Siege

Grant seemed to have been prepared. When Miles lunged at him with his dagger raised, he suddenly shot into the air, narrowly dodging the strike.

But... Benjamin had never expected that one move to take down his opponent.

"Let us have a go at you first!"

Several aged voices rang out. The wind and dark elements in the air suddenly grew restless. Grant had only just evaded Miles's ambush when he was surrounded by four old men. Three of the mages simultaneously unleashed the advanced spell Hurricane Descent, and terrifying gale winds instantly swallowed Grant whole.

Bricks, tiles, tree trunks... all the debris from the surrounding streets was swept up by the gale. In the end, it formed a tornado that reached straight into the clouds. Grant stood at the tornado's center; from outside, his figure could no longer be seen, only faint flashes of Holy Light.

At the same time, another elderly mage completed a spell called Shadow Gate. In the wind-swept sky, the air suddenly seemed to shatter under some unseen blow, revealing a pitch-black void. After a brief pause, a vast swarm of black bat shadows flew out of the opening.

Looking closely, those bats were composed purely of dark elements—countless and densely packed, like a plague of locusts passing through. Following the tornado's path, they surged toward its center one after another, as though someone had tied a black belt around the tornado.

And the Holy Light glimmering faintly within the wind gradually began to dim beneath the frenzied tide of bat shadows.

"The Pope is nothing special after all. Too young," one mage snorted coldly.

However, after observing for a moment, Benjamin suddenly spoke up in a loud warning. "Fall back immediately! Mage Margaret, watch out for the threads of light he fires!"

Though the