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Chapter 30: The “Girl” and “Heart” That Hatched

“Roar of the Holy Flame.”

Blazing golden-red flames burst forth from the tip of the staff, transforming into a torrential rain of fire that enveloped every tentacle and the body of the pink flesh cocoon.

“Chirp chirp chirp!!!!”

Inside the cocoon, an angry roar of something unknown echoed again, but this time mixed with more fear and unwilling howls.

The Roar of the Holy Flame, an 8th-tier magic of the Holy Light type, is one of the few spells in the entire skill tree that has no auxiliary or healing effects, entirely geared towards destructive power.

“Even the benevolent light will descend with the flames of judgment if desecrated.”

This is the only description of this skill in the game.

As a dual-type attack of fire and light, Nastaia’s purple priest staff Purifying Flame, refined from the essence of the Red Dragon, undoubtedly enhances the already terrifying destructive power of the Roar of the Holy Flame.

This cocoon, in Vilyric’s observation, should be equivalent to that of a Death Star, roughly around level 70. Perhaps it could also unleash capacities close to 8th-tier magic if the other party gives it their all, but…

The power of the 8th-tier magic released from Vilyric’s hands is certainly not something a mere level 70 can compare to.

Cleansing evil, breaking curses, the golden-red flames transform into true purifying flames, igniting everything that those countless angry souls have nurtured.

The flesh cocoon frantically regenerates, its interior dark red light pushed to the extreme, resembling a heart frantically beating.

However, even if inverted rules convert more damage into healing, in the next moment there will be even more terrifying flames swirling around it, unleashing ruthless destructive power that seems intent on incinerating everything.

Just as Xiao Guang had speculated, reversal is not omnipotent nor without boundaries, and the black-haired girl before them has undoubtedly surpassed it in every way.

The continuously regenerating pink flesh body is burnt away at an increasing rate, with attacking fists being charred to ashes before even reaching their target. The flesh cocoon has nearly turned into a huge fireball, eternally ablaze and wrapped in raging flames.

But still, it stubbornly clings to life.

How long has it been? Five minutes? Ten minutes? Or longer?

Just when Miss Vilyric, outputting magical power, was getting bored enough to yawn, the flesh cocoon, now completely turned to charred black, finally exhausted its strength.

All the connections to the core body collapsed, turning to black shards that disintegrated, and the cocoon’s core dropped with a thud, its light nearly undetectable.

“Chirp…”

“Yawn~ Huh? Is it finally over? Quite the tenacious one, for a thing that has been surviving for three hundred years.”

Vilyric, accompanied by the Little Dragon Daughter and the towering Guardian of Heaven, stepped forward. Even though the massive cocoon was badly burned, standing three meters tall, Miss Priestess still had to look up to catch a glimpse of its entirety.

“Alright, let’s see what exactly is hiding inside this thing.”

“Chirp…”

The flesh cocoon emitted a hasty and weak chirp again. Was it Vilyric’s imagination, or did it seem like this thing was… actually pleading with her?

It had endured such fierce flames, so why suddenly go soft now?

But… that doesn’t become a reason to let it off.

The girl tilted her head slightly, and Lucas immediately understood, decisively slicing open the cocoon that had undergone countless regenerations with his great sword.

Crack…

The charred shell burned by the holy flames couldn’t offer any more resistance, and the flesh cocoon let out a weak wail as it was sliced completely in half.

What had been hidden within the cocoon, providing it with power all along, finally revealed itself to Vilyric’s eyes.

“Eh?”

The Priestess’s lips revealed an astonished whisper.

“A… girl?”

Before her stood a petite girl, around sixteen or seventeen years old, with silky silver hair that shone like moonlight and small dark-red bat-like wings sprouting from her back.

She was curled up in the innermost part of the cocoon, her delicate, snow-white skin barely concealed beneath a layer of translucent flesh membrane, like a small inner cocoon wrapped inside a larger one.

The girl had an exquisitely beautiful face as if she had stepped out of a fairy tale, her eyes shut tightly, showing no sign of waking even in such chaos outside. Even her chest, slightly more prominent than the Priestess’s, showed no rise or fall of breath, resembling a corpse.

Yet Vilyric could sense the powerful energy surging within her, unmistakably the true source she had been tracing all along.

This girl, is she what hatched from the cocoon?

Bat wings… a Blood Clan perhaps.

However, looking at her, it seemed less like she was hatched and more like she was sealed inside something, undergoing a transformation of sorts.

Taking out a blue-grade ordinary dagger from Nastaia’s ring, Vilyric carefully cut through the layer of flesh membrane that surrounded the girl.

Not wanting Xiao Guang or Lucas to help, as their destructive power was too strong and could accidentally harm the fragile-looking silver-haired girl, even Vilyric herself tried to use a weapon with lower attack power.

The semi-transparent flesh membrane didn’t have the same strength as the outer shell, and within a few moments, the Priestess had retrieved the girl from within.

However, before she could even throw a garment over her, the supposed vampire girl…

Vanished.

“????”

Under the startled gaze of the Priestess, once the Blood Clan girl’s body freed itself from the flesh membrane, she began to dissolve into countless light particles, rising into the sky like the mermaid princess in stories, like bubbles floating away.

Such a dreamy and ephemeral scene represented the disappearance of something extraordinarily beautiful.

During this, Vilyric attempted to heal her, take emergency measures, but it was all in vain. Rather, she realized something strange during this process.

This girl was not a Blood Clan or a human at all; she wasn’t even a living being.

She was a reflection.

Or rather, using someone’s template as a vessel, forcibly compressing countless powers into a furnace, akin to a doll-like existence.

Her body was an empty shell, lacking organs, life, or soul; the cocoon nurtured her as an energy source and core, and the doll needed the protection of the outside world to maintain its form and existence.

From the beginning, she could never have opened her eyes.

With this thought, Vilyric, initially worried whether she had made a mistake that led to the girl’s demise, suddenly felt relieved.

As the mirror girl serving as the core faded into nothingness, the flesh cocoon that exuded extreme sorrow and despair also finally breathed its last, turning into a puddle of charred dead flesh.

Then, the mirrored world collapsed.

There was no booming, earth-shattering shake; as it had originally depended on the real world for its existence, the realm of reflections naturally dispersed, and the two worlds began to merge.

Vilyric only felt the surroundings shift, and they were back before that initial mirror, but with the corpse of the flesh cocoon lying beside them and some remnants of what had been in the mirrored world.

Presumably, the undead from the mirrored world, including those absorbed into the reflection, had also returned to their original places, just a little favor done for Mr. Xavier.

Of course, those people might also have been directly reflected back to the corresponding locations of the Forgotten Land, but Miss Vilyric did not have the kindness to spend her time looking for unfamiliar people one by one. Whether they can survive depends on their own luck and means.

She still had plenty to deal with on her end.

Vilyric bent down and picked up the only item left behind after the disappearance of the presumed Blood Clan mirrored girl.

A brooch, blood-red, shaped like a bat.

Vilyric could sense that this was a remarkably powerful piece of equipment, truly extraordinary in significance.

It was likely at least of the level of a holy artifact.

It could be said that it constituted the essence and foundation of that girl’s reflection, and the flesh cocoon’s true task over the three hundred years was actually to nurture and refine the power of this brooch.

This was probably the highest quality native equipment she had encountered since coming to this world.

The moment her fingertip brushed against it, a surge of information flooded into the grand and vast mental realm of the Priestess.

Heaven and earth shifted once more.