Once the space was sealed, the idol's roar traveled around the bell tower and through the drainage channels before slamming back into its own back.
Mira covered her ears. "You trapped the sound in here too?"
"Otherwise, how could I call it severing?"
"Can you send its voice farther away?"
Lin Yuan thought for a moment. "I can't do that yet."
The nameless idol gave them no time to continue their discussion.
The black writing that could no longer reach the townspeople all swept back and attached itself to the stone idol. The idol, which had originally had only two arms, rapidly grew six stone arms, each hand gripping a weapon formed from fear.
Macao raised a hand and unleashed purple flames. "Same assignments as before. First, find the source of its regeneration!"
All six weapons came crashing down at once.
The smoke Wakaba breathed out spread across the floor, forming sliding wheels of smoke beneath their feet. The four narrowly escaped the attack, and a huge crater was smashed into the spot where they had stood.
Mira used the smoke wheels to accelerate, rushing low across the ground toward the idol.
Her demonic fists struck the two lowest arms. The stone arms broke on impact, but before they hit the ground, they turned into black writing and crawled back up to the shoulders.
"They grow back even when I break them!" Mira shouted.
"Then don't give them time to grow back."
Macao's flames followed close behind, enveloping the broken ends. The writing trying to repair them curled up as soon as it drew near and was burned, leaving an obvious opening in the idol for the first time.
Wakaba spotted the pattern too.
"Every time it regenerates, the writing passes behind it first!"
Smoke swept over the idol's head, outlining a thick black line in the darkness. It did not connect to the stone idol itself, but passed through the floor and deep beneath the church.
Lin Yuan raised a hand to grab it, but the idol suddenly turned, sweeping four arms at the cloud of smoke.
"It's protecting the connection point," Lin Yuan said.
"Then this will be easy." Mira flexed her demonic arms. "If it's protecting that spot, smashing it should work."
She was about to charge when Macao grabbed her by the collar.
"Not from the front. Wakaba, block its vision. I'll burn its right side, and you circle around from the left. Lin Yuan, stay where you are and observe."
"Why do I have to listen to him again?"
"Because I'm in charge."
A torrent of smoke poured out, filling the space around the idol in an instant. Its dark red eyes lost sight of their targets, and its six arms swung wildly, smashing the walls and sending stone fragments tumbling down.
Purple flames suddenly flared on its right.
Sure enough, the idol turned and lunged toward the firelight.
Mira leaped out of the smoke on its left, dug her demonic claws into the idol's back, and pulled with all her strength.
Crack!
The stone shell split from its shoulders all the way down to its waist. The thick black line was finally exposed, embedded inside the idol like a spine.
"Lin Yuan!"
He needed no reminder. Lin Yuan had already stepped forward.
When he had turned the command to "kneel" back on itself, Lin Yuan had realized for the first time that distance could be reduced to zero the instant an attack was made.
It was not a matter of approaching the enemy, but of briefly making the point where a punch was thrown and the point where it landed one and the same.
Lin Yuan clenched his right fist, black-and-silver magic spiraling along his arm. The idol was still more than ten paces away, but its six arms had already abandoned Mira and were crashing straight toward him.
Macao's purple flames wrapped around two of them.
Wakaba's smoke bound another two.
Mira kicked down from behind the idol, stomping the last two arms into the floor.
"You've only got one chance!" Macao shouted.
"That's enough."
Lin Yuan twisted at the waist and threw a punch.
There was no explosion before his fist, nor any extravagant pillar of magical light.
In that instant, the distance of more than ten paces was compressed to zero.
His fist remained where it was, but its force crossed none of the intervening space, appearing directly inside the black line behind the idol.
God-slaying magic erupted from the connection point.
"Zero-Distance Crushing Fist."
Boom-!
The idol's chest caved inward first, and then its entire body shattered from within. Its six arms, dark red eyes, and the writing covering the walls all exploded into stone chips, while the shock wave overturned every bench in the basement.
Macao raised a wall of fire to block the fragments. Wakaba used his smoke to wrap around all four of them and pull them into a safe corner.
As soon as Mira landed, she looked at Lin Yuan. "Can you use that move to hit someone through a table too?"
"Yes."
"If you dare use it on me, I'll stuff you into a wall."
"Why was that the first thing you thought of?"
The explosion echoed back and forth more than a dozen times inside the sealed church before the basement finally fell silent.
Nothing remained of the idol but rubble scattered across the floor.
The illusions on the walls went out, and the black writing stopped appearing.
"Is it over?" Wakaba asked.
Macao did not answer immediately. He walked over to the rubble and examined each piece with his flames, but found neither a magic core nor a vessel capable of storing such immense power.
Lin Yuan, meanwhile, stared at the floor.
That punch had indeed destroyed the connection point, but the instant his god-slaying magic struck, he had clearly sensed something far larger at the other end of the black line.
That thing had severed its connection to the idol of its own accord.
A muffled sound came from beneath the rubble.
Thump.
It was like some enormous heart beating underground.
Immediately afterward, all the black lines withdrew from the idol's remains, racing to slip into the cracks in the floor.
Lin Yuan crouched down and turned over a piece of rubble.
The stone was completely hollow inside.
The nameless idol the townspeople had revered for years had been nothing but an outer shell from the very beginning.