Milena adjusted her hold over Sahro and pushed herself to go faster, the sword she was flying on piercing through the air. She was closely following behind Tuleam, who was similarly transporting Lucian, only he required no sword to fly.

  They were headed straight for Satidipug, where they would hopefully be able to find a refuge to hide Sahro and Lucian.

  'I'm almost certain Tuleam has no intention to go back to fighting. I'll have to find a way to convince him to help me save Glenn from the cultists!' Milena gritted her teeth when suddenly Tuleam disappeared in front of her. She stopped instinctively, hovering in mid-air. She squinted, activating her Mana Sight to try and find out where Tuleam had run to, but it was as if a giant veil had fallen from the sky.

  'A giant veil?' Milena paused and flew back slightly, her eyes widening. She bit on her lip and slowly approached the veil, pushing her hand against it. Surprisingly, she didn't feel anything.

  "Oh." Emboldened, she dashed through the veil and continued toward Satidipug.

  It was only when the sound of fighting and the ringing bell reached her ears that she understood she had somehow backtracked to the Retni's Plains.

  Milena cursed and flew close to the ground, clenching Sahro tightly.

  'A veil, a veil...What did grandpa say already...?' Milena scraped her memories with her grandfather for an explanation, all while watching a fight between two beings that simply couldn't be considered humans anymore. Harriet the King's Blade and the Pope of the Thorn's Church were in the middle of an explosive battle that was impossible to follow with the naked eye. Even Milena, with her enhanced eyesight and the magic power of Mana Sight, could hardly understand what was going on.

  She looked away and gritted her teeth. 'Something that messes with my senses? But I could see it...Spatial isolation?' The idea made the colors drain out of her face. Everything related to spatial magic was closely monitored by the Magi Brotherhood and the powerful noble families. The only case of spatial isolation that she heard about was from Glenn and Sahro, ironically.

  And it was during their encounters with the Fallen Mother.

  'Does the Fallen Mother's clergy cooperate with the Thorn's Church? Why? No, that doesn't matter. Change of plans.' Milena flew as far from the battlefield as the spatial barrier allowed her to and searched for a good hiding place. She hid Sahro in a burrow, hoping that it'd be enough to keep him away from all the danger.

  She thought back to the fight between the Pope and Harriet and clenched her head.

  "How am I supposed to help Harriet...? He's a legend, and I'm...sigh." She slapped her cheeks and stood up with renewed determination. The more she thought about it, the less likely it seemed that she would be able to help Harriet fight the Pope. What she could do, though, was worm her way through the cultists' minds and somehow rescue Glenn. Whatever they did to him to put him in such a peaceful state, she'll undo it. With Glenn at their side, they will certainly be able to turn the fight in their favor.

  "And I'm sure he'll be more than overjoyed to be fighting these cultists..." She muttered to herself with a small smile. Her decision was made, she flew away to the edge of the forest and meters away from the bloody battlefield, observing the situation. The Ancient Beast, as the Pope called it, was still feeding on the corpses scattered on the Retni's Plains. The wound Sahro carved in its flesh was still bleeding profusely, but it didn't seem to be enough to truly harm the plant monstrosity.

  She glanced at the cultists and shivered at the sight. They were thousands, maybe tens of thousands. And all of them were kneeling with the Ancient Beast's vines wrapped around them, facing the crucified Glenn. She could see the Divine power of the Thorn's Church without using her Mana Sight, due to how thick and violent it was.

  Reality itself seemed to tremble around Glenn as he received the attention of so many priests. Milena clutched her daggers and drew a deep breath.

  'They're trying to make Epinos descend into Glenn's body.' She squinted, using Mana Sight to check on the most powerful individuals. It wasn't easy, but she eventually found a couple of level six priests who were concentrated on redirecting their lower-ranked priests' energy toward Glenn. There was only one individual who didn't seem too concerned with what was going on. A knight wearing dark steel armor and leaning on a massive great sword.

  The knight was slightly less powerful, his energy coming off to be around the fifth or sixth level. 'Looks like Aura, but mixed with Divinity. I should have guessed. Hmm...'

  Milena sheathed her daggers and extended her hands in front of her, clenching the air.

  "Per potentiam hereditatis meae, obvela me velo tuo et fac me invisibilia." Her Mana moved according to the incantation. The air solidified under her fingers, and with one swift motion, she pulled the air around her shoulders. Milena disappeared beneath the invisibility cloak spell, the world changing to accommodate her discrete passage.

  She maintained her concentration as she crossed the battlefield, avoiding the best she could the fight between Harriet and the Pope. Explosions shook the ground randomly, threatening to go off near her at any point, but she continued channeling the spell and getting closer to the enemy lines. She allowed herself a small sigh of relief when she approached the closest cultist.

  'Finally safe from becoming collateral damage,' she thought. A moment later, an entire row of cultists disappeared as a massive rapier plowed through it. The Pope's roar made her fall to her knees and almost let go of the camouflage spell, but she managed to barely hold on.

  '...By Onnea.' She practically ran through the cultists' ranks, her heart beating faster and faster. She looked up, her hopes rising when she saw that she was closer to Glenn. The latter was completely unconscious, his head hanging down limply. His hands and feet were bleeding from the thorny vines maintaining him on the cross, but aside from that, he didn't appear to be injured critically.

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  'Alright, almost there—' A gauntlet of dark steel appeared in her vision, seizing her head and throwing her onto the ground. Milena gasped as the air was pulled out from her lungs, her spine crackling from the shock.

  "...A rat showed itself during the ritual." Stormblade dragged his greatsword into the ground, a dark-green Aura flaring up around him.

  Milena forced herself up, wiping the blood off her lips. Her camouflage spell was gone, and her self-confidence had completely shattered.

  'An Expert Magi against a Crusader who's halfway a Saint?' She unsheathed her daggers dejectedly, trying hard to keep up a determined expression.

  This wasn't a fight she could win.

  "It would have been so much simpler had I just captured that brat back then," spat Stormblade. "Our Lord would have already descended on this miserable world, and shown everyone his blessing!"

  Milena dug through her memories to try and copy Glenn's wit. "S- Sure, keep talking, tin can. Y- You know what? I- I'll let you live if you just get out of my way!"

  Stormblade scoffed. "At least try to be convincing. Now die, heretical scum!"

  Milena jumped back in a hurry, using her illusion powers to create dozens of copies of herself that darted off in different directions. Stormblade grunted and sent flying blades of Aura in every direction, destroying the illusion and almost beheading Milena. She slid right beneath the knight and slammed her palm against the cold armor, trying to take control of what was hiding beneath it.

  "Suffer!"

  Foreign memories of hundreds of tortured corpses appeared in her mind, all screaming at her vengefully, clawing at her with violent desires. She coiled back painfully, the vision disappearing. Stormblade grabbed his helmet and threw it away in frustration, wobbling in place.

  Milena ignored the searing headache that came from using her mind control ability and stabbed her dagger into Stormblade's neck, only to realize that there was no "neck" to be stabbed. Only a messy amalgam of vines using green tentacles-like extensions to control the armor like a puppeteer's strings. She did manage to slice up a vine, but it quickly grew back with no apparent damage.

  "Ugh...Worthless witch!" Stormblade roared as he erratically swung his fist around, catching Milena with the backhand. She flew into the air, her consciousness almost fading away. A sharp pain in her back returned her to peak capacity. A sword flew up from the battlefield to land beneath her feet and she flew away toward the two level six priests maintaining the ritual.

  Her senses had never been sharper. It was like she could see every little detail, from the mud on a cultist's robe to the bead of sweat on the head priest's forehead. Stormblade shouted at her but she ignored him and grabbed the head of the first level six priest.

  She heartlessly erased everything into the man's head, effectively turning him into a vegetable. Normally, it would have been impossible, but the priest's entire strength was concentrated on maintaining the ritual. The sudden imbalance created a distortion in power and reality began to warp around Glenn. Hundreds of small Rifts opened on the already unstable battlefield, thanks to the fight between the Pope and Harriet.

  Pale, otherworldly hands began to reach out and grab everything they could, pulling cultists into the Rifts. Milena should have felt a shot of adrenaline and excitation at the sight, but strangely, she could only coldly calculate her next move. Stormblade's sword dawned upon her but she threw the level six, mindless priest at him. The dark knight stopped his attack at the last second, cursing profusely. His armor fell off as a strange being made entirely out of intertwined vines came out of it. He was practically a beacon of Divine energy from the Thorn's Church.

  "YOU BITCH!" Stormblade's scream echoed through the battlefield as his dark green exploded violently. Milena coldly pressed her hands on the ground and closed her eyes, her Mana rising like an unstoppable wave.

  "Per potentiam hereditatis meae, ad voluntatem meam inclina, et in velo tuo protege me!" Her Mana ran through the battlefield and seized hundreds of priests. Milena felt a hot liquid dripping out of her nose and ears but she kept her focus on her opponent. All the cultists affected by her spells suddenly stopped channeling the energy for the ritual, instead unsheathing their weapons and stumbling toward Stormblade like zombies.

  Milena stepped back into the horde, letting them throw themselves at the dark knight. The latter swung his sword angrily, cleaving through a good chunk of his assailants, but more replaced those killed.

  "Tricks! You will not escape, witch!" Stormblade jumped above the tsunami of cultists trying to kill him, readying his sword for a powerful downward swing. Milena felt a new pain in her back and something rips through her clothes. Two new metal arms suddenly appeared out of nowhere, crossed in front of her defensively.

  'The spine grandpa' gave me!' Milena's eyes widened in realization and she gathered her Mana to reinforce her defense, when suddenly time itself seemed to slow down.

  A bright pillar of light suddenly engulfed Stormblade and pierced through the skies like a falling star. When the light disappeared, there was nothing left over from Stormblade, not even ash or a smoldered greatsword.

  He had been erased from reality.

  Milena slowly turned her head toward the source of the attack, finding a large hole in the Ancient Beast's green skin. The cultists on the ground all looked up in confusion as the vines providing them with power suddenly dried up and died. The Ancient Beast crumbled on itself, its skin progressively turning brown. The countless vines that were bringing corpses for it to feed on fell with their bounties in a morbid rain of bodies.

  The Ancient Beast was dead.

  The last high-ranked priest desperately chanted to the sky, new vines sprouting out of him. They shot for all of the remaining cultists, draining them up. Soon enough, countless husks were left over the battlefield as the low-ranked cultists began to question the situation. A massive vine shot out of the ground and crashed into Harriet, knocking him a certain distance away.

  The Pope rushed in front of the level six priest and clenched his throat, killing him on the spot. The bodies on the ground rose into the air, Divine Thorn's Church energy flowing out of them profusely. A literal tsunami of that same energy shot out of the dead Ancient Beast, all redirected toward the Pope.

  The Pope's muscles bulged as more blood flowed out of his wounds. He opened his mouth widely and screamed at the sky painfully.

  "LORD, COME AND BRING THE WORLD THE PAIN IT DESERVES!"

  Milena looked up against her will, something drawing her eyes to the sky. A silent command that couldn't be refused.

  A massive, dark-green vines descended from the sky, twirling on itself with immense power. Harriet was about to attack the Pope again, but the strength from the otherworldly vine froze him in place, crushing him. He kneeled in the mud, leaning on his rapiers and heaving with difficulty.

  The sky darkened as the vine descended, its tip slowly reaching for Glenn's chest. Milena's eyes widened and her hand reached out helplessly, but it was too late.

  The divine vine touched Glenn.

  A mocking laughter suddenly echoed through the battlefield, a laughter so wicked and evil that simply hearing it made Milena want to fight it. A dark green tattoo of a cross in the center of a circle wrapped in thorny vines appeared on Glenn's chest.

  And it disappeared. The green vine coiled back, like it had just burned itself, and retreated into the heavens.

  "Phew...Seems like I missed a few episodes on that one," sneered a familiar voice. Milena looked at Glenn and watched as he ripped his hands and feet free from the vines restraining him. The symbol of the Thorn's Church behind him crumbled into dust as he rose into the air, looking down at the Pope.

  "Alright. Who wants to die first?"

  Glenn was back.