Because the area was crowded, she occasionally saw survivors, but they disappeared almost immediately. Alba glanced at the faintly flickering Holy Light in her hand and clenched her fist. She told herself she had to hold back, because using it openly would draw attention.
Her focus was pulled away by two little girls, likely sisters. The older one looked familiar. She seemed to be a child Alba had once healed with Holy Light after a fall.
They ran through the bodies of their former neighbors, chased by a swaying, blood-soaked fat man holding a hammer. The strange grin on his face made his intentions clear. When the older girl tripped over an arm, she tried to pull her sister up, but the man was already close.
He raised the hammer, thrilled by the thought of smashing a skull. The hammer came down hard, but the sound he expected never came. The head that fell was his own Shard.
"Why can't you just let me endure this?" Alba muttered. "Why did you have to let me see this?"
Stealth, flank, Shard-splitting strike. The fat man dropped, and blood splashed across her face, leaving her with a bitter expression. If she could still hold back after that, she would not be human.
She crouched and let Holy Light shine, healing the injury on the little girl's leg completely. She thought about wiping the blood from her face, then realized it would only smear it further and gave up. Turning to them, she forced a gentle smile.
"You can try to come with me," she said. "You must be very careful. I'll do my best to protect you. Do you want to come?"
The girls were still frightened. With a hammer in her hand and dressed in night clothes, she did not look kind. But when they saw the glow of Holy Light, recognition and trust returned to their eyes.
With two extra burdens, progress slowed a lot. Sometimes Alba had to move ahead alone, clearing obstacles before bringing the girls forward. Along the way, she encountered other survivors, but this time she truly could not help.
Some were surrounded, others already dead, beyond even Holy Light. After moving further, she reached the area under Raina's influence and saw familiar faces. A maid who used to prepare snacks for her, who sometimes shared comics, now remained as nothing but a head.
As Alba passed, her body felt heavier. She continued forward. The good news was that there were no more living burdens to take along. The bad news was that this was good news at all.
The deeper she went, the fewer living people she saw, and the more fighting and fire she heard. All the outer guards had already been wiped out. Many Abyss Cultists bodies were left behind too, but sheer numbers and strength overwhelmed any defense.
The former luxury was stained with filthy blood. In the distance, a trembling Barrier surrounded the manor, already on the verge of collapse. Inside it, dense shadows of moving figures could be seen.
Orders rang out clearly from within. Teams were rotated, archers pulled forward, mages redirected to strike ritual casters. Every action was pushed to its limit.
After issuing commands, Elvin led the remaining few dozen people to hold the entrance. Above, Raina gulped down expensive recovery potions while throwing out every last defensive method she had. The entire manor had barely over a hundred who could fight, facing enemies ten times their number.
Hundreds, nearly a thousand bodies lay outside. Part of it was because Abyss Cultists could only charge straight in across the open grounds. Part of it was because endless supplies of items and potions had forced their way through wave after wave.
Now, everyone who could still move had to fight. No one could escape, and the secret passage out of the city was blocked by the black curtain overhead. All they could do was make a final stand and wait for Church of Holy Light's reinforcements.
If they could just hold on a little longer. But everyone had already fought multiple rounds, and even with constant recovery, they were reaching their limits. Curses kept raining down, and fighting while shrinking in numbers crushed the spirit.
In the middle of battle, Elvin thought of Alba for the third time. She had vanished for unknown reasons. Had she escaped?
Maybe that was for the best. All users of Holy Light had become extremely weak for reasons no one understood. Even so, if her Holy Light were here, would things be better?
There was no answer. Elvin steadied his gaze, raised his shield, drew his sword, and charged to the front once more.
"What? All spatial Teleportation routes leading to Cathedral City are destroyed. How is that possible!" The leading Paladins was furious. The entire Cathedral City, and even the surrounding Diocese, had been suddenly attacked and slaughtered by dozens of Abyss Church that appeared out of nowhere, an unprecedented humiliation.
What was worse was that even the emergency-only spatial Teleportation routes had all been cut off. These routes were top-level secrets, hidden with extreme care, and nothing like this had happened for hundreds of years. How could they all fail at once?
Could there be a traitor. That made no sense either, since only beings on the level just below the Pope Saintess could even know fragments of this information. No one except the Pope could know everything, and the idea that the Pope was a traitor was absurd.
Centered on Cathedral City, the pitch-black curtain continued to spread, locking more than a hundred million people across the entire Diocese as targets. It was also the period for selecting a Saintess, drawing far more pilgrims than usual, with the population at its peak reaching several hundred million.
When the Mage observed this phenomenon, they felt a chill. An operation of this scale by the Abyss Church could not possibly be something as simple as a past Evil God projection. Whatever was coming was on an entirely different level.
Alba dragged two little girls along the way, crawling and dodging through chaos, relying on her top-tier equipment to barely reach her destination. What she saw was a manor under siege from all sides, with enemies flooding in without end.
Elvin had rushed out and was cutting through the Abyss Cultists like vegetables, but even her killing speed could not keep up with the sheer number of enemies. The manor was completely surrounded, and Alba could not think of any way to slip in quietly, even with invisibility tools.
She considered forcing her way through with the two girls, relying on Holy Light to recover quickly and tank a few hits. As for hiding outside, that would mean playing hide-and-seek with tens of thousands of cultists in the middle of a slaughter. The idea was ridiculous.
While Alba was still hesitating, the group of Abyss Cultists blocking her path was blown away by a single blockbuster. Another wave of arrows followed, clearing a wide area.
"Come here." "Eh?"
A voice came from within the inner layer of the Invisibility Cloak. Without time to think, Alba hugged the two little girls and sprinted forward with all her strength. Her stamina was better after training in Assassination, and Holy Light helped support her.
She ran and jumped through waves of curses and Magic attacks, forcing her way into the manor's defensive zone. A ring of Holy Light lit up over her body, burning all incoming curses into foul black smoke.
Seeing this, many Elvin and Abyss Cultists froze for a moment. Under the black curtain, all users of Holy Light were heavily suppressed, yet this person looked completely fine.
After she rolled inside with the two girls, the gate slammed shut. Elvin rushed over and asked the white-haired figure, sweat dripping from her face, "Where did you just go?"
She shook her head and skipped the topic. "You can still use Holy Light? Does the healing still work?"
"Huh? Yeah, it works. Why are you not using the secret tunnel to escape instead of holding out here?" Looking at the corridor full of wounded inside the manor, Alba realized the situation was worse than she had thought.
"The tunnel is blocked by that black curtain. Anyone who went in never came back," Elvin said. "It also suppresses Holy Light and applies a stacking curse to everyone."
"Our losses are already heavy. If your Holy Light still works, that will help a lot." The two girls were taken away to look for relatives among the wounded, while Alba was brought to the front to treat injured Warrior.
Many of them were lying on the ground, barely able to groan, their bodies covered in wounds. Healing potions were nearly exhausted, and many injuries carried curses and poison that simple treatment could not fix.
Alba released Holy Light, and the light remained bright and gentle, seemingly unaffected by the curtain. Wounds healed rapidly, and even stamina began to recover.
People stared at their bodies in shock. Not only were their injuries healed, but even old ailments seemed to fade. After grabbing their weapons and returning to the front, Alba was led to treat even more wounded.
After healing around a hundred people, she finally realized something was wrong. Her head felt dizzy, her body weak, and nausea rose in her throat.