Free Web Novel"You always look like this, always so composed, as if you control everything.
"I really wonder whether you're even human. You seem like a god looking down on people from above."
The attack missed. Mara was not surprised. She did not rush another strike, instead she chatted idly with Loren.
The Church members who realized what was happening immediately closed in around Mara. The Bishop and another eighth-tier mage stood on Loren's sides, eyes locked on Mara.
The other mages on the altar still did not move. They remembered Loren's orders, even though one of them had just died.
"Your magic is impressive. Teach me, and I'll spare your life. How about that?"
Loren said this in front of the Church, but nobody doubted him. They trusted Loren's loyalty to the Church; they knew he was only trying to deceive Mara now.
Something so well known could not fool Mara—she had already been deceived by Loren once.
"You have so many tricks, do you really need these two from me?
"My second life is precious. Until I find my parents, I will not die in your hands again.
"The God of Sorrow, Iyaftogu..."
Mara spoke the true name of the God of Sorrow. Loren roared without hesitation:
"She is an Outer God worshipper. Do not listen to her from now on!"
Loren did this partly to prevent Church members from being corrupted by the Outer Gods, and partly to stop Mara from revealing his secrets.
"Forget."
Mara recited the name of the spell calmly. Knowing she could not hit Loren, she aimed instead at the other mages on the altar.
As if erased by a rubber eraser, the mage Mara targeted vanished from the world, without anyone else even showing a flicker of reaction.
If they had lost that mage's heart to be taken, they might have been shocked, but this time Mara's magic was stranger; they showed no response.
"Be careful. That Forget will cause people to be erased from the world. Someone among you has already been hit!"
Loren warned everyone immediately, and he did not forget to cast his own magic.
"So you really won't forget..."
"Throat-Severing Slash!"
Before Mara could finish speaking, Requiem slashed across her throat. With her vocal cords cut, she could no longer make a sound.
At the same time, flesh around the place Requiem touched began to writhe, inverting inside and out, blooming into clusters of bloody flesh around her neck.
Seventh-tier magic, Flesh Bloom. Loren had attached this magic to Requiem.
Mara's response was straightforward: she tore off the flesh and her jaw from her own neck. Now a thin layer of skin alone connected her head to her body.
Loren had not yet sheathed his blade when Mara's body began to heal.
This was a power granted by the Goddess of Love; Loren was now certain.
Where Mara could not see, plants gathered the shattered merfolk corpses together.
The two eighth-tier mages did not stand idle either. The moment they engaged, they understood Mara's threat and struck without hesitation.
The Bishop acted first. With his chant, countless flowers burst through Mara's skin, blooming into vivid blossoms; as the flowers brightened, Mara's skin turned deathly pale.
The other eighth-tier mage followed. His magic withered Mara's skin, making it dry and brittle, and even halted the healing she was performing.
Mara tried to pull the flowers out. She strained with all her might and eventually tore out her leg bone along with the flowers.
"Eighth-tier magic, Bone-and-Blood Garden. These plants root inside your bones, feeding on your blood. To rid yourself of them, you must abandon your own skeleton."
Loren sneered, sure of victory.
The other eighth-tier mage used Decay, also eighth-tier magic, which rapidly drained an enemy's vitality while stripping away self-healing.
Both of their responses were excellent, doing everything possible to suppress Mara's regeneration.
Knowing she could not break free, Mara gave up resisting and launched a full-force attack.
The moment she raised her hand, a great tree sprang up in front of the Bishop; the tree collapsed into a puddle of rot in an instant, falling away like rain, drop by drop.
"This move is called Collapse, also a magic of the God of Sorrow.
"These spells seem bizarre, but they have trajectories and can be blocked by other things."
"Explaining tactics at a time like this—you really don't see me as an opponent..."
Mara cut away the flowers sprouting from her eye sockets to restore her sight.
"You're right. I truly didn't take you seriously."
Loren admitted it outright in response to Mara's accusation.
While they had been fighting, the merfolk kept charging. Without the Merfolk Staff, their threat was much reduced. The merfolk who rushed up were crushed by trees Loren controlled, their shredded bodies piled together.
Hearing this, Mara's anger flared. She pointed a finger at Loren.
Her fingertip was a fin, her fingers covered with irregular scales—disgusting to look at.
Loren recognized that familiar posture and knew what she was going to do.
Silent Sob. A blessing of the God of Hatred, it allows the blessed to launch parts of their body like bullets; anyone struck dies, and the caster dies after firing.
But the drawback was severe: the launched limb was at most as accurate as a handgun and rarely hit. It was a desperate suicide move for the weak.
Loren raised Requiem. Mara fired her finger, which struck precisely on the blade. The instant-death nature of the attack was terrifying; even without Loren's strong Intuition, one could sense the danger.
Loren then only shifted Requiem slightly and repeatedly deflected Mara's other fired fingers.
"Sure enough, you hit a bug. By rights you should have died after using Silent Sob, but the Goddess of Love's blessing kept you alive.
"What is it that you love? Your mother abandoned you. Your father treated your mother like a toy and never knew of your existence in the end. I don't understand why you live at all—nobody loves you."
"Shut up!"
Mara fired her entire arm, but Loren casually parried it away with Requiem.
By now the merfolk flesh had already been stacked into a mountain of meat.
Loren stepped back one pace and returned to the very center of the altar:
"Alright, we've delayed long enough...
"Respected God of Bountiful Harvest, I hereby offer you the mountain of extraordinary creature blood and flesh, and the one year of life from every Bountiful follower present. Please birth your offspring here!"
Loren spread his arms like a fanatic.
No sooner had he finished than the pile of merfolk blood and flesh began to melt, eventually becoming a twisted, black, unknown mass.
This was the Child of Bountifulness, more like the mythic black goat kid.
