<h4>Chapter 552 Aftermath: Part 1</h4>


    Tenko Kasumi pierced through the skull of the giant bird with her sword. But even if the white energy that formed the sword fully prated the head of the giant bird, it was as if a tiny toothpick was pricking through the skin of the monstrous bird. A non-physical sword could not inflict any damage to its body.Tenko Kasumi pulled away with her sword, just in time to dodge the attack from the bird’s wings.


    “This thing just won’t die!”


    Drenched in sweat, she leaped up into the air and turned into a stream of light. She had tried a dozen moves to attack, but the damage that each move could do to the giant bird was next to nothing. Without a doubt, the opponent was also a powerful monster with Ptinate-level strength. No way regr skills and moves could contain it.


    “It seems that I’ve got to use some killer move!”


    Kasumi had noticed that the giant bird was looking up and pping its wings, flying toward her. The next moment, a bright red beam of light of tens of meters in diameter, shot out of the giant bird’s mouth. Kasumi had nowhere to hide, and neither did she want to dodge.


    “Magic Sword!”


    As she raised and pped her hands together, a brown, hideous face appeared behind her.


    “Sword Shadow Number Three: Heztghina’s Blow!”


    As the enormous face opened its mouth, a cold, bitter gray-white current shot out. It grew rapidly as the current left the mouth and eventually expanded into a ten-meter-wide white, cold draft.


    The red beam and the white draft collided at once. As Tenko Kasumi stopped to catch her breath, a ck thread came from the side and struck her on the back. Blood spurted out from her mouth as she fell like an artillery shell. And the next moment, she found herself crashing into the enormous arms of someone.


    “You look like sh*t, Tenko.” The one speaking was none other than the Night Lord, draped in his ck armor with golden patterns. He caught Tenko Kasumi in his arms as she fell from the sky, making fun of her.


    “Aren’t you the same, getting cut away? How could you still have the nerve to talk about me?” Tenko Kasumi’s soul was not contaminated. She could hear the telepathic conversation between Lin Sheng and him nearby.


    “Then I will leave you to it.”


    The Night Lord shrugged, about to let go of her. Just then, she spurted another mouthful of blood, sttering it all onto his armor.


    “Don’t be overconfident. You’re just a Ptinate...” The Night Lord couldn’t with her.


    “You know what, this is the thirteenth!” Temko Kasumi got angry. She had finished off twelve ind-sized giant birds earlier. But there seemed to be an endless amount of them. As soon as she killed one, another would emerge.


    “Thirteen?” The Night Lord was shocked.


    Thirteen monster birds like this were equal to thirteen Ptinate-level powerful beings. This was only from one outbreak of the cktide. The entire Sanctum had only slightly more than a double-digit amount of Ptinates, which included those from the tomb of the Sin Dragon Matriarch.


    “Maybe let me do you a favor this time, beauty.” The Night Lord looked up as the ind-sized monster bird swooped down. Raising the armor great sword in his and just as he was about to finish off the monster bird, a sound came from afar in the sky. It sounded as if voices of prayer, or maybe the perturbation of the air. A bright light was forming in the air and rose into the sky like the sun.


    “Hmm, I probably don’t have to do it myself now.” The Knight Lord tucked his greatsword and shrugged.


    “What is the original going to do?” Tenko Kasumi looked up into the air above the city, feeling puzzled.


    “I don’t know, but I think it is something good.”


    He looked up. The clouds were dispersing, gradually revealing the bright golden sun behind them. The sun prated the clouds and shone its rays onto thend below.


    Right in front of the Sanctum, in the pure beam of blessings of the world, Lin Sheng looked up the light of blessing that did not belong to the Sanctum.


    “Everything has toe to an end...” He pulled his eyes back, calmly walking toward the door of the prayer hall. The cloak fluttering on his back left a trace of holy white light behind him.


    After a while, the entire holy city started to shake. Thend around the Sanctum cracked, broke off, and became floating inds. Some of these inds were asrge as a few dozen meters in diameter. Smaller ones were a few meters across. They formed a dense array of floating inds with each of them emitting a constantly pure, white holy light.


    All of a sudden, two beams of light shooting out from the Sanctum below hit two of thergest floating inds, from which burst out rings of invisible oscition. The two inds also started to circle around the Sanctum in the air.


    Now, the two sealed one-eyed giants, the Annihtus, in the form of beads, had been infused into the two floating inds. The willpower, released from the protection, was continuously turned into the protective power and holy light that in turn protected everything else.


    The formless waves emitted from the inds started to assault the surrounding cktide monsters indiscriminately. The legend-ss power of the Annihtus, even though sealed and could only be released in a small amount through willpower conversion, was not something the cktide monsters could resist.


    In just a split second, the ind-sized monster bird above Tenko Kasumi and the Night Lord fell apart like snow under the tropical sun. There was no cry of agony or roar of fury; the monster bird froze like a bug inside the amber, much like what happened when the one-eyed giant ughtered the living souls.


    “Two Legend-ss protective cities. It’s truly a masterpiece!” The Night Lord was in awe.


    Tenko Kasumi did not say a word, just letting out a heavy sigh. Looking up at the crumbling ind-sized monster bird, she felt a strange sense of sadness.


    “Tell me, do we still mean anything to the original?” she asked.


    The question transfixed the Night Lord. When the original was still weak, he summoned them to ensure his safety. But now the original had surpassed them in strength. What was the purpose of their existence?


    “I think there is still a purpose...” the Night Lord replied after thinking for a while.


    “What?”


    “For example, enjoy life on behalf of him.” The Night Lord let out a sly smile. “Look at the original. All he does every day is cultivation and nothing else. How meaningless such a life is! We can help him enjoy life. Since we share the same memories, that means, indirectly, he has also enjoyed it. Don’t you think?”


    “Say this to the original.” Tenko Kasumi sneered.


    “Maybe not. I don’t want to get killed.” The Night Lord knew his ce, at least.


    There was no more talking between them, just watching as the monster birds dissolved and turned into white light particles before falling back down to the earth.