Luseqi’s shepherd’s staff repeatedly poked into the soil. Every time it was raised, several maggots were plucked out, only to be pierced through by the wood.
When he reached the prison entrance and met Mosen, the bottom of Luseqi’s staff was already covered in black liquid and the remains of countless maggots.
These maggots carried Corruption. Once parasitized by them, a person essentially had no path left but death.
“Master… Your Holiness…”
Seeing the arrival of Muxuan and Luseqi, Mosen hurried forward to meet them. He addressed Luseqi first, then hesitated for a moment before reluctantly calling out to Muxuan.
He still did not like Muxuan very much.
“Mosen, have you discovered anything?”
The situation was urgent, and Luseqi had no intention of wasting time on pleasantries. He dove straight into the matter.
Noticing Luseqi’s urgent expression, Mosen felt a jolt of alarm as a bad premonition suddenly took hold of him. He opened his mouth to speak, but a scream erupted from behind him.
“What is this?! Aaaargh!”
This was followed by the sound of extreme panic.
“Don’t move!”
Mosen instinctively tried to turn around to check on the situation, but Luseqi’s sharp shout stopped him. Immediately after, the end of the shepherd’s staff, dripping with black liquid, expanded in Mosen’s pupils.
In a state of extreme fear, Mosen’s pupils constricted, but he forced himself to suppress the urge to retreat or dodge.
A sting of pain followed. Mosen hunched over, clutching one eye and his neck in agony. Both spots had been lanced by Luseqi’s staff.
“This is…”
Looking at the two black maggots Luseqi had pulled out, Mosen felt a surge of relief at having survived a disaster.
He had no choice; his master’s power was terrifying. Even the Zenith Shield, a sub-Divine Artifact, had once been dented by his master’s shepherd’s staff. He had been able to suppress his fear and remain still only because of his absolute trust in his master.
Still, Mosen truly hadn’t expected that he would be targeted as well… *That’s right,* he thought, *that one three-ring magic array just now consumed too much of my power.*
Feeling the magic circuits in his body containing only a trace of remaining mana, Mosen patted his neck with lingering fear.
“A type of parasite that carries Corruption,” Luseqi said. He then continued to clear the maggots hidden in the soil, the trees, and around the prison.
These maggots had to be eliminated. Until one reached the power of the Deep Water Level, there were simply no effective means to sense them.
While Luseqi was clearing the maggots, Muxuan had already removed the parasites from the two knights who had just screamed.
“This Corruption… is very similar to the negative effects of a Pollutant. The trauma it causes cannot be repaired…”
Frowning, Muxuan looked at the knight who had lost an arm and the other who had lost an eye before reporting his conclusion to Luseqi.
The recovery effect of Lightforce primarily worked by restoring the body to its original state. However, in their case, it was as if their bodies were meant to be this way now. No matter how much they were restored, they would only return to this mangled state.
As for healing effects, they could only treat wounds by increasing the vitality of flesh and blood to speed up recovery. They were even less capable of curing this kind of injury.
“Gelifende has already gone deep inside.”
Realizing the gravity of the situation, Mosen immediately informed them of Gelifende’s location.
Muxuan nodded. The Crosier in his hand suddenly burst with brilliant light. After soothing the two injured knights, Muxuan quickly rushed toward the interior of the prison.
“I’ll leave these two to you to look after…”
Hearing the voice drifting out from the prison, Luseqi wiped away the sweat—though whether it was from anxiety or exhaustion, he didn’t know. After piercing several more maggots, he looked at the two wounds he had lanced on Mosen with concern.
“How are you?”
“Master, I’m fine. But they…”
Mosen looked at the two knights who had fallen into a coma due to the stimulation of the Corruption, his tone laced with a hint of self-reproach.
Because of his negligence, such a massive oversight had occurred. He did not like the Church, but that did not mean he wanted to see people get hurt under his watch.
“There is nothing I can do…”
Luseqi simply shook his head and sighed. If His Holiness Muxuan had no solution, how could he?
“Stop trying to save your magic crystals. Take them out and recover your mana immediately.”
Luseqi threw a green crystal to Mosen, nearly laughing in frustration at the man’s stinginess. Even in this situation, he was reluctant to use a magic crystal to recover.
Catching the crystal Luseqi threw, Mosen turned his face away, looking a bit embarrassed by the lecture. It was hard to imagine a 100-year-old man looking so ashamed.
After absorbing the vitality within the green crystal and feeling his wounds slowly heal, Mosen hurriedly took several items out of his ring.
“Wait, what is this?”
Luseqi’s gaze narrowed as he saw Mosen pull out two magic crystals and prepare to put everything else back. He quickly stopped him.
It was a parchment scroll.
“Master, this is a historical topic I was researching back then…” Mosen said while absorbing the magic crystals. This kind of thing, which carried a slight mental pollution, was relatively safe—at least those at the Deep Sea Level were immune to it.
“Researching such historical topics is forbidden from now on!”
Luseqi’s voice was stern, as if this were some kind of ultimate taboo. In truth, digging deeper into such things really was forbidden.
“But Master… do you think the Goddess of the Church really exists?”
“The ancient gods are all dead… how could there still be a God alive?”
“And… it seems there are some existences we simply cannot touch, existing in a way we cannot understand…”
Mosen wanted to continue, but Luseqi roared, “Enough!”
The shepherd’s staff then slammed mercilessly into Mosen’s neck, knocking him unconscious.
Picking up the magic crystal that had fallen to the ground, Luseqi looked at Mosen’s right eye, which was already swollen and streaked with black marks. His heart felt heavy.
Mosen had still been affected by the Corruption… If he hadn’t been contaminated by the maggots, Mosen, as an Archmage, would have had a certain level of immunity.
But Mosen actually dared to continue digging into the forbidden history of Corruption while being contaminated himself…
Luseqi looked at Mosen with a headache. Then, he suddenly looked up, his clouded yet eagle-sharp eyes staring fixedly at the pitch-black doorway deep within the prison.
He gripped the shepherd’s staff tightly. The wood vibrated under his strength, and the foul liquid remaining on the tip seemed to roll uneasily as if drawn by some unseen force.
From that deathly darkness, a faint, hair-raising sound seemed to drift out… Was it chewing? Or perhaps the gurgling sound of some thick liquid churning?
“Another big trouble has arrived…”
Luseqi’s voice was heavy and dry.
The taboos Mosen spoke of… had ultimately drawn the attention of certain entities.
‘How could I not know these things? But in a world that has already been eroded to this extent… do we really have a choice?’
He was also gambling on a future.—