Whispering Verse

"No, you can't turn it on anymore."

When Shade and Tifa completely entered the area circled by black pen ink on the map, Shade suddenly said.

Tifa was riding a horse, so Shade observed the erosion state of the [Dark Box]. Now more than half of the surface area of ​​the box had turned into light-absorbing black. Shade felt that this was already a warning line.

"OK."

Tifa stopped her horse so Shade could close the box again. But as the undead creature that had been running for two and a half hours stopped, it was broken into a pile of bones and scattered in the dark woods.

"It's reached its limit."

Tifa said with some annoyance, supporting Shade to prevent him from falling, while Shade hurriedly knelt down and closed the [Dark Box] again.

"It doesn't matter, we are not far from our destination."

Shade said, holding the map and holding his glowing finger close:

"Although the area of ​​the [Dark Realm] can be expanded infinitely, the area in the core area is very small. If there are no mistakes, even if we leave, we can see Miss Carina in about twenty minutes."

"I get a weird feeling around here."

Tifa put the box on her back, whispered to Shade, and then took his hand. It was through this kind of physical contact that the unknown silver moonlight on Shade's body could help her weaken the influence of darkness. Entering the core area of ​​angel-level relics, even Tifa was almost reaching her limit.

The feeling of being peeped by something became clearer in this area, and at the same time, the afterimages of the past in the air became increasingly dense. In the heart of the dark realm, unimaginable things have definitely happened.

"Be careful, go this way."

Shade looked at the map, and then walked with Tifa in the black forest. The silver halo has a strange feeling in the darkness. When it reflects the surrounding scenery, it seems to make the vision a little blurry.

Shade thought about what might happen for a while, and thought about the power he could use in his hands. A voice suddenly rang in her ears. Because of the strong blasphemous elements in this area, she had not given any new information for a long time:

[Foreigners, watch your rear. 】

"What?"

Subconsciously, he turned around to break out the moonlight, but what he saw was a familiar face appearing like lightning. Before Shade spoke, he passed by the two of them, as if he didn't notice Shade and Tifa at all.

"That's...Mr. Hog Rendell, the sun sword of the Church of the Sun?"

Tifa recognized who it was.

"Yes, it's a phantom."

Shade said with certainty that the voice in his ears would not be wrong in judging the target at close range.

"In other words, the darkness in the core area can already record phantoms in a short period of time?"

Tifa asked.

"That's probably true, but what is he doing running so fast?"

Shade thought in confusion, and then continued to move forward with Tifa. During this period, more real phantoms appeared one after another, most of which were ring magicians of the church. Shade and Tifa even saw the phantoms of Ivan Darkness and Hermons the Bloodweeper once.

Continue forward to leave the forest corrupted by darkness and enter a small rural village where even sleeping people cannot be found. This is almost the source of the appearance of the [Dark Realm]. The villagers have long been melted by the darkness, and there are hidden servants wandering around the village.

The house was gnawed by the darkness and was dilapidated, and the walls had turned pitch black. This place was even scarier than the ghost village in the mountains that Shade had heard Mr. Riddle describe.

Careful to avoid the demon, even if it accidentally attracts the attention of a few individuals, Shade and Tifa can still barely avoid it. After leaving the village and standing on the field ridge, looking up into the distance, Xia De actually vaguely saw a pillar in the depths of darkness that seemed to support the world. But because the darkness was too deep, he was not sure whether it was the imagination he had given to the darkness.

"Tifa, can you still hold on?"

He turned around and asked the black-haired girl. Although the maid looked a little worse, she was much better than when Luvia arrived at Miss Carina's manor:

"No problem, I feel that the lady should be nearby."

There are only thirteen witches in the Sixth Age. The other women with witch powers are all powered by witches. Tifa's witch power is from the same source as Miss Carina, and there is a certain degree of telepathy between the two.

"Okay, let's go small next..."

Before he finished speaking, a dazzling golden light burst out from the fields shrouded in darkness not far away. Because his eyes had adapted to the darkness, when the light suddenly appeared, tears almost immediately fell from Shade's eyes.

Shade heard the sound, a deafening sound:

[When the heavy sword falls, the blazing sun will shine on the earth. 】

"Words of sublimation!?"

Before he could react, Tifa stopped in front of Shade.

The hot golden light struck, almost violently sweeping away all the filth in this land.

"Epee, falling, blazing sun, shining, earth. Believers of the God of the Sun and Earth [Old Man with the Lamp], the sublimated words of the Thirteen-ring Warlock's Great Sword of Sunshine!"

Shade, who was blocked behind by Tifa, heard what she was saying. Even though her back was in front of him, he could feel that the surroundings were getting brighter and brighter, and the surrounding scenery was changing.

"We have been affected by the aftermath of the Word of Sublimation. Don't touch Shade. We must not enter the range of the Word of Sublimation."

Fuzzy golden steps appeared behind Tifa and Shade, but their power was not enough to compete with the thirteen-ring warlock's words of sublimation.

"Word of sublimation? Space stabilizing halo!"

Invisible fluctuations spread from Shade's feet to the surroundings, and when combined with the witch's power, the light shining in the surrounding environment immediately subsided. The Word of Ascension has a partially spatial power, and Shade, who was on the edge of the influence of this powerful power, barely managed to avoid being pulled in along with Tifa.

Darkness reoccupied the place. The maid seemed to be injured. She snorted and was supported by Shade.

"Is this the power of the Thirteen Rings?"

Shade took out a container of water to help her treat her. At this time, a bright light suddenly flashed high in the sky. Then, two faint points of light appeared in the dark sky. One is golden and the other is blood-red, and they both fall to an area far away from the core area, as if they are still chasing each other.

"The Sunshine Sword won."

Tifa said softly, her face recovering quickly under the silver light, her eyes staring in the direction where the two light spots disappeared.

"I'm not surprised. If the Bloodweeper could compete with the top thirteen-ring warlocks of the Righteous God Church, he wouldn't have been hiding in the New World for so many years. It seems that Darkness and the Bloodweeper separated because of the church's obstruction. We Then we set off, and there seemed to be other things ahead, and the nearby elements were really chaotic."

Shade said, confirming that Tifa's condition was not bad, and the two of them continued to move forward.

It is completely impossible to tell what was originally planted in this field. The corrosion of darkness has turned all the plants in this area into mud-like things. You can even feel that your shoes are being corroded when you step on them.

Immediately after walking forward, the black stains that originally appeared on the ground, like lichen or table salt, began to accumulate into small black crystals, becoming larger and larger as they moved forward.

"Very pure element of profanity."

Shade took the risk and touched the terrifying black crystals with his hand. Then the color of his fingertips quickly darkened, but was quickly dissipated by the light from his fingertips.

"This is top-notch alchemy material. Why is it that every time something big happens, there are a lot of alchemy materials."

He sighed and collected some with the small bottle he had with him.

Tifa looked forward anxiously. She seemed to feel that Miss Carina was in a bad situation at this time. Just before meeting the big red-haired witch, Shad and Tifa met another group of strange women.

The women travel together, and each is dressed in exactly the same way.

The upper body is a white gauze dress with unusually large sleeves, and the hem almost reaches the knees. The lower body is a black floor-length skirt. There is no decoration on the skirt. The black belt around the waist tightly ties the coat and skirt together.

But what caught Shade's attention even more was that these women all covered their eyes with silver metal eye masks. But if you look carefully, those eye patches with fine patterns carved on them are clearly crowns, but they wear the crowns too downward.

There were nine of them in total, walking together in the darkness. Obviously no relics could be seen, and no thaumaturgy or spells could be felt at work, but the women were still enveloped in a white light.

The white light was distributed very evenly, as if they were glowing by themselves.

The two sides were quite far apart, and only Shade could still observe them. Shade described his discovery to Tifa, and Tifa immediately smiled:

"It's the nuns, the nuns of the [Spiritual Order]."

"Spiritual Order?"

Shade knew about this ring warlock organization.

Although they are called a "sect", in fact they do not have a unified belief. Instead, they believe in animism and therefore revere nature, life and death.

This organization is active in the eastern part of the Old World. Its members are mainly women. Most of them live a simple life and like to help women deliver babies. Some child welfare organizations and hospitals are related to them. They often promote some environmental protection ideas, so they have some friction with the promoters of the steam revolution [Church of Creation and Destruction], but they still belong to a relatively moderate group of ring wizards.

Covering your eyes with a blindfold is a characteristic of the ring magicians of the [Spiritual Cultivation Order]. The order believes that covering your eyes can not only expand your "spiritual sense" and allow you to better perceive the spirituality of the world, but also be able to Your own spirituality is locked in your body, allowing you to better control the power of the four elements.