Wizard: I Have a Cultivation System

Chapter 425: Chapter 88: The Bell

’It’s... actually real...’ Murphy thought, withdrawing his gaze from the faithful, who now brimmed with a subtle vitality, and looking back toward the altar.

Pope Ete I had clearly felt it, too. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, the sharp glint in his gaze seemed to have intensified, and his gaunt face had even filled out, taking on a faint, ruddy glow.

As the Pope, he was clearly receiving the most direct benefits.

HUMMM!

The ripples of the bell’s toll continued to spread, crossing the square, flooding the streets, and sweeping through every corner of the Holy City.

In the eastern slums, an old man bedridden with illness suddenly found his breathing eased.

In a southern workshop, a craftsman discovered the scars from an old burn were fading.

Even in the northern stables, a packhorse, lame with age, seemed revitalized and gave a loud snort.

However, as this invisible, life-giving wave reached the middle of the square—the section shrouded in the shadow of a stone pedestal—

A sudden, bizarre change occurred!

VREEE!

A sharp ringing, completely different from the toll of the Morning Star Bell, erupted from the shadows!

The black mark seemed to come to life, frantically absorbing the surrounding Life Force.

The faithful, who had just been revitalized by the bell’s toll, suddenly felt a wave of enervation, as if something was being forcibly ripped from their bodies.

The few people closest to the mark collapsed, their faces rapidly turning a deathly gray.

"What is that?"

"Evil! It’s an evil power!"

"Protect the Pope! Protect the Saint!"

The tranquility of the square was shattered in an instant as screams and shouts of outrage erupted.

The faithful, who moments before had been reveling in the miraculous grace, were thrown into a panic, and the crowd began to surge.

The Defender Knights reacted swiftly. One contingent charged toward the source of the eruption, while the others formed a tight cordon around the altar and the viewing platform, their swords drawn and bodies aglow with Holy Light.

On the altar, the solemn expression on Pope Ete I’s face froze, replaced by shocked fury.

The faces of the Cardinals presiding over the ceremony paled. The light of Magic already flared around several of them as they prepared to purify the evil that had so abruptly appeared.

However, it was all too late.

As if it had absorbed enough Energy, the black mark suddenly swelled and exploded!

A jet-black shockwave of Energy—laced with countless agonized whispers and hateful screams—erupted outward like a ripple. It slammed into the nearby Divine Magic and the Holy Light of the Defender Knights, producing a sizzling, corrosive sound.

At almost the same moment, an even more shocking event occurred!

「In another part of the Holy City.」

The area that had once been the entrance to the Sanctuary—which had been reduced to rubble in a cataclysmic explosion four months prior and was still undergoing slow reconstruction.

A deep, terrifying rumble suddenly emanated from the ground!

RUMBLE RUMBLE!

It was as if some behemoth, slumbering for countless ages, had just rolled over in the depths of the earth.

Immediately after, above the ruins sealed by numerous Barriers and guards, space itself began to twist and warp violently!

The once-clear sky suddenly fractured, riddled with irregular cracks that shimmered with an eerie dark purple and ghastly white light.

Rampant Energy cascaded from the fissures like an uncontrollable waterfall. Wherever it touched, the partially repaired ruins were instantly pulverized, and deep furrows were carved into the earth.

Through the flickering fissures, one could faintly glimpse a scene beyond: a boundless, slowly churning sea of milky-white clouds.

"The Sanctuary... the Half-Plane beneath the Sanctuary!" an Archbishop cried out, all the color draining from his face. "The Plane Passage is opening! How is this possible!"

Four months ago, the entrance to the Sanctuary was destroyed. Pope Noe VII and the Wizards of the Inheritance Sect had been trapped in the connected Half-Plane, and the passage was believed to have been completely obliterated.

It was precisely because the Plane Passage could not be opened that the Church Court’s prestige had been shaken. It was why they urgently needed to elect a new leader and ring the Morning Star Bell—to restore their authority and rally the faithful.

But now, at the climax of the coronation ceremony, this very impossibility had brazenly occurred, triggered by the dual stimuli of the Morning Star Bell’s toll and the eruption of an Unknown Power!

In that instant,

The entire Holy City was plunged into chaos, as if it had been thrown into a vat of boiling oil.

On the altar, the faces of the College of Cardinals, led by Pope Ete I, contorted with a mixture of shock, anger, and utter disbelief.

In the VIP section, the guests—all of whom had just felt the nourishing Life Force from the bell to some degree—now wore a variety of expressions.

The look of delight on William IV’s face froze, replaced by grim gravity and a flicker of unease. Beside him, Legendary Knight Otto had already straightened his posture, his hand resting on his sword hilt.

A barely perceptible glint flashed in the Ironspine Duke’s gray-blue eyes.

The Chancellor and Generals of Rotalia exchanged whispered glances, Director Ulysses’s expression was stone-faced, and Prince Charles could not conceal his astonishment.

The representatives from other factions looked on with fear, caution, or deep in thought.

Murphy’s gaze slowly swept across the chaotic square, the erupting Energy, and the distant spatial fissures before finally settling back on the pure-white figure upon the altar.

Elizabeth still had her back to everyone, facing the Morning Star Bell.

It reminded Murphy of something Elizabeth had said: "The tolling of the bell... might not go as certain people wish."

’So it wasn’t that it wouldn’t ring.’

’It was that it wouldn’t ring the way they wished.’

...

「Sanctuary, Half-Plane.」

The eternal, milky-white sea of clouds was now being disturbed by the cataclysm in the mortal realm.

The currents of clouds grew turbulent and chaotic, and the light flickered erratically.

Margaret and Othilia appeared at the edge of a swirling vortex of clouds. Not far ahead, a man in his sixties stood silently, blocking their path. He wore a simple, white linen robe, and though gaunt, his posture was as straight and unyielding as a pine tree.