Chapter 681: The Spirit Communicator

Seeing Robert, clad in icy armor and dragging a frost giant scythe, sprinting toward the stained-glass window directly opposite him, Lyra, and Lu Jianuo, Gaumé immediately drew his custom large-caliber revolver and aimed forward.

At that moment, he felt his feet turn icy cold, his body freezing stiff, joints sluggish, wrists trembling uncontrollably.

Out of the corner of his eye, Gaumé saw that although Robert had not yet reached them, the white frost on the ground and the ice spikes on the walls had already spread inward.

Within this ten-to-twenty-meter radius, the cold was profound, like the far north.

With a hiss, Lyra fired another arrow wrapped in silver-white lightning.

Robert did not dodge or retreat; he swung his arms with force, slashing forward with the giant scythe forged from frost.

Clang!

The scythe knocked the arrow aside; a few sparks of lightning remained, racing swiftly toward Robert's body.

With a sizzling sound, Robert was momentarily paralyzed, then kept sprinting toward Lyra and the others.

Gaumé stared, stunned.

He wasn't astonished that Robert could so effortlessly wield the frost scythe and create such a vast frozen domain—he was bewildered that the man had just rushed straight into his proximity, about to enter the five-meter range.

"Doesn't he know I have the 'Spirit Piercing' ability?"

"Doesn't he know 'Spirit Piercing' works within five meters?"

"Has he never fought a mid-rank Seer-path Exalted before?"

"Then again, neither the Patrol nor the General's Guard knew Robert or Miss Amandina were Exalted; after gaining their powers during the Dream Festival, they must have used them rarely outside, only unleashing them fully each year during the Dream Festival—there were few Exalted enemies to choose from…"

In a flash of thought, Gaumé seized the opportunity: the moment Robert stepped into the five-meter range, two brilliant flashes of lightning ignited in his eyes.

"Spirit Piercing!"

The two lightning bolts shot out, piercing straight into Robert's skull.

Robert screamed in agony, collapsing forward uncontrollably, writhing in pain.

He dropped the frost scythe beside him.

Lyra's arrow, nocked again on her bowstring, tracked Robert's instinctive rolling; in her eyes, rage blazed like solid fire, erupting from within her body, muscles bulging violently.

"Rage Strike."

This was Lyra's "Rage Strike," fueled by accumulated fury.

It belonged to the Sailor path's Sequence 8, "Raging Folk," enhancing attacks dramatically by releasing stored anger.

Lyra was currently at this Sequence, but her hunting bow was a powerful Exalted artifact—bought with all her savings before arriving in Tizamo Town, called "Thunderclap," usable for two years.

Soon, Robert stopped rolling, but remained briefly frozen in place, still reeling from the searing pain of "Spirit Piercing."

Lyra no longer hesitated; watching the arrow become wreathed in blinding, layered lightning, she released her grip on the bowstring.

The arrow shot forward—but the lightning upon it strangely split into two streams: one remained bound to the arrow, the other surged to the right.

This… Lyra's pupils dilated; she couldn't comprehend why this was happening.

Instinctively, she turned her head, following the separated lightning to its destination.

Then she saw Louis Berry, slumped against the window, eyes closed, sliding downward.

Seconds earlier, upon hearing Louis Berry's words, Amandina had felt both confused and excited, locking onto him.

You said it—then I won't hold back!

In her intuition, Louis Berry's soul was entangled with a sinister spirit-body, battling fiercely across every part of his body, but the original owner was clearly losing.

Under these conditions, Amandina couldn't separate them.

She vaguely understood why Louis Berry had given that instruction: to lock her spiritual perception onto both his head and the fused soul.

Meanwhile, Lumian, who had used his ability on himself, spoke word by word with difficulty, struggling to move his left hand inside his pocket.

His left hand wasn't in his pants pocket or coat pocket—it was inside the "Traveler's Satchel."

After arriving outside Saint Cien Church and prying open the stained-glass window, Lumian had inserted his left hand into the "Traveler's Satchel," ready to retrieve any suitable artifact at a moment's notice.

He was preparing for the battle that might come.

—If this weren't a dream, his left hand would still be in his coat pocket, where Mr. K's finger lay.

Before the "Soul of Resentment" fully took control of his body, Lumian, relying on the Soul Strength of the Reaper, wrested free a brooch from the "Traveler's Satchel."

It was a gray-white, lightning-shaped brooch: "Wrath of the Sea."

Lumian gripped the brooch tightly, watching Amandina lean against the side wall, fists clenched, eyes shut.

His thoughts instantly blurred; his eyelids grew heavy and closed.

He fell asleep, sliding slowly downward.

Inside him, Father Cali fell still.

The "Soul of Resentment" also seemed to fall asleep—whether naturally or because, having acquired a body, it was now affected in reverse.

Amandina opened her eyes, delighted by this sight, wanting to praise herself.

Crackling sounds erupted as the lightning separated from Lyra's arrow struck Lumian, splitting into multiple thin electric serpents that writhed across his body.

This was the negative effect of the "Wrath of the Sea" brooch!

It gave Lumian a high chance of being struck by lightning on rainy days even if he merely carried it; if worn and he failed to strike another person, the likelihood increased dramatically.

Lumian reasoned that since the "Wrath of the Sea" brooch could attract lightning on rainy days, it must have a special affinity for electricity.

Under such conditions, even if it wasn't raining, what if another source of lightning was very nearby?

It would almost certainly draw in part of that other lightning!

Stung by the pain of the electric shock, Lumian—no longer under the Dream Nightmare's continuous influence—awoke instantly from the dream, regaining his thoughts, though his body remained numb.

So did Father Cali.

The "Soul of Resentment," upon waking, instinctively fled Lumian's body to escape the electric damage.

His face emerged on the nearest stained-glass pane, his figure flickering in and out.

Lumian seized the chance: he fastened the gray-white lightning brooch to his chest and pulled his revolver from the "Traveler's Satchel."

He raised his right hand, aiming at the still dazed and confused "Soul of Resentment" Father Cali, his eyes reflecting multiple colors upon the spirit.

That pale hue rapidly expanded in Lumian's vision.

Bang!

Lumian calmly pulled the trigger, firing a bright yellow bullet.

As he did, silver-white lightning flared across the "Wrath of the Sea" brooch, instantly surging into the bullet, crackling along its surface.

This was one of the "Wrath of the Sea" brooch's abilities: it granted every strike by its wearer an electric shock effect!

After temporarily losing his "Pride Armor," this became one of Lumian's most effective methods against spirit beings.

The yellow bullet, wreathed in silver-white lightning, struck the stained glass, shattering it into fragments, sending wild currents scattering everywhere.

But it didn't hit Father Cali; at the moment Lumian pulled the trigger, the "Soul of Resentment" vanished from the glass, instantly teleporting to the glass surface of the crystal chandelier high above the church.

"Mirror Flash!"

On the other side, Lyra's arrow struck Robert squarely, producing a heavy thud.

Crack.

The icy armor covering Robert's body instantly cracked into shards, falling to the ground as ice fragments.

The blurred shadow clinging to his body, assaulted by the writhing electric serpents, detached and vanished into the void.

Since the icy armor had absorbed most of the damage, Robert suffered no severe effects—only a dull ache in his chest and brief paralysis.

At this moment, he regretted not wearing clothes, because all the materials he needed for his "Spirit Communication" were hidden in his garment pockets: moon oil, corpse incense elixir.

Few spirits could allow him to communicate without materials and remain safe enough; the one he'd just summoned was among the strongest.

Seeing Gaumé's custom revolver and Lyra's arrow now aimed at him, Robert panicked and thought of a "Spirit Communication" he could perform under these conditions.

He frowned, biting his tongue with a grimace of pain.

Puff!

He spat a mixture of saliva and tongue-blood forward, uttering a strange sound from his throat.

A pair of petrified stone hands emerged from beneath the church's stone tiles, grasping Robert's body and dragging him underground.

The ground had somehow turned soft as swamp; the blood suspended in midair vanished instantly.

Gaumé's bullet and Lyra's arrow arrived moments later, striking only sparks from the stone tiles.

"Spirit Communicator?" Through this, Gaumé revised his judgment of Robert's Path and Sequence.

He wasn't on the same Path as Miss Amandina?

Didn't he also gain his powers from that black monolith?

Gaumé quickly retreated a few steps, pulled out a bullet pouch, and began reloading his revolver with custom rounds.

—As an official institution of the Matani Republic, the Patrol might be poor and lacking in reserves, but acquiring Exalted bullets with different effects was relatively easy: here were the Church of Eternal Sun, the Church of the God of Steam and Machinery, the Church of the Earth Mother, countless adventurers passing through, and the Patrol's primary threats were the Rose Sect and certain branches of the Spirit Cult—they had to be prepared accordingly.

Gaumé swiftly loaded golden purification bullets into his revolver's cylinder and snapped it shut with a click.

At that moment, Father Cali, having relocated again and teleported onto another stained-glass window, reappeared.

He opened his mouth and emitted a piercing, soul-damaging shriek:

"Ahh!"

"Soul of Resentment's Howl!"

PS: I mentioned Father Cali's prototype in my reading notes on the public account—he's the assistant priest who, on his first attempt with a woman, developed an allergic reaction to powder, suspected he'd caught a venereal disease, recovered, immediately confessed to the Lord, and decided to switch to young men. Of course, I didn't use this part of his character, but rather his role as assistant priest: he had no right to preach alone, deliver sermons, or conduct masses, so whenever he organized male orgies, he always began by stripping naked and preaching, delivering sermons, and conducting masses for the participants—obsessed with authority to an extreme.

Not all the men involved were willing; people kept reporting him to the Church, but no one believed them, no one investigated deeply. Then one time, a complainant mentioned the naked preaching and mass at the start of the party; soon after, the assistant priest was arrested—charged with usurpation, for daring to steal the rights of priests and bishops by secretly conducting masses and sermons!

A darkly humorous reason and ending.

Yes, the source is Montaillou.

(End of Chapter)