Witch trials

Game.

The next day, when the first rays of sunlight hit the statue of the holy goddess on the highest tower of the island floating in mid-air, the nuns sleeping in the papal palace and the witches in the polluted area opened their eyes at the same time.

They jumped lightly from the mattress where they had been sleeping, put on their clothes and brushed their hair sideways while walking unhurriedly towards the door of the room where they were knocking.

The Cardinal pushed open Phoebe's door and said lovingly, "It's time for you to go out to the Inquisition for the Witch Trials, my child."

"The witch trials are going to start today." You Zhen standing outside the door took Liu Jiayi's hair band to tie her hair, her tone was heavy, "But today we have to prepare for a sneak attack on the Pope's Palace and try to break out of the ladder once to see if we can get up there, and we can't spare the manpower to rescue the people over there in the court of judgment."

Liu Jiayi tilted her head slightly, and she smiled sweetly, "At times like these, wouldn't those men placed in the city be useful?"

"If they don't want the witches to judge them in reverse after they win the war, isn't this the time to show loyalty and offer to save the day what they should be doing?"

You Zhen tied her hair in a single motion.

Phoebe puts on her nun's hat and she turns her head, hands folded in a prayerful gesture, with an expression of innocence and holiness, "I'm ready to pray for the guys who deserve to go to hell, Your Grace, the Bishop."

The Cardinal thought Phoebe was talking about witches and couldn't help but nod compassionately, "Kind child. You did the right thing."

Phoebe dropped her eyes as she walked past the bishop and said briskly, "May the Lord damn you to hell, Lord Bishop."

The bishop didn't hear the question and asked, "What did you just say?"

"Nothing." Phoebe smiled sweetly, she put her hands behind her back and winked, "I was praying for your future."

Meanwhile, the Western Security Zone warehouse.

Bai Liu's communicator vibrated, he took it out and saw the message Liu Jiayi had just sent above:

[Break out in two units.]

Bai Liu opens Mu Sicheng panel and Mu Ke to go to the Pope's Palace, your skills are hidden and suitable for sneaking, search for the heavenly ladder inside the Pope's Palace, the heavenly ladder is said to have a mechanism, only the Pope can open it, look for the key to open the heavenly ladder on the Pope, cooperate with the witch to open the heavenly ladder, and wait until the sky city].

Mu Sicheng and Tang Er lead the rest of the people to attack the court of judgment, only rescue and capture people, do not get involved in the battle, avoid a head-on clash with the King's Guild who may be on the side of the Holy See, and after rescuing the people, come to the Palace of the Holy See and cooperate with the witches to break out.

[Let Tang Er play the two-sided, high-damage match between the Sisters of Attention and Liu Ji.]

"Phoebe." Qi Yifang anxiously followed behind the nun, "Do we really have to split up? The opponent is that Bai Liu, he has very extreme tactics, he might sacrifice the players in his hand to swap with us, if Bai Liu plays the swap tactic, the Queen on our side is on the island, with one less player, it's very disadvantageous, it's better not to ......"

Phoebe faintly swept him with an afterimage, "Since when is it okay for a regular player to question a tactician's choices?"

Qi Yifang closed her mouth in embarrassment.

"This time their tactician won't be Bai Liu's." Phoebe shifted her eyes back and dropped the bomb in an unusual tone, "As you said, Bai Liu is a guy with extreme tactics, but what we know so far, both the breakout of the Inquisition and the witch matchups on the sidelines have been steady tactics, not aggressive, with the main focus on preserving their own team and minimizing casualties."

"This tactic is not the style of that crazy Bai Liu."

"This is more like the handiwork of a little witch."

Qi Yifang was stunned, "You mean ......"

"I suspect that the other party made a tactician change just like us, because in this map, it's obviously the Little Witch's home turf, and that profit-oriented Bai Liu is a man, so he won't be able to take advantage of this map at all." Phoebe's tone was light, "He'll most likely transfer the tactician's authority in his hand just like Heart."

"And if it's the little witch as tactician ......"

Phoebe's eyes lit up as she intoned pleasantly, "I've been watching and observing her growth, and no one knows the tactics she'll use better than I do."

"Her tactics have always been based on protection and stability, so in this case, in order to minimize the damage to the team and maintain the team's cooperation, she would most likely split the more seasoned team members and take the novice team members individually, such as Bai Liu with Mu Ke and Rose Hunter with Mu Sicheng, and then press the main task onto Bai Liu, for example. For example, attacking the Papal Palace to find the key to the Heavenly Staircase, and pressing the offensive tasks on the hunters, such as saving the witches awaiting trial today from the Court of Judgment."

"The little witches split up, so naturally we have to split up too, otherwise they'd be running double quests and we'd be running single quests, and the quest progress would be twice as slow as theirs."

"The question now is how to split it up."

Phoebe turned as she looked over at Qi Yifang and Liu Ji who were following her, her eyes narrowing slightly as she made her rounds.

It was as if she knew the little witch well enough to guess the split pairs the other gave, and the little witch was so smart that she naturally knew her well enough to guess the pairings she would use.

But Phoebe isn't the kind of tactician who's going to change his playbook just because his opponent guessed it.

She believed in her choice, so what if she was guessed, she could win just the same.

"Liu Ji and I will go to the Court of Judgment together, Qi Yifang will stay in the Pope's Palace and work with Titan's skills to steal the Pope's Scepter." Phoebe calmly gave the order, her gaze was obscure as she looked across the street to the sky ladder next to the Sisters' Hall, "Unsurprisingly, we're going to be splitting up the winners and losers today."

Meanwhile, the eastern contaminated zone borderline.

Leah, who was stationed in the same place, looked at the white dots that kept approaching not far away, and an unsettling premonition grew in her heart as she pulled out her binoculars and looked into the distance, her breath held.

She saw the Inquisition's ecclesiastical army pushing a large vat of eels this way, along with many bows and crossbows made of eel bones, and the one at the head, a bishop, was holding up a bullhorn and shouting this way to the Witch Contaminated Area:

"Listen up, witches, we've developed tons of secret weapons against you! If you don't want to be killed by random arrows! Come out obediently and surrender now!"

"Now the merciful Lord give you a new and fresh path."

The bishop pointed to the male eels that were pushed over next to him, "These are the male eels that were surrendered by the offerings of the indigestible congregation, and we have heard that you have a child in your hands who possesses strange sorcery, a little witch whose sorcery creates poisonous swamps that can dissolve even the bones of an eel."

"If you are willing to hand over the young witch and allow her to use her sorcery to digest these male eels, then the Order can let all of you witches live."

Seeing no response from the Witch Zone side, the Bishop narrowed his already tiny eyes into slits in displeasure and pulled up his volume, "Just hand over one of her witches, and you will be forgiven by the Church and have the right to re-enter the Safe Zone."

"By keeping her, you are only helping your warlike spirit, but how can she protect each and every one of you at all times, when she can be only one person? After the invention of the eelbone arrow, your resistance will one day fail."

"Not only that, not only will you not be able to save yourselves by hogging her, but the day you hog this peculiar little witch, one less day these male eels will be dissolved, one less day a large number of eels will be produced, and more people will be harmed by these eels! There will be more women who will be corrupted in their minds and turned into witches by swallowing eels!"

"Don't you claim to save all witches? But your selfish behavior is clearly forcing them to become witches, and you are enemies of all mankind!"

Leah gritted her teeth and raised her arrow and shot it - a sign that there would be no agreement.

The Bishop was wrapped in a dense bone shield, which the arrow shot above the one in front of him, and the threat of its proximity made his face uncontrollably grim.

"It seems, then, that you do not accept the forgiveness of the merciful Church."

"Unrepentant dirty witches indeed."

The bishop raised his hand, his tone sinister, "Release the arrows!"

Thousands of arrows were shot, aimed at the Witch Zone.

Leah's gaze sullenly shifted her feet into a serpent's tail, encircling the entire area, and took a deep breath - the big battle was coming, and she was ready to die.

Witch Code #5 - If freedom ultimately requires a sacrifice in exchange for it, then the sacrifice also symbolizes a freedom.

-- a freedom of the soul after death, a freedom of the future.

As the first sharp arrow pierced into Lia's serpentine tail and splattered blood, she looked up with pain to the point of a grim expression and looked to the island floating above the sky, her breath catching and her voice hoarse with order:

"Attack-!!!"

The Papal Palace.

According to the map given by Liu Jiayi, Bai Liu and Mu Ke utilized Mu Ke's Shadow Sneak skill and quickly went around the back door of the palace, they knocked out two priests, dragged them to the shadows, stripped off each other's clothes and changed into them, and sneaked all the way to the main hall of the palace in the shadows.

Hidden amongst the shadows, Mu Ke's brow furrowed as soon as he scanned the front of the main hall, "Why are there so many guards."

"It's not just the guards, look over there." Bai Liu nudged Mu Ke's shoulder and pointed to the side of the main hall, "There are a lot of cardinals chanting and a choir."

"It should be that something has happened to the Pope in the main hall, and he has been frightened, and that is why so many people have come to guard it."

Bai Liu rubbed his chin thoughtfully, "But we weren't even at the Pope's Palace yesterday, and we didn't do anything to the Pope, it would have been Heart and the others."

"This greatly increases the difficulty of our sneaking." Mu Ke looked grave, "We're not sure what level monsters these guards are, whether we can kill them or not, and what buffs they have on them, on top of that, even if we can kill them, so many guards are going to take us quite a bit of time, and in the end, we came here to steal the key, and such a big commotion of the key scared the Pope inside, so that if he takes the key and gives it to the runners, then we'll have made a trip for nothing! up."

"Not only that." Bai Liu added, "The worst that could happen is that the Pope runs straight up to the island with the key and unlocks the ladder so that we can't ascend, while the witches coming on the attack will be besieged by the heavy guards."

"From Jiayi's description, the witches would not be able to withstand such heavy casualties."

Mu Ke nods, worried, "So our operation must not go awry."

"With such tight guards and the Pope obviously a glutton for punishment, this kind of person has always been very cautious ...... What do we have to do so that we won't spook and be seen, and still succeed in blending into the main hall?"

The same question plagued Qi Yifang, who was anxiously wandering through the side door of the main hall.

He obviously got the status of a priest of the Church, but was similarly turned away by the Pope when he asked for an audience - the news of the witch attack reached the Pope's palace, making the Pope as if he were a bird of prey, and he wouldn't see anyone anymore.

It also made Qi Yifang, who had been given the task of stealing to be done with care, understand why Phoebe had unconscionably left Titan, a large man, with him.

That's asking him to just break the door with Titan's hard attack if he can't negotiate!

...... really a tactic used by Phoebe, a guy who likes to come on strong.

Qi Yifang couldn't help but smile bitterly at the thought, but if he came forcefully, not only would there be an increase in the number of variables, but the Empress, who was imprisoned by the Holy See, would definitely be affected, and he didn't want to come forcefully until the final step.

But without coming on strong, what would he have to do to meet this Pope who was like a frightened bird?

Qi Yifang had a headache.

Seriously, he didn't think the Pope would receive anyone under these circumstances.

Mu Ke echoed that sentiment, his brow furrowed, "There are no gaps in the main hall that we can sneak through, we'll just have to force our way in."

"...... It seems like it." Bai Liu looks at the door to the main hall, his eyes narrowing slightly, "But the cost effectiveness of a strong attack is just a bit on the low side."

"How about a different kind of bet."

Mu Ke was stunned, "A bet?"

"Normally speaking, it is true that the Pope will not open his door to receive anyone." Bai Liu analyzed in a calm tone, "But there is a special case, according to the information Jiayi gave us, this Pope holds the person who sold the island to himself in the first place in high esteem, and although I'm not sure who this person is, all of the games I've come into contact with so far have had the shadow of Bai Liu's operation behind them."

"How about boldly assuming that if the person who trafficked the City in the Sky to the Pope was Bai Liu, in this offensive situation, this Pope who made his fortune in the first place on the island and was so alarmed was is would have definitely received Bai Liu, the God who had helped him fulfill his wishes."

"And I look exactly like Bai Liu."

Bai Liu said in a light tone, "If my guess is correct, the Pope should open the front door to greet me if I show up to see him."

"But what if the person who trafficked the island to the Pope wasn't Bai Liu?" Mu Ke's brow furrowed, "Just like in the previous game, Bai Liu found mediums to contact the other side, which is also possible."

"Then it's not too late to make a strong attack then." Bai Liu said as he straightened his gloves, adjusted his expression, and walked straight out with his hands held high.

"? Who!"

The guards turned their bows and crossbows on Bai Liu, who was in a surrender position, and pressed in a fierce tone, "Who are you?!"

Bai Liu explains without delay, "I am a guest of the Pope."

"A guest of His Holiness?" The guard's tone was skeptical as he aimed his bow at the aorta next to Bai Liu's neck, pressing in to pick at Bai Liu's chin, "His Holiness has no appointment with a guest today."

"Perhaps if you tell the Lord Pope if the key to the Island in the Sky in his hand needs to be repaired, he'll remember." Bai Liu's rippling eyes lifted.

--If Bai Liu is the one who sold the island, then the key in the Pope's hand that can jam a witch was more than likely also made casually by that boring god with his own power.

He didn't think a mediocre and stupid mortal like the Pope could possess the ability to make the key to the Sky City.

The guard hesitated for a moment, but turned his head and asked the man next to him to pass on the message for him.

"I don't give audience to anyone!" As soon as the Pope saw the guards coming in, the man in the midst of panic cried out in a rage, "Who told you to open the door and come in! What if you let those godforsaken witches in!"

The guard who entered was yelled at by the Pope and fell to his knees in fearful ambush, trembling as he reported, "Yes, it's like this, Your Holiness, a man who claims to be your guest has come."

"I have no appointment with anyone today! Arrest him and execute him severely! He must have been sent by the witches!" Hysterically, the Pope slammed the fine china cup in his hand in front of the guard, "Now get out! Leave me alone and safe!"

The splattering shattering of the cup startled the crouching guard with a jolt of fear, and he hurriedly backed away on his knees, nodding frantically, "Yes Your Holiness!"

"I'm going to torture and execute this witch spy who claims to have once sold you the island to repair the key to the Sky City!"

The Pope's barking antics lurched, and a look of fury instantly froze on his face as he jerked himself to his feet, holding onto his seat, "Who did you say it was?!"

The guard hunched his shoulders in confusion, "A, a man who claims to have sold you the island once."

The Pope took two deep breaths as he shakily stepped down from his seat, but then thought of something and stepped back up, pacing anxiously back and forth, his chest rising and falling violently from his emotions as he muttered to himself in a trance, "How could the One come in person?!"

"...... No, not necessarily, the One's idea ...... is to dabble in anything that's interesting, and now that the witches and us are in a big war, that might be interesting in the One's eyes as well ......"

"Maybe, maybe it will actually come and help me!"

"Describe it to me." The Pope, assisting the arm of the Divine Throne, inquired guardedly, "What did the guest ...... look like."

"He appeared to be a young man in his early twenties, wearing a white blouse and black gloves in his priestly attire." The guard described it carefully, "Seemed to come from an unusual background, and was calm even when we pointed our bows at him."

The Pope closed his eyes and took a quick step downward, almost rolling off the throne, "And invite him in!"

The guards nodded their heads in a hurry, "Yes, yes! I will immediately invite that honorable guest in!"

The originally closed doors of the main hall of the Pope's Palace were opened layer by layer, and the opulent interior decorations were displayed in front of Bai Liu, and the colorful paintings on the huge glazed glass refracted layers of glittering halos on his face, making him blink his eyes very slightly.

The guard who had just aimed his bow at Bai Liu respectfully bent ninety degrees to him and reached out his hand to guide Bai Liu, "I did not recognize you just now and offended you, so please forgive me for my sins."

"His Holiness said that the main door of the Pope's Palace is always open for you if you want to come, whenever and wherever you want to come, so please come in."

Bai Liu nodded slightly as he followed the guard forward, at the same time scanning Mu Ke, who was waiting nearby, with his afterglow.

Mu Ke, who had been waiting with bated breath beside him, let out a long breath as he put away the dagger in his hand and retraced his steps back into the shadows, sneaking into the Palace of the Popes in an instant as Bai Liu's pace followed closely behind him.

Qi Yifang, who was guarding the side hall, his ears twitched, he heard the movement of welcoming people coming from the main hall, being stopped by the guards here at the side door, he was about to seize the opportunity to rush in, but was blocked back by the guards again.

"His Holiness the Pope is receiving an honored guest." The guard's tone clearly took on a warning, "Please, Lord Priest, do not trespass in the main hall."

Qi Yifang gritted his teeth, and his face sank, his hand not moving as he reached inside the priest's robes and gripped his weapon - a weathervane.

His code word with Titan was that if an unusual storm rose here at the Papal Palace, Titan would charge the seashore and attack, hammering away directly at the main hall of the Papal Palace.

Originally, he wanted to solve all this in a peaceful way, but it seems that that Pope still couldn't afford to do so, so he had to use [Tempest] to solve it?

...... But under these circumstances, who exactly is the guest who can make the Pope, who is so afraid of death that he closes the door of the main hall of the Pope's palace tightly, open the door and receive him with such a high standard?

Qi Yifang's eyes moved to the main hall of the Papal Palace, and he was deep in thought.

Inside the main hall of the Papal Palace.

Seeing Bai Liu, who was welcomed by the guards, and the moment he saw Bai Liu's face, the Pope excitedly and tremblingly stepped down from the throne, stopping at a distance of two meters from Bai Liu, and with a gesture of great deference and humility, he lowered his body and raised his right hand to perform a doffing-of-the-hat salute.

"It really is you!" The Pope looked up, he had tears in his eyes, and following Bai Liu step by step, he brought him up to the throne of God, and standing on the lower steps of the throne, the Pope bent down with incomparable humility and said, "Please sit on the throne of God, there is no place in the whole Papal Palace worthy of you except here."

"Isn't this your seat?" Bai Liu asked rhetorically with downcast eyes and little emotion in his tone, "You gave it to me, where do you sit?"

"Before the gods, mortals have no place." The Pope tilted his head, he clutched the hat he was holding, and looked at Bai Liu with a devout and maniacal faith in his eyes, "You still taught me that, have you forgotten?"

"We believers are not worthy to be seated in Your presence!"

Bai Liu sat down nonchalantly, leaning his elbow on the armrest with one hand, propping up his face, his eyes half-lidded, and inquiring in a placid tone, "You've seen my proper face?"

"By chance, I had the honor of meeting you." After seeing Bai Liu's face, the Pope did not doubt Bai Liu in the least, recalling, "You did not deliberately hide your face when I wished you."

Bai Liu gave a dispensable nod and asked in a light tone, "Where's the key to your sky city?"

"Oh!" The Pope, not doubting, respectfully offered the scepter he held as if it were his life with both hands, and inquired with some trepidation, "I've been using this key for decades, is there something wrong with it that needs fixing?"

Bai Liu lowered his eyes to this scepter that was placed in the palm of his hand.

The wooden embossed scepter was crawling with the huge tentacles of unknown creatures of the deep, uneven to the touch, which wrapped around and climbed up to the top, where a turbid gem emitting a silvery-blue light hovered.

The warm halo of the gemstone condensed into a beam reflecting in Bai Liu's dark pupils, like a cosmic rift torn out of the night.

--It was the silver-blue rift that Bai Liu had seen countless times, the one from which Bai Liu had stepped.

Seeing Bai Liu just survey the scepter without a word, the Pope nervously clasps his hands together, swallows, and inquires once again, "Is, is there something wrong that you need to fix with your own hands?"

"Something wrong?" Bai Liu's seemingly understanding voice sounded softly as he casually leaned back against the throne of God, which was a bit large for him, legs folded, and swept a seemingly smirking glance at the Pope who stood in front of him, his posture and eyes seeming so careless, and the end of his tone even brought out a bit of a smirk, "This scepter does indeed have a change of repairs to be made to it."

The Pope was extremely disturbed by that look in Bai Liu's eyes, and his voice trembled as he inquired, "Yes, what is the place?"

Bai Liu spun the scepter, held it, smiled sideways and replied to the Pope, "It is the owner of this scepter who deserves to fix it up and get a better one."

"Mu Ke, kill him."

As this order with a smirk fell, the assassin hidden among the shadows leapt up, his gaze stern and cold, holding the dagger in his hand and stabbing down hard on the side neck of the Pope whose pupils widened violently!

The Pope narrowly dodged it and cried out in panic, crawling forward on his hands and knees, "Come, someone, help!!!"

Meanwhile, Qi Yifang gripped the weathervane as he looked to the guard in front of him and solemnly inquired once more, "It's true that I can't go in is it?"

The guard lifted his chin arrogantly, "How many times have I told you, you're just a priest."

"A priest has no business setting foot in the papal palace without permission."

"Eh, there's no way out then, even though I don't like killing NPCs in the game, nor do I like [Tempest]." Qi Yifang sighed helplessly, his eyes glazed over as he took out the violently rotating weathervane from his priest's outer robe, "But sometimes, only a storm can wash away all the filth."

"It is my tactician's order that I must enter the Papal Palace, just please die for that order!"

[System alert: Player Qi Yifang used his skill to summon a two-hour localized mega storm.]

The wind and rain suddenly arrived, the huge rainstorm and gale was like a player full of destructive desire, recklessly rushed into the Pope's Palace and started destroying everything, the guard who had just flaunted himself was instantly blown up in shock, he grabbed the pillars of the Pope's Palace by his death to stabilize himself, and cried out in fear, "What is this!"

In the distance came the sound of giants running and roaring at a fast pace, and the earth shook with it - it was Titan on his way.

Qi Yifang's entire body was drenched, a weathervane that rotated to the point of looking like an electric fan was suspended in his hand, the ends of his hair and face were covered in beads of water, he looked into the distance and wiped a handful of rainwater off of his own face, letting out a sigh as he replied to the guards NPC's question, a subtle chuckle in his tone:

"It's a storm, haven't you ever seen one?"