Chapter 61: Bishop Ignatius

"Young black dragon, can you tell me why you have come here? I do not recall offending anyone, nor have I participated in any events."

"Rather than caring about that, you should pay attention to your Holy Knights! They are about to die out."

"The fact that you could find this place shows you have made full preparations. They are destined not to survive today. As loyal guards of Luonuoduo, dying in the process of guarding the cathedral is their unavoidable destiny."

"Do not be anxious, you are next, respected old man!" Having said this, his domain instantly shrouded the entire cathedral, even the candlelight became dim, and the holy light that made one feel awe also gradually began to turn grayish and weak, as if everything related to light was being repelled by this domain.

"Not a bad necromantic spell. Is this your own creation? This type of formation is the first time I have seen it, no wonder you dared to come here to kill and burn. But this level is not enough."

The elderly Bishop slowly stood up, hands placed on his chest, and began to chant a hymn passed down since the Elf Era. As the singing continued, the entire cathedral began to tremble violently, as if a pair of giant hands were about to uproot it, and cracks began to appear in the surrounding Domain of the Dead.

How could Sakavi let him have his way? Cracks suddenly appeared on the ground, and beams of gray, decaying energy connecting life and death bit toward the Bishop like poisonous snakes. Wherever they passed, the color of the floor dimmed, as if it had instantly experienced decades of weathering. They wrapped around the Bishop at an extremely fast speed, frantically draining the source of life from his body.

To this, the Bishop seemed not to care. He gave a clear shout: "Shelter!" A diamond-shaped shield made of pure holy light instantly appeared, steadily blocking the gray energy beams that had already climbed to his waist. The two forces collided violently, emitting a teeth-gritting "hissing" sound, as the life energy was constantly purified and dissipated by the holy light.

Immediately after, Sakavi gripped his dragon claws in the air, casting "Soul Wail." This was not a physical attack, but a shriek acting directly on the soul. A nearly transparent gray skull phantom appeared from between his claws, the sound waves carrying endless despair, sweeping toward the Bishop in a fan shape, attempting to tear apart his spirit and faith.

Ignatius's expression was solemn. He picked up his scepter and held it across his chest, praying loudly: "Holy Light, please shelter your devout believer, dispel all confusion and pain!"

Subsequently, an even more intense light surged from his body, turning into a ring-shaped "Divine Shock," meeting the sound waves acting on the soul. The moment the holy light touched the invisible sound waves, those painful sounds seemed to receive a brief purification and rest, gradually becoming quiet, and then dissipating into the air.

Realizing that conventional spells were difficult to win quickly, Sakavi's true dragon power began to manifest. He took a deep breath, his chest swelling, but what he spat out was not dragon breath, but "Nether Breath" containing the power of extreme withering and decay. A gray cone of breath shrouded Ignatius; where the breath passed, the sturdy benches were like they had been weathered for hundreds of years, instantly turning into rotten wood powder; the marble floor tiles lost their luster and were covered in cracks.

"In the name of the Holy Light, evil begone!" Bishop Ignatius was fearless. He injected all his holy light power into the scepter and swung it forward violently. The light-shining stone at the tip of the scepter erupted with light like a small sun, and a highly condensed "Holy Light Ray" boomed out, directly piercing the black dragon's heart.

Because he had not performed any protection, the body swept by the black dragon's Nether Breath withered and weathered rapidly. "Holy Light! Please give your loyal believer power to dispel this ominous force!" Bishop Ignatius's body began to erupt with pure holy light, and the Nether Breath was dispelled by this extreme brightness in an instant, leaving only dust all over the ground.

When Sakavi climbed up from the ground, Bishop Ignatius had already reshaped his hunched body in the holy light. "What a troublesome guy, Bishop. I admit, your strength exceeded my expectations, but you cannot win this battle today."

Having said this, Sakavi rushed toward Bishop Ignatius like a black lightning bolt. When he was about to approach, he suddenly rolled to the side, and a beam of pure holy light subsequently landed on the position he had just occupied. The black dragon, who had not yet stood steady, activated "Space Displacement," instantly appearing behind Bishop Ignatius, and slapped his front claw, wrapped in deadly negative energy, toward the person in front.

Ignatius reacted quickly. While dodging sideways, he used his left hand holding the cane to strike directly at the black dragon behind him. The cane, transformed into a "Hammer of Holy Light," directly hit the black dragon's chest, and Sakavi was immediately sent flying like a cannonball, falling heavily to the ground.

After a few breaths, the black dragon stumbled to his feet, blood constantly spitting from his mouth. "Bishop, you will pay the price for your actions today!" Having said this, he took out and crushed a purple, crystal-ball-like object, and his sunken chest instantly recovered.

The two, clear of the other's strength, became cautious and no longer engaged in life-and-death struggles of trading injury for injury. In one close-range intersection, Sakavi sold a flaw, taking a burn of holy light from Ignatius head-on. While his scales were charred black, he successfully grabbed the Bishop's shadow.

"Shadow Bind! Soul Pain!"

Bishop Ignatius's movements suddenly stalled, feeling his shadow turn into heavy shackles, while a sharp pain originating from the depths of his soul began to sweep over rapidly, making him almost unable to concentrate. In this instant of stagnation, Sakavi's dragon claw had already gripped his throat, and powerful dark energy instantly invaded, sealing his ability to mobilize holy light.

"Your light, after all, cannot illuminate all shadows, Bishop." Sakavi's low voice carried a trace of victorious mockery.

Although Bishop Ignatius was restrained, his eyes remained firm. He panted and responded: "Darkness... will eventually fade, Holy Light... is eternal."

Just at the moment when Sakavi, who was very disdainful of this, turned his back to the destroyed altar and his mind was most relaxed, Ignatius, whom he had restrained, saw his originally unfocused eyes instantly condense, erupting with unprecedented sharp light! He had not truly lost all power; he had been enduring, compressing, and waiting for the best opportunity!

"Evil black dragon! You imprison life, desecrate souls, but have you ever truly understood... the meaning of sacrifice?" The Bishop's voice was no longer weak, but resonated through the cathedral like a great bell, carrying a kind of resolute solemnity.

He did not need to break free from that powerful restraint at all, because his final, true killing move did not come from himself, but from the land beneath his feet that had been blessed by holy light for thousands of years, and the ultimate holy art he had long prepared, using himself as the trigger!

"With my body as the trigger, with my soul as the faith! Sages sleeping here, listen to the call! Faith gathered here, turn into a blade!"

At the same time, the eyes of the mottled holy statues on the walls around the cathedral actually lit up with soft yet firm light! Countless tiny streams of light composed of pure faith power gathered from all directions, not surging toward the Bishop, but frantically injecting into the altar area where he had just been standing.

On the ground, a huge and complex holy light formation suddenly lit up, its core not the altar, but the position where Sakavi was currently standing! It turned out that Bishop Ignatius had been retreating while fighting from the beginning, step by step leading the black dragon to this purification formation that he had long secretly activated but lacked a sufficiently powerful source of evil to thoroughly activate "Holy Judgment"!

"No—!" Sakavi realized he had been tricked and let out a roar of fury, wanting to break free, but it was already too late. The holy light formation, which had gathered the faith power of the entire cathedral for a thousand years and used the soul of a Legendary Rank powerhouse as the final guiding key, erupted with destructive power.

Several pure white light pillars with a diameter of several meters, wrapped in countless golden holy runes, shot up from the center of the formation like spears of judgment, completely swallowing the black dragon's entire body! Even the improved "Substitute Puppet" could not withstand such powerful force.

From within the light pillars came the black dragon's dragon roar of extreme pain. That was not ordinary holy light burning, but "Purification" and "Decomposition" acting directly on his evil essence. The protective dark energy around his body melted like snow, his hard dragon scales shattered inch by inch in the extreme brightness, and the purple soul fire flickered violently, as if it could be extinguished at any moment.

His massive body was slammed heavily against the cathedral dome by the light pillars, shattering the huge stained-glass windows, and finally falling heavily to the ground like a kite with a broken string, kicking up a cloud of smoke and dust.

The smoke and dust cleared slightly, and Sakavi's figure reappeared, looking miserable. Scales on half his body had peeled off, revealing charred flesh and even dragon bones that were vaguely visible, his dragon wings were tattered, and that burning soul fire had dimmed by more than half. Sakavi barely supported his body, every breath carrying painful blood foam.

"Black dragon, the tenacity of your life exceeded my expectations, but even so, I must kill you here, I cannot let you go and bring disaster to the world!" Bishop Ignatius, in order to break free from the seal, had also exhausted all his power, weakly kneeling on one knee, his face pale as paper, but his eyes still looked firmly at that patch of smoke and dust.

"Kelaosuna, hurry up and get over here!!! If I die, I guarantee you won't be able to enter Tiamat's temple, don't you dare pretend to be dead."

"Oh my, where did this whole roasted dragon come from! You're even skin and bones from hunger." This newly appeared black dragon tilted her head slightly, her pale golden vertical pupils scanning Sakavi's miserable appearance. The charred flesh, the peeled-off scales, the tattered dragon wings, and that pathetic posture of barely standing and still trembling slightly.

She let out an exaggerated sound, as if gasping for air, although anyone could hear there was not the slightest sympathy in it. "Look at who this is? Could it be our great Viceroy Sakavi?" Kelaosuna walked forward lightly, her dragon tail brushing across the ground without staining a single speck of dust. "How long has it been since we last met? How did you... change into such a new look with a 'withering artistic style'?"

Her gaze deliberately lingered on the exposed, charred wounds on Sakavi's body, her tone full of "sincere" admiration: "The layering of these peeled-off scales, the irregular aesthetics of the broken dragon wings... truly amazing. Did you come to this land of holy light specifically to undergo a unique 'flesh transformation'?"

Sakavi let out a low, guttural sound from his throat, filled with pain and anger, his purple soul fire jumping violently, clearly very angry. "Kelaosuna... shut your mouth! This guy... is insidious!"

"Insidious?" Kelaosuna seemed to have heard something interesting and let out a series of light, tinkling laughs, "Oh, my dear Viceroy, to be able to make a holy light Bishop sacrifice himself as bait and set up such a large-scale sealing trap... it seems you pushed him quite hard."

She walked slowly around Sakavi, as if admiring a failed piece of art. "I remember a certain dragon swearing before leaving, 'A mere Bishop, I alone am enough.' And now?" She deliberately paused, letting the silence fully ferment, "It seems the result of 'enough' is almost being roasted by holy light into a huge... um, 'charcoal-grilled dragon steak' that can spit negative energy?"

Sakavi raised his head violently, wanting to retort, but it triggered his wounds, causing a violent cough, and another mouthful of blood mixed with dark energy was spat out, finally letting out a painful moan, looking even more pathetic.

"Alright, alright, I won't tease you anymore." Kelaosuna stopped while she was ahead, her tone becoming slightly more serious, but that teasing still remained, "Looking at you like this, I'm afraid you couldn't even beat a goblin. The rest..." She turned to Bishop Ignatius, who was weak but still remained vigilant, with a new, playful interest, "I will have a good talk with this insidious and tenacious Bishop."

"Bishop, is this your staff? It looks broken!" At this moment, everyone followed the sound and looked over, only to see that beside the main altar, a figure had appeared at some unknown time.

He had a typical lean and muscular humanoid body, covered in yellowish-brown fur, a protruding snout, and pointed ears standing up vigilantly, with cunning and greed flickering in his amber eyes.

However, the most eye-catching thing was not his gnoll racial characteristics, but his extremely uncoordinated, even ridiculous attire: he wore a slightly worn velvet tricorn hat tilted on his head, but one could still vaguely see its originally exquisite outline, and a colorful feather of an unknown bird was stuck in the brim.

He wore an overly tight scarlet human noble vest embroidered with complex but somewhat distorted gold thread; the buttons of the vest were stretched to the point of popping by his strong chest muscles, and there seemed to be bloodstains on it. Below, he wore a pair of ill-fitting beige silk breeches stained with a few mud spots, and on his feet, he wore a pair of leather boots that were clearly several sizes too big, yet the surface was polished to a shine.

This "magnificent" outfit, pieced together from human markets, worn on his furry gnoll body, produced a feeling that was almost absurd. But he himself was completely unaware, instead appearing quite proud of this attire.

At this moment, he was using his furry hands with sharp claws to weigh the holy light scepter that Ignatius had previously dropped on the ground with incomparable dexterity. The light-shining stone at the tip of the scepter seemed to appear somewhat dim from falling into non-human hands.

The gnoll ranger grinned with his mouth full of sharp teeth, revealing a smile mixed with pride and showing off, shaking the scepter in his hand toward the Bishop with an ugly expression, "Old man, this 'big stick' of yours looks quite valuable? How about lending it to me to play with? Don't worry, I, Jisi Ke, have never returned anything I've 'borrowed'! Hahahaha!"

He laughed arrogantly, even imitating the posture of a human noble bowing, using his other empty hand to comically adjust the brim of his tricorn hat, and made a non-standard bow to the Bishop. ===== CHAPTER 62 =====