Chapter 508 - 112: Calming the Storm
"Yes. I am here."
Four short words.
The calm, gentle voice seemed to carry an invisible weight. It swept gently over the plaza, yet it instantly froze all the clamor and madness.
Adrian’s twisted, maniacal laughter froze on his face. The color drained from his features at a visible rate. Behind his glasses, his pupils contracted, filled with absolute terror.
"No... Impossible..." he muttered, his lips trembling. He took an involuntary step back.
He wasn’t the only one.
For the first time, Ambrosius’s withered body began to tremble violently. He clenched his fists so tightly his knuckles turned white. A storm raged in his cloudy eyes, as if he were staring at his most terrifying nightmare.
The Old Faction Cardinals, who just moments before had worn mocking, gleeful, and callous smiles, were now all ashen-faced. They stood rooted to the spot like soulless puppets, fear coiling around their hearts like icy vines.
The Wizards from the Silver Tower were equally aghast.
The lead gray-robed mentor snapped his head up from beneath his hood, as if trying to pinpoint the voice’s origin, but his body had already shifted into a subconscious defensive stance.
In stark contrast to their horror, Mo Ling’s and Eleanor’s eyes instantly lit up.
Mo Ling whipped her head around. Tears still streamed down her cheeks, but her small face was now alight with incredulous joy.
She forgot she was even crying, her eyes wide as she desperately scanned her surroundings, searching for the source of that familiar voice.
Eleanor’s tense body suddenly relaxed, as if a massive weight had been lifted from her shoulders. A warm rush of elation, relief, and lingering fear surged through her, making her eyes well up.
She pressed her lips together, her eyes eagerly scanning the crowd. In that instant, the sorrow that had clung to her was utterly scattered by a burgeoning hope.
"An illusion! It must be an illusion!"
Adrian suddenly let out a hysterical roar. He pointed at the incandescent orb of white light in the sky, which was drawing ever closer with terrifying power. His voice, twisted and sharp with extreme fear and disbelief, shrieked:
"It’s an Illusion Technique! A final, desperate trick left behind by that Demon to scare us! He’s dying! He can’t be here! It’s impossible for his conscious mind to still exist in this world! He’s trying to bluff us! As if!"
Rage and fear devoured his sanity.
He threw his hands up, and the Holy Power he had accumulated for years erupted from his body in a frenzy. It formed a thick pillar of golden light that shot brazenly toward the "falling" "sun" in the sky!
"SHATTER—!"
The golden pillar, carrying all of Adrian’s hatred and fear, tore through the air and slammed straight into the destructive ball of light.
However, the expected collision, explosion—or even the slightest ripple—never came.
The column of Holy Power, strong enough to pierce city walls and purify evil, touched the seemingly thin, incandescent white halo around the "sun." Like snow tossed into a blazing furnace, it dissolved instantly and without a sound, leaving not even a trace behind.
It was as if a single speck of dust had been cast into a boundless ocean.
Adrian remained frozen in his Casting stance, his expression solidifying into one of pure, unadulterated horror.
"No... Impossible..." he repeated, his spirit broken. His voice was dry and hoarse, laced with a bone-deep terror. "How could you... achieve such a degree of Elementalization... how could you still retain your complete consciousness... how could you... still be in this world! It’s not logical! It defies the rules! This is... this is..."
His words died in his throat.
For the anomaly in the sky had not been delayed in the slightest by his attack.
Under the gazes of countless terrified, awestruck, hopeful, and bewildered eyes, the incandescent "sun" that seemed poised to destroy everything paused just a breath away from the Holy City Plaza.
The light suddenly converged inward.
The world-annihilating pressure receded like the tide, replaced by a tranquility that soothed the very soul.
The incandescent flames rapidly dimmed and solidified, coalescing into the clear outline of a human figure.
When the light faded completely,
a figure floated silently above the plaza.
His ink-black hair hung loose, stirring as if in an unseen wind.
He wore a simple, ancient-style robe of deep black, its hem unstained by dust and fluttering gently.
His features were refined and handsome. Beneath sharp, sword-like brows, his eyes were as deep and black as the night sky. His calm gaze swept over the masses in the plaza below.
Every person there—from the terrified Cardinals and aghast Wizards of the Silver Tower, to Eleanor and Mo Ling who watched with bated breath, to Bobby and his parents with their hands clenched, to the solemnly standing Temple Knights, and even the common folk and apprentices just recovering from their panic, lost and bewildered.
There wasn’t a single one who didn’t recognize him.
It wasn’t just because his portrait had spread across the Continent along with new interpretations of the Holy Scripture and sermons following the implementation of the "Path of the Priest."
It was because over the past eleven years, he and the changes he wrought had become deeply ingrained in the hearts of the people—from quelling unrest to instituting new policies, from the spires of the Holy City to the Tower of Revelation.
His name and image had long since become the most storied legend on the Continent, seared into the hearts of countless people.
"It’s... It’s His Holiness the Sword of Divinity!"
From somewhere in the crowd, a voice, trembling with incredulous excitement, was the first to cry out.
That single cry was like the lighting of a fuse.
After a moment of dead silence, the plaza erupted in a tidal wave of cheers—a colossal roar of elation, excitement, relief, and the pure joy of survival!