Bai Shi and Erlisa left the Fourth Church of Marika.
Melina had searched for quite a while, but ultimately found no words left by Queen Marika here.
So Bai Shi rested at the Site of Grace, recovered, and then departed.
The Fourth Church of Marika was built on a small hill with a panoramic view. Without a telescope, Bai Shi easily spotted his next destination.
Down below, in the opposite direction from which they had come, a ruin in a green swamp was guarded by numerous marionette soldiers.
This was the place where the Academy of Raya Lucaria had sealed Sorceress Sellen, the Graven Witch.
Bubbles constantly rose from the green swamp, bursting to release a yellowish-green gas.
It was a poison swamp; standing within it would slowly poison a person.
Erlisa stood beside Bai Shi, gazing down at the poison swamp with him.Seeing him staring intently in that direction, Erlisa took the initiative to ask:
“Are you going there?”
“Yes. There’s a person sealed beneath those ruins. I want to rescue her.”
“Are you going now?”
Bai Shi glanced at Erlisa, wondering what she was up to.
“Yes, I want to go now, but the poison swamp is a bit of a problem.”
Erlisa shook her head.
“It’s no problem. Let me handle it.”
With that, she sprinted toward the ruins at the bottom of the hill.
Bai Shi didn’t hurry to follow. With Erlisa’s strength, there was no need to worry.
Besides, after he had rested at the Site of Grace, he had given her a flask of Crimson Tears and a flask of Cerulean Tears. She was in peak condition.
Erlisa ran all the way to the edge of the ruins. The waiting marionette soldiers had already spotted her.
Archer marionettes used their four arms to shoot arrows at her in rotation, while sword-wielding marionettes closed in.
The commotion also awakened the sorcerer spheres, which materialized from their sigils and slowly began to ascend.
But Erlisa leaped high into the air, not only dodging all the arrows but landing directly in the center of the ruins.
As Erlisa plunged her Zamor Curved Sword into the poison swamp, a frigid mist erupted from the blade, freezing the entire marsh in an instant.
In the swamp, the marionette soldiers’ feet were all frozen to the ground. They struggled clumsily to move, only to have their upper bodies topple over.
The frigid mist did not relent. Instead, it grew even more tempestuous, turning into a blizzard.
A thick layer of pristine white ice and snow accumulated on the frozen swamp, completely obscuring the fact that this had once been a toxic marsh.
The guarding marionette soldiers were covered in snow, turning into a series of snowmen.
The sorcerer spheres were frozen solid before they even had a chance to ascend.
This was the power of a hero blessed by grace. Common soldiers stood no chance of fighting back against them.
Bai Shi walked across the snow. The poison swamp was indeed no trouble for Erlisa.
If he had handled it himself, the tempest would have likely blown the toxic fumes everywhere, and he couldn’t have resolved it so cleanly.
“Thank you.”
“It was nothing.”
Erlisa pointed to the center of the ruins, where a passage led down to a cellar. She had deliberately controlled her magic to avoid this area.
“Go on down yourself. I won’t disturb you.”
Bai Shi nodded and turned to enter the cellar.
——
Far away, in the Academy of Raya Lucaria, several sorcerers wearing assorted glintstone crowns had gathered.
Their different crowns represented the different conspectuses they belonged to.
The sorcerers of these various conspectuses had different fields of study, and relations between them had never been particularly good.
But things were different now. After Queen Rennala of the Full Moon was abandoned by Radagon and lost her mind, they immediately realized she was no longer the Queen of the Full Moon.
The Academy itself was long past being a sacred place for exploring the mysteries of glintstone. The oaths of old had long been forgotten over their protracted lives.
The sorcerers of today had forsaken the destiny of the stars; they now served only themselves.
Thus, the Academy allied with the despicable Cuckoo Knights, imprisoned Rennala in the Grand Library, and attacked the Carian Royal Family.
Those who disapproved of their methods, along with those who lacked talent, were all driven out.
Then, they completely sealed the Academy's gates and never opened them again.
They did not intervene in the Shattering in the slightest.
They were rebels. No matter which conspectus they had once studied under, they now had only one identity—traitors.
They had gathered at this moment because, on the distant Weeping Peninsula, the warding field that sealed the Graven Witch had been destroyed.
The scrying magic had transmitted a final recording: a tall, slender figure leaped into the encampment, unleashed a spell of ice and snow, and destroyed all their defenses.
At the end of the recording, a person in Banished Knight armor appeared, and then the scrying spell failed due to the frost.
The sorcerer in the Olivinus Glintstone Crown spoke first:
“The Graven Witch, who inflicted a cruel death upon countless sorcerers. It seems the one we worked so hard to capture is about to be released.”
“Does anyone have any thoughts?”
The other sorcerers remained silent. The madmen of the Primeval Current Faction melded sorcerers into a single mass, creating what they called the seeds of stars.
For them, this was an absolute nightmare.
“The seal on the Academy’s main gate is intact. She can’t get in,” the sorcerer in the Twinsage Glintstone Crown broke the silence.
“Besides, they might not be there to save the witch…”
The sorcerer in the Lazuli Glintstone Crown immediately retorted:
“Not there to save her? Then they’re there to kill her? She can’t be killed!”
“There is a key to the academy out there somewhere! If she gets it, we’ll be in danger!”
The sorcerer in the Karolos Glintstone Crown offered a suggestion:
“Then, let’s arrange for manpower. Starting at the entrance, we’ll post guards every day. Activate all the marionette soldiers as well.”
“Then, notify the Cuckoos outside. Have them start patrolling and search for the two who attacked the encampment.”
“It would be even better if we could weaken the Cuckoos’ strength in the process.”
The sorcerer in the Olivinus Glintstone Crown nodded.
“Let’s put it to a vote, everyone.”
This was the customary method these leaders of different conspectuses—these traitors—used to decide on proposals.
“Passed.”
“Passed.”
“Passed.”
——
Opening the heavy iron door, Bai Shi saw the physical body of his sorcery teacher, Sellen.
There were many corpses in the cellar, some still giving off a putrid stench, others already desiccated.
At that moment, Sellen was on her knees, her hands pierced by glintstone crystals that pinned her to the wall.
A massive witch’s crown, disproportionate to her small frame, covered her entire head. She wore the long robes of a Raya Lucarian sorcerer.
The glintstone crystals pinning her hands also seemed to have a harmful function, inflicting continuous, unbearable pain upon Sellen’s body. It was a torture device set by the sorcerers.
When Bai Shi entered, he heard Sellen’s gritted-teeth roars, her voice hoarse from prolonged screaming.
“Aaargh! Ahhh—!”
“Hah… hah… they never tire of this, do they? Aaargh—! A bunch of… perverts…”