Chapter 85: The Abomination Has Fallen; Run, Necromancer!

The wind whistling through the canyon died in an instant.

A stunned silence fell over the battlefield, heavy and absolute. Every eye, wide with disbelief, was locked onto the grotesque mound of flesh and sinew that had, moments ago, been the Stitched Abomination.

And then, their gazes shifted to the Priestess, who stood beside the remains, staff in hand, her expression one of utter tranquility.

If the overwhelming wave of pink holy light that had purified the undead army had been a violent shock to their system, this was something else entirely. The “Cleansing Spell,” which had caused a siege behemoth to simply fall apart, didn’t just challenge their understanding of reality—it had taken a sledgehammer to it, ground it into dust, and scattered the ashes.

“It… it just… came apart?” a young adventurer stammered, his voice a strained whisper, thick with disbelief. He scrubbed at his eyes with a grimy hand, half-convinced he was hallucinating from blood loss.

“That light just now… that was a Cleansing Spell, right? Tell me I’m not seeing things,” another guard muttered, jabbing his companion so hard in the ribs that the man stumbled.

“It… was? I think?” his companion replied, his voice stiff and his eyes unfocused. His brain had clearly blue-screened. “The Old Priest uses it for detox… just, uh… not that color…”

The Stout Captain’s jaw hung agape, his fleshy features contorting into a mask of vivid horror. His eyes darted from the pile of rotten meat to Celeste, then snapped downward, landing on the two tender, pink heart-shaped marks on his own chest and arm.

A truly terrifying thought detonated in his mind.

If that “Cleansing Spell” were to be used on him…

Would it… “cleanse” certain parts of his body clean off?

He instinctively squeezed his thighs together, a phantom chill creeping up from between his legs.

“Sister Selene… is your sister always this… um… special?” Xia Lian sidled up to Selene, her voice a conspiratorial whisper. She was intimately familiar with the spell; for the past few days in the wilderness, it had been their go-to for personal hygiene. Yet she couldn’t reconcile the practical magic that left one smelling faintly fragrant with the gruesome scene of “dismemberment” before her.

“Huh? Oh, that? It’s perfectly logical!” Selene snapped out of her own deep shock. She gazed at her sister’s back, her eyes shining with a pride so intense it was almost tangible.

She puffed out her chest and, in the patient tone of someone explaining a simple concept to a child, began what could only be described as the “Selene Explanation.”

“The Cleansing Spell, at its core, just gets rid of ‘filth’ that doesn’t belong on a body.”

“Think about it,” she continued, warming to her subject. “The threads holding that Stitched Abomination together weren’t part of its original body, right? That makes them ‘foreign objects’! And if they’re foreign objects, they have to be cleansed away. See? It’s perfectly normal!”

This stunning piece of sophistry left Xia Lian utterly stunned.

Logical?

This twisted, insane reasoning… somehow… actually… had no loopholes?

Xia Lian felt her own brain melting into pudding.

Meanwhile, Su Wan, the team’s resident iceberg of logic and knowledge, had one hand pressed to her forehead. The tip of her staff was unconsciously tracing meaningless circles in the dirt.

She, of course, recognized the Cleansing Spell. She had even been on the receiving end of Celeste’s “services.” And it was precisely that familiarity that made this whole situation so devastating.

Within the frigid depths of her ice-blue eyes, the majestic glacier she called ‘Common Sense and the Fundamental Laws of Magic’ was groaning under an impossible weight, riddled with fissures and threatening to collapse into the sea.

Holy Light could be used as an area-of-effect nuke.

A Healing Spell could overload the undead until they exploded.

And now, a simple Cleansing Spell, through some outrageous “philosophical concept,” could function as a “Structural Decomposition Spell.”

Every piece of professional magical knowledge she had painstakingly acquired since childhood felt as flimsy as a sheet of paper in the face of Celeste’s existence. For the first time, Su Wan began to suspect that her mentor, who was fond of muttering that “the final frontier of magic is imagination,” wasn’t just spouting pretty words to encourage his students.

“A miracle… this is an absolute miracle!”

From the rear of the group, the Old Priest had thrown himself to the ground, prostrating himself in Celeste’s direction with the fervor of a zealot. “To erase filth from the very root of its ‘existence’! This is the true meaning of ‘cleansing’! I see it now! I have achieved enlightenment! Amen!” he muttered, his eyes burning with fanaticism.

Celeste felt a headache brewing. It seemed she had accidentally acquired her first devout follower.

In the midst of this eerie silence, three black shadows suddenly burst from behind the wreckage of the meat-mountain, fleeing desperately toward the depths of the canyon.

It was the three Necromancers.

The transition from the giddy high of capturing a prime sacrifice to the abject terror of watching their siege weapon get deconstructed had taken less than a second. Fear, cold and sharp as glacial water, doused the flames of their greed.

That pink-haired priest wasn’t a sacrifice!

She was a monster!

A terrifying being who operated outside the bounds of common sense and was a walking, talking hard-counter to all things undead!

Run! We have to get this information back!

“Trying to leave?” Celeste’s eyes narrowed. Her voice cut through the silence, sharp and decisive. “Xia Lian, lock them down! Su Wan, open fire!”

“Received!”

“Understood!”

Xia Lian’s body moved on pure instinct, her combat senses taking over long before her conscious mind could process the command. She didn’t give chase. Instead, she planted her feet, nocked an arrow to her shortbow, and drew the string in one fluid, seamless motion.

“Binding Shot!”

Hum—!

An arrow wreathed in a pale blue aura sliced through the air, carving a perfect parabola before exploding at the feet of the lead Necromancer. A swirl of invisible energy erupted outwards, and the fleeing mage suddenly felt as though his legs were filled with lead. His speed plummeted, and the escape aura he had cast on his companions flickered erratically.

“Nice shot!” Su Wan’s cold voice rang out, her thoughts suddenly crystal clear.

‘If the rules no longer apply,’she thought,’why should I play by them?’

“Dark Shield!” one of the other Necromancers shrieked, throwing up a barrier of black, viscous energy to protect his comrades.

Under normal circumstances, Su Wan might have needed to expend some effort to break it. But now, her ice-blue eyes held nothing but pure, cold impatience.

Analyze its structure? Find a weak point?

Too much trouble.

“Ice Blast!”

Su Wan simply pointed her staff forward. No incantation, no complex gestures—just a raw, unrestrained condensation of frost magic. It formed a thick, ice-blue beam that warped the very air around it, slamming into the Dark Shield with the intent to crush all opposition.

BOOM—!

The shield, supposedly sturdy, didn’t hold for even a fraction of a second before it shattered like a pane of glass. The violent surge of frost energy flash-froze the Necromancer behind it, then tore him apart, turning him into a shower of glittering ice shards.

The two remaining Necromancers were scared witless. They began to desperately burn their own soul-force, trying to trade life for a burst of speed.

“Useless,” Su Wan’s voice was colder than the magic she wielded.

She tapped her staff lightly. A single ice spike whistled from its tip, streaking through the air like a precision-guided missile. It unerringly found its target, piercing the skull of one Necromancer and extinguishing the ghostly blue soul fire within.

At the same moment, Xia Lian’s second arrow was already loose.

“Wind-Piercing Arrow!”

The arrow screamed through the air, arriving almost before the sound of its release. It slammed into the back of the last Necromancer’s head and punched straight out through his eye socket. The sheer force of the impact pinned the flickering soul fire that represented his life firmly to the distant canyon wall.

The battle was over.

Celeste let out a quiet sigh of relief and hurried over to her sister. Without a word, she raised her staff.

A familiar, excessively thick beam of pink light enveloped Selene.

The tight lines of pain around Selene’s mouth immediately softened. The internal shock and deep muscle soreness from blocking the Abomination’s attack were being rapidly washed away, healed by an overbearing yet warm life force.

“How is it? Feeling better?” Celeste asked, her gaze falling with a pang of heartache on her sister’s still-trembling arm. Taking that hit had been far too great a burden for Selene at her current level.

“I’m fine, Sis! Piece of cake!” Selene grinned, flexing her newly restored arm and giving her sister a smug look. “I’m fully revived now! I can take another one!”

“Still running your mouth,” Celeste huffed, rolling her eyes, but the knot of worry in her chest finally dissolved completely.

Just then, a soft golden light erupted from Selene’s body, wrapping her in a warm cocoon.

“Eh? I leveled up!” Selene clenched her fists in surprise, feeling a new surge of power course through her. “Looks like fighting these high-level big guys gives some fat XP!”

With the minions cleared, the gazes of all four—Celeste, Su Wan, Xia Lian, and Selene—turned as one toward the far end of the canyon.

There, mounted atop a skeletal warhorse, sat the Death Knight. Clad in heavy, dark armor, he and the Apprentice Knights standing solemnly behind him had remained as still as statues from beginning to end.

They had watched the entire battle with cold indifference.

From the Stitched Abomination’s grand entrance to its unceremonious dismantling.

From the Necromancers’ desperate flight to their instant execution.

He had not moved a single inch.

Now, on the entire battlefield, only their party and this unfathomable Death Knight remained.

Clack.

The soft sound echoed in the sudden quiet.

The iron-shod hooves of the skeletal warhorse, wreathed in ghostly fire, finally took a single step forward.

In unison, everyone’s heart leaped into their throat.

The real boss was about to make its move.

[Elysian’s Note:

Having a good time with the story?

Every single bit helps immensely:

Thanks a ton for making this journey possible!]