Edrick almost immediately recognized Emily's identity. He had never been to the United States, but he had seen many American blockbusters, and the thick American accent was so distinctive that it was difficult for Edrick not to recognize her.
A transmigrator, another transmigrator?
At the same time, he recalled the white mist that had entered the patriarch's body earlier, which was clearly the same thing as the thick white fog surrounding the Sanctum of the Village Deity.
It seemed that this thing was standard equipment for transmigrators. As for the relationship between the white mist and the transmigrators, he would have to explore that later. Perhaps he could find a way to return to Earth.
However, he didn't have time to think about that now. He had to act immediately. It was hard to tell if the new transmigrator was friend or foe. If she also obtained the fragments of the Patriarch's memories, then it was very likely that she would regard him and the wraiths as enemies.
After all, in the eyes of that transmigrator, Edrick and the wraiths were natives of this world, and Edrick had no intention of revealing his identity for the time being.
Rule number two of the guide to surviving in a different world: hide your transmigrator identity. If you don't keep your mouth shut, you'll die.
"Help me break the seal!" the wraith urged again. This time, Edrick didn't hesitate. The new transmigrator was so lucky that Edrick envied her. She had just arrived and already had the most prestigious identity and powerful strength. At this moment, releasing the wraiths would allow the two sides to check and balance each other.
"How?" Edrick asked.
"Overthrow the twelve petrified statues!"
Edrick acted decisively. Each statue was over two meters tall, weighing over a hundred pounds, with a sturdy base. It would take two or three ordinary people to topple one, but Edrick's physique was far superior. He took a deep breath, tensed his arms, and with a powerful push, toppled one statue in a single motion.
As the statue hit the ground, spider-web-like cracks appeared along the edges of the base, and a faint red glow seeped out.
The head of the second statue hit the ground first, and as the crown rolled off, it sparked, illuminating the blurry runes in the statue's pupils.
Emily watched the man knock over the statues one by one, a look of confusion in her eyes.Having inherited a large amount of fragmented memories in a short period of time, she hadn't fully processed them yet and needed to sort them out bit by bit. After all, the Patriarch had lived for three or four decades and had seen many storms in his life; the memories in his mind were far more complex and vast than Edrick's.
But the sound of the statues hitting the ground was like a heavy hammer striking her heart. It seemed like an ominous sign, warning her that she must stop this man!
The base of the third holy image was unusually sturdy, and Edrick dug his nails into the stone cracks for leverage. With a thunderous crash, all the candlesticks on the wall erupted simultaneously, the flames turning from yellow to purple, casting his shadow on the stone wall, distorted into the shape of a guillotine.
"Stop, give it to me!" Emily pointed at Edrick and shouted, while her hand subconsciously swung the crozier—she didn't know why she did it, but something told her that this was the normal thing to do to stop Edrick.
Nothing happened. Edrick continued to run toward the fourth statue, because the crozier in Emily's hand was completely broken. Even though Emily's injuries had been completely healed, the prop itself could not be repaired.
As the fourth statue collapsed, Edrick heard a heartbeat coming from inside the stone. He stumbled backward, seeing black mucus seeping from the cracks, pooling on the ground to form the emblem of the Church's Inquisitors.In the mist of the vaporizing slime, he caught a glimpse of Hannah and Miryam washing clothes in a slum shack. The steam was mixed with the smell of stone powder, and for a moment, he couldn't tell if it was a memory or an illusion.
Emily glanced down at the crozier in her hand: the crystal was cracked, with obvious cracks visible on the surface, and the decorative parts of the holy robe had fallen off, exposing the rusted metal skeleton inside.
Her mind subconsciously mobilized the corresponding fragments of memory to help her detect the state of the crozier. She could determine that the internal structure was damaged and the core rune matrix was disordered, causing the transmission of divine power to be blocked and the automatic spellcasting function to be unusable. Moreover, intermediate and advanced spells could not be used either. Perhaps with her mastery of the lowest-level Holy Spells and her superior Ethercraft, she would be able to cast the lowest-level Holy Spells.
"Sancta Lux in nomine Dei, emitte vim! Impetus divinus, frange mendacium et saxa!" Emily recited a spell she had never heard before. The severely damaged crozier emitted a creaking sound as it struggled to conduct the magic, then shot a shock wave toward Edrick.
The shockwave was too fast to dodge, and the fifth holy statue collapsed with a crash. Edrick and Emily exchanged glances, quickly realizing what had happened: casting a spell was one thing, but aiming was another entirely.
But this didn't faze Emily. At 13, she had won the junior division of the Texas Junior Precision Shooting Championship in the 10-meter air rifle event with a score of 248.3 points. She missed her CZ 455 rifle.
After correcting the trajectory, the second magic shockwave struck Edrick's position with pinpoint accuracy, but he had taken cover behind a holy statue, and the sixth statue collapsed.
He couldn't delay any longer. Edrick felt that it was about time. Breaking the normal seal was enough. He wasn't worried that this wraith could really cause much trouble. After all, there were at least 800 priests near the cathedral. However, if the wraith completely broke free from the seal, he would be the first to run away, leaving himself here to die.
He needed a target, not to be the target himself.
The wraith was obviously aware of this, but it had never expected this cunning kid to help it break all the seals. Now that half of the seals had been broken, it could mobilize more power. It was no longer just one hand; half of its body was already out of its sealed cage.
Edrick heard the dull clanking of gears grinding together from beneath the ground, sounding exactly like the turning of the gallows in the church dungeon.The upper half of the wraith finally squeezed out of the crack in the seal, and with a loud scraping sound as its shoulder armor scraped against the stone wall, he saw that its chest was filled with gears and chains, and a rusty spring was still connected to half a rotten lung, spewing black mist mixed with iron filings with every breath.
The wraith's throat was a twisted copper pipe that sprayed sparks when it spoke. "Can you smell it? The fear of those priests above is sweeter than holy oil."
Half of its body was rotted beyond recognition, with the right shoulder still hanging a half-severed bishop's robe, the golden threads embroidering the sacred emblem reduced to ragged edges.
The muscles of the left arm had turned into a black, oily paste, revealing the mechanical skeleton beneath. The gears at the knuckles still clicked and turned, and each fingertip dripped with a viscous fluid mixed with bone fragments.
The most terrifying part was its face: the left side was well preserved, even retaining traces of the gold powder makeup it had worn in life, but the right side was nothing but a skeleton, with two gears embedded in the eye sockets that turned in opposite directions, making a sound like fingernails scraping a blackboard with every rotation.
The lower half of the wraith was still stuck in the crack, entangled in chains, each link engraved with the name of a church judge.The chains were breaking one by one, revealing a writhing tentacle-like object underneath. It was neither flesh nor metal, but some kind of breathing shadow
. Edrick was in no mood to care whether the wraith could completely break free from its seal, because the sound of noisy footsteps came from behind the bronze door. Clearly, the priests had gathered and were rushing underground.
The bronze door could no longer be opened. Fortunately, there was a passageway behind the seal leading to an unknown destination. Behind the bronze door lay the terrifying mechanical demons, and anything deeper must be even more horrifying. But Edrick had no choice; he could only continue deeper into the underground.
Neither the wraiths nor the patriarch stopped him, not because they didn't want to, but because there was no need.
Emily was breathing slowly, seemingly adjusting to her new body while sorting through the patriarch's memories.
The wraiths struggled to break free from more seals before the monks arrived, as this was their only chance of surviving the coming battle.
Unfortunately, they had not collected more Faith Essence. As they walked along the seemingly endless passageway into the darkness, even someone as slow as Edrick could sense a force similar to the pollution of the Lord Below trying to invade his consciousness.
This was a powerful defensive measure that didn't even require guards. Ordinary people couldn't even get close to this place without going mad from the contamination. However, the Mind Cleansing Spell that Edrick had just acquired automatically activated, completely eliminating the spiritual contamination. It was indeed a divine spell with outstanding effects.
This allowed Edrick to walk through the passageway as if nothing had happened. At this moment, Edrick felt a little regretful, but he was also a little puzzled.
"The body of the chief priest has also been taken over by a Transmigrator, right?" Edrick's consciousness asked the Flower Maiden and the Wealth-Scattering Lad in the Sanctum of the Village Deity.
"It's obvious," replied the Flower Maiden.
Sure enough, there wasn't just one Transmigrator.
Edrick nodded and continued, "In a city as big as Stellaxis, I happened to encounter another Transmigrator. I'm afraid there are quite a few Transmigrators here, right?"
"Not as many as you think. There are only one or two each year. The reason you encountered them is because transmigrators are attracted to each other," explained the Wealth-Scattering Lad in more detail. "You are all the successors of deities."
Edrick looked at the ruined Sanctum of the Village Deity in his consciousness space. He knew that what the Wealth-Scattering Lad meant by "heirs" must refer to the ruins of this temple. "There was once a group of deities, but they were defeated in a war, and the legacy they left behind became the power of the transmigrators. Is that correct?"
"You're quite quick-witted, kid. Your current level isn't high enough, so you're not qualified to know the secrets of ancient times. All you need to know is that the environment in which transmigrators survive is even more difficult." The Flower Maiden nodded approvingly. "We don't know the specific situation of the others, but in our temple, there were already two or thirty transmigrators before you, and without exception, they all died."
As if to confirm Flower Maiden's words, a shrill voice came from deep within the dark passageway: "Isn't that Lucas? Then who is this fool who dares to come here?"