Chapter 56: The Priest and the Blade Dancer

Colorful, fragmented limbs cascaded like rain, piercing through the swirling mist to land on the ground, fall into the river, and collide with the white snake's crystalline scales, burning to ashes in the searing white flames.

Jeanne extended her hand to halt his advance. The darkness was absolute, and even the flickering firelight battled in vain to pierce the dense fog, with only the relentless tide of monsters continuing to surge forward... Salser held his breath. The closest Warren exit, as noted, seemed still a distance away. The dark river alongside them heaved with the weighty splashes of descending kinfolk limbs, yet there was no doubt... something was present.

This woman's intuition—or whatever ability akin to it she wielded—turned out to be far more advantageous than he had imagined, especially when he couldn't depend on his spirit sight to perceive the environment. Typically, the spell would devour souls as its fuel, but now, those souls were mysteriously burning within this Warren under the crimson moon.

Ahead, a narrow gap yawned between towering buildings, while behind them, the riverbank displayed human limbs swaying like willow branches against the indistinct silhouettes of tree trunks. The passage was deeply recessed, and further in, visibility was severely hampered by the mist. The walls on both sides rose as high as city walls, their surfaces cloaked in moist moss that squirmed like mold.

He and Jeanne exchanged a brief glance.

Her message was clear: a ominous presence lay ahead—the most challenging scenario, potentially involving the dreaded Imperial Hounds. For the moment, Gods and Ascendants were not the concern; in their understanding, the executioners who served the upper echelons posed a far greater threat than the renegade mages of the common folk.

He halted briefly, signaling the white snake to continue crawling forward, as he initiated communication with the Warren, unleashing a sequence of isolation spells—each constructed upon diverse compositional principles. He chanted a guttural incantation, his voice akin to a beetle crawling on sand, and the frigid light spread quietly around them in the air, resembling shafts of light piercing the depths of water.

Salser took a step forward.

In an instant, he heard whispers—a spell, mingling the blasphemy of the Outer Gods with the shadows of this world.

Then, a dazzling light erupted, akin to a lighthouse beam slicing through the ocean's depths, flashing and dissipating the mist. A violent impact reverberated like a hammer striking a drum—the beam ascended from the earth, tore through the night sky, and then, with a resounding echo, descended once more to the ground.

The beam surged through the pathway, scattering dust and fragments of purple-black road materials in all directions, which then crumbled into fine dust under the gray-black light. The beam struck the barrier Salser had conjured, black smoke frothing like foam around his protective shield, while the spectral walls encircling him crackled, withered, and flickered with a hoarse sound, akin to street lamps. The beam swept over the white snake, snuffing out the flames that engulfed its body, revealing only its crystalline, glass-like scales. The walls trembled, and the floor beneath the gray light shattered  and lifted, everything within this space reacting to the unknown spell.

At the Dark wizard's signal, the white snake opened its fiery maw, adorned with flame-forged fangs, targeting the narrow gap between the towering structures. Amid the searing impact, white-hot phosphorus fire erupted like a majestic fountain from its immense mouth, pouring down against the beam, transforming this bloody night into a dawn horizon—explosion, fire, and ashes emerged in unison—in an even more deafening explosion and collision, the opposite walls and moss were incinerated into foul black ash.

The beam suddenly ceased, and he heard a woman's curse.

And a chilling sigh.

"This doesn't appear to be the power of the Warren of Light, friend of the Holy Cross."

The force of the impact nearly evacuated the air from the vicinity, rendering the walls and roads into a state of ruin as if sacked by barbarians. Yet, his magical barrier stood firm, unyielding.

That tiny heart, pressed against his chest, remained silent yet pounded fiercely like thunder. Salser could feel the warmth of Viola's breath, her arms still tightly wrapped around his neck, as if devoid of any sense of shame. The Dark wizard nonchalantly patted the little girl who was nearly choking him, and then, Viola cautiously loosened her arms a bit.

"Priest of the Shadow Throne?" Jeanne's smile was twisted, "Didn't see you coming, either."

Flames rose again from the white snake's glass-like scales, scorching the surrounding air. A shadow descended to the ground, mist-like. "Duty calls," said the tall man, completely shrouded in a black robe. He maintained a safe distance from the white snake, evidently cautious of the soul-consuming flames it radiated.

Jeanne glanced at him, her gaze sweeping over the shadows around him, as if searching for the source of the female voice. After a moment, she withdrew her gaze, "Quite the coincidence, my knight's here on duty too," she said with a cold laugh.

The man under the robe also laughed and took a step forward. His face was completely hidden by the hood, his voice strong but somewhat hoarse: "It seems we are quite alike, Inquisitor."

Inquisitor...

Salser glanced at Jeanne's current casual attire—a black dress and white shirt, with thigh-high boots and men's black trousers—she looked more like a noblewoman in men's clothing than an Inquisitor.

"But our duties are not alike, Priest of the Shadow Throne, you're nothing but a rat digging up graves in the gutter."

"Is that meant as mockery?" He chuckled, "It seems you are indeed an Inquisitor, with your dreadful personality and arrogant attitude."

"Did your pals who kicked the bucket in the dungeon think the same?"

"That was indeed a significant loss; the absence of slave service is quite a painful thing," the man said calmly, taking another composed step forward.

"If you were the one pushing up daisies, they'd be pretty damn happy, huh?" Jeanne taunted him.

"Of course, I understand. When the master suffers, the slaves always rejoice, just like the rising and setting of the sun," he replied.

The wind lifted his black robe as he took another step forward.

"What's your play coming this way, Priest of the Shadow Throne? Gonna offer up your noggin for me to boot around?"

"The answer is obvious," the priest said calmly, looking at Jeanne, "to create an opportunity."

No sooner had the words been spoken than a tattered woman fell from the sky. Her bare feet and calves pointed towards the night sky, her gaze calmly observing the colossal snake beneath. Her weapon concealed within her fluttering coat, her intended landing spot was precisely atop the white snake's head.

Salser, expressionless, uttered a word.

In the next moment, the white snake's fiery head split open down the middle like a fissure, as if another twisted mouth had opened on its head. An instant later, the white-hot flames reversed their course, ejecting forth like a waterfall in reverse, engulfing the woman as she targeted the white snake's body.

Then, an incredible slash.

Her slender fingers gripped the hilt in reverse, her right arm outstretched, and the blood-red blade in her hand traced a dim arc in the air, like the spokes of a war chariot rolling over countless corpses, slicing through the split in the white snake's head.

The blade smoothly separated the flames.

An instant later.

All of its white flames, its glass-like scales, its six blood-red eyes, and the Warren's power that constituted its rudimentary life—every aspect of this massive body—scattered like fireworks amidst the storm of spell collapsing.

The shadow stood alone, her black silk-like short hair dancing in the wind. She pivoted to confront the Dark wizard, her bare arch crushing the struggling embers of the fire. Beneath the white light, she traversed the slowly extinguishing magical flames, akin to a white phantom cloaked in black—her skin more pristine than porcelain, her tranquil yet detached murderous intent glinting in her pale blue eyes.

Then came the second slash.

A distance of nearly ten meters was crossed in an instant. This slash, from bottom to top, directly cleaved through the Dark wizard's full-body magical barrier, and his red-black longsword clashed fiercely with hers, emitting a piercing metallic sound and a buzzing vibration. There was something inhuman in her movements.

Her eyebrows slightly raised, as if somewhat dissatisfied.

"Don't you think—it'd be nicer to just die peacefully? Being a spellcaster and all, yet here you are, swinging a sword around, making extra work for me."

Salser grinned at her, "—Varaku." In the next instant, a torrent of white light shot out from his mouth like a fountain. At the same time, he kicked at the woman's knee, his sword sliding towards her fingers gripping the blade.

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