the time I don't use oracles, but another way you are familiar with. In your secret artist’s words, ‘Descent’.”

“You’re lying!”

Nilia couldn’t stand her repeated slanders.

In Hikta’s mouth, humanity was so unbearable, as if Sagteni I had made the right decision but entrusted the future to the wrong people.

He shouted: “You’re lying! You’re lying!”

Hikta shrugged indifferently: “Actually, it’s very simple.”

She jumped up from the chair, her slightly curly long hair spreading out behind her light blue dress.

Hikta looked at the tense Polika.

“Polika Landor.”

She said slowly, “I’ll give you a chance. Pray for my descent.”

“You’re dreaming…” Nilia gritted his teeth.

But Hikta said again: “You give me your body, and I will return your sister to you, safe and sound.”

Nilia’s face suddenly turned deathly pale.

He turned his head abruptly to look at Polika.

His friend’s face was expressionless, like a wind-up doll, without a heartbeat, without breathing.

He only looked at Hikta, his eyes filled with something Nilia never wanted to see.

“Polika…? Polika!”

Nilia began to hate himself for teaching him "Descent."

Getting him away now was useless, and knocking him out was also useless.

"Descent" was just that unreasonable.

A skilled secret artist didn't even need to recite the prayer!

“Don’t say it. I’ll rip your mouth… I really will! Polika… you swore an oath!”

Nilia desperately tried to change his friend’s mind.

His excellent memory allowed him to remember every word Polika had said back then.

“In the infirmary, you swore an oath to the headmaster. You swore on the honor of the Landor family…”

Polika finally looked over slowly: “And you said, what fucking noble.”

“No…”

“That’s why the headmaster had you swear on yourself.”

Polika said softly, “You didn’t swear an oath, but you can do it without one.”

“I can’t.”

So a broken heart can make a sound.

Nilia heard it so clearly.

Every sound came from Polika’s body.

At this moment, the eighteen-year-old Polika could calmly face the jealousy and anxiety he felt at sixteen.

He had talent, but not enough.

He had determination, but it wasn't strong.

He couldn't transform like Nilia, and after making up his mind to face "Good Friday," his will was riddled with holes.

He was far from as strong as he appeared.

“I can’t, Nilia. You can find it embarrassing, you can find it disgusting.”

Polika said, “But I just want Shanjielina.”

“I just want Shanjielina.”

Polika repeated this sentence, over and over again.

***

Burning giant trees, dried-up riverbeds, even the stars were about to fall from the sky.

Sagteni I looked up at the sky, then down at the earth, his scarlet pupils as bright as the red sun in the night sky.

In his left hand was the neck of the already unconscious Hikta, and in his right hand he held the heads of Katur and Aturu.

The two gods did not know where the thick aura of death that emanated from Zui came from.

They did not understand where Zui’s calm to the point of bizarre anger came from, nor how they had been found.

In the blink of an eye, the heavy sword of death had already whistled and cut off their heads.

The sound of the mountains crumbling and the earth cracking had long since awakened the sleeping Sagteni people.

A whistling wind blew across the world, carrying the king’s ferocity to every inch of the soil.

The sound of the wind was mixed with the lingering aura of death, like the heavy sword that had cut down the gods was still waving, suspended above their heads, at their throats, an inch above their hearts.

When Zui arrived at the deep ravine temporary palace, Feian was already waiting there.

Feian had slept for a long time.

When she woke up again, the rapid growth of her body was excruciating.

Her bones felt as if they were being broken and reassembled, and her muscles and skin were all torn open and then stitched back together.

After rapid growth, came rapid aging.

The Sagteni people couldn't imagine what a person over one hundred and fifty years old would look like, but if they saw Feian, the concept of "old" would be born.

Feian struggled to hold up a sword.

“This is the… courage you once bestowed upon that child.”

Her lips moved frequently, trying to compensate for the gaps in her teeth.

Her sentences were disjointed, occasionally with a faint hissing sound of leaking air.

“He asked me to return it to you. He said, he has won his own sword, and he is grateful for everything you have bestowed.”

Feian: “I may have guessed your intention… great King of All Kings.”

She struggled to lift the sword higher, “In my humble opinion, this is something more valuable than gold. Its value is given by you. Anyone who possesses it will have an unyielding will and a determination to survive.”

***

Chu Zu remembered that he had once encountered an orphan on the border who had grabbed his trouser leg and said thank you.

He had given the child his sword.

He didn't know how that child had met Feian.

It might have been when he joined the army during the war of the myriad kingdoms.

The sword was nothing special.

It wore out easily and wouldn't last for many years, unlike gold.

“How is the situation on Nilia’s side?” he asked the system.

The little yellow chicken had been closely watching Nilia on the projection.

Because the time flow on both sides was very different, the projection was like a normal plot slowed down countless times.

The originally clear dialogue was dragged out like a sloth.

If it were expressed in words, it would be equivalent to adding an extremely long “—” between each word of a sentence.

The system was afraid that the host wouldn't understand, so it added subtitles to the projection.

But just now, when it was chasing Katur and Aturu, it was afraid of making a mistake, so Chu Zu missed a short part of the plot.

“Hikta wants Polika’s body. Nilia can’t stop him.”

The system summarized simply.

“In the end, it’s the male lead versus the second male lead…”

Chu Zu’s tone was tinged with a hint of ‘as expected.’

“Tens of thousands of years have passed, and Hikta is still the same, completely shameless.”

“Can they fight?”

The system was worried, “Polika is Nilia’s biological father… biological brother. It’s fine to fight normally, but if they really have to fight to the death…”

“If Hikta keeps occupying Shanjielina’s body, then they definitely can’t fight.”

Chu Zu said, “But if it’s Polika, maybe Nilia will get more and more pumped up the more he fights.”

System: “?”

“That’s how good brothers are. Don’t worry about it.”

Chu Zu said, “I’m a bit concerned about Hikta’s nonsense from before.”

Little Yellow Chicken: “Which sentence are you referring to?”

“Hikta said he was continuously eating his ‘compatriots.’ You check the background settings. Can he also plagiarize Cronus from Greek Mythology? Swallow them as they come?”

The system opened the third background and worked efficiently.

The setting stated that in order to ensure that he was the only one who could be called upon by humans, Hikta had swallowed all the newborn concepts.

Those gods did not "die," but became a part of him.

So no matter who people called upon, the only one who would respond would be Hikta.

“So the Secret Art Association didn't even look for him in the first place. They should have been looking for the god of truth, but he intercepted them.”

The system clenched its fist, “Shameless, even deceiving a fool like Nilia!”

“If Hikta dies, will the gods in his stomach die with him, or will they run out?”

“It's not written in the settings.”

Chu Zu nodded: “Alright.”

He casually threw the heads of the two gods aside, freed his hands, weighed the sword, and said to Feian: “It is indeed a humble opinion.”

Feian was now hard of hearing and couldn't hear most sounds, but the king’s cold words fell into her ears without a single mistake.

Feian felt deeply ashamed.

Without Aturu’s “wisdom,” she could not give Zui any advice, and her now-limited clarity could not give the king any more support.

“I approve of your humble opinion, Feian.”

Feian’s loose eyelids trembled twice.

She stiffly raised her head.

Sagteni I was staring at her, his scarlet eyes filled with admiration.

Feian opened her shrunken mouth, which lacked teeth, and in the end, said nothing, lowering her head again.

Chu Zu didn't have time to wait for Feian's aged steps and walked quickly towards the stone slab where a place had been left for the number zero secret art.

Feian had someone prepare both molten gold and a long sword at the same time.

The long sword was in his hand, and the molten gold was put into a wide-mouthed stone jar and placed next to the stone slab.

The system had already super-efficiently completed the calculations requested by the host and formulated a secret art package that could be used with one click.

It had also programmed an external button, fully automatic.

A light press was all it took.

Hikta wasn't awake, and Chu Zu couldn't be bothered to wake him up.

Talking to filth would only disgust himself.

Leaving him for Nilia to fight poison with poison would be an insult to Nilia.

Killing and imprisoning the gods was not the core of Zui's character.

Making it too solemn would cheapen it.

The little yellow chicken was more extreme.

It even wanted to smash the button itself.

Chu Zu pressed the button in the sea of consciousness.

The secret art, which was in line with the programming, took effect.

Hikta's body was enveloped and pierced by a white mist that appeared out of thin air.

This mist was absorbing all the liquid in his body.

It was first dyed light red.

At this time, Hikta was still healing, so the red became thicker and thicker, and finally, it was almost the same color as Chu Zu's pupils.

The god simulated a human body.

After losing all moisture, the body hardened, the skin shrank, and its former beauty was gone, leaving only an unkillable mummy.

After the mist had absorbed all the liquid, it began to churn, and the surrounding temperature also rose.

The mummy began to spontaneously combust under the sudden ultra-high temperature.

Feian, who had finally arrived here, did not dare to get close at all and could only watch from afar as the king, in the hellish high temperature, inserted the sword into the stone jar filled with molten gold.

“You speak, I write.”

Chu Zu instructed the system.

The number zero secret art compressed by the system was very simple, in a format similar to

"Good Friday."

It only took a few seconds to write the secret art.

Chu Zu finished the last stroke and nailed the long sword into the stone slab above.

The blade vibrated and hummed, and the extremely high temperature also burned the mummy to ashes.

The king stepped over the gray-white powder on the ground and said to Feian.

“From now on, you are the master of the deep ravine temporary palace, the only secret artist of Sagteni. You will keep all the secret arts for me.”

“Countless people will come here, or perhaps no one will. And you will never be able to leave this temporary palace in your life.”

The king said, “Feian, give me your answer.”

Feian’s body was still trembling, this time not because of excitement or fear, but simply due to old age.

She actually didn't have much time left to live, perhaps not even until the end of the harvest month.

She had seen off countless people and knew the changes in a dying person's body.

That smell could not be concealed.

Feian believed that Zui also knew this.

Ashurbanipal-Zui-Sagteni was a very complex king.

He was not keen on power, but he wanted the whole world.

He was not a human supremacist, it was just that he happened to be human, so he tyrannically elevated the status of humanity.

He had no warmth in him, but he could always let the people he approved of gain something within his tolerance range.

The crisis that had once made Feian tremble with fear and stay up all night was nothing in his eyes.

Aturu thought she had persuaded him, but she didn't know that her death was imminent.

The king had never changed his mind.

He was just waiting for Naqiya to finish her battlefield.

—The crisis of solving the gods was even ranked after Naqiya.

As soon as Naqiya died, Zui ended everything with unimaginable speed.

The earth crumbled and the mountains collapsed, but he was calm and composed.

Feian could not reach the height of the King of All Kings.

He was like a person from another world.

The distance between him and others was even more distant than the distance between humans and gods.

Feian bowed to him: “This is my wish for the rest of my life.”

When Feian raised her head again, Sagteni I was no longer there.

The long sword he had inserted was left on the stone wall.

Below it was a dazzling golden secret art that was different from the power of the gods, something that Feian had never come into contact with before.

The floodwaters submerged the mountains.

When they receded, they revealed the skeletons of beasts and the skulls of gods.

And the untamed scarlet human.

***

The moment the church collapsed, the pipe organ inside also let out a roar like a lion.

The entire mountain trembled, and the secret artists and resident knights who were surrounding it all tensed up.

Nilia’s figure appeared in the dust.

In his left hand, he held the crazily crying and struggling Shanjielina, and in his right hand, he held Leichhardt, rushing out like a mad wild boar.

“Lady Blythe—!” Nilia’s ghostly cry was more tragic than all the other sounds.

Nilia’s sprinting speed was astonishing.

Even the resident knights gave him a few more glances.

He stopped in front of Lady Blythe, covered in sweat, but not out of breath.

“Quick, quick, quick, Lady Blythe, is there still a chance for these two to live?”

After handing the people over to the most reliable lady in the school, Nilia wiped his sweat and turned his head to shout at the headmaster: “No, we can’t win. It’s useless to just throw people at them. We have to run.”

The resident knights’ gazes were locked on the church.

The ominous movements made their hands grip the hilts of their swords.

A knight frowned at Nilia and said: “Hikta specifically asked for you. You can’t—”

“I said you can’t win. Run.”

Nilia pushed the knight aside and shouted at everyone present, “Everyone leave. That bastard Polika traded himself for Shanjielina. He’s the most talented idiot in this academy besides me!”

The headmaster was stunned for a moment before he reacted and patted Nilia on the head: “Students of Saint Imolai are not allowed to use foul language.”

Everyone was at a loss for words.

What was wrong with the headmaster and this student?

It was almost four o'clock and the sky was already bright, but the area above the church was still shrouded in a black cloud that covered the sun.

The clouds were rolling, and lightning flashed…

Was this the time to correct the school's style?

But suddenly, Nilia froze on the spot.

He clutched his chest and shouted in a completely different voice from before.

“Don’t run! Don’t anyone run! You can’t run! You can’t run even if you die here!!”

He was the one who had told everyone to run, and now he was the one shouting like a fool not to run.

He said that Polika had given up his body, but he was the one who looked crazy.

Even Shanjielina, who was crying and struggling under Lady Blythe’s hands, was not as crazy as him.

Of course, the secret artists and resident knights of the association would not retreat because of Nilia’s words.

There were still the residents of the small town at the foot of Kohuaishi mountain, and the evacuated noble students were also among them.

They could not retreat a single step before the Secret Art Association’s council and the Royal City Knights arrived!

Nilia watched them charge towards the church.

Countless people passed by his shoulders.

The headmaster finally took off his purple cravat, stuffed it into Nilia’s hands, and sighed.

“You stay here and protect Lady Blythe, Nilia.”

As soon as his voice fell, the collapse of the church intensified.

The headmaster turned around and approached, joining the other secret artists in stabilizing the mountain, while the knights rushed into the noisy ruins.

Flames suddenly appeared at that moment.

The cast iron window frames of the church were melted by the high temperature, and also engulfed the running armor.

Polika’s voice was intermittent.

He seemed to be laughing heartily.

Lady Blythe pressed Shanjielina under her, resisting the tremor.

Nilia still stood there, motionless.

Because Sagteni I had just appeared and called his name.

The king would not allow anyone to be a deserter under his nose.

The fate of a deserter would be more miserable than facing Hikta directly.

Nilia thought that Zui was warning him.

But now, Sagteni I also said to him.

“You can run this time, Nilia.”

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