44: Chapter 44 The Holy Knight Descends, Silver Armor Pierces the Darkness

The phosphorescent dust from the shattered ghost fires drifted down through the air.

The green shimmer struck the silver-white armor, weaving with the golden radiance of the holy runes into flickering patches of light and shadow.

Everyone froze.

Wang Hao opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was a shield.

A silver-white tower shield, wider than his shoulders, with golden light still flowing along the cross pattern on its face.

The light was warm.

The warmth radiated from the shield's surface, penetrating his skin, warming him straight to the marrow of his bones.

The bone-chilling cold pressing down from the Anomaly retreated a full three paces before this warmth.

"Alive?"

Wang Hao's lips moved, his voice barely a whisper.

Then he looked up and saw the person behind the shield.

Silver-white light armor, form-fitting and clean-cut.

The pauldrons curved slightly, and thin lines of golden holy light flowed along the seams of the vambraces and greaves.

In the center of the breastplate, a flame cradling a star—the totem of spark.

A helmet covered her face, revealing only her jawline and a pair of eyes peering through the visor's slit.

The eyes were cold, but carried light within that coldness.

Liu Yuyan glanced back at Wang Hao.

She had heard every word Wang Hao said just now.

She acknowledged it.

It was an instinctive recognition rising from the marrow, felt when one person of Kindling sees another.

There were no extra words.

She simply nodded at Wang Hao.

Then she turned to face the Anomaly.

Her right hand gripped the Sword of Judgment tightly.

The blade hummed, holy runes lit up, and pale golden light swept across the edge.

Her first real battle.

It was here.

Section Chief Han Zheng was the first to react.

It wasn't the person with the bronze mask.

The physique was slimmer, the height shorter, but the totem on the armor was identical.

A new member of Kindling.

"Everyone! Fall back and hug the wall! Do not interfere with Kindling's battle!"

The order snapped out from his throat, hard and fast.

The five soldiers moved.

This time, they moved faster than in any drill.

Two people hoisted the professor, two protected the graduate students, and the squad leader yanked Wang Hao's arm back. The entire defensive formation pressed against the stone wall of the corridor entrance within three seconds.

The Anomaly's ghost eyes locked onto the new intruder.

There was no expression on its gray-white face, but the flickering frequency of the two green flames suddenly accelerated—it sensed a threat.

Not the threat of those toys from before that pelted it with metal blocks.

It was a threat of the same domain, one that could touch its essence, a threat that made it instinctively alert.

A sharp, high-frequency wail erupted from deep within the Anomaly's torso.

It did not sound like any creature's cry; it was more like the sound of metal scraping against glass, amplified a hundred times.

The carbonized murals on the dome shook, shedding debris in the sonic waves.

Liu Yuyan's eardrums stung.

But she did not retreat.

Elena's muscle memory took over her body instantly—the shield tilted forward fifteen degrees, shoulders lowered, center of gravity locked onto the balls of her feet.

The sonic waves of the mental attack struck the light membrane of her holy protection, and most of it was deflected.

The residual fluctuations poured into her ears, like someone stabbing her temples with needles.

It hurt, but it was within a controllable range.

The Anomaly launched its attack.

It did not move—its smoky tail was anchored to the remains of the formation, and its entire torso seemed nailed above the stone platform.

But the dozen or so ghost fireballs orbiting it shot out once more.

This time, they didn't come pouring over all at once.

Five from the front, three from the left, three from the right, and two curved in an arc, pouncing down from overhead.

Thirteen ghost fires, four directions, arriving simultaneously.

Liu Yuyan's pupils constricted behind the visor's slit.

In Elena's lifetime, she had faced more projectiles than this.

Her body moved before her thoughts.

The tower shield swept horizontally, from left to right, the holy light on the shield face drawing an arc of light along the trajectory.

The three on the left and the five from the front collided with the screen of light, shattering, dissipating, and turning into phosphorus.

For the three on the right, she chose to dodge.

The speed of a Rank 1 Transcendent far exceeded human limits; her body shifted one and a half meters laterally in 0.2 seconds.

The three ghost fires grazed the armor's pauldrons; the temperature was extremely low, and a layer of frost instantly coated the armor's surface.

The two overhead, she couldn't raise the shield in time.

As Liu Yuyan raised the shield with her left hand, she kicked off with her right foot, dropping her height.

The two ghost fires flew twenty centimeters above her helmet, the scorching-cold airflow whipping the ends of her low ponytail.

Twenty centimeters short.

The first wave was blocked.

Liu Yuyan did not stop.

The moment the shield block finished, she kicked off with her back foot, launching herself as her body turned into a silver-white arc, charging straight at the Anomaly.

The sword started from her waistline, tracing a semi-arc, slashing diagonally from bottom to top.

The holy runes on the sword lit up completely at this moment, pale golden holy light overflowing from the edge, trailing a warm and sharp tail of light.

The Sword of Judgment slashed into the Anomaly's torso.

It was effective.

Bullets passed through without touching anything, but the moment the holy light blade cut in, obvious tearing marks appeared on the Anomaly's translucent body.

The dark purple core was scorched with a charred rift by the golden sword light, like a red-hot knife cutting through frozen meat.

The Anomaly let out a second shriek.

Sharper than the first, one-third of the carbonized murals on the dome shattered, and debris fell from overhead like black snowflakes.

It was in pain.

At the corridor entrance, that silver-white figure was reflected in Section Chief Han Zheng's pupils.

It was different.

Completely different from that person in the East Sea who walked on air amid flames and burned the sky with a single palm.

When that person in the East Sea acted, it was like an adult swatting a fly—composed, precise, and filled with a sense of overwhelming power.

This one before him was fighting a war.

Fighting seriously, with all her might, without yielding an inch.

And the Anomaly opposite, after taking a sword strike, the green flames in its ghost eyes had not weakened.

On the contrary, they burned brighter.

It was enraged.

The Anomaly counterattacked.

Its method of attack changed.

It was no longer firing ghost fireballs—its translucent torso sprayed a large amount of black smoke from the cut, and the black smoke condensed in the air into dozens of thin, long smoke whips, each with a cluster of dark green ghost fire burning at the tip, like a cluster of fingers reaching out from the abyss.

The smoke whips lashed down simultaneously.

The speed was three times faster than the ghost fireballs.

Liu Yuyan raised her shield.

The smoke whips smashed against the shield, and the passive effect of her holy protection activated—the golden light membrane and the dark green ghost fire collided violently, the hissing sound of corrosion and the humming sound of holy purification twisting together.

Every time she blocked a smoke whip, her arm had to endure an impact far exceeding the limits of her physical body.

Her Rank 1 Transcendent physique allowed her to hold on.

But the cost was that every block consumed the passive energy of her holy protection, and that passive energy was directly linked to her stamina.

She felt it—a persistent, continuous drain of exhaustion being pulled away from the depths of the armor.

When the fifth smoke whip slapped against the shield, her knees sank an inch.

The muscles in her arm behind the shield were strained to the limit, and veins bulged beneath the vambraces.

But this was not the biggest problem.

The biggest problem was—she couldn't just focus on fighting.

At the corridor entrance behind her, ten living people were pressed against the wall.

Every stray smoke whip, every fragment of scattered ghost fire, could cost them their lives.

She had to block this position, drawing a line with her body and shield—in front of the line was the battlefield between her and the Anomaly, and behind the line was the zero-casualty zone.

This meant she could not pursue.

Could not create distance.

Could not use her Rank 1 Transcendent speed for guerrilla tactics.

The Anomaly's attack range covered the entire hall.

If she left this line by even one step, the rear would be exposed.

When Liu Yuyan blocked the eighth smoke whip, in the gap between the shield and whip collision, the Sword of Judgment in her right hand swung out—a diagonal slash, striking the root of a smoke whip.

The holy light severed the dark purple smoke core; the upper half of that whip disintegrated, and the lower half retracted into the Anomaly's torso.

It was useful.

But it would grow back.

Liu Yuyan adjusted her position, retreating two steps to a spot that could just cover the entire width of the corridor entrance.

The shield was held horizontally across her chest, the sword held vertically beside the shield.

The battle had lasted less than a minute.

Her breathing was already heavier than before.

Is this E-Rank?

A memory flashed through her mind of Su Chen in the East Sea—stepping on white flame stairs, walking on air amid fire, burning the sky with a single palm.

He had looked so relaxed at the time.

So relaxed, as if he were taking a stroll.

Only when truly standing before an E-Rank did she realize how terrifying the power gap was that such relaxation implied.

Just how strong... has the President become?

The Anomaly seemed to have discovered her intention as well.

It gave up lashing with smoke whips, instead twisting dozens of them into one in the air, forming a giant smoke pillar over a meter in diameter, the ghost fire at the tip converging into a ghastly green skull.

The smoke pillar did not smash down.

It was charging up.

In the skull's eye sockets, the green flames burned brighter and brighter, and an energy fluctuation far exceeding before was brewing within.

Section Chief Han Zheng's pupils constricted violently.

A field-clearing strike.

Liu Yuyan understood it too.

Her breathing stopped for a beat.

The shield's defense had a limit.

She wasn't sure if she could block this strike.

Even if she blocked it, her stamina would be drained instantly.

She had to resolve it before then.

Cross Slash.

Condense all her holy light, put all her effort into one sword, and release a cross-shaped slash wave.

There was only one chance.

Once she failed, her stamina would be empty.

The people behind her would all be finished.

She began to mobilize the holy light within her body, preparing to go all-in.

Just then—

"Its face!"

Wang Hao's roar came from the corridor entrance, his voice tearing and distorted.

"Behind its face! I saw it in the golden light! The final strike of the Kindling predecessor hit behind the face!"

Liu Yuyan's movements stopped.

She believed him.

Unconditionally.

Because he was a descendant of Kindling.

The charging action stopped instantly, and the energy of the Cross Slash was forcibly suppressed back.

She did not choose to clash head-on.

One second before the giant smoke pillar smashed down, Liu Yuyan's body moved.

Not charging forward, not retreating.

It was a lateral launch.

The silver-white figure left an afterimage on the ground, bypassing the frontal impact range of the smoke pillar, and cut toward the Anomaly's flank at a tricky angle.

The Anomaly's ghost eyes seemed not to have expected her to suddenly change tactics, and its fully charged strike missed.

The smoke pillar smashed heavily into the spot where Liu Yuyan had just been standing; stone tiles shattered, green flames exploded outward, and corrosive smoke instantly engulfed that area.

But Liu Yuyan had already arrived.

She appeared at the Anomaly's side-rear, less than three meters from that gray-white face.

At this distance, she could clearly see the waxy patterns flowing on the mask and could smell the scent of decay that chilled to the bone.

The Anomaly's reaction was extremely fast; its torso twisted violently, and dozens of smoke whips spread out again, covering her like a net from heaven and earth.

It was too late.

Liu Yuyan's body twisted in mid-air, and she flung the tower shield from her left hand.

The silver-white tower shield spun like a flying disc, the holy light on the shield face surged, and it collided precisely with the incoming net of smoke whips.

The shield blocked it for 0.5 seconds.

That was enough.

Liu Yuyan's hands gripped the hilt of the sword.

All the power of a Rank 1 Transcendent, all the holy light of the Paladin sequence, the will of Elena's lifetime of protection—all poured into the Sword of Judgment.

The holy runes on the sword lit up to a blinding degree, golden light burning all the way from the crossguard to the tip, finally condensing at the tip into a fist-sized, pure ball of light that seemed capable of purifying all things.

"Cross—"

The voice came from beneath the helmet, no longer cold, carrying a resolute, burning intensity.

"Slash!"