208: Tragic Day for the West

When the Horn of the End, condensed from pure law runes in Elian's hand, seemingly capable of freezing time and souls, once again glowed with a pale light.

When the two Purgatory Flame Cores on Baal's Purgatory Adamantite Twin Blades, constantly collapsing inward and emitting infinite suction and destructive aura, spun to their extreme, when two forces capable of dragging an entire planet into oblivion were about to collide for the second time.

The entire world seemed to have its throat choked by an invisible giant hand.

Boom!!!

It was not a sound, but a terrifying wail of cosmic laws being forcibly torn, ground, and finally completely broken.

Pale and dark red, order and chaos, freezing and burning, two completely opposite yet equally extreme world-ending powers, collided violently in the void for the second time!

This time, there was still no earth-shattering explosion, no shockwave sweeping across the land.

At the center of the collision, space itself, like fragile glass, silently collapsed and shattered, forming an ultimate singularity that spun madly, devouring all light and darkness, matter and energy.

Pale Holy Marks and Destruction Rifts, like scars of the universe, wildly spread, annihilated, and regenerated around the singularity, forming an ever-expanding ripple of destruction that dragged all tangible and intangible things into eternal void.

The entire Western world, at this moment, felt a violent tremor at the soul level.

It was not a physical tremor, but a groan from the world's foundation, a shiver from the strings of rules being forcibly plucked apart.

A chill originating from the deepest part of the soul, mixed with extreme fear and icy despair, instantly swept across every sentient being on the continent like a plague.

The Holy City of Vatican, it was gone.

This realization, like a cold steel needle, fiercely pierced the hearts of all those whose destinies were linked to the Holy See.

In the distant headquarters of the Knights of St. John, within the magnificent Knights' Holy Temple.

All knights in white robes with red crosses, whether praying, training, or wiping their weapons, were struck by lightning the moment the world-ending aura swept past, and they all simultaneously knelt on one knee.

Heavy armor clanged against the cold marble floor, emitting a dull roar.

Their longswords and warhammers fell from their hands, unheeded.

The Chief Grand Master of Knights, an legendary expert with white hair and beard, who had once bathed in Holy Light and beheaded heretics, now clutched the holy emblem on his chest, his knuckles white from excessive force, his weathered face twitching violently, his cloudy eyes filled only with boundless bewilderment and bone-deep fear.

The source that sustained their faith and power... had it collapsed?

The image of the Creator God depicted on the dome of the Holy Temple, with its compassionate gaze, now appeared incredibly hollow in the flickering candlelight.

In the bitter cold lands further north, deep within the Frost Hermitage.

In a secret chamber constructed from ten-thousand-year-old unmelting profound ice, seven elders in ice-blue robes with white hair and beards sat around a huge ice crystal emitting a faint chill.

Golden light patterns, representing the Holy See's holy power, originally flowed on the ice crystal.

However, at this moment, those golden light patterns, like snow lines thrown into molten lava, snapped and disintegrated inch by inch under everyone's horrified gazes!

Inside the ice crystal, a faint but grating 'crack' sound was heard, and it was instantly covered with spiderweb-like cracks.

The leading elder suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood mixed with ice shards, his body swayed violently, and his hoarse voice was like a broken bellows.

"The Holy Source... the Holy Source is severed! The Lord's glory... has been defiled!"

Despair, like a cold tide, instantly engulfed this isolated place of asceticism.

However, in the shadowy corners of the world, in the 'defiled lands' as defined by the Holy See, completely different emotions were wildly brewing.

In the southwest of the continent, deep within the Forgotten Canyon, which the Holy See condemned as 'Blasphemous Land,' within a massive hall built of rough black stone and huge bones.

The air was filled with a mixed scent of sulfur, blood, and cheap ale.

When the world-ending aura swept through, the brief silence in the hall was instantly replaced by an explosion of wild clamor.

"Roar!!!"

"Hahahaha! Well done! Excellent!"

"Damn birdmen! Damn Holy Light! Burn! Burn them all to ashes!"

Innumerable figures of various forms, exuding chaos and evil.

There were demon warlocks covered in scales with horns on their heads, blood clan elders with pale skin and blood-red pupils, and orc shamans with bulging muscles and exposed tusks.

They leaped from their seats, waving their grotesque weapons or bone goblets, splashing foul liquor into the air, and letting out deafening roars and maniacal laughter.

Heavy oak barrels were toppled by excited demon descendants, and dark red liquor, like viscous blood, flowed freely across the cold ground.

A werewolf in tattered leather armor with a knife scar on his face suddenly leaped onto a huge stone table, letting out a mournful and joyful howl to the sky, his blood-red eyes fixed on the direction from which the aura came, filled with a vengeful ecstasy.

This was where the dark-aligned practitioners, deemed heretics by the Holy See, hid. The destruction of the Vatican, for them, was the most exhilarating celebration after a millennium of oppression!

These people were not necessarily heinous villains; it was simply because their awakened professions did not conform to the Holy See's 'Holy Light' doctrine that they were mercilessly branded as heretics and became evil beings hunted by the Holy See!

Now, feeling the disappearance of the aura of the Holy City of Vatican, the Holy See's most important city, how could they not rejoice and exult!

And in a more hidden, harder-to-trace crevice of a spatial rift, within a strange tall tower constructed of flowing starlight and geometric light spots.

Several figures, shrouded in shifting arcane radiance, silently watched the constantly twisting and changing star map made of pure magic in front of them.

On the star map, the most brilliant star representing the Vatican had completely extinguished and shattered.

An old and emotionless voice sounded, like metal rubbing.

"Observation results: High-dimensional energy collision, coordinate point, the Vatican has been completely erased from both material and spiritual levels."

"Energy level: Exceeds definition threshold."

"Holy See's core hub, confirmed inactive."

After a brief silence, another voice, with a hint of undetectable pleasure, continued.

"A corner of the millennium's shackles has collapsed. 'Hope' seems to have... begun."

Inside the tall tower, the subtle hum of flowing magic and the clatter of mechanical operation rose and fell. The space in front of these people was torn, slowly revealing the scene of the Holy City of Vatican at this moment... At the center of the battlefield, the singularity of destruction finally exhausted its last shred of tearing power, slowly collapsed inward, and finally disappeared.

Pale Holy Marks and Destruction Rifts rapidly receded like a tide.

The forcibly torn space left a huge, grotesque void rift, its edges constantly flickering with unstable energy arcs.

Deep within the rift was a darkness purer than the deepest night, devouring all light.

However, right at the center of this rift, which symbolized ultimate destruction, an extremely tiny, yet incomparably pure and dazzling point of light, suddenly lit up.

That light was so sacred, so warm, carrying a gentle power that soothed the soul and purified everything, forming the most extreme contrast with the surrounding destructive energy aftermath and the violent aura of the spatial rift.

It seemed to come from the first ray of light at the dawn of creation, piercing through the darkness of the end. The point of light rapidly expanded and stretched, forming an oval gate of light.

Pure, warm, holy light, seemingly containing endless vitality, flowed out from it, instantly dispelling the churning sulfurous smoke and the cold, scorched smell of holy flames nearby.

A naked, flawless jade foot gently stepped out of the light gate, onto the scorching magma flowing below.

The magma, capable of melting gold and iron, upon touching the sacred radiance, parted like docile water to either side, forming a small, calm foothold.

Immediately after, a figure, completely bathed in that purest of holy light, slowly emerged.