Strength 99999 but the Holy Sister

Charlie couldn't stand being praised, especially in front of Elsa. She happily spun around a few times.

However, after she turned into blood mist, she couldn't pounce on Elsa and act coquettishly, which made her quite regretful.

Tricia was observing the flow of Charlie's magic power. In her opinion, Charlie's bloodline power had become more and more obvious, and the feeling of pure blood from Charlie was becoming more and more prominent. Compared with Duke Charlbliss, this feeling was actually somewhat similar, but it was countless times more condensed.

At this time, Elsa will look towards the distant east. The mountains in the east seem to have no end in sight, but it can be vaguely seen that the mountains in the north have long been covered with snow. The further south you go, the thinner the snow becomes.

In the distance, under a mountain range shrouded in the orange sunset, the outline of the city can be seen. Unlike those imperial cities built on the plains, most of those cities stand in the middle of forests and in gently sloping valleys.

"That's Hercules Butana?"

"The mountain range we see is the largest mountain range in the empire, the Alba Mountains. To the north of the Alba Mountains is Hercules Butana, and to the south is the Central Province area - but we can't see it from here.

As a natural barrier, the Alba Mountains not only shielded the central province of the empire from the cold wave invading from Belmont Ferrea, but also easily stopped numerous invading enemies within the complex terrain of the mountains.

Tricia gave a brief introduction, and both Elsa and Charlie looked at the map and had a general understanding.

The area of ​​the Alba Mountains on the map is quite large. On the map of the empire's borders, this mountain range can be said to have single-handedly divided the three provinces of Linsercode in the central region, Crossbell in the north, and Hekloski in the east. Its area is almost as vast as the entire western province, and it runs like the backbone of the eastern continent all the way to the Dragon Canyon in the east.

What they could see now was only a corner of the Alba Mountains.

"Let's keep moving forward."

Tricia said, taking the lead and continuing to fly towards the east.

It wasn't long before she noticed something was wrong.

"It should be here."

Tricia descended in altitude, her eyes fixed on the ordinary-looking mountain in front of her. Her emerald eyes seemed to have fixed on something in the air. Although from the outside this place looked no different from the surrounding mountains, the aura emanating from it could not escape Tricia's magical vision.

Moreover, through the perception of the earth veins through mystical magic, Tricia can capture the abnormality of the earth veins below.

"Huh? Right here?"

Charlie also lifted the blood mist and followed Tricia and Aisha, looking around carefully but finding nothing.

"There is indeed something here..."

Aisha also said this, which made Tricia look at Aisha more.

"If I look closely, I can see something different... So, this is actually an independent space, too?"

After hearing this, Charlie narrowed her eyes and tried, but finally gave up.

She knew that what Elsa meant by "staring intently" was probably different from what she understood.

"Yes, it is indeed a spatial magic, but this method is much lower-level than the Star God's. Even the aura that the Star God accidentally emitted is enough to split the space, even causing my magical perception to err. This place uses some clever tricks. Rather than dividing it, it is better to say that it is just separating this place with magic. It can neither separate the space nor distort time. What it allows us to see is just an exquisite illusion. It is better to say that the magic that creates this illusion is far more advanced than the spatial magic here. It reminds me of an 'old friend' - the Silver Demon General Gabido. His specialty is the illusion magic that can deceive everyone and make the fake look real."

Tricia said, reaching her hand forward, and her slender fingers immediately became illusory from the fingertips on.

Charlie also followed Tricia's example and reached out to touch it, but didn't feel anything special.

Elsa didn't do that, but asked curiously: "The Silver Demon General is still alive?"

"Dead. I killed it with my own hands. Although it possessed a high level of skill in illusion magic, magic never deceives. Moreover, once it loses its magic, its power is no longer as formidable."

Tricia spoke calmly, as if stating a commonplace matter, but Aisha knew that the hardship behind these few short sentences was probably unimaginable.

"Also, while this illusion is sophisticated, it's still quite different from Gabido's—I just think this method is very familiar. But what's strange to me is that there don't seem to be any restrictions here. Why is that?

Logically speaking, since the illusion was carefully woven, it should be to hide everything here, but there is no other magic to assist, allowing anyone to enter and exit... It looks like it is waiting for others to enter..."

Tricia thought about it, seemed to have thought of something, and then shook her head.

Aisha asked, "If it's just a trick, do you need me to break it?"

Tricia checked carefully and didn't notice anything else unusual, so she said:

"Then please."

Tricia could also break the magic circle here, but since Elsa is here, there is no need for her to make it so complicated.

Elsa raised her hand, stretched out her hand, and pointed her finger forward. As a dim arc of light flashed, the mountains and forests in front of her became distorted, as if a stone was thrown into a calm lake. No, it should be said that a mountain was thrown into a pool of water.

The scenery in front of her eyes suddenly became boiling. With the point where Elsa's finger landed as the center, everything was instantly crushed to pieces by an invisible force. The next moment, a dull sound suddenly spread throughout the mountains and forests, and even the ground beneath her feet shook briefly.

In the blink of an eye, the normal scenery was replaced by a shocking gray and white - all that was visible was endless gray, withered trees, curled vines, dry grass, all gray, even the stones and land on the ground were gray, the only color came from the sunset in the sky that had not yet burned out, and the thin falling snow.

Tricia seemed to have sensed something, looked up at the air curiously, and then focused her attention slightly to chase after him.

But as Elsa's power spread, everything collapsed before she could catch up with the tail of that strange power.

This surprised her a little: a magic circle actually escaped her eyes. It was a very clever little spell hidden in the illusion magic. It was perfectly hidden in the magic circle through the overlap of the magic circle, so that Tricia did not notice it. If Elsa had not exposed the illusion, even she would have been deceived.

This also sounded the alarm for Tricia——

"This place is definitely not simple. Surveillance magic, huh?... Too bad we didn't catch up."

It seems that the other party is also a master of illusion. Although he is still not as good as the Silver Demon General of that year, he is not much worse - Tricia thinks this is more reasonable.

"what happened?"

Aisha asked and Tricia just shook her head.

"Nothing, I just got tricked by someone—that guy is a very powerful illusionist, and very cunning."

"Better than you?"

Elsa was surprised.

Since she met Tricia, Aisha has never seen anyone other than her who can surpass Tricia in strength.

"As far as illusion is concerned, I am not as good as him."

Tricia said frankly.

She could use some basic illusions, but that was all. A person's energy was always limited. Tricia's strength lay in her ritual magic, not her illusions. Especially after she closed her five senses due to a curse more than thirty years ago, her illusions became even more stagnant, because illusions were spells based on the five senses. Because of this, the Silver Demons were natural illusionists. It was said that they were born with perceptions far beyond those of humans. They could see colors that ordinary people could not see, hear sounds that ordinary people could not hear, and smell smells that ordinary people could not smell. All these subtle things became the basis for their more sophisticated and clever illusions.

However, if she faced the Silver Demon General again, Tricia was confident that she could end the battle within a quarter of an hour - she was no longer the same person she was before. She had not been idle for so many years. The magical perception of the mystical magic was the nemesis of illusions.

As they spoke, they were already walking towards the forest.

"Is this the place of death..."

It was the first time for both Elsa and Charlie to see the death place up close and with their own eyes. Charlie opened her eyes wide and looked at everything in front of her, feeling curious and nervous at the same time, while Elsa's deepest feeling about everything here was just one word: absurd.

Because everything here looked like it had been dead for many days. Elsa was very sure of it - not just through what she saw with her eyes, it was an indescribable feeling. For Elsa, as long as it was a living creature, even if it was just a leaf, Elsa could smell the plant scent it exuded, feel the crawling of the creatures from the earth under her feet, and hear the faint sound of it absorbing nutrients.

Although Father Angus interpreted it as the breath of the tree spirit.

However, it was completely different here. When Elsa stepped in, she clearly felt the strange "death", the "death" that was coming towards her.

This place seems to be shrouded in the concept of "death".

But if the trees were completely dead, why didn't they appear to be decaying any further? In other words, rather than withering, the trees seemed to have completely stopped at a certain point in time, and their appearance after that point was no longer any different.

"let's go."

Tricia didn't stop and walked deeper.

Aisha followed, her gaze instantly traveling far away, scanning everything within her sight.

What she saw were not only the dead trees, but also some animals that once lived here—birds and beasts. They had completely lost their vitality, and their bodies lay intact in various places in the forest. Similarly, there was no sign of decay, as if their lives had completely stopped at a certain moment.

"It feels strange, doesn't it? Why does everything here seem to be completely frozen?"

Tricia stared deeply at everything in front of her, as if she was looking far away, or as if she was recalling something.

"The Death Land doesn't have much of an impact on us, or rather, it won't have any impact in the short term, because our souls are strong enough. A strong soul will mobilize enough magic power to block the aura of the Death Land. Even if it's just beasts, birds, or insects, their weak soul power is enough to temporarily resist the invasion of the Death Land's aura. However, once the Death Land begins to spread, the time left for them is very limited. If they can't leave here as soon as possible after the Death Land appears, they will die due to the withering of vitality. Or, plants like these trees that haven't evolved tree spirits will have their lives completely stripped away by the Death Land in a very short time. The complete destruction of a forest is undoubtedly devastating to the creatures living there."

Elsa saw a small bird's nest built of thick dead branches on a branch nearby.

"It's winter now, and few birds breed in this season. Otherwise, the chicks would probably stay here forever."

Tricia said.

"Compared to other animals living here, birds are very lucky. They can fly higher and see where the forest has not been eroded. They can choose to fly away from this dead area. However, many wild animals can only wander around in the forest and eventually die from lack of food. After death, their vitality fades, and the forest will eventually swallow them up - you see, it's just like this."

Elsa and Charlie's eyes fell on a corpse not far away. It looked like a wild boar or something, and was covered with a thin layer of snow.

Charlie swallowed unconsciously. She was an experienced adventurer and didn't have much fear of corpses. However, the feeling of the dead place was not simply summed up by a corpse. It was an extreme weirdness called "death".

Elsa thought about it, walked over, drew out her sword - the black sword, and lightly slashed it.

At this moment, the Star God in the black sword was stunned - she, a dignified god, although she was called the God of Wilderness in this era, but... her body, she was a girl, was actually used to scratch the corpse of an animal?

She was about to cry.

Elsa had no idea what the Star God inside the black sword felt. She squatted down, carefully examined the corpse, and sniffed it. She noticed that although the corpse was stiff due to the low temperature and was covered with ice chips after being struck by the sword, Elsa saw that its skin and flesh showed no signs of decay.

Elsa squinted her eyes and observed a little harder. The flesh and blood became extremely fine in her eyes, so fine that Elsa could see the tiny powder floating in the air, the sebum on the surface of the flesh and blood, the pores, the ends of the thin blood vessels, and the bacteria.

All were inactive—dead cells differed slightly from living cells in form and color.

Elsa suddenly had a guess...

The so-called dead land will probably not only drain the vitality of these forests, but also any living creature that does not have the concept of "soul", or in other words, whose "soul power" is below a certain limit, will be drained of vitality. For example, bacteria, fungi and the like will definitely not be able to survive here alone. Therefore, everything here will not completely wither or rot, as if time has been paused.

Of course, this was just Elsa's fleeting guess. Otherwise, wouldn't a dead place be a purely natural, ultra-efficient disinfection factory? All someone with a certain level of spiritual power needed to do was bring the items in and take them out. Wouldn't any parasites or bacteria be wiped out?

Is that a joke? That's ridiculous.

At this time, Tricia looked at Elsa without interrupting her thoughts - but if she knew what Elsa was thinking, she would probably be very confused.

……

Meanwhile, in a bustling tavern on the west coast of the distant northern kingdom of Belmont Freia—

A tall man dressed as a helper, wearing a hood and a thick cotton jacket, walked into the tavern, walked straight to a man dressed as a businessman, sat down, and asked for a glass of hot wine.

"Boss, we're late," he whispered, looking very depressed. "Unfortunately, the port has been frozen over by the cold wave, and no ships are willing to go out to sea."

He said with some concern, and the man dressed as a businessman just nodded calmly.

"That's fine. Let's go south from here and get out of this frozen sea. That's where the Demon King's warships once landed. We can leave from there."

"Ah? Hasn't that place been occupied by mermaids..."

"They're just a bunch of mermaids, they can't cause any waves. Who would find them if we dumped their bodies into the sea? Humph—once we reach the Western Continent, we'll go to Al'Atea, the land of the elves, and hide out for a while. It's very chaotic there right now, so it should be the safest place for now."

The man dressed as a businessman shook his wine glass casually, but then stopped and was shocked.

"Tsk, why is there no wine here... These ales are really the favorites of lowly humans, not elegant at all."

The tall man muttered to himself, "Perhaps only the master would still care about such things at this time? Back when he was still in the Demon King's territory, even a barrel of beer, even a slightly sour one, was a hot commodity."

He hesitated for a moment.

"Do we... have to leave here? If we leave, won't everything we've planned for the past twenty years be abandoned?... Many of our compatriots haven't had time to evacuate yet. I heard that the Territory of Seyavis has been wiped out, and there's been no news of Dill and Count Leonard of Silver. They might have..."

"I remember that Dill's subordinates were those succubi, right?"

"Ah."

"Remember their sacrifice, bury this hatred deep in our hearts, and turn it into our strength."

The businessman put down his glass and stared at the man sharply.

"But that's all. Don't think about revenge. At least now is not the time for us to take revenge. As long as that Saint Sister is still here, we can only hide here and there. Even Tobias is dead. Can you, me, or us defeat him?"

The man was speechless.

Their true identities were actually demons. A month ago, their Anbu organizations had their last meeting and eventually dispersed and fled. Like them, others also left the northern border of the empire in various ways.

Eventually, except for a few weird guys who like to travel alone, most of them will meet up in the Western Continent, but for now, to be on the safe side, they must temporarily split up.

There were about dozens of people on their side, all of them elite. They traveled all the way from the northern border of the empire to Helansis Butana, and then crossed most of the territory of the Northern Kingdom. They disguised their identities and kept a low profile all the way, and finally arrived here safely. But unfortunately, because they were too cautious along the way, fearing that their identities as demons would be exposed, they wasted a lot of time, and by the time they reached the west coast, the port here had been closed.

The hot wine was brought to the table, but the man didn't drink it. The businessman glanced at him, then picked it up and drank it.

However, at this moment, a huge unknown force suddenly came from somewhere in the distance. Before he could react, he just widened his eyes and spat out a mouthful of blood, staining the wine glass with blood.

The sudden scene scared the other diners in the tavern and also scared the tall man.

"Boss! What's wrong with you...Boss!"

However, the businessman was lying on the table, almost fainting. He almost used up all his strength to slowly raise his hand and grab the tall man's arm.

His mind was filled with the scene he had just seen - the arcane sage, the blonde woman he had seen from afar in the philosopher's stone, and a vampire. They were standing in front of the magic circle he had set up. As the blonde woman raised her hand, everything he had carefully arranged was instantly shattered.

What he could not have imagined was that when the magic circle he had set up for surveillance and early warning was shattered, why did it cause such a horrific backlash to him?

What unknown means did that woman use?

When he thought of this, he was extremely frightened, and the composure he had just had was completely gone.

He hadn't imagined that even from such a distance, he would be severely damaged by the backlash. So, what if that person appeared before him right now? Would he still be able to survive? Could he resist a finger that could easily pierce his carefully crafted spell?