Chapter 1 The End

*Chila—*

Vicious barbs pierced flesh and blood, leaving yet another meaningless wound on this already battered body. The murmurs and roars beside her ear suddenly grew excited. Those blasphemous creations seemed to revel in the success of this attack, emitting nauseating noises.

Agatha raised her hand and used her staff to push back the annihilation cultist covered in bone spurs, who had almost completely lost his human form. A crisp, grating snapping sound reached her ears.

The sound stunned her for less than a second, then she realized it was the sound of her combat staff breaking.

Her weapon, which had been with her for many years, had broken. Facing enemies with no end, it had persevered to the very last step.

"You've done very well, Miss Gatekeeper," the detestable, pretentious voice sounded again. "As a sacrifice, proper preparation helps the ritual's effect, but excessive exercise isn't a good thing."

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

The bizarre, shadowy environment had faded away, revealing the center of the sewer, which had been completely transformed into a sacrificial site. Filthy, blasphemous symbols and traces of erosion could be seen everywhere on the surrounding walls and corridor passages. Things resembling stalactites or withered branches covered the ceiling 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 was corroded into a huge pit, filled with a viscous substance as black as mud. The mud churned slowly, emitting wave after wave of nauseating squirming sounds.

Countless annihilation cultists surrounded the hall. They, and the abyssal demons coexisting with them, were like insects waiting around a foul-smelling cauldron, whispering prayers and roaring madly at the pool of black mud in the center of the hall. The pool became more abundant and active in this noisy prayer.

This was a sacrificial site. They were waiting for the final sacrifice, and in the eyes of these fanatics, the "sacrifice" was the gatekeeper of Frostweave City.

They had previously replicated another gatekeeper, and now that gatekeeper was also arriving at a sacrificial site.

"The action of so-called free will is actually just walking towards a predetermined stage. Don't you think this arrangement is very... aesthetically pleasing?"

In the center of the black mud pool, the young man with short golden hair opened his arms to Agatha. He still had a handsome face, but his entire lower body had turned into a swollen, writhing mass. He was now an "end of a tentacle" extended and deformed from the mud pool, simulating a human appearance in a disgusting way.

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

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

This deadly sacrificial tentacle slowly moved towards Agatha.

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

She slowly reached towards her chest.

But in the next second, her movement suddenly stopped.

In that instant, she lost control of her body.

"I know what you want to do, some kind of... action not in our plan."

In her suddenly sluggish perception, she heard the voice of the golden-haired young man coming from the opposite side. She tried her best to raise her head, but could only see a glimpse of him 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 beginning—didn't you notice? Along the way, you destroyed so many fakes, even destroying a dozen of my avatars. All of this... was actually just to bind you to this mirror city little by little.

"You feel that you can increasingly sense the location of this sanctuary? You feel that you can increasingly clearly 'smell' the scent of us 'heretics'? Have you ever thought about 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, the 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 tactics" with her.

Everything was for imperceptible contamination.

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

In the mud pool, the golden-haired cultist suddenly raised his hands high. At the moment the gatekeeper's heart was pierced, he issued a ecstatic prayer: "The sacrifice has been offered! The life of this saint will be the first step in the coming of our Lord's kingdom! Proclaim the name of the Holy Lord, and welcome the promised day!"

In an instant, all the cultists in the hall shouted. Those deformed 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 open their own flesh and blood, and injecting their blood into the black mud surging in the center of the hall. Even the demons beside them fell into fanaticism, emitting 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, and then gradually returned to calm.

The golden-haired cultist in the center of the "pool" finally noticed the abnormality. He suddenly woke up from his ecstasy, looked in astonishment at the pool that was returning to calm, and then looked at the spike piercing the saint's heart, and at the gatekeeper standing on the edge of the sacrificial site.

The battered, pale-faced gatekeeper.

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

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

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

As she spoke, she slowly raised her arm. It seemed that 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 grabbed the spike piercing her heart little by little, her fingers gradually exerting force, and wisps of green flame flowed between her fingers, seeping into the spike.

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

"All heretical sacrifices are based on fresh 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 trivial," Agatha just shook her head with a smile, the flames emanating from her fingers growing more and more. "It's good to be able to deliver the fire..."

"What are you saying..."

The cultist in the mud pool subconsciously opened his mouth, 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 sustaining force in 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 collapsed, cement flew, and fragments of the door and countless bizarre black substances mixed in with it swept into the gathering hall like shrapnel from a cannonball. Several cultists closest to the door were blown away on the spot, and the remaining cultists exclaimed—

"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 golden-haired cult leader turned his head in shock to look at the direction of the explosion, but before he could see the figures rushing in from the other side of the Gate of Thorns, a soaring green fire rose on the edge of his vision.

He turned his gaze and saw that the sacrifice that should have been offered to the abyssal Holy Lord was already wrapped in flames, burning in a terrifying spiritual 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.

The fuel was herself.

The spirit fire rose!

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

The flames on them resonated strongly with the fire ignited on her body.

Agatha smiled.

Knowledge entered her mind, and she already understood.

In the flames, she slowly opened her arms and raised them upwards, as if welcoming something.

"The fire has been lit."