The tal block was too large to shove into his clothes in front of so many people, so for the mont, Jenkins simply clutched it in his lowered hand.
The applause thundered on for at least two full minutes before finally subsiding. Jenkins raised a hand, signaling for the crowd to take their seats. He still had to address the proper handling of the tulip mania.
Tulip prices were still being maintained at a high point. Skillfully bringing them back down was the key to resolving the entire affair for good. This was a matter concerning the flower sellers, and Jenkins planned to use the Flower Sellers' Guild to quell the aftershocks of the tulip craze. It would kill two birds with one stone.
Just then, the green light in the distance reached its zenith. It seed the far-off battlefield had reached its final monts.
Sigrid drew the bowstring.
Although archaic weapons like bows, which required extensive training, were a rare sight in the current era, as a Benefactor—especially one from the Church of All Things and Nature—Sigrid had naturally been trained in archery.
But she never imagined a bow could be so difficult to draw. B-01-4-7217, Stellarfall's Pull, was said to be a weapon from the Astral Plane, long safeguarded by the Church of All Things and Nature. Throughout history, many had wielded it; so were even immortalized alongside the bow in oil paintings that hung in the church's halls.
Yet no one had ever complained that the bow was difficult to use. So much so that Sigrid had originally thought her greatest challenge would be hitting the target.
Beneath a sky still darkened by the solar eclipse, dozens of chains forged from pure, golden divine spirit crisscrossed the city block, imprisoning the Human Jigsaw Puzzle. anwhile, the demigod-level aberrant vampire from the Tree House was steadily losing ground under the combined assault of three of the Church's own demigods.
A demigod sounded terrifying, especially one who had undergone chanical modification, but at the end of the day, they were still mortal. Compared to the Human Jigsaw Puzzle, the demigod vampire was hardly a threat.
At this mont, the Human Jigsaw Puzzle had taken on the form of Cursed Item A-12-3-3832, The Silent Killer. This was a Cursed Item with a unique capacity for attacking and harming humanoid creatures. While wearing its hood and remaining silent, it possessed special abilities like spatial movent and phantom creation, and its weapons were a seemingly endless supply of sharp, silver scalpels.
In its unhooded, frenzied, roaring state, the Cursed Item retained all the above traits while gaining a host of new powers specifically designed for slaughter: immortality, a devastating ntal assault, dream invasion, illusion creation, shapeshifting, flight, energy discharge, and a poisonous gas barrier. In its silent state, it had to be killed to be dispelled. In its non-silent state, the only way to destroy it was to pierce its heart with a silver weapon engraved with the holy symbol of the Church of Death and End.
But for the Human Jigsaw Puzzle, the instant a weapon drew near, it could simply shapeshift to shed its vulnerability. In effect, this form had almost no weaknesses.
But being unkillable didn't an there were no other options. The chains of divine power, though their strength was suppressed by the eclipse, were likewise suppressing the power of the Human Jigsaw Puzzle.
The Church had been very clear with Sigrid: in twenty-three seconds, the chains would fail. One could imagine the Human Jigsaw Puzzle would transform in that very instant. Her task was to loose the Elven Arrow of Ruin—blessed by the Song of Nature and wrapped in the tendrils that had once been a staff—and strike any part of the Human Jigsaw Puzzle at the exact mont of its transformation in that twenty-third second.
The arrow she was about to loose would decide the outco of a battle that had raged for hours. Sigrid had never been entrusted with such a monuntal responsibility. Unlike Jenkins, though she was also a registered Benefactor of an Orthodox Church, her experiences were nothing compared to the diverse and thrilling life he led.
"Can I do this?"
She stood on a rooftop two blocks away, drawing the bowstring as she asked herself the question. The distance was considerable, but Sigrid possessed the Eagle Eye (White, Basic) ability, allowing her to see her target with perfect clarity.
To protect Sigrid from the interference of chanized corpses while she took aim, the Church had assigned people to guard the rooftop, including the recently arrived Alexia.
After Jenkins had vouched for Alexia's identity, she was treated as a demigod of the Inherited Sage Church. Given her relationship with Jenkins, no one would object to her protecting Sigrid.
Seeing Sigrid's hesitation, Alexia whispered from behind her:
"Nervous? Don't worry. Jenkins is watching you."
The bronze chanical bird was still circling overhead. The Church had noticed it but had assud it was one of the Believers of Lies, who had a habit of ddling in everything, observing from the sidelines, so they paid it no mind.
"Yes, even though Jenkins said I could do it..."
She did her best not to let her gaze drift toward Alexia, trying to maintain her focus.
"After all, I've never done anything like this before."
Soone behind her began a countdown, a sharp reminder for Sigrid to seize the fleeting opportunity.
The bow in her hands thrumd with the power of the Astral Plane—solid, heavy, and as cold and devoid of warmth as the seemingly eternal stars. The arrow, however, radiated a gentle heat, the familiar temperature of life spirit. For a descendant of the World Tree's priestesses, it was an unmistakable sensation.
The warmth brought a asure of peace to her anxious heart, but psychology would do little to change her current situation.
Her body began to glow with an erald light. The arrow, the staff, and she herself resonated as one. At that mont, a power unlike anything she had ever felt coursed through her body. Sigrid understood at once that this power was indeed enough to defeat the enemy before her—provided she could actually loose this arrow at the perfect ti.
"It's alright," Alexia's voice was calm and steady. "As long as you believe in Jenkins, trust him, you will absolutely succeed."
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