Wizard: I Have a Cultivation System

Chapter 433: Chapter 89: Wind, Thunder, Water

"Saint! You mustn’t!" the Knight Captain cried out in alarm, trying to stop her.

"Move!" Elizabeth’s voice was filled with a reckless determination as she even tried to channel her power.

However, the moment she raised her hand, she staggered. Her face instantly grew even paler, and a fine sheen of cold sweat broke out on her brow.

The toll from ringing the Morning Star Bell was far greater than she had imagined. Her soul and body felt as if they had been hollowed out. Forcing herself to act now only brought waves of searing pain and emptiness.

Just then, a calm voice cut through the din, reaching her ears with perfect clarity:

"You’re in no condition to fight, Elizabeth."

It was Murphy.

He was still dozens of meters away, carrying out rescues, but his gaze remained fixed on the altar.

A white Mana tentacle had just coiled around another person who had fallen into the water.

Elizabeth’s forward momentum halted. She turned to look at Murphy, her eyes filled with conflict and anguish. "But they... they’re dying! Because... because..."

"Going there won’t save them," Murphy cut her off, his tone still even, almost cold. "Right now, you can’t even block the weakest Withering Wind. If you go, you’ll just be another body."

At the same time, Sigrid’s melancholic voice drifted over again:

"It seems the ’gentleness’ of the water isn’t enough to teach you your lesson. In that case, have a taste of ’drowning’."

As her voice faded, the surging flood immediately began to change.

It began to writhe like a living creature, ensnaring and dragging down the people in the water. Countless transparent, aqueous tentacles shot out from the deluge, snatching at the Clergy in the air who were attempting rescues or Casting.

Simultaneously, Calvin’s shrill laughter and Raphael’s furious roars grew more frenzied. The power of wind and Thunder swelled in kind, coordinating with the flood in a more cunning and vicious search for weaknesses in the defenses.

A reinforced Withering Wind, mixed with high-pressure water arrows, broke through a barrier maintained by several Bishops and swept through a small alley below that had, by sheer luck, not been completely submerged.

In the alley, a dozen or so civilians, who had been helping each other climb to higher ground, suddenly froze.

Under the effects of the green wind and water arrows, their bodies rapidly turned ashen and brittle, as if undergoing a weathering process accelerated a millionfold. They silently disintegrated into dust, mixing into the murky currents, their very last trace of existence erased.

There, a grandfather held the posture of thrusting the child in his arms upward, even in his final moment.

But it was all for naught.

Elizabeth saw this scene with perfect clarity.

She froze on the spot, as if struck by lightning.

The feet that had been trying to move forward could no longer take a single step.

Scalding tears burst from her eyes without warning, streaming down her pale cheeks.

She didn’t cry out, only bit down hard on her lower lip until she tasted blood, her body trembling like a leaf in the autumn wind.

She no longer tried to rush forward.

Because she knew Murphy was right.

For her to go now would be a meaningless suicide mission.

Her status as the "Saint" might even cause greater chaos and draw more attention, leading to more unnecessary casualties.

’I can’t save them.’

’I can’t save anyone.’

"What... what have I... done...?" she murmured, her head bowed. Her voice was broken, and tears dripped onto her pure white robes, blooming into dark stains.

Murphy watched her break down, but his hands never stopped his rescue efforts.

’Ironspine Duke’s deception?’

’Balance?’

’The Church Court tried to centralize authority and reshape order through the bell and the coronation, which in itself disrupted a certain balance.’

’As a "Balance Keeper," perhaps the Ironspine Duke was just "correcting" this imbalance in his own way.’

’But was this right?’

’Is sacrificing the majority for some bizarre form of balance the right thing to do?’

...

「Sanctuary, Half-Plane.」

The eternally flowing, milky-white sea of clouds was now like a boiling furnace.

At the center of the churning vortex of clouds, the colossal mechanical behemoth was delivering a second, and then a third, mighty blow to Noe VII with star-crushing force!

Each strike was accompanied by the boom of pure power.

Wherever the giant fist passed, the clouds were utterly displaced, revealing an empty void below.

Noe VII’s figure was as small as an ant before the massive creation, yet he met the giant’s blows with his palm time and time again.

"Look at him," Othilia’s pure white form hovered by the mechanical behemoth’s shoulder, her jet-black eyes looking down on the struggling Old Pope. "Such a grand stand! Using his last ounce of strength to weld himself to this collapsing gate, all so the billions of lives outside—those civilians in the Holy City being weathered into dust, shattered by Thunder, and swallowed by the flood—can enjoy a few more moments of his protection! Noe VII, can you hear their screams? Can you smell the laughable panic of your successor? Is *this* the righteousness you chose?"

Noe VII was continuously forced back by the bombardment of the mechanical fists. Each step he took sent deep ripples across the sea of clouds, but his gaze remained resolute, his gray eyes reflecting the behemoth’s form.

"The screams... I hear them." His voice was hoarse, tinged with a deep sorrow. "But what you see is merely the price paid by one corner of the Holy City. What I see..."

His voice suddenly rose:

"...is Calvin’s Withering Wind, once fully unleashed, sweeping across the Continent, leaving a thousand miles of desolation and extinguishing all life!"

"...is Raphael’s annihilating Thunder, once unfettered, ravaging the mortal world, turning cities to scorched earth and crumbling civilizations!"

"...is Sigrid’s endless water, once out of control, submerging everything, sinking the lands, and drowning all living things!"