Chapter 1637: Chapter 1637

Outside Nightshade Manor, the strange phenomena caused by the phantom of the World Tree had completely vanished. A moment after the green pillar of light disappeared, an almost overwhelming aura of death and decay assaulted them, forcing the Church to retreat. They didn't connect this terrifying power to Jenkins, simply assuming a new development had occurred within the manor.

But soon, an even greater change occurred. As a towering white pillar of light descended from the heavens, the power of a god nearly blew apart the manor's external illusion. It was finally possible to observe the interior from the outside, but countless terrifying phantoms and chains formed of dense, incomprehensible text prevented anyone from witnessing the grand spectacle of the battle between a god and the Beast of Calamity.

Mr. Gilbert stood with Pops, and the young demigod asked cautiously. They had assumed the God of Lies had descended again, as brazenly as ever, but judging from the manifestation of the divine power, there was no trace of any lie-based arts. Instead, it was extremely similar to the Sage...

Pops murmured thoughtfully, "But... it shares similarities with the Sage's divine domain... Impossible. Who could this be?"

If even Pops couldn't figure it out, the others were even more clueless. They could only wait outside the manor. While they did, demigods from other churches, drawn by the divine descent, also appeared, but no one could say for certain which great being had manifested this time.

Jenkins's divination teacher, Miss Audrey, had left the front line. She now stood on a distant hill, observing the manor below. A purple light glinted in her eyes as if she were trying to perceive the unpredictable nature of fate itself.

She furrowed her lovely brows, watching in confusion as an azure light above the manor acted like a lid, containing the terrifying auras that threatened to escape.

Alexia had just returned to Nolan a few days ago and had even met with her. Audrey refused to believe that in such a short time, her friend—the first of them to ascend to demigod—could have already found the path to transcendence.

The diviner looked down again, trying to spot Jenkins's cat on the plains below. But as she scanned the area, she was surprised to see the princess from the northern kingdom and her maid in the nearby woods.

Miss Audrey closed her eyes, refusing to entertain the impossible conclusion.

Inside the manor, the deployment of the Mathematical Principles caused Jenkins's divinity to burn away at a startling rate. The God of Lies and the Beast of Calamity had already clashed three times. The creature was trapped deep within the manor's foundation, and each of its attacks required a long time to gather power. Jenkins seized this opportunity to carefully study the characteristics of the Beast of Calamity's power, trying to accustom himself to the strange sensation of battling sin incarnate.

A fully formed, unrestrained Beast of Calamity would be impossible for him to handle with a single drop of divinity. But in its current state as the "Undying Abyss," it could be easily suppressed. Extrapolating from the power he was channeling through Alexia, he calculated that if he could find this epoch's Beast of Calamity before it fully matured, he would be more than capable of dealing with it, as long as it wasn't in its final form.

"Good. It seems today's risk was worth it."

Seeing that only a fifth of his divinity remained, he knew his time was nearly up. He waved his hand, once again scattering the black spiritual light that surged from the abyss's depths. But just as he was about to reinforce the seal and depart, the abyss began to tremble violently.

The stone-gray, inverted tower floating in the upper reaches of the abyss slowly began to rise, showing signs of breaking free. Alexia, possessed by the God of Lies, frowned. She understood that the entity was unwilling to be bound by an even stricter seal.

"That's not up to you. The Undying One who balances life and death, is it?"

The god's mocking question echoed down into the abyss. With a sword in its left hand and a staff in its right, gray and green spiritual light flared, activated by divine power. As the azure Mathematical Principles contracted inward, two disks of grayish-green light spiraled downward, shaped by the principles into a tightly interwoven helix.

The God of Lies grasped the non-corporeal, double-helix pillar of light. A cold sneer touched Alexia's lips as Jenkins, controlling her body, raised the grayish-green helix high as if it were a javelin.

The massive pillar of light dwarfed Alexia's form, yet as the god lifted it, the sight did nothing to diminish its divine presence.

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The helical pillar representing death and life was hurled into the abyss with the God of Lies' full might. Catalyzed by divine power, a nauseating grayish-green color, the product of the two merging energies, began to spread throughout the entire abyss within seconds.

It resembled mold growing on a corpse, or perhaps the foul gas of decay. As this strange, fused power spread through the abyss, a roar that only a god could hear erupted from its very bottom.

Alexia's expression remained perfectly calm. With a wave of its hand, the god used the Mathematical Maze to reinforce the already flawless seal. Now, anyone wishing to enter from the outside or exit from within would have to solve the maze's mathematical puzzles. It was a lock forged with divinity; not even the Beast of Calamity could hope to break it with brute force.

From this day forward, though Nightshade Manor might occasionally descend upon the material world in response to a summons, all the dangerous rooms within would be sealed. No one could enter without solving the maze's puzzles. Only the courtyard and the labyrinthine corridors would remain a threat. The secrets of the manor would fall silent until the day the seals placed by the gods and Jenkins all failed—but that would likely be dozens of epochs in the future, and by then, the gods would surely have made new arrangements.

Although it had cost him his last drop of divinity, Jenkins was extremely satisfied with his actions. It wasn't often he got the chance to face a sealed Beast of Calamity that posed "little real danger." The last time, against the Scarlet Ephemera, the creature had been on the verge of breaking its seal, and he'd had no opportunity to study its power before unleashing his full strength.

This time, however, he had truly fought a Beast of Calamity. While it only further confirmed that facing one in his mortal state meant certain death, he had at least learned that they were not invincible.

He watched with satisfaction as the phantom of the abyss vanished, and the structures of Nightshade Manor once again sealed its maw. Though the God of Lies was no longer active, the manor itself faded like a shadow. Jenkins used the last of his divine power to banish Nightshade Manor from the material world.

He mused inwardly. With a thought, Alexia's body vanished, transported to the nearby location where he sensed Dolores's presence. Then, just before the concealing veil of the azure Mathematical Principles disappeared completely, he returned to his own body.