The Church of Light: the only orthodox religious sect in the Kingdom of Oloro.

It is the largest sect on the entire continent of Enze, and one that ruthlessly eliminates its enemies.

Because of its exclusivity, the Church of Light has had conflicts with many other sects, especially with the Church of Darkness, a rivalry that has lasted for centuries.

However, since 25 years ago, when the conservative faction took control of the Church of Darkness, the conflict between the two sects has somewhat eased—at least it’s no longer the life-and-death struggle it once was.

Of course, peaceful coexistence was never possible.

Instead, the two parties reached a temporary agreement of non-interference, agreeing not to hinder the circulation of light and dark elemental currencies between the Kingdom of Durant and Kingdom of Oloro.

Thus, over the past 20+ years, though there have been occasional minor clashes, direct contact between the two has been rare.

Ellison hadn’t seen anyone from the Church of Light in nearly 20 years, and he never imagined that today he would encounter them again.

What puzzled him even more was that the monkey-faced man clearly had ties to the Dark Faction of the past, yet here he was, entangled with members of the Church of Light.

But there was no time for further contemplation, as all of them had already fallen under the enemy's domain.

“Quick! Take the students and leave, now!” Ellison shouted frantically while using his staff to control the students trapped in the birdcage to move them off the square.

Leaders, deans, and faculty from other academies also rushed to evacuate the students.

Although they were numerous, they knew they couldn’t defeat such a powerful Grand Archmage. Their priority was the students' safety, as their lives were now controlled by the enemy’s domain.

The elderly member of the Church of Light, Bartolo, noticed that the staff of Palos Magic Academy were frantically leading the students away.

With a calm expression, he pulled out a small bell and gently shook it.

Seventh-tier Domain Magic, Holy Light Judgement.

Within Bartolo's domain, he could suppress the souls of all heretics, weakening their power, and freely call upon Holy Spears to deliver judgment.

“The Lord commands, cleanse the heresy and filth.”

As soon as he spoke, a blinding golden light within his domain formed into a long spear, descending from the sky to pierce Lidon.

Seeing the spear coming toward him, Lidon's expression hardened.

He maintained his own domain while murmuring an incantation, summoning a black shield above his head and enveloping himself in black armor.

Under Bartolo's overwhelming domain, Lidon, who had just advanced to Seventh-tier Archmage, was severely suppressed. Even with his domain active, its effects were only a fraction of what it should be.

Boom!

The Holy Spear shattered Lidon's domain and struck his black shield.

But that was not the end. Wearing a white robe and a long beard, Bartolo shook the bell again, and three more Holy Spears materialized. His domain had shrunk slightly.

He directed the three spears at Lidon, piercing his shield and breaking through his black armor, impaling him.

Lidon coughed up a large amount of blood, his gaze dimming as he fell from the air and crashed onto the platform.

“Lidon!”

Ellison's heart sank as he saw Lidon impaled by the three Holy Spears, unsure whether he was alive or dead.

As the only Seventh-tier Archmage remaining at Palos Magic Academy, seeing him so easily defeated by the enemy was a devastating blow.

Turning his gaze, Ellison looked at the old man in the distance.

To buy time for the others, he spoke coldly,

“What is the Church of Light doing here? Have you forgotten the Forbidden Agreement?”

Bartolo smiled warmly, “I am here to bring light to the world. What talk of a ‘forbidden agreement’?

This land has been covered in darkness for far too long. It is time to bring the Holy Light of the Lord.”

As he spoke, Bartolo prepared to shake the bell again, but Ellison seized the opportunity, using his Hands of Annihilation to strike at him.

The Hands of Annihilation was a collapsing force that compressed anything within its range to the utmost.

Even Bartolo, seeing Ellison's attack, was momentarily startled. He recited a complex ancient spell and summoned a huge Holy Light Shield around him.

With a deafening boom, the shield collapsed halfway, but it still managed to block the blow. However, Bartolo's domain shrank even further.

“Impressive. No wonder Bauer was so desperate to acquire this ritual magic,” said Bauer, the monkey-faced man standing beside Bartolo, clutching his chest and sighing.

“What a pity—if only we had been a bit quicker in acquiring the Hands of Annihilation’s stance. I wonder who disrupted the barrier in the end.”

Turning to him, Bartolo said, “Bauer, I’ve given you plenty of time. It’s your own fault for failing. Now there’s no more chance. Don’t let this delay the mission.”

Bauer lowered his head. “I understand.”

On the platform, Ellison glared at Bartolo and coldly said,

“The Church of Light still speaks its nauseating lies, pretending to be righteous.”

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

Bartolo continued to smile, shaking his bell to summon a Holy Spear aimed at Ellison, saying,

“This is the will of the Lord. Light will ultimately overcome darkness!”

As the spear shot toward him at high speed, Ellison used the Hands of Annihilation to expand outward.

The Holy Spear disintegrated into fragments just ten meters from Ellison.

This was the Hands of Annihilation’s expansion.

It allowed Ellison to rapidly expand the space around him, stretching and crushing anything in the area.

“Today truly opens my eyes. You are still a legend, even after all these years,” said Bartolo, impressed.

“Had I stood here thirty years ago, I would have run away without hesitation, not daring to stay for even a moment.”

Ellison did not respond immediately.

He glanced around, confirming that all the students had been safely evacuated from the enemy's domain and moved into a protected training hall at the main campus, where barriers had been set up by the deans and faculty.

But the situation remained unfavorable, as Bartolo and Bauer were not the only threats. There were other enemies attacking elsewhere on campus.

If Ellison couldn’t subdue Bartolo, Palos Magic Academy would likely suffer.

Turning his focus back to Bartolo, Ellison began to strategize.

Meanwhile, Bartolo, whose domain had shrunk considerably, moved toward Ellison to maintain his advantage.

As he walked, he stepped on a small, unassuming stone.

At that moment, ten iron balls the size of fists, covered in intricate runes, suddenly appeared beneath his feet.

Boom! A massive explosion rang out across the square, sending a mushroom cloud billowing into the air.

The earth-shattering explosion startled everyone. Bauer, who was closest to Bartolo, was even sent flying several dozen meters by the shockwave of the blast.

When the smoke cleared, the once holy and kind-hearted Bartolo was now unrecognizable.

His facial features were scorched beyond repair, his white eyebrows and long beard completely burned off.

His white robe was torn to shreds, his body covered in charred, open wounds, and his skin was riddled with countless gash-like marks, bleeding profusely.

However, Bartolo was not dead.

His robe, a sacred item granted by the Church of Light, had withstood the blast, capable of resisting up to a sixth-tier attack. Otherwise, being at the center of the explosion would have reduced him to nothing but ash.

"Who did this?! Who?!"

Now nearly unrecognizable, with his flesh and bones torn apart, Bartolo screamed in fury, no longer the calm figure he was moments ago.

Two young priests in white robes hurriedly appeared, helping Bartolo and pulling him back a distance.

Ellison, standing on the high platform of the square, was also momentarily stunned. He didn’t know who had launched the attack.

Even when the barrier had been broken earlier, several steel cylinders had appeared out of nowhere on the square, still positioned there.

Was someone aiding Palos Magic Academy?

Regardless, this was an unprecedented opportunity for Ellison.

He controlled his Hands of Annihilation, aiming to strike Bartolo down and crush him into pulp with a collapse spell.

But before Ellison could launch his attack, Bartolo, still supported by the two priests, shakily rang his bell and shouted:

"God commands, imprison the heretics!"

In an instant, the over one-hundred-meter radius of Bartolo’s domain rapidly compressed to only thirty meters.

However, instead of encompassing Bartolo, it now enveloped Ellison. As a result, Ellison’s Hands of Annihilation, which he had initiated, failed to harm Bartolo.

After using his domain’s other ability, Bartolo coughed up blood. Without the priests’ support, he might have collapsed right then and there.

His "Holy Light Judgment" ability not only weakened enemies within the domain, but could also imprison anyone within its bounds.

While those trapped inside could still use magic, it would only be effective within the domain. Anything beyond its confines would be nullified.

Thus, Ellison’s Hands of Annihilation could no longer affect Bartolo beyond the domain.

But Bartolo could still use the domain to continue his judgment on Ellison. He shook his bell again, and twelve holy spears materialized, launching toward Ellison from all directions.

However, the twelve spears stopped just a few meters from Ellison, hovering in the air, forming a deadly deterrent around him.

"I remember that Hands of Annihilation cannot be used casually while moving. You’d better not make any sudden moves," Bartolo taunted, keeping the twelve spears suspended around Ellison.

The reason Bartolo kept the spears floating around Ellison instead of attacking was to completely trap him within the domain.

The moment Ellison moved, Bartolo would send the spears one by one to strike him down.

As long as there were enough spears, Ellison would be immobilized. While maintaining his domain and the spears, Bartolo turned to face another direction and coldly commanded:

"Don’t bother with Ellison. Deal with the others first. Especially the one who ambushed me—find them!"

Not far from him, Bauer, who had received treatment from a priest, was recovering from the wounds on his chest.

Wiping blood from the corner of his mouth, he turned into a misty smoke and reformed his body atop one of the steel cylinders.

Frowning, Bauer stared at the cylinders, then conjured a massive fireball like magma and hurled it at one of the steel cylinders. However, when the fireball hit, the cylinder vanished.

This left Bauer stunned. He turned and cast another magma fireball at a different cylinder, but that one disappeared too.

Could these steel cylinders be illusions?

To the south of the square, outside the main training hall of the main campus, Karien carried an unconscious student into the protective barrier around the training hall. As he did so, he glanced back toward the square.

Since the battle erupted, Karien had been rescuing students while constantly monitoring the situation on the square.

Karien was just an ordinary human, and given the uncertainty of the situation, he dared not reveal himself. Instead, he relied on the teleportation beads to carry out surprise attacks from a distance.

The so-called "Bartolo" had just stepped onto a stone that Karien had previously marked.

Karien certainly couldn’t let this rare opportunity slip by. He immediately placed ten elemental bombs beneath Bartolo’s feet.

Similar to the P3 magic cannon shells, these elemental bombs were made of Stormsteel and inscribed with densely packed explosive runes.

To enhance their power, Karien had made three types of bombs.

The first type was elemental grenades, which were inexpensive.

The core was a chip with ten layers of explosive runes, surrounded by ordinary iron plates arranged in a grid. Upon detonation, the energy released would scatter the iron shards, making it like a shrapnel grenade.

These were highly effective against first- and second-tier magicians and cost less than a gold coin to make.

The second type was functional grenades, whose cores also contained explosive runes. However, these could have additional triggering functions, such as smoke bombs or flashbangs.

The third type was the yield bomb, which was much more costly. Its core was a Stormsteel steel ball engraved with multiple layers of small explosive runes, then wrapped in layers of thin Stormsteel plates.

Karien usually stacked fifteen layers, resulting in over 500 small explosive runes, making the bomb roughly equivalent to a 30 kg TNT blast.

When detonated simultaneously, ten of these yield bombs would release an explosion nearly as powerful as a conventional missile.

Karien sent ten of these yield bombs toward Bartolo, but surprisingly, they didn’t kill him.

Compared to the P3 magic cannon shells, the yield bombs were cheaper to produce because of their method of layered runic inscription.

A single bomb only required about one kilogram of Stormsteel (about 100 gold coins). However, the labor cost was high.

It took Karien half a day to inscribe one bomb, and his students would need at least two to three days.

Thus, Karien didn’t have many of these bombs on hand, and many enemies still needed to be dealt with.

As Karien observed the square, a dog-faced ghostly figure dashed toward him from nearby.