Given Luoqi McCarthy's current prestige in the Protos Empire, if anyone were to attempt to assassinate him, they would never make it out of Herrom alive today.
In this instant, Askesan felt his mental state completely implode.
Inside the death barrier, his true body nearly stumbled to the ground, almost offering the great demons an opportunity to strike him down.
Out in the hall, his clone and Luoqi McCarthy, sitting in the audience, stared at each other.
So close, yet so utterly out of reach.
The confident, smug smile that had been plastered on the clone's face froze solid, as if he could not believe what was right before his eyes.
Who would dare approach this walking spectacle for no reason?!
And why—why was Luoqi McCarthy the Holy Son of Domination?!
Wasn't Luoqi McCarthy supposed to be his own honorary prelate, as well as one of his supporters?
No matter who went to sound Luoqi McCarthy out earlier, hadn't he consistently declared his support for the Bishop of Extinction? Had all of that been a lie?
So the bastard who had blown him up with a wolf in the Northern Border Province was this great wielder of power who sat at the very pinnacle of the Imperial Capital of Herrom, posing like a powerless mortal while lurking in the shadows of plain sight!
Inside the Death Arena, Askesan's expression warped from stupefaction into utter confusion and incandescent fury.
His brow contorted and the corners of his mouth began to tremble; after a brief loss of speech came an uncontrollable eruption of rage.
Askesan's psychological collapse clearly caused his combat maneuvers inside the Death Arena to unravel.
Even without resorting to their innate magic, the three phantom demons inflicted several fatal wounds on Askesan in quick succession!
The crushing weight of reality made Askesan's body feel extraordinarily heavy. Staging a desperate last stand, he relied on pure survival and combat instinct to put distance between them once more.
He fought to rein in his emotions and stabilize his mind as much as possible.
Right now, he had to consider—whether to take Luoqi McCarthy hostage.
Did he stand a chance of defeating these three demons? Yes, but the odds were slim.
Yet if he seized Luoqi McCarthy, he would inevitably lose the bishop election, and in all likelihood, he wouldn't make it out of Herrom alive today either. At best, he would drag Luoqi McCarthy down with him!
No matter how he thought about it, no matter what he chose, it felt worse than death!!
At that very moment, outside the Death Arena.
In the lower tier of seating on the right side of Franklin Hall.
Lanqi wore a concerned expression. He had noticed this great prelate in the Extinction Branch's seating earlier.
From earlier on, this great prelate had seemed rather restless; while everyone else was glued to the fight, he alone looked as though he were searching for someone.
Others might not have noticed, but Lanqi did, for his heart was always full of concern for his fellow man.
Now, having locked eyes with the Extinction prelate, Lanqi finally understood.
"Lord Great Sage, there is a gentleman here who appears to need help. Could you check on him for me to see if he's all right?"
Lanqi quickly raised his hand, signaling toward Great Sage Isis in the distance.
Askesan's clone, still agonizing over his tactical dilemma, suddenly felt himself locked onto by a surge of magic power.
"..."
Seated beside the monarch, Isis frowned, sensing that something was amiss.
There was nothing physically wrong with this great prelate.
The problem was that he was too strong.
Without locking on and probing with precise scrutiny, one wouldn't even notice that it was actually a tier-eight puppet.
Askesan had brought a tier-eight puppet into the venue and hidden it among the Extinction great prelates—what were his intentions?
This was supposed to be a duel to the death; under no circumstances should such a dangerous portion of his power have been left outside the Death Arena, hovering like a ticking time bomb threatening the safety of the Empire's people.
Great Sage Isis rose to her feet and acted immediately, trapping the tier-eight puppet within multiple layers of light barriers to confine it completely.
Whatever purpose the puppet served, Askesan could explain the presence of this puppet outside the arena once the duel in the Death Arena concluded.
The entire audience was aghast, having no idea what had happened in the Extinction Branch's seating to make Great Sage Isis, who had never intervened before, step in personally with such a grave expression.
Askesan's clone struggled, only to find himself completely immobilized, stripped of any chance of approaching Luoqi McCarthy.
He stared daggers at Luoqi McCarthy, questioning his very existence.
*Are you a fucking elementary schooler?! Your first instinct is to raise your hand and tell the teacher?!*
Askesan felt his inner world crumbling. A moment ago, he might still have had choices; in the blink of an eye, even his options had been stripped away!
Facing the clone's glare.
"..."
Lanqi lightly covered his slightly parted mouth, as if a sudden realization had dawned on him.
He glanced in mild astonishment at the great prelate frozen inside the pillar of light, then looked toward Bishop of Extinction Askesan within the arena.
That incredulous expression practically screamed: *Good heavens, Mr. Askesan, you dare hold back in a duel to the death?*
"Aaargh..."
Askesan was on the brink of madness.
Inside the arena's barrier, Askesan could no longer even tell whether Luoqi McCarthy had genuinely seen through him and deliberately messed with his mind, or if this guy was simply too good for this world, possessing a heart so full of compassion that he couldn't ignore anyone in need!
Either possibility sickened Askesan to the point of exploding.
He should have just blown himself up along with him back then!
"Luoqi McCarthy!!!"
Askesan let out a shrill, agonizing roar.
In this moment, he finally understood who his true adversary was.
He no longer had the luxury to spare a shred of focus or mana on the puppet; he had to fight with everything he had.
His only way out was to kill Sigrid!!
He seemed to enter a berserk state, willing to pay any price and endure any wound to break through the three great demons' line of defense and charge straight at Sigrid!
Any direct clash between them now would genuinely decide life and death!
For a moment, the three great demons found it slightly hard to hold him back. *Can mages go berserk too?!*
"Askesan, do you remember?" Behind the three great demons, Sigrid stood up and addressed the oncoming Askesan from afar. "He said that the next time you met him would be the moment your Original Slate was reclaimed. Now that you've seen him, it's time for those words to come true."
She showed not the slightest fear of Askesan, merely smiling as she looked down at the final magic card in her hand.
At this juncture, her smile didn't stem from the long-cherished wish she was finally about to fulfill—having driven her mortal enemy Askesan, whom she hadn't been able to defeat for years, into a dead end.
It was simply because she was using something that belonged to the Holy Son; that alone made her genuinely happy.
"This is the power he lent me."
Sigrid raised her palm. Her breezy, tranquil gaze looked as though all past grudges with Askesan had already been wiped clean. Her voice carried neither hostility nor battle intent, only a trace of relieved flaunting, as she gently released the Orange Epic like tossing a flower petal to the breeze.
The final demon—and the only summon of Lanqi's that could truly be triggered on his behalf by someone else.
It was the quietest moment Franklin Hall had ever witnessed.
As if the clouds were parting to reveal the sun, ripples of light fell through the glass dome of the Protos Parliament Building.
Where the sunlight focused, orange feathers scattered, and a demon maiden set foot inside the arena.
It was an elongated instant that felt as though eternity had descended.
Her crimson dress flared like falling rose petals. Carrying a soul-captivating floral fragrance, she appeared within the Death Arena.
"The absolute strong, the loneliness born of it—the one to teach you love is—"
The Poet of Great Love's voice echoed through the hall like a sudden crescendo that set time flowing once more.
Instantly, an unimaginable tempest stirred within the Death Arena, as if the boundary between dream and reality was on the verge of inverting!
Askesan's mental state lapsed into madness in an instant. Dazed and incoherent, his vision flickered between light and darkness. He felt as though he had slammed headfirst into a solid wall; stars flashed before his eyes, and he nearly blacked out, barely able to regain his senses.
Having suffered repeated mental collapses, had he been an ordinary low-tier creature, he would have long exceeded the Poet of Great Love's execution threshold.
At this point, however, even without the Poet of Great Love needing to rupture Askesan's cardiovascular system, merely locking him down for a brief spell was enough to seal his defeat.
In that single heartbeat, the three great demons claimed Askesan's head.
A mist of blood sprayed. Amid the dimming light and shadows, only a headless corpse remained, collapsing to the floor.
At the same time, deep purple lightning receded along the barrier, and the Death Arena dispersed like dust in the wind, restoring color to the hall.
In that moment, an overwhelming aura erupted from Sigrid, soaring to heaven and piercing the earth. It was a long-suppressed volcano finally bursting forth, sending shivers through the souls of every imperial dignitary in the gallery.
Having survived a fatal tribulation, she had finally broken through her once-unshakeable bottleneck.
She was one step closer to tier nine.
Anyone present in Franklin Hall could be certain that the Bishop of Domination, Sigrid, was now stronger than both the Bishop of Extinction, Askesan, and the Bishop of Mourning, Yamiles.
In the distance, from Askesan's corpse, a thin, compact slab of ancient relief-carved stone slipped out. Its streamlined edges and faint magical patterns seemed to tell tales spanning tens of millions of years.
Across intricate, esoteric incantations, delicate spirals mirrored the trails of galaxies coursing through the night sky—resplendent, secretive, and striking straight to the soul. Even if the world were annihilated, nothing could erase the profound wisdom and boundless power tethered to the Genesis.
This legendary divine artifact was the pinnacle of epic magic cards—the [Original Slate - Seal]!
Every person who laid eyes upon this slate swallowed hard.
The Original Slate could not be measured by mere value; it was supreme gear that even tier-eight experts would stake their lives to claim!
Yet here in Franklin Hall, not a single soul dared make a move for it.
The crowd merely held their breath in silence, watching as Sigrid walked over, picked it up, and put it away.
She raised her head and cast her gaze across Franklin Hall, looking straight into the broadcast cameras of the Herrom Broadcasting Corporation.
Across the Imperial Capital of Herrom, every giant municipal screen displayed her breathtaking face.
Her eyes were like violets blooming in spring—imperious, yielding not an inch.
That look seemed to declare to the entire world: the [Original Slate - Seal] belonged to her now, and anyone with their sights set on it could come straight to her.
Chapter 476