Saint Viève, always barefoot and dressed in that gold-embroidered white robe that never gathered a speck of dust or a single unnecessary crease, had barely appeared in the space between illusion and reality before she showered the area below with sunlight.
In that instant, the hundred-odd cultists hiding in the shadows all saw the sun.
Golden light filled their eyes, and white-hot Purification Flames suddenly erupted all over their bodies. The flames not only burned their flesh but also purified their spirit bodies, dissolving the power of the boons they had obtained through sacrifices.
In the blink of an eye, these worshippers of an evil god, their faces hidden beneath robes, let out screams that no human throat could produce and began running around the "Tree of Shadow," like so many human torches.
Saint Viève solidified in midair, her body constantly radiating searing light. She paid no further attention to the cultists, whose deaths were inevitable, and turned her emerald eyes toward the enormous crown that was still growing rapidly, as though trying to pierce this space and enter reality. Under her guidance, the sunlight streaming through the spatial rift behind her fell upon the trunk, converging into a brilliant spot impossible to look at directly.
Boom! Flames surged upward. The divine tree, which seemed to hold up the city above and bear the weight of a million people, began burning from the middle of its trunk. These flames were not as hot as those produced by a Hunter's abilities, but flecks of golden starlight representing the authority of purification flickered within them. The brownish-green bark rapidly curled and blackened, the malformed, mucus-seeping tumors on it crumbled to ash, and its seductive petals withered and fell, drained of life.
The Purification Flames continued upward, pursuing the secondary branches that formed