The Kingdoms of Grime had declared war not just with weapons—but with ideology.
Purification magic was branded as "tyranny." Kazuki was called a threat to cultural decay. Diplomats smeared him in courtrooms while warlocks poisoned rivers under cover of fog. And when Brisken Hollow—once the proud elven archive city—fell to a moldstorm of fungal enchantments and rot-possessed scribes, it was clear:
Words would not win this war.
Kazuki needed something louder.
Enter: The Purify Cannon
Built in secret by Kazuki, Grum Steelfoam, and an elite unit of Runewrights, the Purify Cannon was a miracle of siegecraft and sanitation—a spelltech artillery behemoth that fired sterilization fields the size of cities.
Fuels:
Vinegar, distilled in sacred stills.
Moonlight, harvested by demon-refined prisms.
Concentrated virtue, gathered from public acts of kindness.
Mounted atop the enchanted tortoise Lysoloth, the cannon took weeks to prepare—but when it was ready, the world would know.
"You wanna outlaw soap?" Grum growled, polishing the silver barrel.
"Let's make it a war crime to fear it."
The First Target: Brisken Hollow
Once a library-city of the elves, Brisken Hollow was now a mold hive. Spores choked every corridor. Magical tomes wept mildew. A council of fungal liches debated in whispers through the corrupted branches of the Elder Tree.
The Grime Alliance called it a "liberated zone."
Kazuki called it a stain that needed lifting.
The Firing
At dawn, Lysoloth creaked into position. The cannon's barrel shimmered, humming with compressed virtue. Kazuki raised the activation wand, heart pounding.
"For every breath they've stolen from the clean…"
"…we return one they can't corrupt."
He fired.
The sky turned white. A ring of radiant force erupted from the cannon, washing over the city like a tsunami of light. Molds burst. Slime shriveled. Curses shattered like glass.
The streets of Brisken Hollow were transformed into soapstone, the trees now clean and glowing softly with purifying runes.
Aftermath
The elven survivors emerged blinking into the sterile morning.
Some cried. Others knelt.
One whispered, "He made it safe again… even the air is clean."
Statues would later depict this moment—the Saint on the Shell, riding Lysoloth, cannon raised, blasting decay from the bones of civilization.
And in the underground forums of the Grime Alliance, a new phrase emerged:
"Fear the Bleach-Bringer's beam."