What Witch? This Alchemist is Breaking Bad!

Blood! I want blood!

Kill! Kill them!

Under the stimulation of pain and blood loss, the craving for fresh blood and the primal impulses of a Magical Beast further assaulted the last remnants of Weiss’s reason.

When the Knights simultaneously aimed their Guns at her, a sense of crisis surged forth, and the final thread sustaining her sanity was on the verge of snapping.

At that moment, a tremendous crash sounded. The ground bulged upward as a stone wall erupted from below, smashing through the wooden stage and standing directly between the Knights and Weiss.

The sudden change startled the Knights. Someone had already pulled the trigger, but the shot struck the stone wall instead.

It was Archbishop Kulik who had used a Blessing to prevent the accidental discharge from escalating further. At this critical moment, he stopped the Knights from continuing their attack and provoking Weiss.

“Stop! That’s Bishop Weiss! She must have been framed!” Archbishop Kulik shouted hoarsely in desperation.

The nCounty crazed Weiss abruptly awoke at that moment, reclaiming a sliver of reason that had been slipping into the abyss.

She could not think clCounty, but she had already realized she could not remain here—if this continued, she would inevitably lose control and kill someone!

Run! I have to run! I must hold on until this urge subsides!!

She leapt down from the lecture stage, her back to the stone wall summoned by Archbishop Kulik, and fled toward the passage beside the Viewing Stand on the other side, moving with unbelievable speed.

Instinctively, she activated her Witch’s Blessing, “Exhaust Blood.” By controlling the flow of blood within her body, she could temporarily enhance her physical abilities within certain limits and also temporarily control her blood loss.

Archbishop Kulik and the others tried to call out to her, but Weiss could no longer hear anything.

“Stop!” Bishops and Knights rushed down from the Viewing Stand and blocked her path.

Although many people did not fully understand what was happening, they all realized they could not allow Weiss to escape the scene now. Otherwise the situation would spiral completely out of control. None of them knew that Weiss was currently resisting the urge to kill with all her strength.

The terrifying red glow in Weiss’s eyes suddenly brightened, and the power of her Blessing rapidly amplified to the second stage, expanding her domain along with it.

The Church personnel blocking her suddenly felt as though the blood throughout their bodies had frozen. Their hearts twisted in agonizing pain as if clenched by an invisible hand. The intense suffocation made their vision darken. Some dropped to one knee in dizziness as blood seeped simultaneously from their eyes and noses.

When the Blessing of Exhaust Blood reached the second stage, it could affect others within a certain range under the enhancement of her Demonized Humanoid Form. It could trigger various cardiac and respiratory problems. If someone had wounds, it could even manipulate their blood loss. Against ordinary people, it could cause rapid death.

For the Blessing Recipients before her, it would not kill them instantly, but it could still cause immediate disruption or drastically weaken their physical strength for a period of time.

The Magical Potion had driven her Mana out of control, yet it had also greatly strengthened her Witch’s Blessing.

Weiss’s objective was not to kill. Taking advantage of the momentary distraction, she suppressed the impulse to kill and drink blood and rushed through the passage, swiftly vaulting over the Perimeter Wall and escaping the Square.

“Oh my, she held on with sheer willpower? Impressive!” Arachne, the Insect Queen, who had blended into the crowd and fled onto the avenue, turned back and saw the scene. She grinned beneath her veil. “If she had just killed someone and bathed in their blood, it would have been much easier.”

“ ”

“After her!” Bishop Beckett ordered his subordinates to pursue Weiss while he himself leapt down from the Perimeter Wall.

He appeared solemn, yet inwardly he was far more composed than he seemed.

When Weiss fled, he actually still had time to fire another Sniper Shot.

But he deliberately allowed Weiss to escape the Square before the surrounding lockdown was completed.

He wanted Weiss to run. The longer she ran, the better.

He wanted the half-mad Weiss to roam throughout the entire diocese. The fleeing civilians would spread the explosive news, and the wandering Weiss would confirm the rumors. Very soon, the news that Saintess Weiss was a Witch would spread across the Major Diocese, and the Church would no longer be able to suppress it.

Weiss had not begun killing as expected, but that did not matter. As the effects of the Magical Potion progressed, she would inevitably cause trouble somewhere in the city.

As for the possibility of Weiss escaping—there was absolutely none.

With this level of chaos, Cardinal Zeven and the Creator Church would likely have difficulty capturing Weiss and controlling the situation quickly. But even if it took some time, Weiss was alone and isolated. There was no way she could escape one of the Church’s major strongholds.

More importantly, Arachne’s blood had already seeped into Weiss’s body. Within the range of this diocese, Arachne could roughly locate her position. And Arachne also held the badge Bishop Beckett had given her, allowing Beckett to ask at the right moment.

“Bishop Beckett!” Archbishop Kulik shouted to him from the Viewing Stand, attempting to explain the situation.

“Just now—”

“Archbishop Kulik.” This time Bishop Beckett did not even salute the higher-ranking Archbishop. Instead, he interrupted him sternly. “Why did you interfere with our attempt to capture a heretic? It seems you know something about the inside story.”

Archbishop Kulik was momentarily speechless.

In that case, the Rose School was completely finished. Bishop Beckett was already almost certain the plan had succeeded.

Standing on the Raised Platform, the Count Foyle had similar thoughts. The Knights Zeven had left behind kept advising him to move somewhere safe, but the Count insisted on staying to “watch the spectacle a little longer.”

This scene was the result of his painstaking efforts. He had cultivated connections within the Church and planted informants to approach the Rose School. In fact, from the moment Archbishop Rogers’s daughter entered the Church, he had already begun sending people to approach and investigate Weiss Rogers.

After consuming countless resources and years of infiltration, he finally stole the key secret that Weiss was a Witch and laid out this scheme with the support of a Great Witch.

At times like this, he still felt a trace of regret. Archbishop Rogers had been serving in the North and had not come to attend the Holy Spirit Festival.

Of course, if Archbishop Rogers had been beside his daughter, the plan might not have succeeded so smoothly.

But as the one seeking revenge, he stubbornly wished to personally witness the moment when Archbishop Rogers saw his daughter erased by Church Law and his own reputation destroyed—he wanted to see what expression would appear on his face.

“Now it’s your turn to experience the pain of watching someone you love die while being powerless to stop it. Watch how she dies for the Church Law you defended, Bernard Rogers!”

With a hardened expression, the Count Foyle silently tightened his grip on his cane.

“Ugh!” Several minutes later, Weiss—covered in blood—stumbled into an abandoned exhibition hall and collapsed in the main hall from exhaustion.

She could barely recall the memory of fleeing through the streets. Only fragmented images surfaced—terrified faces, screams, and Patrolling Knights rushing from afar—

She had kept running and running, suppressing the murderous impulse with all her strength while staying away from crowds. In the end, she burst into this exhibition hall, which had been closed for renovation.

The hall was empty. Only some artistic statues and suits of Knight armor stood along the walls and the second-floor corridor. When she rushed in, she had not thought much about it—she had only instinctively tried to evade the Knights chasing her.

She had successfully shaken off one group of Knights attempting to intercept her, but the situation had not improved. Even if she could hide here temporarily, it would only be a matter of time before she was discovered.

And she had no energy left to think about that. In her chaotic mind, the thirst for blood and the urge to kill never ceased.

“Someone—please—save me—”

With the last trace of her sanity, she cried helplessly into the empty air.

But no one here could answer her.

As her wandering gaze drifted downward, the Magic Mirror lying on the ground entered her increasingly blurred vision.

At some point, the small pouch tied at her waist had been cut open by something. When she fell Countier, something had slipped out of it.

The moment she saw the Magic Mirror, the face of a man appeared in her mind.

Without allowing herself to think further, she reached out a trembling hand toward the Magic Mirror.

“What’s with these bells?” Leon walked out of the Club where Bishop Beckett had told him to remain on standby.

He had heard the continuous ringing of alarm bells, and judging from the direction of the sound—it was coming from the nearby Creator Church.

After walking a short distance in that direction, he noticed something strange about the atmosphere on the street. People kept running from that direction, their faces full of panic.

He spotted a young man who looked terrified and was running quickly, rushed forward, and grabbed him by the shoulder.

“What happened?” Leon gestured with his eyes for the man to calm down and asked.

“Sir!” The man noticed the Church uniform Leon wore and replied incoherently, “A Witch! It’s a Witch! There were Magical Beasts—so many people died!”

Leon immediately realized the seriousness of the situation and gripped the man tighter.

“Calm down! Tell me clCounty. What happened?”

“I don’t know what happened either—I suddenly saw a cloud of red mist appear. There were red bat-like Magical Beasts flying everywhere, killing people! And then the Saintess of the Creator Church—she turned into a Witch! Silver-white hair, glowing red eyes!!” The young man’s voice trembled uncontrollably.

The more Leon heard, the more shocked he became. He asked a few more questions, but the poor young man who had fled the Square with the crowd knew nothing more. All he knew was that gunshots had sounded at the scene—meaning the Knights had used their weapons.

Weiss? A Witch?

At that moment, Leon suddenly remembered the matter of Weiss’s eye. For an instant, a vague connection flashed through his mind, though he had never seriously considered it before.

What exactly was going on?

Just as he was about to rush toward the Square, he suddenly remembered Bishop Beckett telling him Countier to remain on standby at the Club.

He had been told to wait there at three o’clock. And at three o’clock, the Creator Church incident occurred.

Was that coincidence? Or had it been meant to prevent the uninformed him from getting involved?

And the Count! Leon had heard that the Count had not attended the Holy Spirit Festival for many years, yet this year he came specifically. Surely it was not just to greet him publicly?

And the strong hostility both the Count and Bishop Beckett had always shown toward Weiss Rogers…

Perhaps because of the Creator’s Blessing, countless interconnected memories suddenly linked together in his mind.

Could this matter be related to the Count?

After thinking it through, Leon turned and ran back to the parking area behind the Club. He had brought his own men and Carriage for this trip.

He opened the Carriage and lifted a hidden compartment beneath it. The Carriage had originally been designed for smuggling. Contraband such as Magical Potions could be hidden here and were difficult to discover.

He reached inside and carefully took out a palm-sized Magic Mirror wrapped in black cloth.

He adjusted the angle so the mirror would not reflect himself and slightly lifted the cloth.

A trace of blood-red leaked from the mirror’s surface.

Leon’s heart tightened. He pulled away the cloth completely and glanced from the side.

On the mirror’s surface, bright red bloodstains crookedly formed a single word—

“Help.”