That was why the elven warriors with excellent sword skills, and the elven bowmen with perfect accuracy, were knocked down from the trees by the magical mantises in this chaotic battle before they could even unleash a hundredth of their real power.
The only thing that could be seen from a distance was a black flood surging into the border of the elven town. All elven warriors that stood in their way erupted with inner-power aura of different colors, but they were all quickly engulfed by the swarm. Only the elven bowmen could bounce and roam about between the trees and occasionally fire one or two powerful shots into the sea of insects.
Sadly, these stragglers couldn't survive for much longer either. They were quickly caught up by the groups of magical mantises and exterminated one by one.
The edge of the town had been thrown into complete disorder.
As the female elf captain made it halfway there, she happened to run into the elves that were fleeing and retreating.
It had only been less than five minutes of battle, but it seemed as if these elves had experienced years and years of trauma. Their faces were pale, and their spirits were clearly shaken. There was nothing in their eyes except for fear.
The female elf captain was a beginner Second Grade. Upon seeing the urgency of the situation, she immediately grabbed onto a vine and leaped onto a tall tree. She then took out three elven arrows carved with strange magical patterns from her quiver. Beng! Beng! Beng! With three consecutive snaps of her bowstring, three enchanted explosive arrows flew into the black insect sea in a triangle.
The next moment, violent explosive shockwaves spread out, again and again, quickly engulfing the front of the black insect sea into its carnage.
It immediately reduced the speed of the swarm's advance.
Three visible openings had appeared at the front of the swarm!
Ordinary elven arrows had lost all their previous effectiveness against such a dense swarm of insects. Instead, it was the violent but straightforward explosive arrows that could better deliver area damage. However, when the female elf captain reached into her quiver once again, she frowned at the number of arrows that she could feel.
There were still thirty of those ordinary elven arrows, but there were only two enchanted explosive arrows left!
These enchanted arrows with tremendous power could only be crafted by a small number of elven casters in the elven kingdom. That was why even a garrison captain like herself only carried with her five enchanted arrows. If she were to use all of them here, she would not have time to go back to the tree hall to replenish her ammunition.
At any rate, Quel'Lithien Lodge was a small elven town and had no more than thirty enchanted arrows stored in its warehouses. That was not even close to enough to deal with the situation before them.
While the captain hesitated, a black human silhouette quickly swelled into shape from the sea of insects in a street corner. After forming his body with the swarm, Bug Adept Billis looked through the trees and branches at the Second Grade elven deadshot.
The opponent was a Second Grade. It was already far beyond the limits of what he could hunt.
As per their previous agreement, Billis' mission was to drive the swarm forward, smash through all of the town's defenses, and trap the elves inside the sea of insects. Meanwhile, those elves of Second Grade and above would all be left to Mary and her bloodsucking bats.
That was why Billis did not show himself after spotting the Second Grade elf, choosing instead to wait in silence.
Under his wordless instructions, the black sea of insects ignored the damage from the explosive arrows and continued to surge forward after a momentary pause. His magical mantises also left behind black afterimages as they slipped past the Second Grade elven deadshot and bounded toward the center of town.
The captain, who could see everything happening on the battlefield, was infuriated at this.
Her body shot out like lightning as she quickly flashed from tree to tree. The elven arrows in her hands were like beams of magical electricity, quickly striking at the backs of the mantises.
One of the magical mantises didn't manage to dodge in time and was pierced through its chest by an elven arrow and pinned to a thick branch.
With their tremendous life force, such a small wound would not be able to kill them!
This magical mantis struggled with all it had and slowly pulled the arrow out of its body.
Just then, the female elf captain had managed to catch up. The elven arrows spilled out of her bow like a torrent. In an instant, the triangular head of the mantis, along with its chest and abdominal sac had all been punctured by the arrows.
It struggled desperately for a moment more before finally dying of its grievous wounds!
In the window of these few seconds, the other magical mantises had charged even further toward the tree hall at the center of the town, utterly unfazed by the death of their companion.
The female captain's expression turned. Her body bent down slightly as she prepared to give chase.
However, at that very moment, several shrieks rang out from behind her. Enemies that could genuinely threaten her had finally arrived!
The captain stood atop the towering tree. A single look around her under the illumination of the chilling moonlight allowed her to identify the few unique silhouettes that had enveloped her.
The ones that had appeared from her north, south, and east were three human knights in strange crimson armor.
Their bodies were all supple and muscular. Their gazes were cold and wicked. A crimson cape with black underneath billowed behind all of their backs in the night winds.
They might look the same as humans on the outside, but the female elf captain knew very well that they were nowhere close to humans. That was because she had a very clear view of what had occurred earlier. These adversaries had all transformed from some strange giant bats.
The captain slowly turned around and faced the beautiful and seductive woman. The woman was slowly descending from the skies, taking small steps as a pair of gray bat wings softly flapped behind her back.
The captain's spirits went adrift for a moment.
She never knew a woman could look so wickedly seductive.
Her perfect and delicate face, her explosive figure, her human-like yet unhuman-like features, her passionate, blood-crimson eyes; the female captain had no choice but to admit that this woman was just as terrifyingly beautiful in her eyes; so beautiful that it broke her heart.
Charming magic?
The female elf captain quickly woke up after her momentary daze.
This time, she finally saw through the opponent's pretty appearance for her true nature!
Second Grade…the opponent was a Second Grade as well!
No; the female captain looked all around her and was shocked to find that all these subordinates of the witch that had surrounded her were Second Grade!
There was nothing to be discussed between elf and witch.
The two merely paused for a moment before breaking out into a battle without hesitation.
Perhaps because she realized that Mary was the leader of this group of individuals, the female elf captain ignored all the attacks launched at her from the three Blood Knights while choosing to focus all her firepower on this pretty witch with a natural ability to charm people.
Both sides were fighting fire with fire, exchanging blows as quick as they could, and turning and moving under the moonlight above the canopy like a set of revolving doors.
As their silhouettes were moving too fast, their afterimages were being drawn all across the canopy, especially when seen from afar. The crisp clash of metal upon metal also rang out far into the woods.
As a Second Grade elven deadshot, the captain also knew all sorts of archery techniques aside from using enchanted explosive arrows. She knew how to infuse arrows with magic, how to guide her shots, and how to fire volleys of arrows. In the mere millimeters of space when dodging attacks, the longbow's string in the capt
ain's hand would tremble in succession, sending several bolts into parts of the Blood Knights' armor that left them exposed.
Sadly, it was only after wasting nearly half of her arrows that the female captain discovered that her opponents were undying monsters. These fiends were still fighting with all their strength even with an arrow through the brain or throat.
They would casually pull out the arrow, snap it in half, and toss it aside.
The horrifying wounds left behind by the arrows would heal as layers of crimson halos spread across them, repairing them to their original state.
Dammit, these monsters had absolutely no weaknesses! This…how was she supposed to kill them?
Just then, massive magical fireworks shot into the air above the central tree hall of the town. It exploded into pretty lights high up in the sky. From a distance, two hippogryphs could be seen howling as they took to the skies and carried the elven bowmen on their backs rapidly toward Skywater City.
A call for help had finally been sent out from Quel'Lithien Lodge!
Yet at this point, it had only been no more than seven minutes since Quel'Lithien was attacked.
Still, these mere seven minutes already felt like torturous decades to the elves!
Mary took the opportunity of her three Blood Knights stalling the female captain to transform into a bloody red mist. She then charged to the captain's side and engulfed her in the mist.
Both parties fought all-out inside the dense mist of blood. Two massive fireballs exploded in the cloud of blood, following several furious warcries and the explosive snap of a bowstring.
A short moment later, Mary beat her bat wings and slowly ascended into the skies. She had one hand on the captain's waist, while her other rested upon the captain's head as she greedily leaned against her neck and sucked her blood.
The two massive wounds on Mary's shoulder and right leg were quickly healing under the flashing crimson halos.
Flooding the enemy with numbers and striking her with their fastest speed. It would be no issue taking down the female elf without any damage as long as Mary was patient.
However, they were in enemy territory and every extra second in this place increased the chance of variables popping up. That was why Mary intentionally betrayed a weakness and baited the enemy into using the last two enchanted explosive arrows against her. This way, Mary was able to capture the brief instant where the enemy let loose her shot to break through her defenses, arrive at her side, and capture her.
Mary forcefully sucked the sweet blood from the captain's body, while also silently feeding back into the elf a trace of her blood essence. Under Mary's powerful control, this sliver of blood essence flowed along the captain's circulatory system and slowly seeped into her brain.
There, the blood essence gradually morphed into an undetectable microscopic blood cocoon and trapped part of the mind in there.
As this area of her brain became locked away, the female elf captain fell into a coma, but her body still trembled uncontrollably. A strange crimson rune slowly appeared on her forehead between her eyes.
Chapter 665 Fury of the Goddess
The process of creating the powers of faith was extremely wondrous. In fact, the very existence of faith was such an intangible concept.
Due to their constant conflict against deities of all sorts, there were quite a few among the adepts who had interest in the research of deities. Through their comprehensive and detailed experiments, they had already started to figure out the methods in which the gods communicated with their followers. They had uncovered the fact that all this seemed to be related to brain nodes known as Channels of Faith.
Ordinary beings upon converting to a god's believer would be left with a strange brand upon their soul by that god. This brand was like a mystical, magical switch. As long as the believer was in a state of devout prayer, it would be able to construct a narrow yet stable channel of faith between the believer and their god, thus allowing for the transfer of faith power.
Of course, this channel of faith went both ways.
When the believer devotedly opened up his mind and soul, his entire being and soul would be bared before the gods. However, the gods simply had no interest in understanding or researching the thoughts and secrets of an ordinary creature!
Through large numbers of experiments and amounts of research, the adepts realized that all they had to do was find a way to shut off part of a believer's brain to cut off their connection node with their god. That way, a simple Bewitch spell would be all it took to trick a believer into changing their faith.
However, this method of shutting off and sealing part of the brain was a real test of an adept's skill.
If the area of the brain being sealed was off by even a little bit, tremendous damage would be inflicted upon the victim's intelligence and capacity for rational thought; if the seal ended up working, the victim would be rendered an idiot. The location in the brain of the area to be sealed, and how big the area was supposed to be, were all factors that varied from person to person and from god to god. Thus, everything had to be slowly tested and calculated out.
Mary herself naturally couldn't master such high-grade magical knowledge, nor did she possess such refined magical techniques. That was why her attempt to Embrace a Second Grade female elf was mostly relying upon the racial abilities of a vampire.
In her dozens of experiments before, some high-grade elves had been coincidentally modified by her into blood elves. Sadly, this female elf captain was destined to cause her efforts to be in vain.
Who knew if it was because of her extraordinarily resilient Spirit, or because of her devotion to her faith. At any rate, a series of waves erupted from within the elf's soul flux just as the blood cocoon was about to engulf that faith node perfectly.
These waves were light and powerless and were instantly sealed off by the entangling blood cocoon. However, it indirectly alerted a strange existence tens of thousands of kilometers away.
Saoirse's divine manifestation, who was whispering with Goddess Meve in the Moonlight Temple, suddenly had a change in expression. She merely stopped speaking and turned to look in a direction southwest, silently sensing for something.
"Sister Saoirse, what is it?" Goddess Meve asked confusedly.
Saoirse hesitated for a moment and then betrayed a trace of anger upon her perfect and delicate face.
"At this moment, a high-grade believer cut off her faith connection with me."
Saoirse said in a very casual and vague manner. An ordinary mortal might not even be able to understand the meaning behind those words. However, the one in front of Saoirse was no other person than Moonlight Goddess Meve, a deity much like herself. Meve instantly picked up on the multiple critical points in Saoirse's words.
A high-grade believer...node of faith cut off.
An elf only needed to choose to believe in a particular god, and through some holy prayer ceremonies, the god would be able to leave a special brand within their souls successfully. Many believers who were favored and cherished by the gods could even materialize this brand and turn it into an extremely striking stigma.
Those who possessed stigmata were always watched over by a god!
Even within the system of spiritualists, many god messengers couldn't materialize stigmata. Only some believers who were notably favored by the gods could possess one.
Moreover, such a holy brand could only be wiped away with two methods once implanted.
One was through the death of the believer, and the other was the conversion of their faith.
However, both of these possibilities rarely happened upon Garan.
First, conversion.
A forest elf utterly abandoning their faith for Elven God Saoirse to believe in another god. This…this was practically impossible on Garan. Even Moonlight Goddess Meve's god messenger had to be a shallow believer of Saoirse, the chief goddess, even as she fanatically believed in Meve.
It was almost an unfaltering law of the elven
pantheon!
No human or god dared to infringe upon this law.
That was why something like conversion couldn't ever possibly happen.
Then, the only possibility left was the believer dying.
However, if the high-grade believer had indeed died, then their holy brand should also have crumbled instantly, rather than being 'cut off' as Saoirse had mentioned! Didn't that mean that the faith node still existed, but Saoirse was no longer able to use that faith node to communicate with the believer?
No god would tolerate such a matter!
That was why Saoirse's face was already filled with unconcealable emotion, even as she shut her eyes to sense for what had happened.
No one knew when, but twenty-seven such occurrences had already happened one after the other.
The only difference was that Saoirse's true form had been residing high in her god kingdom when it happened before. It had been hard for her to sense this abnormality through the plane barrier clearly.
Gods might be omnipotent, but they weren't omniscient!
Gods might naturally be able to instantly pick up on everything happening to the believers that they were paying attention to. However, when dealing with tens of thousands of ordinary believers, the gods could only afford momentary awareness when they went to temples or altars to pray to them.
Of course, this also required the believer to do something that could attract the god's attention! Otherwise, even the most diligent deity had no interest in paying attention to the thoughts of an ant; no, a sheep.
Yet, it was precisely this phenomenon that caused it to be the darkest under the lamp itself. Saoirse was shocked to find that twenty-seven–no, twenty-eight–of her followers had mysteriously lost their faith connection with her. However, Saoirse was exceedingly sure that they had not died.
It was fortunate that she had cast down a holy will because of the matter of her believer being tortured. Otherwise, this matter of her believer being 'stolen' from her would probably have taken far longer before being uncovered.
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