Heim Castle, Hel's alchemy chamber.
After handing Morrigan over to Niv's control, Hel came here. She looked at the fragments of the fine sword scattered on the table, feeling somewhat helpless.
The alloy Yaojin, after all, could not withstand the impact of such terrifying magical energy. After she unleashed her attack, the golden sword had shattered into countless fragments. Most of the blade had been vaporized under the force of the energy, leaving only a few pieces near the hilt.
"This magic is perfect in every way… except that it eats swords."
Indeed, Hel wasn't using the power from the Holy Sword as Roland had mentioned. She was using magic constructed through alchemy.
By inscribing tens of thousands of magical runes from this top-tier spell onto the blade with precise alchemical frequency—and supported by several other top-tier alchemical arrays—she had created this world-shattering strike.
In other words, if an ordinary person had wielded this sword instead of her, they could still unleash the strike. The difference was whether they could survive the aftereffects.
Now, Hel urgently needed to repair this sword. She hadn't anticipated that the spell's range would be so vast, cutting all the way from the Heim territory to the Watchtower Wall.
The strike even caught the attention of several high-ranking Saint-tier individuals stationed there.
Representatives of the Saint-tier were now heading toward Heim Castle, and Hel had no idea what their intentions were.
Hel was never the type to rely on others' goodwill for survival. She urgently needed the power to counter these Saint-tier experts—namely, the ability to unleash a second strike.
Thus, repairing the fine sword was imperative.
However, the Sword of Annihilation was only a last resort. It could only deliver one strike. The Saint-tier experts were not sitting ducks—they would not quietly allow Hel to charge and attack.
So unless absolutely necessary, she would not use the Sword of Annihilation to intimidate them.
That meant she needed a more convincing excuse. For example…
Perhaps a justice-minded knight could swing a sword at the evil beastmen out of sheer interest.
Would anyone believe such a ridiculous excuse? Well, that was a matter of luck.
Hel took out the Holy Sword Durandal from her storage ring. The sword now only had a hilt and a small fragment of the blade left, still exuding strands of purple-black corruption, giving it a strangely ominous appearance.
That wasn't a problem. A simple gesture activated the Corruption Erosion tag in her library. Together with the three black tags obtained from Zephira, it became her trump card.
Such powerful and unusual tags were never used unless necessary, especially the Evil God Vessel tag. Unless she gained power capable of challenging a deity herself, it could never appear in the world.
Once the tag was removed from the broken sword, the sword returned to its original form: a golden cross sword with a blue grip, a pale teal gem set in the hilt, and a gold-engraved wolf head howling skyward at the base.
Hel recognized the wolf emblem—it was the crest of the noble Wolf House of the Knight Empire. She intended to use an unknown member of that royal family to complete the final step of her deception.
Time passed. The night grew deep, the pale moon hung high, and a thin layer of silver frost blanketed the mass grave of the 100,000-strong army.
Suddenly, several streaks of meteors appeared on the horizon, hovering at the edge of the trench where Hel had unleashed the Sword of Annihilation.
"The elements here have been completely drained."
Paracelsus, feeling the extraordinarily sparse elemental energy, said in disbelief.
"Drained?" The knight maiden Irina, beside him, also sensed the surrounding environment but felt no significant change—only that the lingering holy light seemed more active.
"You see, I'm a reality-type mage, so I'm naturally more sensitive to elements. I can say without hesitation that this strike almost completely drained most of the elements in this area. This is extremely dangerous. Only the top Saint-tier experts could achieve something like this…"
Before he could finish his explanation, two shouts rang out nearby.
A one-winged eagle beastman and a wolf beastman—representatives sent by the Beastmen—had arrived.
"Damn it! These weapons are of the Silver Wolf Cavalry!"
The eagle beastman raised a jagged spear tip and shouted angrily, staring at Paracelsus and Irina as if to ensure they did nothing reckless.
The wolf beastman activated an alchemical array on the wolf tooth necklace around his neck and shouted:
"The target is the Silver Wolf Cavalry. From the looks of it, all 100,000 of them have been annihilated!"
At the Watchtower Wall, the Plague Witch Pestis waved her hand. The wolf beastman with the necklace retreated. She remained expressionless, her gaze fixed coldly on the Saints' representatives.
"I never thought your Holy Judgment Church would collude with the Death Witch."
"What do you mean?"
"Ha… isn't it obvious? First, your top Saint-tier eliminated the Silver Wolf Cavalry with one strike, forcing the War Witch to move to another army. Then the Death Witch, lying in ambush, attacked her and carried away the remaining 80,000 troops. Your Holy Judgment Church may have played a good hand, but do you really think the power of the Supreme God can be controlled so easily? Or have you found the secret of life?"
"I don't know what nonsense you're talking about."
The Saints' representative drew his long sword and pointed at the Plague Witch, his expression grim:
"The Death Witch is the number one heretic wanted by our church. Don't think we, the Holy Judgment Church, are like your cults who delight in hiding filth."
"Ha… your eyes betray you. Your Holy Judgment people are just as hypocritical as ever."
This time, the Saints' representative's expression darkened further. Had the elders of the council secretly orchestrated some scheme behind his back?