Mystery: Good Witch

Chapter 1008: Quick Decision (Two in One)

When mentioning the "Great Mother", Father Raymond's expression was completely different from when he praised the "Eternal Sun". The latter had a hint of holiness and fanaticism, as if he was looking directly at the sun, while the "Great Mother" was like Raymond's real mother, whom he worshipped and felt close to.

A priest of the Church of the Eternal Sun actually chanted the name of another being loudly in the depths of the church, calling him great!

However, this blasphemous act did not attract any punishment, and Raymond seemed to have expected this result. He restrained his expression, stood up from the chair, turned to the only window in the room again, looked at the sun, opened his arms, and chanted again:

"The great eternal blazing sun..."

Then, he and his robe turned into a grayish stone statue in the sunlight.

The expression of the stone statue is still sacred and fanatical, with its mouth slightly open and its arms spread out, like a stone cross.

The sunlight in front of it became dim, and a figure appeared in front of the glass window. It was Angel who had left the Eternal Sun Church and headed for the forest in the west.

The door behind him was opened from the outside, and Bernadette, wearing a women's shirt and tight trousers, walked slowly into the room. Looking at Raymond, who was completely petrified and without a trace of life, she said with a serious expression:
"I didn't expect that power to have infiltrated the Lieyang Church. No wonder there has been no news from the outside world for more than a month... I'm afraid a similar situation has happened to the administrator of this village, and it's even more serious because he doesn't have to worry about being discovered by the church."

Then, she looked at Angel, who was staring at the statue in silence, and her expression softened. She asked:
"'The Great Mother', is that the source of pollution you're talking about?"

She did not use the term "starry sky" for fear that she would accidentally "cross the line" and know more accurate information.

"It should be, but there is no pollution on his body, and petrification did not cause him to precipitate extraordinary characteristics... He is just an ordinary person, at least for now."

Angel answered, his eyes flickering, switching his vision with the gaze of the "man in the mirror" in the persona of "City of Disaster", but he did not notice the red light.

As for the "Great Mother", it undoubtedly refers to the "Fallen Mother Goddess".

It can't be the Mother Goddess of the Earth, she is a "local god" through and through, and one of the true gods, there is no need for her to do such tricks to snatch believers... Angel muttered, and the power of "petrification" was restrained, turning Raymond's gray body into a pool of stone powder. Before it fell to the ground, it was flipped into the mirror and sprinkled on the entire mirror world, completely destroying the body.

Both she and Bernadette knew that using Raymond as a medium to divine the "Great Mother" was undoubtedly a suicidal act, so no one mentioned it.

Seeing a priest from the Eternal Sun Church disappear without a trace in her church, Bernadette searched the room casually but did not find many valuable documents. She then looked at Angel and said,
"What should we do next? Should we notify the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun and let the Purifiers handle it, or should we go to the administrator's house in Belon Village to check?"

The corruption of a priest is enough for the Church of the Fiery Sun to mobilize its armed forces and quickly resolve the matter.

but……

"However, the purifiers will not only deal with possible contamination, but there is a high probability that they will 'purify' the entire village. The villagers here, whether they are contaminated or not, will be imprisoned in the Inquisition and treated cruelly. The entire village will also be completely wiped out of all traces." Angel looked at the small holy emblem on the table and said slowly. "This is why I want to investigate first instead of directly notifying the official Beyonders of Intis."

"But before coming to Belon, you asked me to tell Bonois about this? Is it because the actions of the Steam Church and the Mechanical Heart are not so extreme and violent, or because of the relationship between me and Him?"

Bernadette asked.

"Both. I have worked with the Mechanical Heart in Loen before and know that their methods are relatively restrained. Telling Him is equivalent to letting the god know that if our actions go wrong, there is still a backup plan... Most importantly, I see humanity in Bonova, not complete divinity."

Angel said, pushing open the window, jumping over the window sill and coming to the cemetery behind the church, and Bernadette followed.

“I also see humanity in you, and it’s stronger than any angel I’ve ever seen.” The Beyonder who became a demigod more than a hundred years ago said, “Most Beyonders gradually lose their humanity after they gain divinity and become Sequence 2… Oh, this doesn’t mean they will do evil. In mysticism, humanity is not equal to kindness. There are also evil humanity, such as enjoying depraved behavior, bloodlust, or a desire to destroy. But generally speaking, the loss of humanity will make them no longer consider the thoughts of ordinary people, and act more recklessly and wantonly.”

It sounded like she was commenting on Emperor Roselle's later years... Angel thought with insight.

She was aware that she was still "full of humanity" and did not think it was a trait worth praising. After all, she had only been an angel for a month, and with the two extremely stable anchors of Klein and the Man in the Mirror, she had left many legendary deeds as the "Golden Queen" in advance, and the "Great Pirate Angelica" series of novels were widely circulated. In the eyes of others, she was still a person with clear likes and dislikes, and acted in a way that was considered "kind" by the public.

Although it is unclear whether this state is an advantage or disadvantage compared to other angels, Angel hopes to remain like this.

……

Strolling through the vineyards and houses of different heights, sizes and layouts, Angel and Bernadette soon arrived at the forest west of the village of Belon.

They did not go to the local administrator's house on the other side of the village to coax more information like they did with Father Raymond. After all, the priest had prayed to the "Great Mother" before he was petrified. If time dragged on too long, Nestor might get more revelations and sneak away, leaving them empty-handed.

Therefore, Angel adopted the most straightforward plan: to go to the forest immediately to find Nast's old house.

Entering deep into the forest, which was obviously denser than it should be in winter, Angel soon found a three-story house that looked extremely shabby, but showed signs of renovation everywhere. It was located on a flat land in the forest, with a small garden. One and a half floors were embedded underground, making it appear shorter than an ordinary three-story building.

The outer half of the garden had been re-erected with heavy wooden planks, apparently done by the young men hired to build the wall as Father Raymond had said.

Standing in front of the house that was still somewhat drafty after being patched up, Angel began to investigate using a nearby mirror, but soon discovered that the entire interior of the house was shrouded in a gray mist, and her proud "magic mirror divination" had no response at all.

She turned her head and glanced at Bernadette beside her, who also shook her head, indicating that her predictive ability had not detected anything unusual.

This in itself means that divination and prophecy are interfered with by some force.

Taking a deep breath, Angel's figure returned to normal after a moment of blurring. Her real body had already hidden in the "mirror world", leaving only a lifelike substitute in the real world that could transmit the power of herself and the person in the mirror.

Bernadette used her fingers to draw star-like words in the air, summoning the muscular man Angel had seen before, whose upper body was wrapped in white cloth and whose lower body turned into a whirlwind to support the spiritual creature.

It handed a diamond-studded forehead ornament to Bernadette, who took it and put it on her forehead. Her whole body immediately exuded an aura of wisdom yet indifference.

This is the "Sage's Forehead Ornament", a "0" level seal that allows the user to transform into a pure information flow creature at any time and avoid most physical attacks, even those that require direct contact to be transmitted.

In this state, Bernadette dared to follow an angel into the building that was likely to be contaminated by the "Great Mother", rather than just staying outside and waiting for the results.

After making all preparations, Angel's mirror double came to the door, stepped back with one foot, and steadied herself with the other. The next moment, she raised her retreating foot and kicked forward, smashing the wooden door to pieces, and rushed into the room first.

I've wanted to do this for a long time... Angel in the mirror world was a little excited. She used her status as the "City of Disaster" to look around her stand as if overlooking an open picture album, alerting her to possible attacks from any direction.

But as the two entered the building, a scene full of evil and foul atmosphere appeared before their eyes like an abstract painting in a museum.

The living room of the entire house was opened up upwards, with three floors connected together. The half-buried floor was sunken inwards, and in the center was an altar made of dark red wood. Its main body was round and hollowed out inside, with many strangely shaped branches extending around it, like new offspring on dead wood.

Around the altar, circles of short creatures were arranged in three concentric circles, close to the ground, kneeling towards the altar. They had the same hands, feet, necks and heads as humans, but their bodies were smaller, like babies...

No, they are real babies!
Angel's mirror double immediately saw the situation inside the room through dark vision, and felt a chill running through his heart.

Therefore, she immediately noticed that the at least forty humanoid creatures lying on the ground were real humans, but they had just been freed from their mother's arms. Not only did they not have time to grow, they could not get enough nutrition, so their limbs were as thin as sticks and their heads were abnormally sized.

Hearing the sound of kicking the door, the babies lying on the ground raised their bodies at the same time and looked at the two people at the door.

Forty faces of different shapes but with common characteristics appeared in front of Angel.

Their faces are dry and wrinkled, their eyes are protruding from their sockets, their pupils are pure black and the insides are invisible, and the corners of their mouths are stretched to the sides due to wrinkled skin, revealing the insides that are covered with mucus and have sharp fangs.

These... they are not babies, they are obviously deformed monsters!

Angel, who had seen many cult scenes and strange creatures, had a brief mental stagnation under the gaze of these evil creatures. The next second, another identical picture covered her eyes. It was transmitted by the "Man in the Mirror", a scene of looking at reality from the perspective of the "City of Disaster".

Superimposed on the forty strange babies were wisps of blood-red light. Although they were dim, they firmly enveloped the babies' bodies, as if dyeing them with a layer of red gauze.

That is the pollution of the "Fallen Mother Goddess"!

The moment they confirmed this, all the babies in the room flew over as if they had received an order, and then collided with the black flames that suddenly appeared in the air, and flames ignited on their bodies. Then, the grayish white color representing disaster and death replaced the black color of the curse, causing the flames in the air to fall to the ground with a thud, making a series of muffled sounds.

In an instant, all the strange babies, along with the black flames burning them, turned into stones and lost their lives.

At this moment, Bernadette had just stepped out of the door, and her eyes had just focused on the dark red altar.

Is it over? As expected of a "witch" angel whose destructive power ranks at the top of the twenty-two paths of God... Her sight moved from the altar to the stone statues on the ground. As soon as a thought flashed through her mind, she found that all the stone statues began to wriggle, and countless cracks appeared. The insides were flashing with blood-red light, as if blood-red flowers were planted on the stones.

That strange color reminded people of the blood moon that would occasionally turn into this color in the sky, making all extraordinary people and extraordinary creatures spiritually excited.

This is the real-life manifestation of the pollution of the "Great Mother"!
The polluted blood-red flowers were like eyes, and their invisible sight immediately locked onto Bernadette, whose expression changed. Her ears, eyes, and mouth had their own thoughts and lives. She heard and saw non-existent information and recited incomprehensible words.

Without hesitation, Bernadette's body began to fade away and decompose into streams of pure knowledge, becoming a disembodied information stream creature. This effectively prevented the body from mutating and allowed her to recover from a certain madness.

It seemed to be very clear that there was no way to deal with this information creature in a short period of time. The invisible sight of the blood-red flowers on the surface of the stones turned to look at Angel, and the malicious pollution rushed towards her in the same way, trying to "activate" everything on her.

But what greeted them was the tangible aura of destruction that emerged from within Angel's mirror double.

Angel from the "Mirror World", the Man in the Mirror from the "City of Disaster", the power of disaster and destruction brought about by the Source that is far higher than Sequence 2.

An invisible giant hand swept across the entire building in an instant. The house, which was already dilapidated and had not yet been fully repaired, seemed to have experienced a hundred years again. It decayed and collapsed in an instant and turned into floating ashes.

The cracks on the surfaces of the forty stone baby statues in the living room expanded to both sides and connected to each other, making the grayish-white surface full of lines of varying thicknesses. The blood-red light inside was wandering and flickering, as if avoiding something extremely scary.

But as the power of destruction lingered and covered them, the stone statues shattered one after another, and a trace of blood-red aura from within escaped. Some of them tried to fly into the air and escape from here, some wanted to enter the dark red altar and continue to hide, and some gathered together and floated towards Angel, attempting to make a final struggle.

But as one ice mirror after another appeared in the air, accurately "catching" the red breath and dyeing themselves crimson, the dissipated pollution quickly returned to the "mirror world", and was reflected back and forth between countless mirrors that seemed to be endless. Finally, it was shrouded by a dark shadow and unwillingly disappeared into the depths of the mirror world.

This was the first time that Angel used the power of "Source" to crush the pollution of the "Old Days".

The effect was quite good, as it prevented the pollution from the outer gods from leaking to the outside, but... just as a thought flashed through Angel's mind, he heard a sharp, somewhat exasperated roar from the only dark red altar that remained intact.

Then, the altar shattered and collapsed before her eyes. A wisp of light white mist rose from it and quickly dissipated into the spiritual world, disappearing without a trace.

What kind of power is this...

Angel seemed to be thinking about something as he looked at the sky where the pale white mist had broken through the spiritual world, leaving gaps in the sky visible to the naked eye.

Behind her, the informationized Bernadette reconstructed her body, covered her ears that were almost separated from her body, and quickly took off the "Sage's Headband" on her forehead and handed it to the spiritual servant who appeared again.

"Was that the pollution from the Great Mother?" She looked around at the ruins crushed by the destructive force, looked at the broken stone statue of the baby, and asked with lingering fear, "Have they all been cleared?"

“If you mean the pollution here, it’s all been dealt with.

Angel answered slowly, recalling the extraordinary characteristics of the "Planeswalker" and the "Mistress of Desolation" he had seen in the underground memorial hall of Patis in the "City of Dreams", as well as the blood-red smell of pollution inside them.

"But if you're talking about the contamination that Nast brought with him... then what's left here is only one-fifth of it."

PS: I've been very busy working overtime these days, so I can only finish this chapter. I didn't finish it at night.

(End of this chapter)