Myriad Faces

At some point, a golden figure appeared in midair. Gentle, non-dazzling radiance flowed behind him, complementing the afterglow of the setting sun and making all of Pato City exceptionally bright.

Unlike the ordinary citizens who could only feel warmth throughout their bodies, Lange and the other cultists felt a suffocating pressure the instant this person appeared. That seemingly gentle and harmless light caused them excruciating pain merely by shining on them, as though they were being showered with diluted holy water...

As the newcomer gradually descended, everyone slowly got a clear look at him. He was a man who appeared to be around thirty, dressed in silver plate armor engraved with pale-golden holy scripture. His two heavy pauldrons bore the emblems of the Holy Church Coalition and the likeness of the Dawn Goddess. A golden broken sword hung from each side of his waist, while a massive mithril cross was strapped to his back. More importantly...

He had a golden, square face!

From every angle, that face looked like the very definition of a Holy Knight. His thick brows and large eyes made him appear even more resolute and devout.

"I am Green Tyr." He landed before the square, his thick brows knitting slightly. "I am a Dawn Great Knight from the City of Light. Now..."

Green drew one of his broken swords with his backhand and lightly slashed toward his right. "Purge the cultists."

A thin beam of light slowly swept outward, rapidly changing shape as it traveled. Half a second later, it had become a vast, dazzling golden sword-light like a raging flood, sweeping across a third of the square.

The Knight Academy instructors and clerics fighting the cultists were completely unaffected as it passed over them. Several believers of the Dawn Goddess even felt as though they had grown slightly stronger, while the fleeing civilians suffered no harm at all...

Dawn Condemnation Slash

Holy Light School active skill

Requirements: Holy Light School level 19, One-Handed Weapon Mastery level 15, Strength 50, Wisdom 20, believer of the Dawn Goddess, maximum Faith value above 1,500

Cost/Restrictions: 100 Stamina, 300 Faith, must possess a one-handed weapon

Effect: Releases a large-scale slash containing the divine power of dawn in a designated direction, dealing heavy damage and inflicting soul burn on enemy targets within the user's conceptual definition of "enemy." Damage is doubled against blasphemers, undead creatures, and followers of the Dark Goddess Dilia, with a 5% chance to trigger the "Purification" effect. Friendly targets within the user's conceptual definition of "ally" suffer no damage. This skill ignores terrain and environmental effects. Cooldown: 10 minutes.

Note: The light of holiness is here! Mom never has to worry about me hitting my allies again!

This skill, which players currently had no chance of mastering, proved tremendously effective. The cultists who had been using the evil god's power to suppress the instructors and clerics were swept by the golden sword-light. They did not even have time to scream before they began trembling, golden radiance pouring from all seven orifices. In the end, they turned into golden fireballs that exploded one after another, their bodies and souls burned to ash by the vast divine power.

"Holy Flash..." Green lowered his sword hand casually, then extended his other hand toward the opposite side of the square and said in a deep voice, "A thousand strikes!"

His figure seemed to blur for a second. Then a golden phantom shot out of Green's body like lightning, passing straight through a cultist. The moment the latter exploded, the phantom vanished into thin air.

Then came a second phantom...

A third...

A fourth...

Dozens of cultists who had been preparing to flee were instantly slain where they stood by the phantoms Green released, dying on the spot within seconds.

Lange no longer had the time to stab Bayes and the other person a few more times, let alone rush over and crush Mo Tan to death. Beads of sweat the size of beans streamed down his forehead, while the pale mist surrounding him evaporated at high speed. The omnipresent light had him firmly pinned in place. He had no doubt that the slightest movement would immediately draw the attention of that Dawn Great Knight!

"Absolute power, huh~" Mo Tan had somehow come up beside Lange and lightly patted him on the shoulder. "So, how does it feel to suddenly become an ant?"

Pfft!!

Lange, who had been muttering something under his breath, suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood, whether from the pat or from rage. Just as he prepared to turn around and kill the boy first, he discovered that the square-faced man who had already activated two devastating skills had somehow appeared before him. Lange was instantly scared out of his wits...

"You're a little late, Sir Knight." Mo Tan slowly backed away with a shrug and a smile. "All those people who died earlier are going to be counted against you, you know~"

Green stared intently at the young man who had made him feel particularly uncomfortable from the beginning. "Who are you?"

Mo Tan did not answer immediately. Instead, he leaned over and whispered something into the ears of Bayes and Ledo, who had just gotten to their feet. Only then did he look up with a smile. "Me? I'm the person who tricked you into coming here... Though, 'tricked' might not be quite right. Cultists appearing and an evil god descending upon Pato City are basically the same thing, aren't they?"

"I sense malice from you." Anger flickered in Green's eyes, but his tone remained level. "Your malicious lie even alarmed the City of Light."

"I had no choice~" Mo Tan smiled nonchalantly. "If someone like you, an 'absolute power,' hadn't come, but only some cannon fodder had shown up, I'd have been in quite a bind... But speaking of which, could you first bring this cultist with blood on his hands to justice?"

Lange's body trembled. He continued muttering under his breath, utterly ignoring them, and looked extremely strange.

"As for me..." Mo Tan shrugged. "A little lie isn't exactly a grave sin. Dealing with me later should be fine, right? Take me to some holy land and subject me to severe punishment or whatever."

Although Mo Tan's teasing tone was rather grating, Green still nodded. Purifying Lange, the cultist leader, was the most urgent matter. As for the boy who had used false information to shock the City of Light and forced him to hurry over at once, he could deal with him later...

Besides, coming here personally had been the right choice. An ordinary Holy Knight squad might not have been able to control a situation like this.

Thus, Green immediately turned toward Lange, who was still muttering. He removed the mithril cross from his back, an item only a Great Holy Knight was qualified to possess, and said solemnly, "Tell me your last words and the location of your cult's den, or die immediately."

No one would respond to that kind of "die or die" statement, right?

Standing behind him, Mo Tan rolled his eyes and reached his right hand toward the travel pouch at his waist.

"..." Lange continued murmuring under his breath, staring fixedly at the Dawn Great Knight, Green.

Green gently placed both hands on either side of the cross and asked with a frown, "What are you saying?"

"..."

"All right." Green had apparently never expected Lange to answer him in the first place. Holy flames slowly began rising around his body. "Then prepare to be purified!"

"I said..." Lange suddenly rasped, clutching his head with both hands as he groaned in pain.

"Hmm?" Green was puzzled, but in keeping with the spirit of a knight, he still intended to let the other man finish. "What?"

Pssh!!

Countless bone spines burst from Lange's body. At the same time, his body began twisting, becoming so disgusting that it was difficult to describe. His blood vessels, muscles, and bones all underwent violent mutations, turning inside out as he completed some sort of ritualistic transformation. They rapidly multiplied and expanded!

"I said you're so strong, aaaaah!" Lange roared. At that moment, he no longer looked like a living creature at all, but some sort of fleshy... slime-like monster. He lunged madly at the Great Holy Knight before him. "You can't resist... I'm so strong... you'll lose... urgh... kill... you'll die... resist... futile..."

Green did not suffer the forced plot death that befell most long-winded villains or heroes. He merely let out a long sigh. "Look at yourself. Look at what the being you worship has granted you... Nothing but pain. Nothing but pain..."

The mithril cross wrapped in golden chains gradually began to brighten...

Five minutes later, South District, Pato City

A male Dark Elf in a gray robe walked up to a building that appeared to have been abandoned only recently. It seemed to have once been a warehouse for storing grain, but now...

"A cultist hideout, huh~~" He grinned, glanced back at the golden pillar of light soaring into the sky in the distance, and murmured, "That guy is even stronger than I expected. Better hurry."

After looking around briefly, he quickly entered the abandoned warehouse.

Myriad Faces

Type: Special Equipment

Quality: Unique Epic

Attributes: All base attributes +1

Trait: Allows you to freely change your appearance and gain some physical traits of the corresponding race. Your aura will change during the disguise process. There is no duration limit, but after canceling the disguise or changing Myriad Faces' appearance, you must wait 12 hours before it can take effect again.

Note 1: A powerful alchemical item refined by the genius Gnome alchemist Aidehua Li Ke. However, due to a few minor mistakes, this mask failed to meet Mr. Aidehua's expectations. Although the Myriad Faces Mask allowed its user to freely change their appearance and features with almost no restrictions, it could never affect their height. This greatly infuriated Mr. Aidehua, who was constantly mistaken for a Gnome, so he sold it to the elven rogue Gong Teng for one copper coin.

Note 2: According to historical records, the legendary Gong Teng disappeared after being forcibly fed a strange reagent by an underground faction several years later, and the Myriad Faces Mask disappeared with him. Several months later, however, an elven boy who looked extremely similar to Gong Teng as a child appeared beside Gong Teng's girlfriend, the elven monk Lan. It was said that this boy was adopted by Lan's father, the sleeping renowned warrior Mao Li, and remained inseparable from Lan every day. In the years that followed, the reputation of the little Death Fairy gradually resounded across the continent.

Note 3: The designer of this equipment has been fired.

That's right. By this point, everyone should have realized that this Dark Elf was naturally Mo Tan. As for how he had obtained such a powerful epic item...

Everyone still remembered the "unique quest" he had received earlier, right?

Go to Pato City and destroy "Hero" Dave; reward???

Not long ago, when that fierce Half-Orc little cleric had drenched Dave completely with a bucket of the Waters of the Gods, Mo Tan had immediately received a system notification:

Unique quest completed

Completion: 550%

Reward obtained: Myriad Faces, 1,100 Trickster class experience

The equipment had then appeared directly in his travel pouch.

This was also why Mo Tan had been completely fearless from that point onward. If he discovered that things were going wrong, he only needed to forcefully activate Escape and equip this special item. He would have almost a fifty percent chance of retreating safely.

As for the other fifty percent of the danger... he didn't care~

Ten minutes later, in front of the abandoned warehouse

A human man dressed in a full linen outfit came panting up to the place.

Cordova was very unhappy. Truly, very unhappy...

That quest had tormented him for a long time. After all, his tragic and completely non-glorious death the last time was still fresh in his mind!

But in the end, he could not resist the temptation of Innocent World. After making up his mind several hundred times, he finally logged into the game and appeared in Pato City.

Then something went wrong as soon as he arrived!

His beginner quest this time was to find the owner of a tailor shop. After finally locating the place, he learned that the man had gone to the square in the central district to watch the excitement.

So Cordova ran to the central square as well...

Then... everything went out of control!!

Ever since that lunatic appeared in the bell tower, the perfectly good baptism ceremony had descended into complete chaos. That so-called "hero" had died an unbelievably miserable death!

Finally, when a large number of cultists emerged from the crowd and began slaughtering people, Cordova ran!

He ran without hesitation!

He had had enough. He didn't want to die again. He only wanted to enjoy the game...

In the end, he got lost and wound up here.

Still, this place seemed pretty good. It was extremely remote, located in the least developed South District of Pato City. In theory, it should be relatively safe. Cordova figured that if he hid here for a while, he could even log off for a late-night snack if necessary. The chaos earlier should have ended by now.

Then he saw an oddly dressed elven man walk out of the warehouse before him, both hands covered in blood. The man then wiped his face...

Holy crap!!

Wasn't this the guy who had made a complete mess of everything at the bell tower earlier!?

"Shh~" The other man looked at him with some surprise, then raised his index finger to his lips, signaling him to be quiet.

Blood all over his body, a gentle smile, and the aura of a madman—this bastard was going to kill him to silence him!

Cordova turned and ran without a word. As he ran, he shouted, "Help me!!!"

Pfft!

His whole body shook violently. When he looked down, he saw half a blade protruding from his left chest, trailing splashes of blood...

The familiar system notification rang in his ears.

You have died.

Chapter Forty-Two: End