Everyone, not just the lich, was stunned!

As the lich was about to remove the sacrificial kidney, its pale fingers suddenly paused, and then it turned towards Felix with a look of shock and anger.

"Despicable!" it shrieked miserably, before launching a frost beam towards Felix's location.

Becoming the lich's primary target, Felix's only thought was, "Damn! I'm running out of magic power!"

As a high-level magic, Death’s Touch was a heavy drain on his mana. Felix had already expended a lot of strength controlling his ogre battle servant, and had just managed to activate Death’s Touch's magic runes by gulping down half a bottle of mana potion.

He was truly running on fumes now!

Just as Felix was about to be hit by the frost beam, a slender figure in a black robe leapt to his side, conjuring an icy barrier in front of her. She then grabbed Felix around the waist and, with a light tap on the altar's base stone, they leapt several meters away.

It was the middle-aged nun!

Once out of danger, the nun let go of Felix, allowing him to fall. She then leapt towards the center of the altar.

Felix never expected the middle-aged nun to save him at the last moment. He had always thought she hated and opposed him.

Perhaps saving someone has nothing to do with these feelings.

Seeing the person who disrupted its ritual saved, the lich instantly redirected its hatred and fury towards the nun.

But at this point, it had no time to do anything else, as the Silver Hand and His Holiness Euripides launched a new round of attacks.

The other four elemental mages who had entered the Golden Domain began chanting the incantations for a fiery storm!

In a blink, more than half of the thirteen ice shields were damaged. After withstanding the second round of attacks from the Silver Hand and His Holiness Euripides, only three ice shields remained.

The lich, without a moment's hesitation, chanted the final part of the ritual and placed the nearly corroded kidney on the last golden tray of the Scale of Death!

With a hint of malice, the lich glanced back at Felix and the others, then twisted off its own head!!!

Holding its head in its pale fingers, the lich placed it on the Scale of Death. Then, facing the approaching His Holiness Euripides and others, it cursed angrily, "My master will avenge me! I will be resurrected! And you shall suffer in the fiery pits of hell!!!"

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After placing its head on the last tray of the Scale of Death, the lich's body fell onto the altar like a lifeless puppet.

A powerful elemental storm suddenly surged, causing the four internal organs on the Scale of Death to dissolve into a dark red viscous substance. A terrifying energy began to emanate from the blood-red cross, and the dark red substance started to cling to the body of the white-robed priest, who had been dead for some time.

His body underwent a drastic transformation. His arms and legs visibly swelled, his skin turned from pale to dark red, and gradually grew thick fur. His face exploded in a series of pops, morphing into an inverted triangle, resembling a gigantic rat's face!

A tail extended from the unrecognizable corpse. Then, its magic surged, and the wounds on the body began to heal rapidly!

The intense elemental storm swept across the entire valley, shattering the hard foundation of the altar. The Silver Hand and the mysterious His Holiness Euripides struggled against the terrifying force and had to retreat from the altar.

Everyone felt uneasy and fearful because, despite their efforts, the God-Descent Ritual was still completed...

The lich, through some unknown secret method, had used its undying life as a substitute for the kidney!

As the storm gradually subsided, a towering figure emerged at the center of the altar. It had a head resembling a rat's but limbs like a humanoid. Its feet were cloven like a cow's, and it had an extra-long rat tail.

Its gaze was blood-red, perhaps devoid of eyeballs, showing only a crimson glow.

The altar under its feet was severely cracked, with fissures spreading across the entire valley, transforming the landscape into a grotesque spiderweb in a matter of breaths.

Despair rose in everyone's hearts, for the ritual had, after all, been completed. Although the creature before them was a lower deity, it was still a god! How could mere mortals confront the power of a deity?

Perhaps only those legendary heroes, immortalized in epics, were worthy of speaking to these gods as equals.

The rat-like God of Pestilence turned its gaze towards Euripides, its face twisting with disgust and hatred. The church had always been its greatest enemy, thwarting its rise to become a true deity of plague by gathering enough fear.

No one could discern its movements. Felix only saw a blur, and in the next moment, it appeared beside His Holiness Euripides. Then, the legendary, powerful ascetic flew away like a kite with its string cut, his chest caved in horrifically, spewing blood and even his liver, landing on the ground with a thud, barely alive.

How it moved remained a mystery. Perhaps it simply ignored the spatial laws of this plane!

"Submit or die!" the rat-headed God of Pestilence declared coldly to the despairing crowd.

Felix couldn't help but burst into laughter, finding the scene of a sleazy-looking rat person demanding submission or death utterly ridiculous.

His laughter seemed contagious; soon, everyone was laughing, including His Holiness Euripides, who, despite a shattered heart, managed a smile, standing by sheer force of holy light and will.

After becoming a legend, transforming oneself into an undead entity wasn't too difficult. Ignoring physical limitations and manipulating the body with the power of the soul was a near-blasphemous act, achievable only by legendary beings.

"Die, all of you!" the sleazy rat-faced God of Pestilence roared, anger uncontrollable. Between its hands emerged a deep black light, the power of the abyssal plague!

It intended to kill them all with the plague, to harvest enough faith and power.

But at that moment, a fist-sized deep blue gemstone floated into the air. This heart-shaped gem, emitting a sea-blue light, enveloped the entire valley within breaths.

Known to mages as the Heart of the Ocean, this deep blue heart-shaped gemstone was one of the few divine artifacts on the continent.

Simultaneously, a dark red card appeared beneath the Heart of the Ocean. On the front of the card was a mermaid trapped on an island, surrounded by circles of magical runes on the back.

Only then did a firm, cold female voice reach everyone's ears:

"Deep Blue Barrier!"