Execution?"
Unlike Tracy, who readily accepted the order, "Admiral" Cattleya questioned the decisions of the messenger who called himself Mr. V.
This doesn't mean she had any other thoughts, or that she sensed something and wanted to escape from the dangerous word "execution," or that she was arrogant enough to think she could fight against Trenshorst. It was simply a small curiosity stemming from the thirst for knowledge that almost every "secret seeker" possesses.
"…Mr. V, I'll call you that for now."
The pirate general, dressed as a wizard, rested his chin on his left hand, his gaze constantly sweeping over the already dead alien corpse.
"The strange events that just happened—that red moon, and the plants sprouting from the jungle ahead—do they represent contamination from some evil god?"
Cattleya, who came from the Dawn, clearly possessed a naiveté that she herself was unaware of, just like her adoptive mother who refused to acknowledge her identity.
The appearance of the "Bound God" projection could not possibly be hidden from any human currently standing on the surface of Rosd, not even those on the ocean.
The "Rose School" followers who had infiltrated the country brazenly summoned their god, and their god did not disappoint the believers who had sacrificed their lives, revealing His chaos and power to the world the moment He appeared.
However, most of the humans fighting on the Rosd Islands only see one side of the story.
"You have no right to negotiate with me. I can repeat myself: execute anyone who intends to leave Blue Mountain Island. This is an order."
Once you take the first step, everything else becomes much simpler.
Compared to his earlier hesitation, when Klein said the same thing again, his cold attitude and tone were clearly much more resolute.
The lightning and unfathomable darkness in his eyes, the mysterious bone-white scepter in his hand, and the only thing Cattleya could barely make out—the "victim" perched on his shoulder—all became the basis for his confidence to turn words into commands.
"General of the Stars" opened his mouth, his purple eyes, hidden behind thick glasses, seemed to be deep in thought.
In short, when she looked up again, she had already accepted Klein's orders.
"As you wish, Mr. V, I will obey your orders."
Then, she changed the subject.
"But please do not forget that I made an agreement with Lord Eugen, and I hope that you will abide by our agreement after the war ends."
An agreement?
This surprised Klein somewhat.
He couldn't help but wonder what Tristan had said to this pirate general who supposedly had some connection with the "mysterious queen" Bernadette.
To establish a cooperative relationship and seek the opportunity to advance to demigod status?
This was the most likely condition... but Klein's intuition told him it wouldn't be that simple.
Could it be that she is still in contact with Bernadette and is hoping to get something for that princess?
Klein suspected that whatever consensus Cattleya and Tristan reached was kept secret from Bernadette, from the Dawn, and even from the Morse Order.
If the conjecture about the "God of Steam and Machinery" is true, then the latter has no reason to sit down at the negotiating table with Trensost, because judging from the fragmented and vague memories obtained from the "Cataclysm," once that creator has made a judgment, he will not easily change it, or rather, he will never change it.
He was a stubborn person.
In a few seconds, Klein considered many possibilities but couldn't find a satisfactory answer.
In the end, he gave up on the useless thinking and simply nodded slightly.
"If I am still alive after this war, I promise Tristan will keep his promise to you."
At this point, Klein's lips curled into a strange smile.
He's practically the "God of Mysteries," he has plenty of ways to get Tristan to give him face...
"Thank you." Cattleya bowed slightly.
The two pirate generals left.
Apart from Colonel Taylor's squad, which can be understood as a miniature version of "War Red," all the extraordinary individuals who failed to attain divinity left the front lines.
The natives were initially unwilling to give up the initiative they had finally gained, but in the end they could not resist the regular army of Trenshorst and were pushed back by weapons that were a mixture of alchemical artifacts and pure machinery.
The silvery-white electric current exploded repeatedly in the low sky, clearing out a clear area.
Klein, in spirit form, floated in mid-air, looking down at the newly scorched earth. His outstretched hand kept probing and then retracting, but in the end, he couldn't make any move.
Even without the help of the "victims," relying solely on the passive influx of divine pollution into his body, and the spiritual intuition that screamed as his gaze swept across the lines of black spirits, he could be certain that every single one of the alien species and undead fighting the undead legion below contained direct pollution from the distant brown thorny blood tree, the only difference being the amount.
Trying to manipulate their spiritual threads is no different from trying to manipulate a demigod; in fact, the dangers posed by alien species and undead to the manipulator are greater than those posed by ordinary divine beings.
During his hesitation and wavering, he even witnessed a shocking and disgusting scene.
A living corpse that had been easily torn apart by the Bone Messenger had actually stood up again!
Its belly swelled up like a pregnant woman's, and in the blink of an eye, it completed the process of a normal organism from conception to childbirth, which takes several months, vomiting out a brand new living corpse, and it showed no sign of stopping.
A dead body was giving birth!
Moreover, these "newborns" are contaminated with the same pollutants as their mothers.
Poison... Klein knew very well that even without manipulating it, simply touching a single alien spirit thread would cause him to be infected with that terrible contamination.
This shouldn't be the case. The "Bound God"... the "Mother Tree of Desire" clearly corresponds to the pathways of "alien species" and "demons." Even if He simultaneously possesses two true gods who once contained uniqueness, He shouldn't have this near-unlimited ability to reproduce and create servants...
Even after searching every corner of his brain, Klein could not find any knowledge that could explain the phenomenon before him.
Are you kidding me!
Doesn't the Church of Mother Earth Goddess always preach that life is the sole authority of Mother Goddess?
Even if a similar effect could be achieved, it should be through the adjacent pathway of the "farmer," or the "pharmacist"...
Almost all vampires are loyal to Trensost, to that emperor. How did the "Mother Tree of Desire" manage to do that?
Filled with apprehension, Klein raised his scepter, and a torrential downpour of thunder and lightning descended from the sky.
The earth cracked due to the will of one person, and scalding lava broke through the earth's crust. Without prior warning, the entire Blue Mountain Island was plunged into violent shaking in the scorched jungle.
The power of storms extends far beyond thunder, ocean, and atmosphere; they also hold a place in the realm of disasters.
Perhaps the disaster unleashed by the high-sequence "Storm" is not as varied as that of the "Disaster Witch," and it is far superior in killing efficiency, but it is still not something that a few undead that walk on contamination can resist.
Moreover, "Storm" itself is the ultimate authority in the material realm, and with the assistance of thunder, nothing can confront it head-on.
An unprecedented, excruciating pain struck as expected. The tearing sensation in his brain nearly caused Klein to lose his balance and fall from mid-air upon contact with the spirit form.
He struggled to maintain control of the increasingly out-of-control airflow, gripping the bone-white scepter tightly with both hands, pressing his entire body weight onto it.
The black gauntlets and bone scepter produced a chilling sound as they were pressed together, each strike subtly revealing the pain the wielder was enduring.
The "victim" trembled uncontrollably, and cracks on its body spread outward. Many luminous transparent particles appeared around the damaged doll, and then, following the law of "extraordinary property aggregation," passively flowed into Klein's body beneath the black armor, making Klein's already precarious state even worse.
Damn it… Klein's upper and lower jaws were pressed together, almost merging into one.
Even so, he still dared not relax even a little bit.
He carefully controlled the lightning's trajectory, guiding the molten lava away from the undead legion below that served him.
Fortunately, the dead are not harmed in the earthquake, which alleviates his pressure to some extent, though it's better than nothing.
That arrogant contempt has returned.
Perhaps because there was no longer any need to conceal it, Klein, whose vision had been greatly broadened, finally saw the true nature of the Tree of Flesh and Blood.
He witnessed Taylor Franz, with a brilliant tactical feint, confuse the mirror's perception, and with his spear, precisely strike the "Punishment Knight" hiding behind the frost cover, crushing the enemy's skull.
Like his long-deceased comrades, the knight never understood the sudden turn of events that had occurred. Even as he faced death, he clung to unrealistic expectations and, in an attempt to delay the so-called war between Rune and Trensost, threw the level-one sealed artifact of the Witch's Path into the distance.
Taylor Franz, fearing the increasingly violent disaster, retreated in defeat and did not rashly follow the direction from which the sealed artifact had flown.
Meanwhile, Klein also witnessed another battlefield.
Also responsible for fighting enemies possessing Level 1 sealed artifacts, "The Hound of Fugen" had it much easier than Taylor.
This savage-looking giant dog behaves with remarkable elegance. With just a soft bark and its front paws pawing the air, powerful spirit creatures from history fight for it.
The four-armed, snake-tailed monster casually cast a glance, stared, then looked away, thus ending the battle.
The "Hound of Fugen" only needed to walk briskly through the thin, gray mist, pick up the longsword hanging from the knight's statue-like corpse, and it would have already achieved a better result than Taylor Franz.
But none of these things could attract Klein.
Under the cold, arrogant gaze, Klein, whose pupils were now only black, mechanically turned his gaze to the undisputed center of the battlefield.
The Tree of Flesh and Blood did the same thing.
Although this blasphemous creation, consisting only of a trunk and branches, lacks organs like eyes, the rustling sound emanating from its dense, blood-red canopy clearly expresses a defiant stare.
And so, the true ruler hiding behind the mask made eye contact.
The rejected souls, far away in the starry sky, their destinies hampered by the toy in their hands, exchanged a glance...
"Mysterious!"
The hysterical roar shattered the illusion of arrogance. Klein snapped back to his senses, screaming and covering his head with his hands. Bystanders in the distance saw the emperor in black armor and his scepter fall to the ground together.
The bone-white scepter, pulled by gravity, pierced the earth like a javelin, instantly draining the blood of nearby creatures and turning the mummies into undead.
Even in defeat, "natural disasters" still maintain their insurmountable majesty.
But Klein, who was near Him, was far from optimistic.
The black armor obtained by the conceptualization of spirits will not break, but mortals will bleed.
Crimson blood seeped from the gaps in the black armor, staining the earth red, filling every detail of the armor with crimson.
The cracks on the surface of the "victim" had increased, and it was almost on the verge of completely disintegrating. Like Klein, it collapsed to the ground, unable to move.
The roar, filled with hatred and seemingly emanating from the depths of his soul, continued to rage. Whether Klein could have remained conscious without this deadly mental attack is another matter entirely.
The fall knocked him unconscious, but the piercing scream jolted him awake in excruciating pain.
Pain filled eighty percent of Klein's mind, while the remaining twenty percent was dominated by sinister sneers.
Even though he couldn't think of anything, Klein was quite certain that this wasn't a "mysterious" laugh.
He couldn't believe that his laughter sounded... kind of disgusting?
Klein couldn't quite describe the feeling; he only knew that he was rejecting the source of the laughter, and his aversion was overwhelming.
We must...get moving... quickly...
Beneath the tangled roots of the Tree of Flesh and Blood, a massive, deformed figure emerged from the deep reddish-brown soil. Its body, pieced together from numerous remains and severed limbs, bore the face of Senor and roared as it charged toward the direction where Klein had fallen.
This was the best result the "hounds of Fugen" could achieve by desperately trying to intercept them.
He gritted his teeth and cursed the existence of the "mysterious," determined to kill the successor of the Gray Mist on this remote island, taking advantage of the opportunity while the gods on earth were fighting each other.
The ground shook, and death drew ever closer. Klein struggled to feel his limbs, which were now only capable of sensation of pain, and discovered that he couldn't even bend a single finger.
He glanced out of the corner of his eye at the scepter stuck diagonally in the ground not far away, and then at the "victims" who were even more miserable than him, and realized that there seemed to be no one nearby who could help him.
There was no way around it; it was his own order that drove away all his non-divine companions and forbade anyone from approaching the jungle…
Wait, a person?
As if hearing Klein's thoughts, one of his fingers trembled, followed by his entire hand.
A translucent human skin glove slowly crawled out from the collar, emerging from the gap between the armor and the arm.
"Wriggling Hunger" beckoned to Klein, and an illusory tongue protruded from its gaping mouth, licking the wounds, filth, and bloodstains on Klein's face.
This sealed artifact, lacking intelligence, didn't know how to save people; it only knew that its master was about to die.
In the past, it would probably have gladly accepted its owner's remains and enjoyed a good meal.
Now, it is clear that it has to make a different decision.
Faced with Klein's complicated gaze, "Wriggling Hunger," whose mouth was originally incapable of making sounds, struggled to utter the few syllables it could possibly produce.
"The Creator of all things."
"The shadow, the veil, the ruler."
"The fallen nature of all living beings..."
Glove-shaped seals crawled across Klein's body, like worker ants healing the mother, speaking of their understanding of piety in a place inaccessible to humans.
"Great Creator..."
Please look upon my master