Chapter 693: The Traits of 【Named One】
At this moment, within the White Calamity, mist churned violently as a colossal figure slowly extended its head outward.
It was a White Bone Giant Beast.
From atop the massive skull of the White Bone Giant Beast, a smaller head emerged.
Gwen looked at the train that had come to a halt in the distance, her expression unreadable.
She had long noticed something strange about the storm—it had been impossible not to. Over the past few days, the storm had been chasing an airship everywhere across the Northlands.
And trailing from that airship was a thread—the very one connected to “Miss Scepter” in her hand.
The thread even twitched rhythmically, like a fountain.
Today, in its desperate flight, the airship had run into the train. Little Gwen had thought the airship had finally run out of fuel and was about to be caught.
But it did not matter. She would make her move.
By now, Little Gwen could control the White Calamity to a considerable degree. At this moment, she rolled the White Mist along as she followed, rubbing her hands together in anticipation, waiting for the airship to fail so she could make her heroic entrance.
In the end, that Ignati had struck down the storm with several bolts of lightning.
Little Gwen still had not quite recovered from the shock.
The great head of the White Bone Giant Beast turned upward to look at the smaller head perched atop it, as if asking Gwen what to do next.
Little Gwen scratched her head.
Suddenly, her eyes lit up. “How about I send the White Bones in the mist over there? There are still quite a few White Bone Hordes controlled by the Temple of the Forgetters. It’s too slow for me to purify them myself—those lightning strikes clear out huge patches at once.”
She narrowed her eyes and looked toward Ignati on the train. The old Patriarch did not seem to be in good condition. He was being carried aside by the 【Burial Ones】, while several Church Guard bearing the insignia of the Hospital Knights hurried over to assist.
“This old guy really can’t hold on. Just a few strikes and he’s already done for,” Gwen curled her lips, then shifted her gaze to the ritual iron plates the 【Burial Ones】 were packing up.
“If that thing were given to Hughes, he should be able to last a bit longer, right?”
“After all, his Shell was already dead to begin with. It can’t die a second time.”
“If it were him, how much lightning would he be able to control? What kind of spectacle would that be?”
Little Gwen had watched the entire process of the lightning shattering the storm. The brilliant flashes that had illuminated the horizon had deeply shaken her.
After all, she could not split such massive lightning bolts on her own—and she was a 【Named One】.
Lost in her wandering thoughts, Little Gwen casually swept her gaze across the carriages—then suddenly froze.
She saw something on the train that she absolutely had not expected.
“A f–fountain?”
A surge of Pollution suddenly burst out from a shattered train window. Moments later, Beatrice stepped down from the train, apologizing awkwardly.
After listening to several days of lessons, her condition had improved somewhat. She could even walk on her own now.
Strangely enough, when she had been lying inside the Steam Engine, she had inexplicably heard bizarre and twisted whispering voices. She had thought she was beginning to slip into delirium.
Yet instead of causing more hallucinations, the more she listened, the steadier her cognition became. Her condition improved, the madness no longer erupted, the hallucinations lessened, and she could even stand and walk a few steps.
Aside from filling her head with all sorts of messy little stories, there were no side effects at all.
Truly worthy of being bizarre whispering voices—they were genuinely bizarre.
Unfortunately, she had not been pleased for long before the airship seemed to brush against something unclean and was targeted by the storm.
In theory, there were very few things in this world capable of threatening an airship. Even the White Calamity could not float that high. But the storm was one of them.
The airship could indeed fly high, but not infinitely so. At extreme altitudes, the air grew thin and buoyancy dropped. And at the maximum altitude the airship could manage, it still could not escape the storm.
Thus, they had been chased everywhere by it. Fortunately, with Beatrice there, they would never truly run out of fuel.
After several days of fleeing, Beatrice gradually discovered that she could control the act of expelling Pollution.
At first, she thought this was a good thing. But she soon discovered in despair that she could only control half of it—she could expel it whenever she wanted, but when she did not want to, she could not stop it.
Every so often, without warning, she would suddenly unleash a blast forward.
When she aimed into barrels prepared in advance on the ground, no one thought this “Pollution Fountain” was particularly dangerous.
But when she stood right in front of you, chatting—and suddenly puffed out her cheeks—
You had better pray you were agile enough to dodge.
“Beatrice’s Breath” had already gained a formidable reputation aboard the airship. Now the people on the train experienced it firsthand.
Beatrice had just been chatting with several 【Burial Ones】 when her eyes suddenly widened. An uncontrollable warmth surged upward from her abdomen. Moments later, it erupted.
She only had time to tilt her head slightly aside. In the next instant, a torrent of Pollution shattered the train window and blasted outward!
Her turning motion had not even finished when the breath swept across the air in a fan-shaped arc, tearing away a large section of the carriage.
When Beatrice finished expelling it and turned apologetically toward the 【Burial Ones】 who had been standing before her, the Father’s hair stood on end and he immediately turned and ran.
There was no helping it. It was simply too terrifying.
Transcendents already feared Pollution. The amount within Beatrice’s breath was already outrageous. On top of that, her breath seemed to carry some additional effect.
The carriage had been as fragile as paper before it. And when Castel manufactured their carriages, they certainly did not cut corners—that was solid steel.
Only specially prepared barrels designed to contain Pollution could withstand it.
Aboard the airship, Beatrice had expelled it inside the Steam Engine, where the Steam Engine helped suppress it. There was no such assistance here. Miss Beatrice’s strength had increased dramatically—one blast of Pollution was unstoppable.
That single breath startled not only the 【Burial Ones】, but even Little Gwen within the mist.
She had speculated many times about what had happened to Beatrice. She had imagined various possibilities—but this was not one she had ever considered.
Then, looking at the Pollution flowing across the ground, she suddenly frowned.
“Strange… why do I suddenly feel like I’ve forgotten something very important…”
The feeling was familiar. It had occurred many times recently.
This was because she had acquired much knowledge within the mist. By taking control of the Temple of the Forgetters, she had inherited the memories of the Forgetters. Those memories came intertwined with Pollution—and naturally, with knowledge.
Unfortunately, most of that knowledge was fragmented. Even with careful recollection, it was difficult to retrieve. Often she needed to see something related before she could remember.
After all, to her, this knowledge had been forcefully poured in—like flipping through a book on the spot. It required effort and time.
Just like now, she stared intently at the Pollution, feeling certain knowledge gradually solidifying, about to surface.
“Pollution… it must be knowledge related to Pollution. And something I obtained within the mist…”
After thinking hard for a long time, her eyes suddenly lit up.
“I remember now. Pollution… 【Named Ones】 are immune to Pollution. They will not be eroded by Pollution!”