Exorcism

When William finished the grand spectacle of tearing her apart with his bare hands, Catherine suddenly came to her senses as well,

As the Nightmare Master, she had actually been deceived by a tiny idol. Enraged and humiliated, she sent an enormous tentacle crashing straight toward the idol, smashing it on the spot just as she had in the hospital.

Clang!

The tentacle, powerful enough to shatter an iron bar, was blocked by something as it came down.

It had not even landed on the idol. The moment it approached the shrine, a force sent it flying back.

That was not all.

The repulsive force was actually amplified several times over, tearing off the Octopus Tentacle Catherine had used to lash out, roots and all.

This was a part of Catherine's body. With her disease ability missing, she could neither block the pain nor regenerate.

It was as though one of her fingers had been torn off at the root. The agony made all the tentacles on her back sprout out, coil around her body, and send her rolling across the floor.

William's attention, meanwhile, fell on the surface of the shrine, where he vaguely noticed something unusual.

When the tentacle struck, a pale-red barrier seemed to appear over the shrine's surface, with strange characters seemingly drifting across it.

"Another protective layer, something like a force field?"

When William stepped on the torn chunks of flesh and moved forward to examine the shrine,

Bzzz!

The surface of Guanyin the Child-Giver lit up with a burst of red light.

Under the red light's radiation, the flesh that had been torn apart and scattered across the floor began writhing frantically. The cries of infants even rang out in waves.

William immediately realized how serious the situation was and shouted, "Catherine, stop screaming!