The Witches and Thirteenth Ring Warlocks made no effort to hide their tracks, but the Mad Guardian, who walked alone and brought ever more filth to the earth, continued onward as though he had not seen them at all.
Gradually, other Church squads nearby converged on the area, using either blessed holy emblems or special relics to maintain their strength within this most severely polluted region.
Yet even so, most people had no choice but to evade the spreading black mud. When that black mud touched the earth, it produced other transformations. The ground hardened into stone, and everything on it that was not made of stone was converted into stone. Even some of the trees gradually turning gray burst into fierce flames upon touching the black mud, which was also the cause of most of the forest fires tonight.
Aside from the Church forces, scattered figures also appeared amid the snow. However, since no enemies above the Eleventh Ring had appeared yet, the Church did not move to contact or eliminate them for the time being.
But they absolutely could not allow the Mad Guardian to continue onward like this. Even though Sister Devlin and Iluna were both strangely absent, the Blind Keeper of Secrets, the elderly Christian Klein from the Dawn Church's northern diocese, was the first to step forward and block the lone figure's path.
The Guardian stopped walking. Black mud flowed endlessly from beneath his feet toward the rear, yet it alone did not flow forward.
His eyes remained tightly shut as the Thirteenth Ring Brass Ring slowly emerged behind him. Yet unlike an ordinary Destiny Ring, a full third of it had turned the black obsidian color, an unprecedented phenomenon.
Still, considering that Destiny Rings came from the soul, and that Mad Earth's corrosive effects