When the lightwave went through her body, Pasha felt a queer pulling force disquiet the little magic power left in her body, as though the magic power was going to be hauled away.
The magic power deprivation only lasted for a few seconds before peace was restored. In the meantime, the hall also fell silent as the magic power was tranquilized.
Through the short tentacles on her back, Pasha could see that the hybrid demonic beasts in the area reached by the lightwave all stiff like a statue as if they had been petrified. They then fell to the floor without uttering a sound.
It was evidently the most efficient massacre. Nothing, not even soil, rocks or brick walls, could possibly stop the wrath of heaven from advancing. Pasha could imagine what the upper floor of the maze looked like even without actually seeing it. There should be piles of hybrid demonic beasts lying dead like swarms of insects. Their magic power, which was their lifeline, would disperse in no time. Without the support of magic power, their mutated bodies would immediately lose the ability to move.
Of course, there would be a few less mutated ordinary demonic beasts with meager magic power surviving the slaughter, but these unintelligent monsters could no longer pose a threat to the relic.
This time, Celine had finally managed to repair the instrument in a timely fashion.
Pasha pulled out the tentacle breathlessly. She looked at Alethea and said, "Go check the upper floor." Then she came to Elena and asked, "Are you holding up well?"
Elena was covered with black and blue blood, half of her arm gone, her hair drenched in sweats as though she had just been dragged out of a river. "I'm fine. Everyone's alive."
Pasha breathed a long sigh of relief.
Looking around, she saw the witches who were still able to move were in a defense mode with their shields in their hands. As to the exhausted ones, they all sprawled across the floor, in hopes of recovering their strength as soon as possible.
Although they had just undergone a fierce battle, they did not look weary or despair by any means. Instead, they all grinned and waved at her, appearing to be pretty relaxed. Apparently, everybody shared the same thought. They viewed every battle as their last one. Even if they had to devote everything to Taquila, they did not regret a bit.
The scene almost brought Pasha to tears. She felt a gust of warmth slowly crept into her heart like a hot spring.
Every witch was equally important. Over the past 400 years, no new witches had joined them, and they had developed an inseparable bond among each other. Nothing could be better than hearing that everyone was alive.
"I have to change to a new body though." Elena sighed. "It took me a long time to find this one. I don't know if there will be any new bodies stronger and more good-looking than this one."
"..." Pasha did not know whether to laugh or to cry. It was definitely not a good time to discuss this kind of matter. She tapped Elena's head with her tentacles. "Anyone else needs to change their bodies?"
"Five or six, I reckon." Elena counted with her fingers. "Betty got her stomach cut in the battle, while Isa was burned by lava when she was covering Alethea. Her entire body was gone except the head. The others either lost an arm or a leg like me. They've been transferred to reserve their souls."
"So you decide to first pick a body you like before transferring?"
"Of course. As I can't feel anything now, I should at least pick a body that meets my taste," Elena answered while twitching her mouth. She sheathed the bloodstained giant sword and carried it on her back, but she soon fell to the ground after stumbling a few paces. "Gee, this damn body."
God's Punishment Warriors could not feel pains or get tired, but they knew when their bodies were shutting down. Even if they were spiritually animated, their bodies of flesh would become extremely weak as though it had got out of their control.
"Let me take you there." Pasha scooped up Elena with her tentacles and strode to the chamber next to the hall. That was the room where all the God's Punishment Warriors from Hermes without a commander gathered, from whom the survived witches would choose their new bodies. "I saw some good-looking ones among the new warriors."
"Wow, you also care about that?" Elena studied Pasha with some interest.
Pasha coughed. "Don't you forget, I'm also a witch like you."
After all the wounded received treatment, Alethea and Celine brought one piece of good news and one ill. The good news was that the demonic beasts in the maze were practically all dead and that all the flying species hovering outside had fled as well. Therefore, there would not be any attacks on a big scale in a short period of time. The bad news was that two parts of the Instrument of Divine Retribution broke down, which might be attributed to the hasty manner in which the new core had been constructed. In conclusion, they were not going to be shielded by the instrument in the following week.
The bad news made Pasha uneasy. "If an activation like the one today can bring damage to the core, then how is instrument supposed to cope with the activation done by the Chosen One? Does it mean that it can only be used once?"
The more complicated the Key was, the broader the effective area of the wrath of heaven was. The effective area generated by Pasha's activation could only cover the whole maze, which was about a radius of several hundred meters, way too limited to defeat demons. By the time the instrument was filled with magic power, both she and the instrument would have been destroyed by a spear thrower. If the Chosen One activated it, however, she could spread the lightwave somewhere at least 10 miles away, making the Instrument of Divine Retribution the most powerful and lethal weapon against their enemies.
Celine said drily with a look of resignation, "we don't have good quality materials that could sustain magic power, save some fragile bone ware from the relic, so it's perfectly normal that they don't meet the core's standard. The instrument is, after all, the deities' product. If only the Quest Society still exists. We can use as many golds and silver as we want and don't have to mend it every time we use it."
"Anyway, don't test it again this winter. I don't want to go through such drama every day." Alethea complained.
"Well, we won't have such an opportunity anymore... What?" Celine's words caught in her throat. "Hang on."
"What's the matter?" Pasha asked.
"Look at the phantom instrument." Celine glided to another smaller magic core with the help of her main tentacle attached to the roof. "The sheen of the core has changed. The Five-Colored Stone is broken!"
"What?" Both Pasha and Alethea exclaimed with a start. A sense of evil forebodings prevailed them.
Only when Phyllis had to contact the maze would she break the magic stone. It was very unlikely that she could find the Chosen One within merely a month or so. There were two possibilities: one was that Phyllis encountered some trouble and had no choice but to turn to the maze for help. The other was that... the ring had been destroyed by somebody. Either was not considered to be good news.
"Can you locate her?" Alethea questioned in a low voice.
Celine inserted her tentacles into the core. "In the southwest direction, about... She should be in the territory of the Kingdom of Graycastle, close to the entrance of the Fertile Plains."
Numberless thoughts flashed across Pasha's mind . "The Western Region of Graycastle. It looks like that Phyllis has reached the destination of this trip. What could then force her to break the magic stone? Has she exposed herself by accident, or rather—witches in the new era keep a hostile attitude toward her? Can it be... No, it can't be." Pasha shook her head, trying to put these ideas behind. Most likely Phyllis had run into some difficulties.
"What are you going to do?" Alethea looked at her.
Pasha said ponderously, "turn on the phantom instrument a day later as planned."
This was the shortest time within which they could manage to have the instrument ready.
If the Magic Stone was broken by somebody with malicious intent, they would probably be exposed to ordinary people earlier than they desired. Nevertheless, in any event, Pasha would not abandon Phyllis. They were the last surviving witches from Taquila, who shared the same fate and destiny.