The Evil God Summoned by the Saintess

Deep in the Golden Apple Stone Forest.

A massive fortress-like behemoth lay silently crouched beneath the shroud of gray mist.

At this moment, the fortress seemed to come alive, spewing out countless figures and magic puppets from within, clashing with the many Law Enforcement Knights outside.

Melina fixed her gaze on a figure standing atop the fortress. The other party was staring at her as well.

"You’re the leader of the Deep Sea Mutual Aid Association, huh? Hmph, dare to come out and fight me one-on-one?"

That was Blake talking; he’d followed Melina here as well.

He looked up at the figure hidden inside the fortress, his expression taunting.

Unfortunately, the other party didn’t bite, only locking onto Blake and Melina, unleashing a barrage of magic from inside the fortress, continuously targeting them and preventing the two from joining their subordinates in battle.

Melina took out the Pollution Warning Badge, frowned, and felt it carefully, "Time’s almost up."

Blake nodded: "Let’s withdraw. We have plenty of time. No need to rush."

Melina glared at the fortress in frustration, "Really wish I could summon a forbidden spell and just blast this fortress to dust. Where the hell did they get so many High-tier Mages? Do High-tier Mages grow on trees?"

The Law Enforcement Knight Order had a lot of people, but not many Tier Four Mages. Even after all these years, there were only 32 tops. In the Divine Hall they were bishops, and within the Law Enforcement Knight Order, they were at least division chiefs, just like her—a Tier Six commander.

The rest of the Law Enforcement Knights were Tier Three Mages, who could barely go toe-to-toe with Tier Four Mages by using unified team tactics. But at best they could hold their own; to actually kill a Tier Four Mage, you’d still need a division chief or someone higher to take action.

As the pollution breach pressed the Tier Three limit, Melina had no choice but to call off this assault.

She took one last long look at the fortress headquarters of the Deep Sea Mutual Aid Association. She said to Blake, "Mr. Blake, when we get back, write a joint letter with me to the Holy Master—let’s get permission to mobilize all the Law Enforcement Knight Order division chiefs here. Or, have another archbishop sent over—I think Vasily would be great."

Blake shrugged indifferently: "Whatever you say."

Melina looked one last time at the Deep Sea Fortress, then issued the command to retreat.

Afterward, the two of them blocked all the Tier Four heretics charging over, buying time for the Law Enforcement Knights to fall back.

Once everyone regrouped, they led the rest away.

The heretics inside the Deep Sea Fortress also stopped sending people out.

That figure still stood there, silently watching Blake and Melina as they retreated.

It wasn’t long before the Law Enforcement Knight Order returned to camp. Melina called for logistics to tally casualties and had the wounded knights taken for treatment.

Just then, a logistics officer ran up and said to Melina, "Archbishop, Alina from the academy says she has something urgent. She’s waiting in the command center for you."

Melina was taken aback for a moment. Since Blake hadn’t left yet, she brought him along to the command center.

"Archbishop, Headmistress, finally, you’re here!" Alina patted her chest in relief.

Melina felt like there was something off about the atmosphere among the command center staff.

At least they didn’t blurt out anything about Alina thinking they were dead just because the battle got intense.

"What intelligence do you have?" Blake asked.

Alina spoke: "While we were clearing a heretic base, the Holy Maiden candidate Phil accidentally discovered a hidden underground altar. The array runes on this altar are strange, but we can’t make heads or tails of them. Hilia says there might be an issue, so she asked that we send an Array Master to check it out."

Blake was surprised: "Even Hilia can’t figure it out?"

Alina replied, "Hilia didn’t go in. I didn’t let her."

Blake frowned, "Why didn’t you let her in?"

Feeling the pressure of Blake’s stare, Alina hurriedly replied, "Here’s what happened at the time..."

Alina quickly recounted the battle. Hearing how the Holy Maiden Squad easily took down a Tier Four Mage, Melina looked surprised; though Blake’s face was calm, as if he’d expected it all along.

He’d been called in before to watch the Holy Maiden Squad compete in person. He was more familiar than most with their combat ability.

As tournament champions, if they couldn’t even handle a regular Tier Four Mage, they’d hardly deserve the title of number one in the world.

With Hilia and the others’ help in resolving the heretic base, Alina switched topics, describing Phil’s disappearance, the underground space and altar, and the array—emphasizing that they’d already nearly reached what a Tier Three Mage could bear, so she didn’t let Hilia go in to investigate, choosing instead to withdraw early.

Blake laughed: "If it was anyone else, you’d really have to worry about pollution, but this is Hilia. You don’t need to worry about Hilia’s resistance to pollution—or more accurately, none of the five Holy Maiden candidates need to worry. Their resistance is off the charts, beyond what any ordinary Tier Four Mage can match."

Alina nodded: "I know, especially Phil. But just because they can take it doesn’t mean the other students can. I can’t just leave them in there risking their necks while I come back on my own, right?"

Melina nodded. "You did the right thing. Don’t worry about what Blake says. I’ll get an Array Master right away to go copy down the array and bring it back for research."

Alina nodded. "Got it. Oh right—Hilia hopes she can take a look when the array is ready."

Blake replied, "No problem. Let her see it."

Melina didn’t object either. She knew well enough that Hilia’s talent with arrays had long surpassed the average Array Master; she could even run city-wide array projects—who would question her?

Even Alvis, the strongest Array Master of the Holy Court, didn’t dare to argue anymore.

Alina said goodbye to Melina and Blake, went back to where her group was camping, and found Hilia, who was busy practicing magic.

She relayed Blake’s message to Hilia.

Hilia nodded nonchalantly, and simply continued working on the reduced version of Wind Domain.

Alina looked over, puzzled, and asked, "Hilia, aren’t you an Ice Element mage? Why are you studying Wind Magic?"

Hilia replied, "This spell might be effective against the pollution in the Golden Apple Stone Forest."

"Oh?" Alina watched carefully, seeing the wind magic power in Hilia’s hand form into a ball, swirling within.

Hilia tossed the ball out, letting it expand into a wind field enveloping a person.

"Never seen this wind spell before, is it like a wind shield?"

"No." Hilia shook her head. "This is a spell called [Wind Domain], its effect is to create an area-wide wind field."

Alina grew curious, "Oh? So it’s an AoE attack spell?"

"No."

"Then is it like a group blessing spell? Boosts speed inside the domain or something?"

"Nope."

"...So what exactly does Wind Domain do?"

"It creates a domain in which the air is purified... Pollution is kept outside the domain’s range."

"Blocks pollution..." Alina immediately sensed the significance of this magic.

The prerequisite being—

It works.

"Does it really work?"