When Garcia retreated from the front, he found his companions looking at him with hostility and schadenfreude, as if they were looking at a cod placed on a chopping board waiting to be slaughtered. He counted the number of people, was slightly taken aback, sighed inwardly, and immediately understood what was going on.
"Has someone else died?" Garcia walked up to Pellegrini and asked softly.
" Terry was just swallowed by a trap on the surface of this evil space. May the gods bless his soul so that it may find peace in the embrace of the stars..." Pellegrini, his white hair as white as snow, solemnly made a prayer gesture, blessing the dead, then opened his eyes and looked at the young priest before him, Earth Inquiry coldly, " Garcia, I think we need a reasonable explanation from you. Why did traps suddenly appear on the route you marked as safe?"
"I don't know either." Garcia's eyes were clear as he gently shook his head. "I can only guarantee that every route I've marked is one I've personally measured on foot; it's absolutely safe."
"Absolutely safe? Bah! You're lying, you demon, you damned bastard! You deliberately framed us, didn't you? Six of our companions have already been killed on the safe route you marked, Garcia! This is murder, betrayal, an unforgivable crime!" A priest who had almost died in a magical trap pointed at Garcia's nose and cursed him.
The others slowly approached, their expressions hostile. One of the knights had already gripped his sword hilt, making no attempt to conceal his enmity.
With a soft sigh, Garcia turned to the only silent knight standing to the side and asked, " Alan, where was Terry swallowed just now?"
"Right there..." Alan pointed with his sword to the spot where the tragedy had occurred.
Garcia's expression was calmer than ever before. He turned and walked step by step toward the place Alan had pointed to. Everyone's gaze was fixed on the young priest's feet. Those four or five seconds felt like four or five hundred years. Finally, when Garcia's feet landed on the spot where a deep abyss had suddenly opened up and swallowed the divine knight Terry, the faces that had been contorted with either ferocity, sneer, breathlessness, or impatience suddenly froze.
Everyone was stunned.
The abyss that I had imagined suddenly splitting open did not appear.
Nothing happened.
Garcia stood firmly on the pale yellow stone-paved street, perfectly positioned, yet the terrifying trap did not appear. A gentle breeze blew, lifting the ends of Garcia's silver hair, and the cross pattern on his black robe was so beautiful. To everyone's eyes, this scene was simply the most incredible thing in the world.
"This is impossible! How could this happen?"
The priest who had first accused Garcia, his face flushed, stormed over, shoved Garcia aside, and then stomped his feet on the ground, as if trying to prove something...
At that moment, something terrible happened that no one had anticipated.
With a deafening roar, a massive crack suddenly appeared in the previously seamless ground, emanating a chilling aura and exerting a tremendous suction force, as if a demon king from the abyss had opened its bloodthirsty maw, sucking the still-unresponsive divine master down into the abyss...
"Danger..."
"Get out of there!"
"Damn it, the Abyss of Death has reappeared..."
Everyone screamed in terror, but no one dared to step forward and pull the divine master away. The chilling aura and suction emanating from the abyss's gaping maw filled everyone with the shadow of death, and in an instant, the divine master began to fall headlong into the abyss...
Just then, a figure flashed by, and pure white Holy Power flickered. Someone quickly approached the giant maw of the abyss. At the critical moment, a hand reached out and grabbed the hand of the divine master, whose face had turned pale and whose body had fallen halfway into the abyss, and pulled him out with all his might.
Boom!
At the same instant, with a muffled sound like a demon's low howl, the terrifying abyss crevice finally closed again.
The priest who had fallen into the crevice was pulled out more than halfway, with only his legs below the knees remaining stuck in the vanished crevice. The person who pulled him out was none other than the young priest Garcia.
"Ah... my legs, my legs, my legs are gone..." The priest screamed madly, his appearance extremely miserable. His legs and feet below the knees had disappeared, as if they had been severed by an extremely sharp divine weapon, leaving two neat and smooth cuts. The white bone and bright red flesh were clearly visible, and blood gradually flowed out from the cuts.
"Help him!" Garcia shouted anxiously, his body flashing with a pure white Holy Power. He pressed his hands against the priest's severed leg, sparing no effort to use all his Holy Power to cast [ Healing Spell ] to treat the priest's injury.
"How... how could this be?" The rest of the Divine Judgment Squad, including the red-robed deacon Pellegrini, were not in a hurry to save people, but were shocked by what they were seeing. When Garcia stepped on it, there was no movement at all, but when someone else went on it, it triggered the terrible abyss rift without any suspense, almost swallowing another expert.
"It must be Garcia who did something, it must be!!" one of the knights exclaimed in alarm.
This time, no one responded to the divine knight. Everyone's expression was grim. This strange situation made some guilty people feel abandoned by the gods. Pellegrini's expression was ashen, and the air was filled with a chilling atmosphere. It wasn't until the divine knight Alan exclaimed again that everyone's thoughts were interrupted.
Following Alan's gaze, the expressions on the faces of the members of the Divine Judgment Squad were even more shocked.
The pure white holy light shimmering around the young divine master Garcia grew increasingly intense, eventually enveloping Garcia entirely like a milky white liquid. This scene shocked everyone, for everyone understood what such abundant Holy Power represented—it was the symbol of an absolute master.
Whoosh!
A faint sound, like the flapping of a bird's wings, jolted the members of the Divine Judgment Squad from their shock. Then, the scene that appeared before them unceremoniously plunged them into an even more suffocating shock.
Because a pair of wings really did grow from the back of the young shaman Garcia.
A pair of enormous, pure white wings.
These wings, when unfurled, exceeded twenty meters in length. Every feather on them was clearly visible, pure white, delicate, spotless, and exquisitely beautiful, shimmering with a faint holy hue, dreamlike and ethereal, seemingly tangible. Yet everyone knew that these wings were formed from condensed Holy Power, the [ Wings of Divine Grace ] that appeared when a Divine Master's cultivation reached the Half Moon Class and their power was at full speed.
Garcia's strength has actually reached the Half Moon Class?
Everyone felt their understanding of the world had been overturned. Half Moon Class expert was an extremely prestigious figure in the Church. Even the red-robed deacon Pellegrini was just a minor character in front of such a person, who could be reduced to ashes in the blink of an eye.
This seemingly insignificant, lowly divine master, whom they had always rejected and manipulated, was actually such a powerful being?
The members of the Divine Judgment Squad looked at each other, breaking out in a cold sweat. Even Pellegrini, the red-robed deacon who always enjoyed the respect of others and never showed his emotions, could not hide the fear and regret in his old eyes at this moment.
He was merely a low-ranking red-robed deacon within the Northern Region Church, utterly powerless within the Judgment Division, at the behest of the Judgment Division's bigwigs—a complete nobody. This was his first time being assigned to a mission, and he was finally experiencing a level of power he'd never felt before, able to order others around at will. Naturally, he was captivated by this feeling. However, Pellegrini had experienced countless trials within the Northern Region Church's Judgment Division, witnessing the infighting and struggles between sects. He was a seasoned veteran, not so easily swayed. He had thoroughly investigated the backgrounds of everyone in the Divine Judgment Squad, and indeed, several individuals possessed impressive backgrounds worthy of his attention. But these individuals were definitely not Garcia, who had given everyone such a profound shock.
According to his investigation, Garcia was just an apprentice judge who had been at the Northern Region Church headquarters for one year and three months. He had no background, no energy, came from a remote parish, was a complete country bumpkin, and had never shown any strength or potential. He had never been taken seriously.
That's why Pellegrini somewhat released Garcia, despite the resistance and difficulties the other members of the Divine Judgment Squad had caused him.
Perhaps it was the old man, who had devoted his life to the gods, living a life of utmost respect and trembling before barely managing to become a red-robed deacon, who envied Garcia's youth; or perhaps it was the pure and immaculate aura emanating from Garcia that made the old man, whose own identity had been tainted by countless Bloody struggles, feel uncomfortable. In any case, like the others in the Divine Judgment Squad, Pellegrini genuinely disliked Garcia, and this dislike began to grow from the very first second he saw Garcia.
But who could have imagined that fate would be so ironic?
Pellegrini, who had been cautious his entire life and had never offended any important figures, in his moment of utmost self-satisfaction, when his lust for power and vanity had swelled to their maximum and been satisfied, inexplicably offended a high-ranking divine master whose strength had reached the Half Moon Class —in the eyes of Pellegrini and the rest of the Judgment Squad, they had indeed offended Garcia.
First update.
Today I took my father to the hospital for a cardiac ultrasound. There were so many people waiting; we handed in the form and were number sixty-something in the queue. We only just got back now, hence the late update. Sorry for the late update. Thank you to Fang, Jipingyunyan, and other generous donors for their generous donations; thank you to every brother for your support.