Flame Demon Karl

The moment the ceremony began, Iver felt as if something was blocking his throat.

He was completely unable to speak, and could barely make a sound.

It was like having a dream where I lost my ability to speak.

If you try to resist the effects of the Ritual Array and struggle to speak, you will only suffocate yourself.

Clearly, Iver wasn't the only one restrained. Apart from Sherlock, who was already unconscious, the other three who were conscious also instantly fell silent.

... A collective silence? Iver knew that with so many teammates protecting him... he probably didn't need to worry about General Karl, who was alone.

So before General Karl arrived, Iver went to the window, looked up, and focused intently on the ceremony above him, carefully studying and analyzing its effects.

The ritual set up by Fifth Level Transcender is clearly beyond my ability to stop, as I haven't Path of Transcendence level. However, I can see if there's anything I can utilize.

Three concentric discs of Vermillion runes formed in the sky—a triple incantation written in a mixture of the script of the Herasul Empire and Elvish script.

From the outer circle to the inner circle, it rotates at slow, extremely fast, and fast speeds, in a clockwise, counterclockwise, and clockwise manner.

The crimson runes, spinning like a millstone, emitted an increasingly loud hum, like a machine starting up.

If we analyze those words roughly, they can be translated as. "We call upon the Constant Self, the God of the Oneness of Sacred Number, the God of Death and Rebirth, the God of Long-lasting Ignorance / We call upon the Blood Angel, the Angel of Eternal Feast, the Angel of Endless Thirst / We call upon the Amber Angel, the God of Remembrance, the God of Inscription."

"He who desires immortality and yearns for death will surely become king among kings."

"Binding: Those who have existed for more than 119 years are forbidden to leave this place; Chaos: The flame here is higher than that of others; Inscription: Silence."

This is not any existing ritual.

It was a trap set by General Leo Karl, the Fifth Level Demon Avatar, specifically to capture Shafiya!

Such wide-ranging rituals typically lack the ability to distinguish friend from foe. Or rather, any ritual that incorporates friend-or-foe identification will be significantly less powerful because it is not absolute enough.

The more absolute the requirements of a ritual, the stronger its binding force, just like the terms of a contract.

Therefore, the best approach is to add a condition that just covers the other party's condition while minimizing any impact on your own outcome.

This ritual involves praying to Constant Self, Blood Angel, and Lingpo for power to prevent those with a lifespan greater than 119 years from escaping this place.

Whether it was General Karl or that powerful figure on the Path of Twilight, they were both just ordinary humans. Even Stibium Queen was the same—although she was an immortal Child of the Moon, she wasn't very old. Even considering her lifespan as a human, she was only a little over a hundred years old.

As a half-elf, Shafiya is exactly over 120 years old. Therefore, this restriction only applies to her. Or rather, this number was specifically drawn for her based on intelligence.

Once she met the qualifying standard, the ritual exerted the strongest influence on her.

At the same time, this Ritual Array also increases the priority of "fire" type abilities by half a level—they cannot penetrate higher layers of protection, but can always overwhelm opponents of the same level. Shafiya does not possess fire-type spells; her forte is counter and binding spells.

Therefore, she receives no benefit from the ritual and is instead silenced.

When everyone is silenced, the Law Mage who rely on language to launch attacks suffer the greatest losses—at least much greater than the Demon Avatar.

—Escape is prohibited, flames penetrate, and the masses are silenced.

If it were only Shafiya here, this would be a deadly trap.

In the game's Timeline, this might be the reason for Shafiya's death—she was able to send Isabel out, but not to escort her to the Theocracy. The Griffin Knights dared not pursue her... so she could only have let the Princess escape safely, only to turn back and walk into the trap herself.

But in this timeline, things obviously won't continue this way.

General Karl did not appear immediately after issuing the threat.

About ten seconds later, an abnormal heat suddenly emanated from the Queen's bedroom.

The surrounding space gradually became scorching and distorted, and the plants in the room slowly emitted white smoke and withered rapidly.

Next came the papers.

They all emitted bluish smoke, turned black, curled up, and turned to ashes.

Then came the sheer fabrics, which were torn open with black holes, like spiderwebs, and burned away by the flames that erupted in an instant.

Then there are the wooden floors and beds, with patches of charred black spots floating on them.

The sunlight in the sky became even more dazzling and intense, and the ever-increasing heat caused the air to swirl and distort. The water surface exposed to the outside of the entire Glass Island turned scorching yellow, swirling with earthy yellow eddies, gradually evaporating and drying up. The green plants withered and turned yellow, and the air began to smell an increasingly strong Sulfur odor.

Shafiya took a deep breath and gripped her staff tightly.

"For Her Majesty the Queen! For Avalon!!" she murmured in her heart, a silvery-white light igniting in her eyes. A silvery-white halo appeared deep within her originally deep blue pupils, and her long, pale golden curls moved without wind.

The people who had been thrown into chaos by the unusual phenomenon calmed down again.

A silvery-white ring appeared deep within their pupils, and a clear command surfaced in their minds:

Stay away from the Silver and Tin Palace! The silver triangles atop each streetlamp radiate a sacred, silvery-white glow under the bright daylight, reflecting an authoritative brilliance. Like triangular irons, they chime rhythmically, like signal towers, constantly spreading Shafiya's will.

If you look down at Avalon from above at this moment, you can see a ring of yellowish-brown arid marks spreading outwards from the Silver and Tin Palace.

The Silver and Tin Palace was located on an island in the middle of the lake, and the deep blue lake it stood on, which was as clear and transparent as a gemstone, had turned yellowish-brown. The crowd surged out like ants before a rain, parting in orderly lines of black smoke as they left.

Neither Shafiya nor General Karl used any magic.

This is an unusual phenomenon that naturally occurs when Fifth Level transcendent resonates with the Path Power.

The next moment, a section of the wall reinforced by the preservation technique suddenly bulged and changed color. This wall, which could withstand the full force of Fourth Level superhuman's attack and was stronger than steel, was now curled up like charred and bent steel.

Then, it finally shattered completely!

Countless streams of flame roared in, surging and turbulent like a tsunami.

—Karl was extremely cautious and did not attempt to enter through the main gate. Instead, he completely enveloped the entire palace in scorching flames! His golden pupils burned fiercely, and his upper body clothing was completely ablaze.

His right fist was clenched, and his arms, with their abnormally swollen muscles, were enormous, almost disproportionately thick. A purple glow, belonging to those Path of Transcendence, shimmered on the prominent veins of his forearms and the backs of his hands.

His aged body featured withered, wrinkled skin and clearly visible muscles. His entire body was covered in scars, wounds that looked as if they had been inflicted by a scorching sword.

At this moment, all of Old Karl's wounds seemed to open like passageways or doors.

Golden-red flames flowed from them like bodily fluids, crawling across the walls like living things. From those wounds, one could still see deep red, ember-like flames.

—That was the Fiery Demon Power continuously drawn from his body.

If fully unleashed, the power of his Self-Destruct would be enough to destroy the entire Glass Island.

Even without awakening as a demon... simply by borrowing power from the demon within him, he can be considered an absolute powerhouse.

But when Karl broke through the wall and stepped into the room, the cruel smile on his face suddenly froze, and he was stunned for a moment.

Why are there so many people?