Release that Witch

Mayne stood on top of an arched hillside, overlooking the city ahead of him from a distance.

Last time, Wolfsheart city’s walls had looked far different from what it looked like now – the walls were built with stones from the Kingdom of Eternal Winter appearing clean and white, just like the teeth of a newborn wolf. However, within just three months’ time, its appearance had been completely changed. Breakages had been filled with the local black boulders and the gaps which they couldn’t mend in time had been blocked with wooden palisades, the blood-soaked stone had lost its pure white color, and turned into a reddish brown instead.

Looking from the distance, the current walls looked rough and seemed to be covered with dirt, like wolf teeth that had experienced years of wind and frost. Compared with its prior appearance, they now looked more like the teeth of a ravening predator – like the time when they were tearing their prey apart, which was the most fearsome sight to humans.

The Church’s army had set up their camp about 2,5 miles outside of Wolfsheart City. In order to prevent the former Queen of Clear Water from raiding the Old Holy City, they hadn’t brought along the same size as last time. The Army of Judges and the baggage teams were both around five thousand people, while the God’s Punishment Army had a total of nearly eight hundred or so. However, with their secret siege weapon and the purified, Mayne had full confidence that they would be able to clear out this nest of wolves.

“Your Excellency, the Siege Beast is in place and ready to attack.” A priest came to the top of the hill to report to him.

“What’s the status of the Purified who are controlling it?”

“They are also prepared to launch.”

Mayen lifted the observation mirror and looked toward the direction of the ‘Siege Beast’ – only to see two fearsome steel beasts lying within the farmland two miles away from the city walls, both sides were surrounded with obstruction boards and had a grass covered roof over them. If you didn’t take a careful look, it would be difficult to detect this ferocious weapon with its uncanny shape.

Moving his line of sight forward, he saw a lineup of the God’s Punishment Army. These were the transformed soldiers of the Church’s most devoted believers, standing straight in the autumn wind, all of them motionless. Only when the enemy fought against them would they really be able to understand just how terrifyingly powerful these extraordinary warriors were. Unfortunately, they couldn’t act autonomously and would only act according to the orders issued by the commander during battle. However, the commander has never appeared publicly in the Church, and during battle would fight from within the ranks, disguised as a member of the God’s Punishment Army. So, except for the three Archbishops and the Pope, there was no one who knew his true identity.

“Very good,” Mayne said as he nodded in satisfaction. “Return to your position and wait for the attack horn to sound.”

“Yes, Your Excellency.”

His next task was to meet with the Purifieds that the Pope had sent.

When he thought of those two witches, he could not help but frown, they were as different as black and white compared to the other witches of the Church, even during the march to fight they were still carrying on with their own things. If they were one of his own Purifieds, they would already have been punished with a flogging, but the position of these two and Archbishop Mayne were on equal footing, so he wasn’t allowed to direct them. His Holiness had only sent these two Purifieds to ‘provide assistance’ during the battle, not to ‘obey’ his orders.

But he also knew, if he wanted to completely eradicate all of the hidden dangers he was going to have to depend on their powers.

The Archbishop went down the hill and stopped in front of a tent outside the camp. But when he opened the curtain, the bedstraws were unsurprisingly empty.

“Zero and Isabella?” He asked the judge standing at the entrance.

“The two Ladies are currently interrogating the captives, they should be at the east side of the camp now,” the judge said. “There is a flat open space there, you can see it immediately when you get there. Or do you want me to go and call them back?”

If it would be enough to send you to call them, I wouldn’t have needed to come here to begin with. But they are playing with the captives again… aren’t they tired of playing? “No, it’s alright, I will look for them myself.”

…

He soon found the place the guard had told him of.

Only to see two women stand in the center of a level ground. One of them was leaning forward, her head next to the ears of three prisoners whose hands were tied together, and whispering something to them. The expression on her face was gentle but focused, her white long hair and her robe was dancing in the wind, just like a flawless spirit. The other woman possessed an impressive figure and had a head full of golden curly hair, and from time to time she would release a sweet-sounding and clear laugh.

“Have the surrounding Judges immediately vacate the area.” Mayne instructed his personal guard to send instruction to the Presiding Judge, “The same is true for the people responsible for looking after the captives, tell them that there is no more need for them to look after them.”

“As you bid.”

At this moment, the blond witch also noted their arrival, she informed her partner and quickly walked over.

“Your Excellency,” the blond witch said while giving a slight bow, “Why did you drive the audience away? The trial was just about to begin.”

“Ms. Isabella,” he nodded back, “The all-out attack on Wolfsheart City is about to begin, so interrogating the prisoners has become meaningless now. Furthermore, these people can’t tell us more than the other spies we’ve caught along the way, and that was only a pathetic amount of news. If possible, I hope you and Zero can immediately rush over to the front line.”

“Don’t worry, since we are already here, we couldn’t let such an important enemy just walk away,” Isabella said while spreading out her hands. “As for the trial… there is nothing I can do to stop her. How about, you can just act as the audience, it won’t take them that long anyway.”

“The same as before?”

“Well, the rules will be basically the same,” she laughed, “Zero really likes this kind of game.”

“If it’s like that then quickly get started.” Damn it! Even though Mayne’s face became expressionless, inwardly he was burning with anger. Speaking of this judgement game, it would be more appropriate to look at it as a cat playing with a mouse. The captives had to escape a predefined range or defeat the witch, only by doing this could they obtain a slim chance of survival – and this chance to live was extremely slim, but the bait was still good enough to lure out the mouse. It already seemed difficult to achieve, but in fact, it was something they would never be able to reach.

The reason for scattering the Judges who were responsible for safeguarding and monitoring the Purifieds was that the upcoming process couldn’t be considered as entirely fair or just. The other’s action wasn’t in accordance with the behavior of Purified, so seeing this, he was afraid that it might waver their faith in the Church.

Just wait until I take over the position of the Pope, at that time I will have to teach them the importance of obediently following orders.

At this moment, Zero had already freed the prisoners from the ropes and spread out her hands to show that she wasn’t wearing any weapon on her body. While in front of the prisoners there laid a sword, a machete, and a light crossbow.

“Come on, fight or run, just follow your hearts,” Zero said with a gentle tone. “Only God can issue a ruling.”

One of them clenched his teeth then suddenly picked up the crossbow from the ground and directly shot an arrow at the Purified. Not even looking whether he had hit, his other hand had already taken hold of the sword as he tried to seize the opportunity to rush forward and chop out horizontally. This whole set of actions were executed in one smooth movement, clearly a skill that was impossible for militia.

However, the captive cut through nothing but empty air. The Purified had simply taken two steps back and easily avoided the surprise attack. When the captive came to a stop and raised his head, he couldn’t suppress a short flicker of surprise when he saw that the other was holding the arrow with her teeth, as if she was chewing on a harmless branch.

Zero spit out the arrow, waved at the captive, and with a smile, she said, “Please, carry on.”

The captive stared blankly at her, his hands trembling slightly. Mayne could see that all the courage he’d gathered with such difficulty had already left him again, even if the fight were to continue, it would only for last for one more exchange.

Sure enough, after hesitating for a moment, the captive raised his head and roared like a wild boar. Then raised his sword and darted toward the unarmed woman.

But this attempt was too stiff, even with closed eyes, Mayne could guess at the result – just within his half a lunar cycle long contact with Zero, Mayne had already become aware that her powers were almost limitless. Even though she wasn’t an extraordinary, she still possessed innate battle skills not inferior to them. These skills weren’t in her supernatural strength or resistance, but rather in her extremely skillful technique.

Even if she couldn’t use any magic, she was still a dreadful enough soldier.

The witch moved her body slightly to the side, easily avoiding the opponent’s hack. Then her pair of seemingly fragile hands clamped the prisoner’s head, and using his forward momentum, she softly moved it. This slight flick only released a light cracking sound, but as if the other side had suddenly lost all the bones in his body, he immediately became limp and fell to the ground.

She turned her head and looked to the two remaining captives then said, “Now, it’s your turn.”