Chirr—

Vicious barbs pierced flesh and blood, leaving yet another meaningless wound on this already battered body. The murmurs and roars in her ears suddenly became excited. Those blasphemous creations seemed to be gloating over this successful attack, making disgusting noises.

Agatha raised her hand and used her staff to repel the Annihilation cultist, who was covered in bone spurs and had almost completely lost his human form. A crisp, piercing snapping sound came from beside her ear.

For a split second, the sound startled her. Then she realized it was the sound of her own combat staff breaking.

Her weapon, which had been with her for many years, was broken. Faced with an inexhaustible number of enemies, it had held out to the very end.

"You've done very well, Miss Gatekeeper," the hateful, pretentious voice sounded again. "As a sacrifice, appropriate preparation is helpful for the effect of the sacrificial ritual, but excessive exercise is not a good thing."

Agatha grasped the broken staff and slowly raised her head. Dried blood allowed her to open only one eye. In the narrow, reddish field of vision, she could finally see the scene in the hall.

The strange shadowy environment had faded away, revealing the sewer center, which had been completely transformed into a sacrificial ground. On all sides, the walls and corridor passages were covered with filthy, blasphemous symbols and traces of corrosion. Things that resembled stalactites or withered branches covered the roof above, and on the floor of the hall in front of her was a huge "pool"—

It had once been the ground, but now it had been corroded into a huge pit filled with a black, mud-like sludge that churned slowly, emitting a nauseating wriggling sound.

Countless Annihilation cultists surrounded the hall. They, and the abyssal demons that accompanied them, were like insects waiting around a stinking cauldron, murmuring prayers and roaring madly at the pool of black sludge in the center of the hall. And that pool of sludge became more and more full, more and more active, in the midst of that noisy prayer.

This was a sacrificial site. They were waiting for the final sacrifice, and in the eyes of these fanatics, that "sacrifice" was the Gatekeeper of Frostgarde.

They had copied another Gatekeeper before this, and now that Gatekeeper was also arriving at a certain sacrificial site.

"Actions that are thought to be free will are actually just moving towards a predetermined stage. Don't you think this arrangement is very... beautiful?"

In the center of that pool of black sludge, a young man with short blond hair opened his arms towards Agatha. He still had a handsome face, but his entire lower body had turned into a swollen, wriggling mass. At this moment, he was actually some kind of "tentacle end" extending and deforming from the pool of sludge, simulating the appearance of a human in a disgusting way.

"Alright, it's about time. You've also adapted to the environment here. Now, step forward. The moment of sacrifice has arrived."

On the edge of the mud pool, a limb resembling a tentacle gradually rose up. It grew out of the mud, and its end gradually turned into a dagger-like, hard, and sharp structure.

This deadly sacrificial tentacle slowly moved towards Agatha.

Agatha simply looked at it quietly, then suddenly said in a low voice, "Almost... to this position..."

She slowly reached out towards her chest.

But in the next second, her movement suddenly stopped.

In that instant, she lost control of her body.

"I know you want to do something, some kind of... action that wasn't in our plan."

In the suddenly sluggish perception, she heard the blond young man's voice coming from the opposite side. She tried her best to raise her head, but could only see a bit of his figure at the edge of her vision.

"But unfortunately, in order to prevent the sacrifice from getting out of control, we prepared 'safety measures' from the very beginning—didn't you notice? You've come all this way, eliminating so many fakes, even eliminating more than a dozen of my incarnations. All of this... is actually just to bind you to this Mirror City bit by bit.

"You feel that you are increasingly able to sense the location of this sanctuary? You feel that you can increasingly clearly 'smell' the scent of us 'heretics'? Then have you ever wondered why there is such a change?

"It's very simple. Before you arrived here, you were already one of us, madam."

Agatha finally raised her head. In front of her, that sharp spike was approaching her heart little by little, and her body was still unable to move.

Now, she finally understood what the sense of disharmony she had felt along the way was all about, and understood why these cultists had futilely sent so many cannon fodder minions to engage in "attrition warfare" with her.

Everything was for insidious contamination.

In the next second, that sharp spike pierced her heart without hesitation.

In the pool of mud, the blond cultist suddenly raised his hands high. At the moment the Gatekeeper's heart was pierced, he uttered a frenzied prayer: "The sacrifice has been offered! This saint's life will be the first step in the advent of our Lord's kingdom! Shout the name of the Holy Lord, and welcome the promised day!"

In an instant, all the cultists in the hall shouted. Those distorted and terrifying figures, coexisting with demons, fell into ecstasy, shouting the name of the abyssal Holy Lord in madness. Some waved the daggers they carried with them, frantically cutting their own flesh and blood, injecting their blood into the black mud surging in the center of the hall. Even the demons beside them fell into fanaticism, uttering all kinds of crazy and chaotic howls!

However, in such crazy and chaotic howls, the black substance in the mud pool only surged violently for a few seconds before gradually returning to calm.

The blond cultist in the center of the "pool" finally noticed the abnormality. He suddenly woke up from his ecstasy and stared in astonishment at the pool that was returning to calm. Then his gaze turned to the spike that had pierced the saint's heart, and to the Gatekeeper who was standing on the edge of the sacrificial ground.

The battered, pale-faced Gatekeeper.

"...You have no life?!" The fanatic finally lost his arrogance and composure, pointing at Agatha in utter astonishment. "You... why are you a corpse?!"

Agatha looked at him calmly. At this moment, a wisp of a smile finally appeared on the corner of her mouth.

"Although I didn't understand your ultimate goal before, as a Gatekeeper, how could I not notice the disharmonious changes in my body..."

As she spoke, she slowly raised her arm. As the sacrificial ritual failed, she felt that this body was gradually returning to her control.

"After realizing that you just wanted to lure me to the gathering place, and realizing that this might be some kind of life-demanding sacrificial ritual, I did one thing..."

She gradually grasped the spike that had pierced her heart, her fingers gradually exerting force, and wisps of green flames flowed between her fingers, seeping towards the spike.

She raised her eyes and stared at the cultist in the pool of mud.

"All heretical sacrifices are based on blood—I drained my own blood."

"You... do you know what you've done?!" The fanatic's eyes widened in anger, and the finger he pointed at Agatha trembled violently. "You... you..."

"It's okay, it's all a small matter," Agatha simply shook her head with a smile, the flames escaping from her fingers more and more. "It's good to be able to deliver the fire seed..."

"What did you say..."

The cultist in the pool of mud opened his mouth subconsciously, but before he could finish speaking, another deafening roar suddenly came from the other end of the gathering place. The earth-shattering movement instantly destroyed the last force maintaining this sacrificial ritual—

A door deep in the gathering place, and a large section of the wall next to the door, were blown away by high explosives!

"Boom!"

Soil and rocks disintegrated, cement flew, and fragments of the door and countless black, bizarre substances mixed in with them swept into the gathering hall like shrapnel from a cannon. Several cultists closest to the door were blown away on the spot, and the remaining cultists exclaimed in alarm—

"They broke through the door!"

"Impossible! They haven't been able to break through for decades... How could a group of phantoms break their own cycle?!"

In the center of the mud pool, the blond cult leader turned his head in shock towards the direction of the explosion, but before he could see the figures rushing in from the other side of the Bramble Gate, a soaring green flame rose up at the edge of his vision.

He turned his gaze and saw that the sacrifice, which should have been offered to the abyssal Holy Lord, was actually wrapped in flames, burning fiercely in a terrifying spirit flame!

At the moment the door deep in the gathering place was blown open, Agatha finally completely broke free from the control of the sacrificial ritual. In this extremely short period of time, she ignited the fire seed.

The fuel was herself.

The spirit fire rose!

In the field of vision that was suddenly filled with faint green flames, Agatha saw that a large hole had collapsed in the wall opposite the "pool", and a group of people who looked like sailors, with the same green flames burning on their bodies as herself, rushed into the hall.

The flames on their bodies resonated strongly with the fire seed ignited on her body.

Agatha smiled.

Knowledge entered her mind, and she already understood.

In the flames, she slowly opened her hands, raising them upwards in a gesture of welcome.

"The fire has been lit."

(End of chapter)