Just as Ebner's gaze fell upon the Shaman King Silvia, her previously intoxicated expression suddenly froze, and a pair of blood-red eyes turned to look directly at Ebner and Fors.
Then, her beautiful face twisted, and she left the bald man beneath her, shooting toward Ebner like a cannonball!
Directly encountering a "half-mad" Shaman King? Is this also good fortune granted by the Wheel of Fortune? Well, according to some novel tropes, this indeed counts as an opportunity… but I don't want it at all! Actually, this kind of "good fortune" already has some hint of "backlash," completely unlike the pure benefits from before… It seems that before becoming a Demigod, it's truly not suitable to use "Prophecy" combined with the Wheel of Fortune Uniqueness effect anymore.
Seeing the Shaman King's attack arriving in an instant, Ebner, who had the Beauty Goddess's blessing on him, showed no panic and even had the leisure to quip a few words.
He had prepared contingency plans for various unexpected situations before coming, and for the current situation, he had already readied his methods.
Just as the Shaman King's sharp nails were about to touch Ebner's neck, patterns on the latter's forehead gradually lit up. Immediately afterward, Silvia's hand unconsciously deviated, pointing towards herself, as if she would rather harm herself than harm the man before her.
This sudden turn of events stunned even the half-mad Silvia, but she quickly regained her senses because a scorching pure white ray condensed in the "mirror" in the man's hand and directly struck her.
The ray then burst forth with intense light, dissolving all undeath, darkness, and evil.
The Witch King Silvia instantly ignited with whitish flames, like a paper figure held close to glowing coals.
That was indeed a paper figure, seemingly condensed from crimson moonlight.
Witch King substitution art, Moon Paper Figure!
As the paper figure turned to ash, the half-mad Shaman King reappeared on the bald man's body, casting a cold gaze towards Ebner.
But as a Mysticism Magister, since Ebner chose to act, how could his attack be interrupted? Thus, just as Silvia appeared, a massive demon abruptly materialized behind her, followed by a "Magma Sword" burning with the smell of sulfur, mercilessly striking down from above.
—This was a "Devil" soul released beforehand by the Magic Mirror.
Although Silvia was insane, her battle instincts were still intact. She immediately tried to create a red moon and then use the moonlight to disperse her body, dodging the attack.
But she quickly found she couldn't do it, because a few meters around her had, at some point, been enveloped by "twisted" rules, making it difficult for the "Red Moon" to rise from within her body.
This was naturally Ebner using the Mutated Tudor Emblem to construct an environment with rules favorable to himself.
However, Silvia still managed to dodge this almost certain hit because she held a Bizarro Sorcerer sequence Sealed Artifact in her hand!
She took out a short staff and gripped it. As the gem at its tip lit up, her figure was instantly ignited by the "Magma Sword," regressing into a burning piece of paper that rapidly turned to ash.
"Paper Figure Substitution"! At the moment the Demigod-level "Magma Sword" reached her, she used "Paper Figure Substitution" just in time!
Her figure, dressed only in a white shirt with almost no other clothing, then appeared on the park wall. Immediately after, she raised her other hand and unleashed a "Blood Moon Arrow."
But Ebner had long anticipated her response. Just as her hand, which had raised the short staff, had yet to retract, the detective, in his Mechanical Mind state, gripped his cane—modified from a Harris Rapier—and unleashed a secret art he had developed: "Disintegration."
Logically, the success rate of this spell was very low and not really suitable for practical combat… But Ebner had a strange feeling that his attempt this time would surely succeed! This should be a blessing from the "good fortune" granted by the Wheel of Fortune… While thinking this, Ebner pulled out a card and took out the Groselle's Travels sealed within it.
With a "thwack," the "Blood Moon Arrow" accurately hit the book cover Ebner held against his chest, then vanished without a trace, as if it had never existed.
With another "thwack," the short staff in Silvia's hand completely shattered, breaking into pieces of material and gems.
The abilities of a Bizarro Sorcerer were strange and varied, with extremely high life-saving capabilities, making them truly troublesome. So, before acting, Ebner had already made arrangements specifically targeting the magical item in Silvia's hand, aiming to "destroy" it immediately!
If "Disintegration" didn't succeed, he had also prepared a specialized method to "seduce" Sealed Artifacts into betraying their owners—
"Beloved Defection Art."
Although the original success rate of this secret art, learned from the latter half of Feast of Blood, was even lower than "Disintegration," it became different with the Beauty Goddess's blessing.
After all, even a Sealed Artifact wouldn't bear to harm the Beauty Goddess and would defect to her.
At this moment, the Shaman King Silvia saw her short staff shattered on the ground, and her beautiful face twisted even more. She stared directly into Ebner's pure white eyes, activating the Shaman King's unique "Dark Gaze." Then, she dug out her own eyeball and squeezed it hard, intending to inversely affect Ebner through manipulating her own eyeball.
After all, a Shaman King possessed regenerative and self-healing abilities and speed beyond imagination. After the battle ended, it wouldn't take long for new eyeballs to grow.
But her plan was good, yet she misjudged her opponent…
How could a Demigod-level "Dark Gaze" possibly destroy something of the Pure White Eye's caliber?
So, she suffered a terrifying backlash, and the eyeball she had just squeezed instantly burst!
"Aow!" After a shriek that was not quite human, the half-mad Shaman King Silvia seemed to regain some clarity due to the intense pain. She eyed Ebner with dread, no longer willing to fight, and directly flung two Blood Moon Arrows at Fors, who had been hiding in the corner since the battle began, hoping to interfere with the man's pursuit so she could calmly retreat.
Ebner watched Silvia decompose into a swarm of ethereal-yet-real vampiric bats, scattering and flying away, a smile playing on his lips. He then Flashed in front of Fors, using Groselle's Travels to block the Blood Moon Arrows once more.
Although Ebner, wielding a "miracle," wasn't worried that Fors would die from this—this was why he dared to bring her to such a dangerous place—since his objective had been achieved, there was no need to let Miss Magician experience the pain of death.
This encounter, though described as troublesome, actually lasted only a minute from start to finish. Fors had just managed to pull out the Marionette Ebner gave her for self-defense and hadn't even had time to offer help.
Now, seeing the enemy flee, she steadied herself and asked worriedly, "Ebner, aren't you going after her?"
That was a Demigod; although she seemed to be in poor condition, what if she healed and came back for revenge?
"Don't worry, she can't escape!" Ebner smiled confidently at Fors, making the latter freeze, her heart pounding.
At this moment, the Magic Mirror, controlling the "Devil" soul, sent a drop of blood that Silvia had sprayed when her eye burst, along with the shattered fragments of the "short staff," near Ebner and Fors.
—Although the Shaman King had cautiously cleaned up her blood and hair as she fled, the unexpected bursting of her eyeball and the spell's backlash caused some blood to splash around, which the prepared Magic Mirror easily collected. It also spiritually sealed it to prevent the other party from using secret arts to evaporate and self-destruct the blood.
Speaking of which, even if Silvia hadn't foolishly played "eye-swapping" with Ebner, the latter had already planned to spend money to "buy" a Demigod-level "Aurora" from the Quiz Labyrinth's storage, which Roselle likely sold to the labyrinth, to bleed out that half-mad Shaman King…
"Sigh, if only the Quiz Labyrinth could pull in people of my own Sequence to answer questions, it wouldn't be this troublesome…"
Sighing inwardly, Ebner ignored the materials containing Bizarro Sorcerer characteristics. He simply took the Shaman King's blood offered by the Magic Mirror and smeared it onto the cover of Groselle's Travels.
He had never imagined that he, a mere Sequence 5, could single-handedly kill a vampire Demigod skilled at "surviving," even if the other party was briefly suppressed by him due to madness…
But a Demigod is a Demigod; their life level has the characteristics of a "God." It would be almost impossible for him to kill one on his own! What's more, if he really pushed the other party too hard, she might disregard everything and activate her "incomplete mythological creature" form, at which point he might very well be counter-killed!
Therefore, all of Ebner's contingency plans for an encounter battle revolved around injuring the opponent and making them bleed.
Watching the drop of blood smeared on Groselle's Travels inexplicably become illusory and then disappear, Ebner opened the book. He indeed saw that the previously stuck-together pages had thinned, and the book opened two more pages.
Those two pages recounted the story of a somewhat deranged one-eyed vampire encountering the King of the North in a blizzard. They battled fiercely, with neither side gaining the upper hand.
After Silvia entered the travelogue, the sleeping King of the North indeed got up to work… Hmm, it's best to find someone to surround and kill her before she meets the "protagonist" team!
Having made his decision, Ebner didn't linger in the park. He grabbed Fors's arm and Teleported them to the lounge of the Wheat Seed Church, a Earth Mother church.
Shortly after they left, a ray of light descended from the sky, forming a middle-aged clergyman wearing the robes of a Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun bishop.
He had a thick black beard, appearing somewhat aged, but it was evident he must have been a handsome man in his youth, with deeply carved facial features. This was Morphy Delien, the Archbishop of the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun in Trier.
He looked at the potholes corroded by the Blood Moon Arrows in the bushes, then at the naked, half-dead bald man lying on the ground, and couldn't help but frown.
Soon, the Archbishop of the Machinery Hivemind also flew in, using a special propulsion device, landing in the park.
Then, the Archbishop's eyes "opened" on their own sides, and a pair of spectacles rose from within. He carefully observed the scene through his "spectacles" and asked with a frown, "I felt a Demigod-level ability erupt earlier… What happened here? It doesn't seem to have caused much destruction or casualties."
"I don't know, I only arrived half a minute before you," Morphy replied, then pointed at the bald man on the ground and continued, "What's certain is that one of the parties was a Demigod-level vampire."
"An action by the Baron of Corruption?" the Archbishop of the Machinery Hivemind said thoughtfully.
"Very likely… but they won't admit it," Morphy nodded gravely.
Although the Earth Mother church was allowed to form Beyonder teams in Trier, their jurisdiction was limited to the "Soren District," where their church was located.
"I'll have people try to find clues. If we get conclusive evidence, we'll pressure the Earth Mother church together," Morphy said to the Archbishop of the Machinery Hivemind beside him.
The Archbishop of the Machinery Hivemind scoffed, replying, "Don't investigate yourselves, only to find it leads back to your Delien family!"
It seemed his relationship with Morphy wasn't very harmonious.
Morphy was silent for a moment, then finally stated, "If it leads back to my family, we'll still handle it officially! 'Justice' is our Lord's doctrine!"
The Archbishop of the Machinery Hivemind pursed his lips, revealing the "gears" at the corners of his mouth, clearly not believing him much.
.....
In the lounge of the Wheat Seed Church, Ebner, who had just teleported there, looked at the familiar figure before him and exclaimed in surprise, "Miss Chloe, what are you doing here?"