Claw Nest, Underground Cavern

Claw Nest, underground cavern.

The magic screen floating in midair abruptly came to a halt.

With Luo Er's soul vanishing, the imaging magic lost its vessel as well, making it impossible to transmit any more images.

Bishop Eugenia, along with the players imprisoned and detained in the iron cage, had seen only this final scene.

The girl at the center naturally hadn't escaped unscathed either. Her brown-gray coarse linen clothes still bore quite a few bloodstains, while her left hand hovered in midair, frozen in the position of curling all five fingers inward and clenching them into a fist.

If one didn't know what had happened before this,

anyone who saw such a scene would feel a shudder at the sight of a girl who clearly looked so young, with childish innocence not yet faded from her face, being so bloody and brutal. The immense contrast was enough to make anyone tremble.

But if they knew what had led up to it...

"Tut." A clicking sound, as though she had discovered something extremely interesting, came from the woman dressed in a bishop's robe.

She was clearly Luo Er's superior and the Fire God Cult's representative in Huodian City. The subordinate her organization had sent out had been wiped out, and the mage leading them had even had his head crushed by someone, dying as thoroughly as one could.

Yet this Bishop appeared not to care in the slightest, as though those dead people had nothing to do with her.

What's more, she didn't even glance at Luo Er. Instead, all her attention and gaze were focused on Vivian.

Suddenly, the woman's red lips moved slightly, as though she were imitating the shape of the girl's mouth as she spoke her final words in the image.

"Witch?"

Once she had figured out what Vivian had actually said,

Pfft.

Pffft!

"Gigglegigglegiggle."

As though she had heard the funniest joke in the world, the woman sitting in the bishop's chair couldn't hold herself together at all. She clutched her stomach and laughed nonstop, her whole body trembling.

"How interesting."

"It's really too interesting!"

The remaining Fire God Cult followers in the nest knelt before the woman and exchanged bewildered glances, not understanding what was wrong with their Bishop.

One of the bolder and more observant believers hurried forward to ask her.

"B-Bishop, should we report this to the church and have them quickly send reinforcements from Huodian City?"

Boom!

A powerful burst of magic instantly erupted from the woman's hand. A scorching fireball, accompanied by tremendous impact, sent the believer who had just stepped forward to make his suggestion flying before he could finish speaking.

The cavern shook violently. Countless pieces of rubble fell, and the rock wall was blasted inward by the Fireball, leaving a huge crater.

The disturbance caused by a second-tier spell was so great that even Terror Claw, the Magic Tyrannosaurus, who had been hypnotized into sleep by secret arts, twitched his eyelids, as if he were showing signs of waking.

As for that unfortunate believer,

he had already been killed by the Fireball so thoroughly that not even his ashes remained.

Whoosh!

The remaining believers immediately lowered their kneeling heads even farther. Every one of them trembled, afraid that they would be the next to suffer.

"Listen carefully." The woman shook the hand that had just thrown out a Fireball.

"Call back everyone who is outside on guard duty, as well as everyone still beyond the forest. Every single one of you will stay obediently inside the nest. You are not allowed to go anywhere else. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Bishop!"

After doing all this and dismissing her subordinates, the woman lazily reclined in the bishop's chair, her fingers tapping against it in a steady rhythm.

"Since you have so much potential..."

"I'll help you out this time, then." The woman murmured to herself.

"After all..."

At this point, the woman paused. Her beautiful golden pupils began to change strangely, turning gray. Along with them came an aura completely different from that of the Fire God Cult's Bishop.

Evil and dark.

"After all, who told us both to be Witches? Though you only gave yourself that title. Pfft. I can't take it anymore—you're just too cute. Gigglegigglegiggle."

The iron cage imprisoning the players was set into the rock wall.

The cage continued shaking from the aftershock of the woman's Fireball.

"Boss, it looks like these Fire God Cult people have started fighting among themselves!" Although the players inside the iron cage were imprisoned, their vantage point allowed them to see everything happening throughout the nest clearly.

They couldn't hear what the female Bishop was saying very well, but judging from her actions, the players guessed that Luo Er's failure had enraged her. She had begun taking her anger out on her subordinates, venting her frustration—and hadn't she just blasted one of them to death?

"Hahaha, that damned bitch! Serves her right!" Chang Lu Man Man laughed loudly and slapped the board in approval.

From the Fire God Cult assassins' encounter with Vivian and the others to the battle between the Fire Mage Luo Er and the girl, the mood of Chang Lu Man Man's group had risen and fallen like a roller coaster.

They had first been delighted by the tremendous magic Vivian suddenly unleashed. Then they had been so furious that they pounded their chests when the girl did nothing but defend and ultimately let Luo Er escape.

But who could have expected such a dramatic turnaround? Little Wolf beside the girl had brought Luo Er back in its jaws. After that, no one knew what they had said to each other, but in the end, the girl had crushed the other man's head with a single squeeze.

What a satisfying sight!

That squeeze from Vivian had hit Chang Lu Man Man right in the heart. After all, the reason their group of players was imprisoned here now was entirely thanks to Luo Er.

So Chang Lu Man Man didn't find the girl, whose body was covered in blood and whose face still bore plenty of grime, cruel, heartless, terrifying, or brutally violent in the slightest.

On the contrary, at that moment, there was only one feeling in Chang Lu Man Man's heart.

This was...

way too cool!!

Combined with Vivian's still remarkably childish face, the two things together caused Chang Lu Man Man to imagine a cold-blooded killer loli, even though he didn't yet know what her name was.

He was completely smitten.

Oh no!

Was this what it felt like to fall in love at first sight?

Chang Lu Man Man was still feeling delighted when he suddenly seemed to remember something. The smile on his face gradually vanished, and he began cursing loudly instead.

"Damn it! No wonder Big Watermelon and Melee God of Magic have been leveling up so quickly. They actually latched onto my goddess's super-thick thigh! Damn, they have no shame!"

Anyone could hear the heavy sourness in his voice.

"Hey, you there, hurry up! We idiots didn't turn on the recording earlier. For the final showdown later, every one of you is to turn on your recording. Make sure you clearly capture my goddess beating the hell out of that bitch!"

Chang Lu Man Man's group mistakenly thought that the female Bishop had called all her subordinates back because she was afraid and intended to gather her forces for a last-ditch defense.

The players all took this to be a crucial hidden storyline. Every one of them was impatient, eagerly waiting with their eyes wide open.

Chang Lu Man Man had already begun making secret plans in his heart. Once his goddess arrived, how should he act so that she would remember him and let him push Big Watermelon and Melee God of Magic aside?

Everyone had their own thoughts, but they were all waiting for the same thing.

They were waiting for Vivian.

To charge in!