Chapter 389: Pollution

"Dead!!!"

The gale from the charge spiraled through the crowd; only after feeling the sting on their skin did they suddenly hear the crisp clang of metal striking metal.

Dimea suddenly looked up from within the crowd.

There, not far off, was the bard, one of the wedding's central figures—the very "Aidan" who should have been chatting merrily with everyone under his father-in-law's name, destined for swift advancement—now holding a slender sword severed clean at the hilt, his face filled with shock.

A thin red line sliced across his neck like a zipper, as if his head had lost its connection; it tilted forward under gravity, crashed to the ground, and was instantly engulfed by a black-metallic, malleable slime.

A geyser of blood erupted.

It drenched the forest warden behind him, still mid-swing with his sword—cruel, precise, and radiating wild, unrestrained ferocity.

In an instant, it sent violent ripples through Dimea's otherwise calm heart.

"Aaaaaaaaaah—"

Screams erupted from the crowd.

Then chaos and flight.

The witch reacted swiftly, frowning tightly, about to demand answers.

The banshee beside her, Chris, grabbed her arm: "Aidan is a dark elf in disguise. They plan to attack Shi Ying Town—calm the crowd, then coordinate with the elves outside the ritual to break it."

The moment she finished speaking,

Luo De seized the still-unaware Tobeka, exploded upward from the ground with a burst of earth, and shattered through the main house's roof, vanishing.

"No!! Tobeka!!"

Humbert shrieked in agony.

His cry was so raw, Dimea feared he might faint on the spot.

Though shaken by the cascade of surprises, she quickly regained composure—and naturally chose to trust Luo De.

She channeled her magic and swiftly chanted a spell.

"Calm down!"

Combined spell: 【Hypnosis】 + 【Phantom Sound】.

The former increases a creature's favor toward the caster, making them more likely to obey or believe.

The latter generates illusory sounds, their volume scaling with the amount of magic used.

The spell's tier was low; for Dimea's witch constitution, it was effortless to unleash a volume equal to twenty ordinary voices.

Everyone present froze, turning to stare at her.

Dimea took a deep breath and swiftly soothed them.

Beside her, Chris watched, her eyes darting—she spotted a few small trinkets dropped during the brief chaos.

Just as she reached to stealthily retrieve them, a shadow shifted beside her.

A succubus, transformed into the refined likeness of Luo De, leapt out and swiftly handed her the unconscious half-deer girl.

"Watch her. I must go aid my master."

"Why? I don't care for people! And I have important business of my own!"

"Little Deer helped us—if you don't watch her, my master will kill you."

Chris shrank her shoulders and hurriedly cradled Xiao Ke's head against her chest, pressing it deep into her soft flesh.

Luo De leapt into the sky, activating the 【Eternal Grace of Darkness】 spherical defense field, and collided with the edge of the 【Wind Wall】 spell.

It was as viscous as swamp mud; contact felt like sinking into it.

Was this a spell mixed with something like 【Mud Wall】?

Luo De immediately detonated the 【Eternal Grace of Darkness】.

The stickiness vanished briefly, then rapidly reformed.

But for Luo De, it was enough.

He gripped Tobeka and surged past the ritual's boundary, then activated 【Flight】 + 【Repulsion】 in jet-engine mode, speeding toward the uninhabited lands beyond Shi Ying Town.

"Ahh!!!"

Tobeka let out a piercing scream.

She turned to see her meticulously tailored gown half-corroded; her exposed calves bore large patches of acid-burned skin.

Ah. Sorry.

Was there acid in the ritual all along?

Leaving her wound untreated wasn't an option.

He still didn't know what triggered the dark elf's biological bomb.

When Xiao Ke's divination was detected, "Aidan" immediately cast a spell—Luo De dared not gamble whether he was activating the bomb, so he had no choice but to strike first and kill.

What if Tobeka's emotional surge triggered it too?

Luo De could only activate his 【Symbiotic Decay】 domain skill to heal her wounds.

"Do you like me?"

Tobeka suddenly shouted, still being carried.

"???"

When I say "???," it's not me who's confused—it's you who's insane.

"You came to steal me away—you must like me. You're handsomer and stronger, but Aidan is gentler and sings better. Who should I choose?"

Steal… steal the bride?

Luo De thought carefully—it did, indeed, look like killing the groom and taking the bride.

I'm a respected, upstanding man of Shi Ying Town. What's the point of stealing a trash like her?

This woman's an idiot—she didn't even notice "Aidan" had been beheaded by a single sword stroke.

Still lost in fantasies of love and romance.

Seeing her dreamy expression, it was no surprise why she'd once been so easily tricked away by a sailor.

Luo De didn't care.

He flew on, leaving Shi Ying Town, and landed on an open hillside in Dusk Hills, setting Tobeka down.

Not long after,

A 【Spatial Shift】 ripple appeared beside him—Kalist's elegant, icy figure materialized.

"Did you break the ritual well?"

"I've already dismantled it. Selina and Dimea are now handling the final disassembly—no problem."

On the ground, Tobeka stared, stunned by the elf's flawless beauty, then twisted her face into jealous revulsion.

"Who is she? An elf? If you're stealing me, why are you bedding an elf?"

Kalist's gaze turned strange.

Luo De sighed: "This one had gonorrhea. Even if cured, it clearly reached her brain—pure brain damage."

"What?! My father is Humbert, you know that!!"

He still ignored her.

Kalist naturally didn't care about this clown's words—she immediately scanned the biological bomb in her womb.

Tobeka, still clueless, thought the elf was jealous of her unborn child, screaming for Luo De to help her—until a cold glance from him froze her like a quail, motionless.

"It's a flesh bomb from Hellfire magic—crafted when the dark elf mated with you. I can remove it. No issue."

Kalist spoke calmly, as if describing a routine task.

Since ascending to the seventh tier, her command over spells had grown even more effortless.

"But the baby is tainted by demonic blood. Even if I remove the Hellfire magic, it will instantly transform into a tiefling upon birth—specifically one with high demonic lineage. I recommend eliminating it entirely."

A tiefling is a hybrid of demon and human.

Someone like Saixier clearly had higher human blood—her temperament was indistinguishable from a human's.

But if demonic blood dominates, the result is far more bloodthirsty and brutal.

"What are you talking about? What's a tiefling? What demonic blood?"

Luo De shook his head, glancing at the increasingly terrified Tobeka—he had no intention of taking responsibility:

"Let her and Humbert decide. We only remove the Hellfire magic."

After speaking, he gazed toward the southern edge of Dusk Hills.

After Shi Laimu devoured "Aidan's" head, he acquired the locations of the hidden dark elf forces.

He needed to deal with them.

"There's urgent business over there, Kalist. Handle this yourself."

"Have I ever done anything easy for you?"

(End of Chapter)