Release that Witch

The upper level of the Pivotal Secret Temple was brightly lit up with dozens of Magic Stones that made the circular library as bright as day. When one was in this room, it was difficult to believe that it was underground.

This area was equivalent to the Tower of Babel of the Hermes Cathedral above ground, and it was Zero’s favorite place. She could easily see all of the Pivotal Secret Area through the window. Watching over the figures bustling around the God’s Stone of Punishment Pillar like ants, she felt a great joy in having control over all of these lives. It was as if she was the Lord of the Kingdom of God, and the people walking slowly in the dark were the believers that built the kingdom.

When she had free time, she would take a book containing the history and secrets of the Union from a shelf and read it by the window. Of course, she also had to have a cup of black tea with coltsfoot in it next to her.

After she became the Pope, Zero was actually more relaxed. She did not worry about the impending Battle of Divine Will, but looked forward to it. After more than 200 years, her life had become quite dull, and the Senior Demons that were recorded to be unbeatable seemed like exciting opponents. ”I wonder if I take them into the Soul Battlefield, will they still be as fearless and terrifying as they appear?”

However, this battle was still years away, so she needed to set a new goal for herself to pass the time.

There were few people Zero concerned, and Roland Wimbledon happened to be one of them... he was the only mortal to interest her so far.

He was belittled by everyone, but he came out on top after the Royal Decree on the Selection of Crown Prince, fighting extremely well with his tiny territory against two strong contenders for the throne. This was undoubtedly very rare. Also, she discovered some interesting clues in Garcia’s memories.

The Queen of Clearwater once placed a maid next to Prince Roland to feed him a deadly poison, but it completely failed, and then the furious queen executed the unlucky alchemist who made the poison. However, Zero had a member of the Secret Pivotal Area replicate the poison according to the recipe in her memories, and the product turned out to be just as the alchemist had promised. It was odorless, colorless, soluble in water, deadly upon intake and incurable.

”So, did the maid deceive Garcia, or is the current Roland Wimbledon not the same Prince Roland as before?” According to the information she had gathered, Zero was more inclined to the second guess. ”The question is... if he isn’t Prince Roland, who is he? Why no one doubted his identity before?” The more she pondered on this issue, the more intrigued she became. He was able to change his ways to earn the love of all his subjects, single-handedly redistribute the power in the Western Region, and make both the church’s emissary delegation and crazed army disappear... If such a man was simply the lord of a small territory, it would really be a pity.

Thus, Roland Wimbledon had to be included as a member of the church, or in other words, become part of her. Zero could not help but lick her lips. It was also why she changed the sequence of attack. If her guesses were correct, then conquering the Kingdom of Graycastle would bring in more benefits than she could imagine.

Of course, as a lord with great authority, he would stay behind the lines during battles, so it was important to figure out how to force him out.

Just as Zero was contemplating how to avoid the direct battle and go straight to Roland, Isabella pushed open the library door and walked in.

”Is the meeting over?”

”Yes.” She rubbed her neck. ”Lucky you, sitting here reading and sipping tea all day, while I have to lie to those old men... no, it’s actually one old man and two madmen.”

”It’s not simply lying. It concerns the operations of the church’s lower level,” Zero said with a shrug. ”Although witches are the actual core of the church, without these men, we wouldn’t be able to collect so many resources to achieve our ultimate goal.”

”Whatever.” Isabella yawned. ”Anyways, they said that we have to wait until the second month of this summer for the resources to attack the Kingdom of Dawn to be relocated to the battle against the Kingdom of Graycastle, and even this is an optimistic estimate.

”This amount of time isn’t too long, but it isn’t short either,” thought Zero, ”so the wait will both be torturous and make the reward even more enjoyable.” ”How’s the pill production going?”

”I think there are about 300,000 to 400,000 pills in storage right now,” replied Isabella. ”But do you really plan to send all the civilians to battle against the demons? Millions of people would completely exhaust all of Hermes’s resources. Also...”

”Also what?”

”Also we might not win.” She shook her head. ”There are so many people that they’ll cause trouble no matter where we place them. Not to mention, their days are numbered after they eat the first pill, so what if the demons don’t attack us in time? If we feed too few, then they’re useless; if we feed too many, we might waste them. Even if the demons all attack at once and are defeated by the crazed army, these people won’t be able to fight anymore.”

”You don’t understand.” Zero stood up, walked over to a large table, and lifted the cover off of it, revealing a map of the Wild Places. ”I never planned to use the crazed army to protect Hermes, and the location for the final battle should be somewhere on the Fertile Plains... I think it’ll probably take place at the ruins of the Holy City of Taquila, since it’s closest to us.” She pointed at a spot on the map.

”Do you want to... initiate an attack?” Isabella froze in shock.

”We’re desperately lacking time,” said Zero calmly. ”I’ve never dreamed of completely wiping out the demons. The Holy Book says that only when the Bloody Moon arrives and the Gates of Hell open can the demons build a black spire. Actually, the spire isn’t built... it grows.”

”Are you saying that those stones are actually alive?” Isabella asked in disbelief.

”This information can only be found in the personal notes of the Union’s Three Chiefs... the demons’ expansion depends on the black spire’s ability to produce Red Mist, and currently spires are founded in areas with many God’s Stone mineral veins, so their range of influence will continue to grow. In the beginning of the Second Battle of Divine Will, an Extraordinary once led a division of soldiers to approach the Red Mist area underground, and they found a startling sight—an enormous monster was writhing under the spire, and its body was even larger than the Taquila tower itself,” Zero said slowly. ”That enormous monster was decomposing God’s Stone and turning it into black crystals, which gave off Red Mist. Considering the demons had Chaos Beasts that turned God’s Stones into Magic Stones, it wasn’t difficult to comprehend that they also had this kind of ability.”

”...” Isabella opened her mouth and finally spat. ”That’s disgusting.”

”Unfortunately, once the spire is formed, small surprise attacks will be ineffective, so our best bet is to attack them directly. I don’t know how long it takes for the decomposed God’s Stone to grow out of the ground, but it probably doesn’t happen overnight. During this time, demons can only transport Red Mist from their backup resources, so they’ll have very limited strength. We need to use a crazed army that is large enough to defeat the demons to create a path, so the God’s Punishment Army can kill the underground monster,” said Zero with great conviction. ”If we’re lucky enough, we’ll buy ourselves another 400 years.”