Katarina let out a piercing shriek. Blood gushed from her mouth, eyes, and ears, splashing onto her pristine white robe like crimson blossoms blooming in the snow.
Silas's malice-laced curse had taken effect, and this Sequence 3 Unaging had suffered no small blow.
Seizing the instant she faltered, the storm around Silas gathered further.
The raging currents tore and ground against one another, transforming into hundreds of blades of wind honed to the utmost sharpness, then shot toward her in a blaze!
Wave after wave of wind blades tore through the air, and amid a series of sharp, shrieking bursts, they utterly swallowed Katarina's lovely body.
Her limbs were sliced apart with ease, scattering into the air in pieces, only to be further shredded by the wind blades that followed close behind...
"Crack..."
And yet, when the body of the "Saintess of White" was cut open, what rang out was the crisp sound of shattering.
Her limbs and flesh had all turned into fragments of a mirror, and she herself was nowhere to be found!
Where had she hidden?
Alarm flared in Silas's mind, and he was just about to activate his ability to shatter every mirror fragment across the entire area when suddenly, "Cough, cough!"
A violent itch seized his lungs, and his body convulsed uncontrollably with coughing. A sweetly metallic taste surged up his throat, and he immediately spat up blood.
The crimson liquid landed on the ice and instantly sent up a haze of mist. Almost at the same moment, he felt a raging fever, broke into a heavy sweat, and struggled to breathe, as though he had fallen gravely ill.
"Plague"!
The pathogen released by the Sequence 3 Unaging was terrifying beyond words. Silas's disease symptoms had barely erupted before they rapidly worsened, deteriorating to a life-threatening degree within mere seconds.
"Hee hee..."
The storm still raged, whipping up countless chunks of ice. Katarina's girlish laughter echoed through the air, though her true body remained nowhere in sight.
She was waiting for Silas's downfall.
Yet Silas merely lifted his head coldly. His eyes, which had been bloodshot from the illness, were now, without his noticing, filled with dazzling light.
It was not the molten gold of a dragon's glow, but something more limpid and pure, a brilliance even more radiant.
In other words, like sunlight.
"Cough, cough... the Lord brings light unto the world."
Fighting back his coughing, Silas raised both arms toward the sky in a gesture of praise, as though embracing a divine blessing.
"The sun rejoices like a champion setting out on his course, going forth from one end of the heavens and making his circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from its heat..."
As the prayer left his lips, pure, radiant light burst forth from within him in wave after wave, illuminating everything around him.
The light banished all impurity. The storm ceased, the dark clouds dispersed, and even the darkness Silas himself had released shrank back beneath his feet.
The filthy pathogens from the Demoness had nowhere left to hide; within light so pure, they were utterly evaporated and dried away.
The Sun Pathway, the "Unshadowed," the "Unshadowed Domain"!
Since ascending to Sequence 4, Silas's authority had grown further still. Beyond the powers granted by the "Sun" pathway, the highest tier he could now wield had reached the level of Sequence 4.
The light he unleashed now was the formidable power of a Sequence 4 Unshadowed: centered on himself, it radiated outward to establish a realm without darkness, exerting overwhelming suppression over anything dark or unclean!
"Crack, crack!"
Bathed in the utmost light and heat, countless chunks of ice collapsed and dissolved. The plague infecting Silas had long since been cured.
He narrowed his eyes and increased his spiritual output, letting the purified zone keep expanding until it gradually covered the entire ice surface.
At last, Katarina's figure appeared.
Illuminated by such limpid light, her beautiful face twisted with the utmost agony, her pale, delicate skin writhing as though it might melt away.
She darted about frantically, desperate to flee this zone of light that left her so tormented.
Got you!
Silas immediately raised his hand, and the radiance within his domain gathered swiftly in his palm, rapidly condensing into a spear, pure and blazing white. That spear was utterly unadulterated, as though it were formed entirely of sunlight!
He gripped the spear and hurled it at the back of the "Saintess of White's" heart. She was the sole impurity in this world; there was no need to take aim at all, the spear had already locked onto her without fail!
"Boom!"
In a single instant, the spear crossed the long distance between them and struck Katarina head-on.
It expanded at once, transforming into a miniature sun, blazing and burning above the sea's surface.
"Sizzle..."
Water vapor rose, the light scorching and searing, mirroring the sun in the sky above. The sacred flames were more than enough to burn away every last trace of impurity within.
No mirrored surface remained on the sea's surface for Katarina to hide within; the Demoness's filthy body was gradually purified within the sphere of light, until it dissolved completely.
Not quite.
Within this area, there remained one more place where a mirror still existed.
Inside the captain's quarters of the wreck of the "Black Death," split in two, Tracy and her maidservant struggled together to hold their ground, resisting the shockwaves of battle spreading toward them.
On the floor behind them lay the remains of a shattered mirror, the very item Tracy had used to summon the "Saintess of White."
Suddenly, the largest fragment burst into flame, black fire rising up from it.
"Hm?"
Tracy spun around at once. She could sense a vast surge of spirituality seeping out from that mirror shard.
Sure enough, she saw her mother's figure, clad in her white robe, appear within the mirror.
Katarina still smiled sweetly, reaching her hand out, intending to pass through the mirror's surface and return to reality, until a wash of rust-red suddenly spread across the mirror's surface.
That layer of deep red blocked her outstretched hand, severing her connection to reality.
Katarina's smile vanished all at once.
Layer upon layer of illusory worlds began to emerge inside the mirror.
She recoiled sharply, no longer attempting to step out of the mirror, but instead turned and plunged into the depths of that illusory world, as if to escape through it instead.
But she was already too late.
"Ahh"
A shrill, wretched scream seemed to carry over from another world entirely, laced with an intensity of terror and disbelief so extreme it shook the hearts of all who heard it.
Soon, thick blood began seeping out from the mirror's surface, spreading across the entire floor.
The blonde maidservant trembled all over, terrified by such a sound, while Tracy, after her initial shock, shoved the maid aside and rushed toward the mirror.
"Hey! What happened to you!"
She called out urgently toward the mirror's interior. Though she often acted as though she disliked her mother, in truth her feelings toward her were complicated, layered with more than simple dislike.
But just then, the face of a man surfaced within the mirror. He had long red hair, and a crimson mark like a banner between his brows.
His handsome face bore two wounds, cut so deep the bone showed through, and he was smiling at her!
"Thud, thud, thud!"
Tracy staggered back in terror, watching as a white figure rose up from the narrow surface of the mirror and stepped into reality.
Her mother's face wore an air of wickedness she had never shown before, as she gazed around with haughty disdain.