Shepherd Tantra

Chapter 966: Just a Meteorite...

Aiwass stared at old Moriarty, looking at his blood-stained face that seemed to be smiling but not smiling.

He suddenly understood what the old man meant.

——This is a preview of the end of the world.

For the residents living under this sky, an asteroid impact of this magnitude would be equivalent to "the end of the world."

Without the intervention of the "savior", it would be meaningless for them to use any abilities or make any attempts - no matter what they do, their world will be destroyed.

That is God's will that cannot be violated by human power, and it is a certain death.

And Aiwass controls their lives.

He could leave here at his leisure - just like Huan Tiansi, leaving before Doomsday destroyed him, thus saving himself. Of course, he could curse Moriarty, or kill him directly, or even put all the "sins" on Moriarty in his heart, because he was the one who asked for the trolley problem... and Aiwass had no obligation to save everyone.

On the other hand, Aiwass can also use "Doomsday" as a weapon, and find a way to change the trajectory of the meteorite and throw it towards the Fallen Angels.

This was a blow that was enough to intimidate the Gray Celestial Being. In other words, it was also a heavy blow that the Celestial Being, who had gained a physical body in the material world, could not resist.

Because this is a pure physical collision, it is only bombarded with high-density, high-weight materials, it is not considered spell damage and has no extraordinary power, so even the resistance of the upper-level phantom demon has to be fully utilized. Even for the Fallen Angel, taking this blow is unacceptable - the premise is that he directly takes this blow.

Even if it cannot be completely destroyed, it can at least be severely damaged, which will obviously be beneficial for the subsequent offensive.

...and the price is that the entire Star Antimony Capital will be destroyed.

The attack range is a radius of 50 kilometers. The area that was directly hit and completely destroyed by the meteorite should not be that large. At least half of the surrounding area was affected. However, the area affected alone is as large as ten Lionheart Cities. If the direct hit range is only 25 kilometers, it is also the area of ​​three Lionheart Cities.

——Is it worth sacrificing so many innocent lives to safely defeat the Fallen Angels?
And this idea is a "necessary evil".

If this thought occurred to Aiwass, or even just considered "whether it was worth it" - it meant that he had been manipulated by old Moriarty.

Just like the idea that "knowledge is poisonous" that old Moriarty has been interpreting. When a person knows a certain piece of knowledge, he is inevitably infected by it. Even if he denies it or has forgotten it, the impact that has been produced will continue to exist and even change a person's life.

——Just like old Moriarty was contaminated by the memory of the end of the world.

"...So that's what happened."

The corners of Aiwass's mouth raised slightly.

He looked at the meteorite in the sky.

It was descending very slowly - or perhaps very quickly. But at least from where Aiwas was, he could only see it growing slightly. That speed was even slower than the setting sun.

Aiwass opened the Book of Law and stopped on a page of cards that he rarely used.

[Enchantment Card: Dryad·Moon Spirit]

[Effect: Transform a tree into Dryad Anastasia. Dryads are considered summons. When the dryad is present, it will continue to heal all friendly forces within the range, and at the same time control plants to periodically control enemies within the range]

[Effect: Use again, when Dryad Anastasia is present, summon Moon Spirit Anastasia. The moon spirit is considered a summon and can exist for ten minutes. When the moon spirit is present, the effect of the dryad is changed to 'obtain a continuous protective barrier centered on the dryad'. The barrier is regarded as a force field, ritual, and shield, and is resistant to all types of damage except "divine", "fire", and "dirty evil"]

The card shows a blind and foolish man wearing green clothes and with horns on his head, and a transparent snake-like rope wrapped around his neck.

"Be ignorant and fearless, respect the future, pursue your dreams, and move forward freely. Even if it is meaningless, you still insist on doing it..."

Aiwass said calmly: "I like this implication."

Old Moriarty, who was cut into two pieces, still had the strength to speak.

He looked at the card Aiwass had drawn.

He did not recognize the tarot card that was modified by Aiwass, but as an astrologer, he obviously understood tarot. Listening to Aiwass's description, old Moriarty guessed which card it was.

"The Fool..."

The corner of his mouth twitched slightly, and he uttered a low and hoarse voice: "The beginning of all tarot cards, the end of all tarot cards...living in a dream, unable to adapt, behaving strangely. Just like you..."

"maybe."

Aiwass answered casually.

He now needs to find a tree.

A tree that is large enough to shelter people from wind and rain - the bigger the tree, the larger the barrier it will eventually support.

It's just a small tree by the roadside. Maybe it can protect itself... but it can't protect all living beings from disaster.

"I understand."

Aiwass spoke up, looking down at old Moriarty: “This is the last test you leave me…and the last lesson.

“Saving the world is no easy task. It requires overturning the limits of the impossible. The most important thing is not to reverse the purpose and the means along the way…

“…Just like you.”

Hearing this, the old man said nothing.

Only the corners of his mouth rose slightly.

——If old Moriarty wanted to escape, he could easily escape from Aiwass with his ability to manipulate illusions and lies. He had much more combat experience than Aiwass, and if he wanted to kill Aiwass, he also had ways to sneak kill him, as evidenced by his magic to manipulate gravity.

But he didn't do that.

Because when old Moriarty witnessed the Tail Ring ceremony and saw Aiwass avoid his astrology and appear directly in front of him... he already knew that he had failed.

Some villains were defeated in the third episode, but were only buried in the 300th episode - but that was not the case with old Moriarty. When he realized that it was impossible for him to fulfill his long-cherished wish, he simply chose to give up.

...Of course, maybe it was because he saw hope.

A faint hope from another possibility!

It can even be said that he was not killed by the Wild Hunt, but died voluntarily at the hands of Aiwass.

In this way, Aiwass would have to bear the weight of killing him.

"...This kind of expectation without human language is really a bit like a father."

Aiwass whispered softly, bringing an ordinary little oak tree to life.

Then he raised his neck and transformed into a deer in the light.

Old Moriarty's pupils dilated slightly.

"Lu... Sizhu..."

He murmured in a low voice, as if he had thought of something, then denied himself and slowly closed his eyes: "Well, no..."

Aiwass, transformed into a deer, walked gracefully beside old Moriarty.

As he advanced, his skin gradually cracked and blood flowed. The black sin thorns stretched out like tentacles, and from a distance it looked like the holy white deer had grown black wings.

"Ask a question, old man."

Aiwass walked up to old Moriarty and asked bluntly: "Did you leave anything for me? I can use whatever you leave behind at will."

He didn't know when he changed his name.

Upon hearing this, old Moriarty's old and mottled face showed a sincere smile.

"nature."

The old man said calmly: “Everything I leave behind is yours. The wealth and knowledge I have collected are in the family vault - Oswald will take you to the specific location.

“As for this broken body and this broken soul…if you have anything you want to use them for, take them.

"I don't plan to enter the dream world. When a person dies, he is dead. There is no need to pursue eternal life after death, nor to care about the afterlife. Even this world is not eternal, how dare a mere dead soul call himself a god..."

The old man sneered, and the light in his pupils gradually dissipated.

"——Then you can't die yet."

Aiwass suddenly spoke up.

The tree demon Anastasia shook the branches slightly, and a ball of light suddenly bloomed on the old man.

"Well……!"

Old Moriarty groaned, his body quickly regaining vitality and energy. His face was confused at first, and then gradually turned into anger.

But at this moment.

There was a hissing sound of piercing, and the thorns behind Aiwas actually nailed him to the body, pinning him under the oak tree!

“Uh uh uhhhhhhhh—”

The intense pain made old Moriarty twitch uncontrollably.

His consciousness was temporarily blurred, and the muscles all over his body were shaking at high speed as if they were receiving electric shocks.

——After those sin thorns pierced into old Moriarty’s body, they suddenly began to expand wildly!

The spreading Sinthorn, with old Moriarty held high by the Sinthorn as its core, was growing in all directions!

The surrounding stone slabs, buildings, and walls were all covered with dark sin thorns, but they only avoided the golden oak in the middle.

Oswald outside retreated in fear—that was Sinthorn! The natural enemy of all extraordinary beings and even intelligent creatures!

"Lloyd's criminal consultant, evil mentor who manipulates people's hearts, creator of the concept of 'necessary evil'... I think you must have accumulated a lot of 'evil', old man."

Aiwass, who had vertical pupils like a dragon instead of horizontal pupils like a deer, stared at Moriarty.

"——Then give them all to me."

As he spoke, Aiwas began to chew the thorns of sin.

As Aiwas chewed, blood continued to flow from the corners of his mouth. The flames gradually spread from his mouth.

And huge amounts of magic power are continuously generated from the furnace in his body.

He invested the generated magic power into an ordinary oak tree beside him.

——That is the magic that the elves of the Theocracy usually use to repair giant trees!
An ordinary divine art that allows trees to regenerate.

And at this moment, with the authority of the Son of Candle, it continues to grow!

Ten meters, twenty meters, fifty meters...even one hundred meters, or even higher!
The sin thorns were not exhausted at all, they were still spreading wildly.

The speed at which Aiwas devoured the tree could not even keep up with its new growth. The growth speed of the golden oak tree was like a golden meteor flying backwards, growing wildly at an incredible speed!

Watching this scene, old Moriarty's temples trembled with severe pain, but he became more energetic because of the oak light that continued to fall on him.

The old man laughed heartily, his laughter half ironic and half sudden realization: "So... this is what you want... hahahaha... then take it! Take it all!

"How can a mortal surpass the evil I have done!
“That’s the Savior’s sin!

"If I don't bear this necessary evil—"

At this point, even old Moriarty's body was completely engulfed by the sin thorns that continued to spread and grow within his body.

His entire body had lost its shape and body, and had turned into a human-shaped mass of sinful thorns.

"—I will never follow the same path as you, father."

Aiwass said softly.

The antlers on his head grew wildly - they gradually grew from half-white and half-red tender antlers to huge antlers like those of a moose. The color gradually turned into the color of mutton-fat white jade, with a little dark golden glow floating in it.

Even the body of the Sin Beast itself was expanding and growing larger because of this!
And just then.

The black thorns that had completely lost their bodies suddenly opened their "mouths". Or rather, it was the thorns that were originally the mouths.

It didn't make any sound.

Instead, his mouth opened and closed, making a mouth shape. Then it completely disintegrated and turned into sin thorns all over the sky.

Aiwass looked at the lip movements and actually understood what old Moriarty said.

【Then remember this sentence】

“——I’ll remember that.”

Aiwass murmured in reply: "I won't run away again."

In the glorious light, beneath the towering oak trees.

The fawn has grown up since then.

The sinthorns wrapped around his body were so huge that the undigested sinthorns could even lift the deer-formed Aiwas high into the sky and let it fall directly on the top of the oak.

All these sins that he had not digested in time would become the nourishment of Aiwas. No one knew how long Moriarty's plot would last, and no one knew how many people he had killed directly or indirectly. But these sins still accumulated in his soul.

An idea suddenly popped up in Aiwas's mind:
If enough souls of "Old Moriarty" enter the Source River at the same time... as the souls disintegrate and these sin thorns swell, they may block the Source River.

And then, another thought came to him.

"Heh... Where's my experience, system? It's gone once the soul is completely decomposed?"

Aiwass sneered, "It's not like they were all transformed into sin thorns."

But even so, the window for gaining free experience did not pop up on his system panel.

But whatever.

He no longer has any use for this kind of thing now.

But at this moment, another window appeared in front of Aiwas:
[Current conversion rate 55%: Sin Beast is immune to physical damage, just like a spirit; you can use Sin Thorn to extract the opponent's mana; you can abolish the extraordinary power of the extraordinary by driving the Sin Thorn Nail; your Sin Thorn can capture souls, thereby arresting souls in the material world or salvaging souls in the source river; your Sin Thorn is now indestructible, regarded as a sacred weapon, regarded as a natural weapon, and gains the toughness, sharpness, and penetration characteristics. ]

…55% conversion rate.

Are we only 70% away from the 15% from which there is no return?

At this time, as the meteorite in the sky gradually "grew bigger", the size of the giant tree also broke through the sky.

Aiwass felt a burning pain in his heart, and a sacred white fire began to burn from his four feet, but it failed to burn the oak tree.

"Just in time."

He said sincerely: "It is more reliable than my original idea of ​​using the barrier to catch it..."

An incomparably bright fire of devotion burned in his pupils.

The oak tree beneath her seemed to gradually gain intelligence—or rather, its new intelligence was gradually merging with Anastasia.

——That is close to the size of a "giant tree"!

The power of the Sin Beast alone does not seem to be enough to achieve such a miracle...

When the golden oak rises high in the sky like the morning star.

The Sin Beast, which has now reached adulthood, also raised its jet-black wings.

Those were two pairs of wings woven from countless sinful thorns.

Starting from Aiwas' body, these sinthorns ignited golden-red flames.

It also looks like two flaming hands, raised high to the sky, grasping the meteorite!
"It's just a meteorite..."

Aiwass gnashed his teeth and said, "Look, I push it back!"

The sin thorns that covered the sky and blocked out the sun were nailed to the meteorite, like bark beetles that bit through the stone shell and drilled into it. The raging fire poured into it, burning the meteorite, which was already red from the friction of the air, even redder!
Those thorns of sin are like spikes one after another.

It was like punch after punch, constantly chiseling on the stone shell!
"Anastasia!"

Aiwass called out loudly.

"coming!"

Anastasia appeared beside Aiwass without hesitation and raised her right hand.

A layer of golden barrier emerged from the shell of the huge oak tree, catching the broken meteorite steadily!

Smoke and dust were everywhere.

——The shock wave wrapped in flames formed a circle and spread violently in the night!
(End of this chapter)