Hearing the word "mirror", Shad's bad premonition reached its peak. He wanted to catch up with Mr. Granger, but the severe pain in his heart even made him unstable.
Rumbling sounds came from all directions. Around the top of this low hill, densely packed tall stone mirrors, obsidian floor-length mirrors that looked exactly like the "Stone Mirror Demon" slowly rose from the soil, standing like tombstones in the black mud. This was a ritual that had been arranged in advance, but because of the influence of the puppeteer's notes, no one was able to discover the clues in advance.
The demon's power was unleashed wantonly, and the already dark sky became even darker. Even though the bottom of the hill was less affected, some mid-level warlocks with insufficient soul resistance still felt severe nausea and headaches for a moment.
Although the demonic power had also appeared during the battle of Lake Eldron, it had never been so clearly displayed before our eyes as it was this time. At this time, in the church camp near the hillside, the professor of the School of Astronomy from St. Byrons Comprehensive College, together with the fortune teller accompanying the Prophet Association, opened the divination card:
"demon!"
The power of the Stone Mirror Demon lurked in the land of the Randall Valley for nearly a thousand years after the fall of the ancient Kingdom of Stonewell, and was finally exposed to the Orthodox Church for the first time.
Miss Benanis and Luvia knew more about the power of the local demons than the church did. They looked up at the top of the hill and saw those tall mirrors that seemed to have raised the top of the hill, turning it into a site for an evil and ancient ritual.
As the black mud stained the stone mirror, the two forces, both of which carried great malice towards the world, merged perfectly together. The mirrors reflected the glowing souls and glowing stone statues at this time. But then, only the stone statues emitting silver blasphemous auras were left in the mirrors. One by one, the stone statues walked out of the demon mirror and surrounded the group of people on the top of the mountain.
Mr. Granger quickly retreated back to Shad's side, not because he was forced back by the statue, but because he wanted to protect Shad.
The stone statues that emerged from the mirror all had powers nearly equal to that of the stone boy. Although Shade saw that they would not be able to exist for long, the battle had already fallen into despair.
The power of the evil god, the power of the thirteen-ring warlock, and the power of the devil all appeared on this small hill tonight. In order to force the guardians to use all their strength, the enemy almost played all their trump cards. But now, the transparent soul still did not panic at all. He silently watched everything in front of him, watching the stone statue standing in place, and then stretched out his hand and pressed it on Shade's shoulder:
"Don't do any strenuous activities. Your heart can't take it."
"The current situation... If it really doesn't work, I still have other options."
He clenched the pink bottle in his hand. He had never drunk essence of this concentration in one breath. Although he didn't know how serious the consequences would be, he thought that the power he exerted in an instant might be enough.
"I don't need you, I'll do it."
Mr. Granger shook his head slightly and let go of Shade's shoulder. The group of stone statues walked towards the two of them step by step at a slow speed. Mr. Granger asked the first stone statue, which was also the only one that did not walk out of the mirror:
"You have revealed your cards, just to see my true face?"
"If possible, I would prefer to keep you here. Your soul is very useful to us."
The stone boy said, Mr. Granger shook his head slightly, then slowly flew up to the sky until he stood under the night sky with stirring black clouds. Then the stone statues also gave up on Shade on the ground, and flew densely into the air, leaving Shade alone standing on the ground, holding his heart and watching this scene.
Hundreds of stone statues surrounded Mr. Granger, and each of them raised its right index finger, shining with silver blasphemous light, illuminating most of the night sky. At this moment, even the people at the foot of the hill couldn't help but look up at the top of the hill, looking at the lonely soul that was surrounded.
He was still not panicked at all, and his expression was still indifferent:
"Is it you who wants to keep me here? The cult wants to keep me here? Or is it the devil who wants to keep me here?"
Mr. Granger was still speaking to the original stone statue of the boy, which was at the farthest point.
It pressed its chest, which had swallowed the heart of the voluntary sacrifice:
"My thoughts were born when I got this soul. And the order I received was just to let you show your strength as much as possible. I can't understand the human mind, nor can I understand the thoughts of that ancient evil spirit. However, under this situation, I can't think of how you can escape."
The stone statue's stiff voice, however, expresses a human touch. It has its own thoughts, so it is confused and bewildered, and more importantly, it is thinking about itself:
"I cannot understand what I am, but if I keep you and merge your soul, maybe I can understand it all."
"A long time ago, I was also confused about what I was."
Mr. Granger said, and Shade on the ground endured the pain and pulled out the cork, wanting to drink all the essential oils, but "she" stopped him:
Not for now, something is emerging in the Guardian's soul.
Her voice was very gentle:
I know you are in pain, please rest assured that I feel the pain with you. What you need to do will appear in a while.
"I was also confused about what kind of existence I am."
Mr. Granger's voice became louder and louder in the night sky, but correspondingly, his soul became increasingly dim, so that his entire spirit body was reflected in silver by the light from the fingertips of the densely packed stone statues in the sky:
"Until one day, I saw that thing, and I watched the memory of the earth."
Facing the powerful enemies surrounding him, he actually closed his eyes in mid-air, but Shade noticed that his heart was glowing faintly. It was not the golden color of the miracle element, nor the silver color of the blasphemy element, but the khaki color that belonged to the earth.
“It was then that I realized that my own existence had no meaning, but my own meaning had meaning.”
When the soul that had gone through a long time opened its eyes again, the appearance of the spirit body unexpectedly changed from Thomas Granger to Johnson Fleming, one of the founders of the Stonemason Association, in the light. He did not die in the Battle of Lake Eldron.
The change in image also resulted in a change in timbre:
"In order to protect the earth, we are willing to give up our own existence and the meaning of being human, just for the long-term peace of the earth."
Not only was there light in the heart, but even in the eyes. The spirit flickered and became blurry again, and when it became clear again, it turned into a female figure that Xia De did not recognize.
In the night sky above the hill, the silver light from the fingertips of the stone statues was accumulating. The final blow was about to come, and the woman's voice was particularly clear:
"No one has ever known our secrets since the beginning of the Sixth Era. We have never asked for anyone's thanks, because everything we sacrificed was voluntary."
The woman's soul wavered again, and the image of the unknown old man appeared in her place:
"Strength comes from the earth, and strength comes from determination. The legacy of the Guardians has never been cut off, not because of the greatness of this voluntary sacrifice.
The old man's soul wavered, and an unfamiliar young man appeared:
“The land of the Randall River Valley has remained peaceful, not because of the power of individual souls;”
The spirit of a young man was waving in the blasphemous silver light around him. The image of a middle-aged woman appeared in the twisted soul:
"We have never come into contact with any ring magician forces, not because we are not afraid of loneliness;"
The image of the middle-aged woman was distorted, and her spirit transformed into a middle-aged half-elf with pointy ears:
"And at this moment, I dare to stand in front of you, not because I am arrogant about my own strength."
Eventually, the changing spirit froze into the last known soul to become a "Guardian".
Mr. Lathers' image appears:
"It's all just because..."
He looked expressionlessly at the impending attacks around him, and the charged silver light turned the night sky silver.
Derived from the divine rituals of evil gods, the curse power of demons, and the twisted power of the mad earth, each statue in the night sky has the combat power of a high-level warlock.
Although Mr. Lathers's soul did not change its appearance, circles of dense ripples appeared on the surface of the spirit body. The ripples intertwined with each other until the surface of the spirit body was covered with different faces. That appearance made Shade's scalp tingle below.
At the foot of the hill, the witch looked in shock at the illuminated hill full of stone mirrors and the spiritual light that burst out in the night sky above the hill. Luvia suddenly covered her forehead, and after a moment of headache, she actually felt that she understood something:
"Shad's guess turned out to be completely correct."
At this time, even the fallen elemental giants stopped attacking for some reason. The spread of the mad land stopped, and everyone looked up at the night sky, looking at the souls with various faces.
Those expressionless faces that were looking at the outside world disappeared from the spirit body at the same time, and hundreds of charged silver lights finally shot towards the closed-eye soul.
Mr. Lathers put his hands together in front of him, and the brass ring behind him slowly rotated. Hundreds of arms belonging to different souls grew out of his soul. But only Shade could see that at this moment, inside his soul, there were hundreds of small souls with their eyes closed, and they together constituted Mr. Lathers himself.
The life ring illuminates the soul with eyes closed and hands clasped together, illuminates the arm that uses hundreds of different magics at the same time, and illuminates the soul aggregate that has reached the peak of its state and even has some vague signs of being a demigod:
"Because I am not alone."