Stopping moving, it turned around and saw a body floating in a fireball. That was the Fairy Empress.
She was surrounded by green vines that had dandelions fluttering out of them.
Seeds started to spring out of the dandelions. They went up in flames and danced around and then formed a huge green fireball.
The one-eyed giant parried with the back of its hand.
All the fire meteorites dissipated in an instant as the fireball disappeared.
The sky returned to its dark gray color. The Fairy Empress, who floated in the air just a while ago, was gone. Everything had calmed down.
“Miss. Philippe… did you just sacrifice yourself?” Standing in front of the sanctum, Dimpess sounded sad. “It is my turn, then.”
He glanced at Khadula.
“I wish I could get away from this, but where can I go?”
Khadula did not know what to say. In fact, whatever she said was not going to change anything. Dimpess had walked away from death countless times and rose to become a Palatinate. Many of his comrades had died for the past several hundred years. Death no longer worried him a bit.
“Many of my friends are dead, and I’m still alive now—I really couldn’t ask for more.” He stomped his feet, and his body floated. Dark energy and holy power started to surround him in white and green light.
“I’m going.”
His body faded into a streak of white light as he rose into the sky.
“Come to get me, you big guy!”
He roared and had the one-eyed giant attention.
Just when he planned to take the one-eyed giant going a few rounds and leave, a powerful, legend-class force field fell upon him, fixing him in the air like a bug preserved in amber.
Before he could do anything else, the one-eyed giant had grabbed and crushed him in its hand.
When it opened its hand again, what was left of him of only a patch of blood in its hand. The crushed body of a human, smeared on the one-eyed giant’s hand, looked only like a sesame seed.
At the same time, rockets started to rise all over the city, flying toward the one-eyed giant.
However, these rockets laden with dark energy had all exploded in midair before even reaching its target.
The Annihilatus stumped forward, stomping its feet in the area dotted with low-rise buildings, crushing everything to the ground. For the third time, it reached out its hands and struck a highrise that happened to stand in its way.
The building broke in half with the top half sent flying and disappearing into the black mist.
The one-eyed giant moved ahead toward the most prominent part of the city where the Sanctum was located.
The Sanctum still put out pure, white light continuously to fight back the invading Blacktide water. But after the Annihilatus broke through the wall, the holy power started to get overwhelmed.
The one-eyed giant continued to stride ahead, every step sending tremor to the earth if someone was smashing down with a hammer.
A large crowd of people had gathered on the lawn in front of the prayer hall of the Sanctum. These people, evacuated from other places, were the hard-core believers and the family members of the leadership of the Sanctum
Among them were Lin Xiao, Gu Wanqiu, and Lin Zhounian. Gu Wanqiu looked pale, but she still comforted her daughter. Lin Zhounian stood together with the parents of Hanyu and Nisse, quietly looking at the one-eyed giant.
“Let us pray,” one of them said. Indistinct voices of prayer rose among the crowd. In a time like this, the only thing they could do was pray.
Standing on the prayer altar was one of Khadula’s avatars, a girl as beautiful as the holy light. She clapped her hands together and faced the only statue in the prayer hall. The statue was a tall, white stone sculpture without a face. By the looks of its shape and contour, it was a sculpture of Lin Sheng.
The monster roared again. The one-eyed giant reached its nine-fingered hand and grabbed at the Sanctum, which was the brightest place in the city. But this time, no one could draw away the giant.
The black nine-finger hand, much like Titan in the mythology, was emitting a powerful twisting force field, distorting and crushing the purification force field around the Sanctum.
Finally, as everyone was still desperately praying, the black hand smashed down on the Sanctum Hill with a loud boom.
When everything died down, the giant black hand lifted off. Underneath was an oval light shield shrouding the entire Sanctum Hill.
The one-eyed giant was transfixed as if it could not believe in what it saw. But it quickly came to grips with what happened and struck its hand down at the light shield again. Nothing was going to stop it. The shield might only stand for now, but the result would still be the same with repeated attacks.
The giant nine-fingered hand struck with a powerful force field down at the sanctum.
“Now, we are not doing anything but pray.”
Lin Zhounian looked up at the giant black hand, puzzled why everything had changed in such a short time. His life had changed. His peaceful days had gone. It looked as if he was seeing the disaster scene in a movie. It was just that he was seeing it from a first-person perspective now.
“Where is Lin Sheng now? Hope he has made it out safely…” In their last moment, Lin Zhounian held his wife and Lin Xiao’s hand tightly with a forced smile on his face.
“He… is going to be okay.” Gu Wanqiu’s face was pale.
“Sheng Sheng must have gone back to Henricqal. He said that last time…” Lin Xiao also forced a smile.
“Did he say that?” Lin Zhounian asked, trying to comfort himself.
“Yeah… he said that before.” Lin Xiao nodded affirmatively.
“I was just kidding, you silly twerp.”
A voice suddenly spoke beside Lin Xiao. She froze, then slowly turned her head around, looking beside her. A familiar body was standing there; it was Lin Sheng. He stared up at the one-eyed giant without looking at his parents and others.
“I’m sorry, I’ve lied to you all many times.”
He stepped forward, out of the crowd, toward the holy and beautiful Khadula, who had been waiting, and then the two held their hands.
“I promise. This is the last one.”
The moment Lin Sheng stepped up onto the prayer altar, a bright white light burst out of his body. He was now clad in a set of pure white body armor with a white cloak fluttering on his back.
“Then, let’s roll.” He and Khadula placed their hands on the prayer altar, activating a disc, the last trigger of the sacred crystal font.
“My brother, it’s all yours now.” Khadula looked up at Lin Sheng with an innocent smile.