Chapter 3351

"Xia De..."

The blonde girl, pretending to still be weak, reached out to touch Xia De's face, then complained softly:

"This body is just a flesh puppet, not my true form, and only one-third of my soul was projected here; otherwise, that damned thing wouldn't have been able to influence my consciousness so easily."

That thing chose Miss Violet instead of the weakest, Miss Liyade, likely for this reason. However, this also explained what was behind the wall in front of them. Xia De could almost imagine "Lady Swelling" waiting for them behind the wall with a fan in her hand.

"If a Soul-Casting Skeleton is touched by a living person, even a Thirteenth-Tier Great Witch would be injured. The best way to deal with this thing is to temporarily turn oneself into an undead. This isn't difficult for us; after all, since we have stayed in this world for too long, each of us has acquired certain characteristics of the undead."

Xia De reached out to touch the rusted bronze skeleton in front of him, and the skeleton embedded in the wall opened its mouth to speak. It used the common language of the Fifth Era, though its tone lacked any inflection:

"Answer one question, and you may pass through this door—who is the most beautiful in this world?"

"I've probably guessed why that thing went to the trouble of setting up a wall to block us; what a perverse sense of humor."

The bespectacled girl said, then took out the 【One-Hit Kill Pistol】:

"It wants us to answer that it is the most beautiful, but we refuse to answer. Let's use this gun; it can achieve a one-hit kill against life, but it can also be used to unlock shackles and break seals. This skeleton won't be able to withstand two shots."

Xia De hurriedly stopped her:

"There aren't many bullets left, so let's save them. No, I won't give it the answer it wants. The Soul-Casting Skeleton doesn't just accept one kind of answer; as long as it makes sense, it is willing to accept any form of answer."

"How about saying I am the most beautiful? I am a demigod Great Witch of the Chaos Seat, after all."

Miss Violet to the side said with a smile; she had that confidence, and she truly felt she was much more beautiful than some corpse from the Mythological Era.

"Let's play it safe."

Xia De said, and gave the skeleton an answer:

"Although I really don't want to admit it, if we speak only of pure appearance, that is, the material shell, the most beautiful thing in this world is... Desire."

"That evil born from the depths of the human heart; upon seeing it, anyone can see the appearance that best fits their own desires. People's definitions of beauty differ, but it can always manifest the... um... desires that people themselves are unaware of."

Xia De was certain that "Desire" was far superior to some Lady Swelling, and from current investigations, the latter was merely a dead person from the earliest era of the First Era, but that mermaid was born from the essence of the chaotic disorder of intelligent life. No matter how wary or even somewhat afraid Xia De was of "Desire," he could not deny that it was indeed beautiful.

【But in the end, it is only a mortal thing.】

"She" smiled gently.

"That makes sense, you may pass."

A rustling sound came from the wall in front of them. Everyone stepped back together and saw that, with the bronze skeleton embedded in the wall as the center, cracks gradually extended straight up and down until the cracks completely penetrated the wall.

Only then did Xia De see clearly that it was a door seam, and the "Soul-Casting Skeleton" was just a decoration on this door. The wall opened inward silently, revealing a gap wide enough for one person to enter. Behind the gap was darkness that no light could illuminate, and everyone knew what would be there.

Xia De looked at his companions, and Miss Violet said with slight relief:

"The destination is not here, and this is not the final test. It would be too ridiculous if the journey back ended here."

"Let's finish the battle as soon as possible; don't linger here for too long. Keep your feathers with you at all times, and never let them leave your side."

Xia De said, taking the Philosopher's Stone dug out from under the 【Corpse Tree】 from his pocket, and was the first to pass through the gap ahead.

Behind the gap was an extremely spacious area. The space was circular, with no decorations or pillars. The ground was paved with uneven rectangular bread-stones. Except for the "entrance" behind Xia De, there was another long corridor extending into the distance at the opposite end of the open space.

A "woman" wearing a red and white dress, with long white hair and holding a folding fan to cover half her face, was standing in the center of this open space waiting for them. Just as Theresa said, this thing was over two and a half meters tall.

Although it also possessed the power of "Charm," for Xia De, who had come into contact with "Desire" too many times and had read the "Book of Pink" thoroughly, its charm was not particularly terrifying. And after ignoring the quite deliberate attraction it exuded, Xia De's intuition reminded him that the thing in front of him was a long-decayed corpse.

Once this thought appeared, with his subconscious blink, the "woman" in front of him was no longer that gorgeously dressed, tall female, but had turned into a long-decayed, bloated corpse.

But this appearance vanished with his next blink, and standing in the open circular space was still that gorgeously dressed "woman." There was no light source here, but it emitted a faint glow itself; the soft light highlighted its features at the perfect angle, even if only half its face could be seen.

The girls behind him also passed through the gap one after another, and then a voice came from behind the folding fan:

"Originally, I had my eye on that near-perfect artificial body; she is indeed beautiful and very suitable for me. But now I've changed my mind; the truly perfect body is actually here."

The folding fan covered the lower half of her face, and at this moment, the two red eyes on the upper half of her face looked at Xia De with a smile and incredibly disgusting lust:

"How about this: leave his body behind, and I won't care about the others. I want to... play some games with him."

Although Xia De did not look back, he clearly felt that more than one person behind him was angry. He patted his chest, confirmed that Little Mia was currently in toy form, and then waved his hand backward:

"Moonlight Greatsword!"

Three scarlet greatswords streaked over Xia De's head toward the "woman" in front. The latter finally moved the folding fan covering the lower half of her face and fanned it gently toward the front—

"Come and protect me."

Endless wronged souls who died unjustly in the gray mist scrambled forward, using their own souls to block the three Moonlight Greatswords. These wronged souls were all spirits attracted by it who eventually died at its hands, and now they still loved it.

The gray mist fanned out by the folding fan easily dissipated the scarlet moonlight, but then a Moonlight Great Cross formed from holy silver light slashed directly at it.

It smiled again, using the folding fan to cover its scarlet lips, and while its body slid backward like a wandering ghost, its left hand flicked forward. The boneless hand actually flicked the Moonlight Great Cross to one side just like that. But behind that bright cross, Sister Beren, wielding her sword, lunged forward, only for it to move the fan away, open its mouth, and spit forward—

Amidst a mournful sigh, pale gray cold mist was spat out.

Last time, the sister's flames were suppressed by these strange mists and eventually died down, but this time, the flames had undergone a wonderful qualitative change after contact with Xia De. Sister Beren's body turned into firelight in that cold mist and disappeared from in front of Lady Swelling, and then the flames appeared behind the evil entity.

As 【Ashes】 slashed toward its head, Miss Violet and Theresa, having finished charging, held their right hands together, extended their thumbs and index fingers, and pointed their index fingers forward:

"Witch Secret Art - Katdia's Light of Life!"

Pure white light erupted from their joined fingertips, the flaming greatsword slashed down from behind the "woman," and at its side, Xia De had already raised his right hand:

"Sunlight Ray!"

The "woman" did not dodge at all, and while covering the lower half of her face with the folding fan again, a strange, shrill laugh came from under her skirt, and then a black-gray shield blocked her surroundings.

The pure white Light of Life, the reddish-gold sunlight, and the fire-red greatsword were all blocked by that layer of shield, but the attacks from the demigod Great Witch, the Ninth-Tier Xia De, and the Twelfth-Tier fire-wielding sister were not without effect.

One second later, cracks appeared on the shield; two seconds later, the shield's color vanished; the third second, "Katdia's Light of Life" was the first to break through the shield and hit the evil entity's chest directly, and so it finally began to counterattack.

Its figure disappeared from its original spot in the hazy gray light, and with a wound on its chest still sizzling with gray smoke, it appeared in front of Miss Violet and Theresa like a dancer.

The girl wearing round-rimmed glasses raised her hand and fired a shot, but the tall woman tilted her head and dodged it. Its hand reached toward the shoulder of the somewhat short Miss Violet, but it recoiled its palm violently after contact.

The clothing on the Witch's shoulder disintegrated rapidly due to the evil entity's touch, but on the exposed snow-white skin, the complete holy emblem of the 【Chaos Witch】 appeared. This was what she had hidden behind and tattooed onto her skin with a fine needle when Xia De first walked in, to prevent herself from being controlled again.

And after all, this was not the demigod Witch's true body, so it didn't matter how it was handled.

The evil entity's right hand rotted inch by inch due to rash contact with the Ancient God's holy emblem, and the upper half of its face became incomparably ugly in this instant due to anger. Miss Violet took this opportunity to shoot the pure white Light of Life at its face again, but it was blocked by the fan.

Then the fan moved away immediately, and the cold gray mist blew out from that mouth-like organ again. Miss Violet dodged immediately; Sister Beren wasn't afraid of this thing because of her flames, but her temporary body didn't have that ability.

But to her surprise, Theresa did not dodge the gray mist.

The gray mist submerged the bespectacled blonde girl in the next second, but immediately, pure white wings appeared from behind the gray mist, wrapping forward to envelop the resurrected Schultz Theresa. Relying on the slight protection given by the Fourth Requiem Angel during resurrection, the girl, radiating white light, tilted her head in the gray mist, closed her left eye, raised her hand, and pulled the trigger—

Bang!

The soul bullet was fired by the 【One-Hit Kill Pistol】 and hit the folding fan directly, and then a large hole appeared on the folding fan made of human bone and human skin. Behind the large hole, fine, porcelain-like cracks appeared on Lady Swelling's "perfect" face.

PS: The illustration for this chapter is "Lady Swelling".

(End of chapter)