Chapter 60 : Victory

They couldn’t afford to drag this out any longer!

Tilrogzach bit through the tip of his tongue, using the sharp pain to wrench his focus back from the blinding light.

He had to kill this human—immediately. Otherwise, he’d be the one in danger.

If even the Spear of Deathcurse couldn’t finish her off, then he had no choice but to resort to something more extreme… something far more terrifying.

Crimson blood began to seep from the demon’s eyes, quickly soaking through Tilrogzach’s black priest robes until they were drenched in red.

His hands moved in opposing seals—left and right—while his voice chanted words of ruin and calamity.

Behind him, a phantom demon appeared—its head triangular, its face bearing four eyes and four arms.

The shadow beast at Tilrogzach’s feet growled low, then dove into the phantom and vanished.

In that moment, the phantom became corporeal, as though it were preparing to step through the veil of reality and descend into the world.

But Tilrogzach wouldn’t allow it to emerge.

He altered his hand gestures—his right hand’s index and middle fingers pressed together, the rest curled inward and pointed to the ground; his left hand split its thumb, index, and pinky wide, while middle and ring fingers stayed together, aimed toward the sky.

Blood trickled down the hem of his robes, forming a glowing, blood-red pentagram on the ground.

“In the name of Baphomet! I offer flesh and blood! I offer soul and rot! I perform sacrifices! I enact the burnt offering…”

As his chant reached its peak, Tilrogzach’s skin began to wither, shriveling rapidly as though some invisible force was draining the very life from him.

Behind him, the phantom demon fared even worse—amid eerie, source-less chewing sounds, it howled in agony before collapsing into a pile of mangled meat, as hellfire blazed around it.

Li Wen would never sit idle and let him cast such a spell.

With a flick of her wrist, she hurled the Spear of Deathcurse, simultaneously springing into the air with a light step.

Her hands shimmered with spiritual light as she summoned the Final Testament once again—another verse of Paradise’s Hymn.

But she lacked the strength.

The spear barely flew before clattering to the ground, not even grazing the demon’s shadow.

The hymn, however, was another story entirely.

A stone tower manifested above Tilrogzach’s head the instant the incantation took effect.

Then came lightning—blasting down from nothingness, striking the demon squarely.

Collapse of the Tower!

Seven abnormal statuses descended upon Tilrogzach at once along with the thunderbolt.

Yet he merely let out a muffled groan, his casting uninterrupted.

“Pain, savagery, lament, and plague—these are your names! Ruin, rending, blindness, and barrenness—these are your truths! The road to paradise and corruption lies open for you!”

“The fruit on the tree is yours alone! I call upon your true name—Foe of Kanan, Shadow against Babylon!”

At the center of Tilrogzach’s spell, all the light behind him vanished in an instant.

The illusionary tower above him shattered.

His left arm—transformed into a skeletal mockery by the “Malice Core”—along with the entire left side of his body, was devoured by invisible mouths.

Yet his shadow remained untouched.

Even in the deepest, most oppressive darkness, it endured—solid, unwavering.

His eyes locked onto Li Wen with deathly intensity.

He had already uttered the being’s true name.

From this point on, neither of them had any path of survival left.

“Then come with me. Let’s fall into hell together.”

A dense, suffocating darkness spread outward.

From the farthest edge of the world—from the reflection at the end of reality—some terrifying, formless power began to leak into the world.

That place was impossibly far from the mortal realm, but it would not be long before its gaze arrived.

Li Wen’s expression turned cold.

If she allowed Tilrogzach to complete whatever unknown spell he was casting, then she might as well hand over the Final Testament herself.

“I won’t let you succeed.”

Her voice was low, and at its center, heat and radiant light burst outward like a sunburst.

When a Witch Form’s Dusk Corruption reaches 50% and again at 100%, the bearer temporarily gains extraordinary traits.

These traits remain until the Witch Form is released.

In other words, even though Li Wen had reset her Corruption level, her Witch Form had not been undone—meaning the extraordinary trait she gained last time at 50% was still with her.

Extraordinary Trait of the Radiance Lineage — Afterglow.

【Afterglow】

【Trait – Extraordinary (Blue) – Radiance】

【There will always be light that lingers in the night, just like the sun’s fading glow at dusk.】

【Your next Radiance-based spell is amplified by 50%. If cast in darkness or at night, the amplification becomes 100%. Cooldown: 1 day.】

Arclight, without incantation!

Li Wen once more enchanted her Bone-Eating Dagger, and this time, the arclight it radiated was brighter than ever before.

The demon stared at that light with longing… and torment.

He bit down on his tongue, spitting out blood.

That blood painted a reversed pentagram in the air.

At its center was a goat’s head.

Between the goat’s brows, three crimson sixes intertwined to form a closed circle—like a bloodshot, unblinking eye.

From the depths of despairing darkness, a chain emerged and coiled around the goat’s head.

Hellfire spewed from the goat’s mouth.

In an instant, all color drained from the world.

The fire floated slowly toward Li Wen, silent and still, but everything it touched was erased without a trace.

Li Wen gazed at the fire and understood, instinctively—there was no escape.

There was no protection from its heat.

If that fire touched her, even in Witch Form, she would die on the spot.

There was no way to dodge it.

So she didn’t.

Just before the flames reached her, Li Wen activated her broken Eye of the Transcendent.

Unstable Teleportation Spell — Consumes an uncertain amount of mana to perform a random short- or long-range spatial jump.

In the blink of an eye, her figure vanished from the demon’s sight.

Tilrogzach stood stunned—terrified.

He could already sense death pressing down on him, a breath away.

Then, the next moment—

A blinding light exploded before his eyes, like the sun rising at dawn.

Everything was illuminated.

So beautiful.

So magnificent…

Tilrogzach couldn’t stop the thought.

The searing light burned into him like fire to oil, hissing and crackling.

Yet within his agony, in his desperate longing for light, the demon’s heart was uncharacteristically serene.

To merge with the light—that was the only possible outcome.

Li Wen watched as the demon’s body was consumed by radiance and turned to ash.

The goat-headed magic circle lost its caster and collapsed into silence.

She let out a breath.

“Siswell won’t let you off,” rasped a voice from the ground—Tilrogzach’s head was all that remained of him, and even that had the Bone-Eating Dagger still lodged in it.

“Then let him come.”

Li Wen didn’t believe someone like Siswell would come for her personally.

Tilrogzach was just trying to get in a final threat before dying.

So she stepped forward, and before he could utter another word of garbage—

She crushed his head underfoot.

At last, the demon had lost his vessel in the human world.

But Li Wen knew that in the depths of the Inferno, the demon named Tilrogzach still existed.

She sighed, casting a glance at the ruined remains of the Candlelight Cathedral, where the flames still burned.

Her head throbbed.

After such chaos, there was no way the Kingdom’s Inquisition wouldn’t have noticed… right?