“Useless.”

The Seeker of [Chapter Three] looked around. She merely raised a hand, and every attack that had seemed so fierce was blocked.

“I don’t like talking, but I’ll still remind you of this. I am Hrubess, one of the Seeker’s Three Pillars. Your Magic Spells can’t even break the spells I created, let alone defeat me.”

What did she say?

The Magic Spells she created… Could it be that even those basic spells she had just used were compiled and created by her herself?

They were all basic Magic Spells, yet in Hrubess’s hands, their power rivaled most attacks from [Cantata Two]. Even the defensive Formation she had deployed in an instant had blocked the attacks of all four of them at once.

When Hrubess saw that Qiu Sheng and the others had no intention of retreating, she shook her head. Then she lifted her hanging hair, revealing a pitch-black Eye Orb.

“I’ve already given you my warning. But since you insist on making an enemy of me, I won’t hold back anymore.”

A line of golden runes appeared within that black Eye Orb. Without a doubt, it was a Magic Spell. Yet only the Eye Orb’s user could understand its meaning.

“Hellfire, burn all things.”

Red flames burst from beneath the four women’s feet. A scorching tornado of fire wrapped around them.

Qiu Sheng swung the lightning in her palm, but the moment it touched the fire tornado, it was swept away. Lu Jin tried to fire her weapon, but met the same result as Qiu Sheng.

Chen Xiaoyin and Dawnlight were struggling to hold up their shields. Without them, everyone inside the fire tornado would have been swept into the air long ago, with no telling whether they would live or die.

“It’s all in vain.”

Qiu Sheng narrowed her eyes.

Hrubess had suddenly unleashed her full power. In just a few seconds, she had suppressed all four of them.

So this was [Chapter Three] after its seal was lifted… The gap between it and [Cantata Two] was actually this vast.

Qiu Sheng finally understood why her master had ignored everyone’s objections and secretly entered the Abyss in search of a chance to break through.

[Cantata Two] was powerful, but it could never overcome [Chapter Three]. Without the strength of [Chapter Three], even protecting oneself was a struggle.

She turned her hand over and glanced at her wrist. It was the protective device her master had given her, containing pure lightning.

After the incident with the Void Wanderer, Qiu Sheng had never used it again. But now was exactly the time.

Qiu Sheng could control the lightning’s power. How many times she could use it depended on how she allocated and invoked it. But to help everyone break through this tornado, the device could only launch one attack.

If she didn’t use it now, when would she?

Golden lightning descended from the sky, striking the four fire tornadoes.

The instant the flames collided with the lightning, the fire tornadoes briefly stalled. Everyone seized the opportunity at the same time and escaped from the flames.

But the crisis wasn’t over.

The lightning in the sky suddenly slipped beyond Qiu Sheng’s control. The golden bolts were twisted by an invisible force of Mana, forming a sphere that fell toward those who hadn’t yet managed to rise.

Chen Xiaoyin instantly raised a shield around everyone. But that lightning was utterly unreasonable. It smashed through the shield she had condensed.

Everyone present suffered injuries of varying severity. Lu Jin and the others gathered together, while Dawnlight handed out healing potions.

After taking medicine that blocked her pain receptors, Qiu Sheng once again looked toward Hrubess in the center of the ruins.

Every one of Hrubess’s attacks refreshed their understanding of magic.

“Why can’t you surrender obediently? I don’t want to fight you. I’m not like them. I don’t enjoy all this violence…”

Mana condensed into chains, winding layer upon layer around everyone present. No matter how they struggled, they couldn’t break the unyielding restraints.

“Just stay here and wait for everything to end.”

Hrubess opened her eyes and glanced at the few people fighting in the sky. Then she looked at the four bound by chains beside her.

She closed her eyes, sat cross-legged, and settled down.

“Why are you so obsessed with the Key and the gate? What exactly are they?”

Chen Xiaoyin suddenly spoke. But Hrubess didn’t answer. She merely clapped her hands, sealing all four women’s mouths shut with Mana.

On the ground, Lu Shi saw Lu Jin being bound by chains. At the same time, one of her clones was pierced through the shoulder by a weapon created by Aphrodite.

Gritting her teeth, Lu Shi pulled out the sharp Spear and retreated to Zhao Qingsnow’s side.

The earth transformed into a gigantic hand, trying to drag Aphrodite down. But Aphrodite merely recited a Magic Spell, and the enormous hand rapidly crumbled.

One section of it then transformed into her weapon.

Zhao Qingsnow drew upon the moisture in the air and condensed it into Frostbite Fang. The moment the weapon touched the wall of ice, it was frozen solid by the cold.

“Does this thing have no weakness at all…?”

The Old Woman used earth-walking to pass over Frostbite Fang and arrive beside Zhao Qingsnow.

“There is a rumor about her. Though it’s only a guess.”

“What rumor?”

Zhao Qingsnow maintained Frostbite Fang as she replied to the Old Woman. The Old Woman’s thoughts drifted back more than a decade.

“Back then, some rumors circulated within the Seeker. One of the Three Pillars had a disciple who was an ordinary person without Mana.”

“An ordinary person?”

Zhao Qingsnow was slightly stunned. Her own memories were pulled back into the past.

She remembered that rumor. It had existed for only a day or two before vanishing without a trace, as if it had never appeared at all.

“Are you saying she’s that disciple? But she can use magic… can’t she?”

Zhao Qingsnow’s gaze pierced through the ice and landed on Aphrodite. A faint Mana and Abyssal Aura swirled around her.

She hardly looked like someone incapable of using magic.

“Indeed. It’s difficult to tell from appearances alone.”

Lu Shi seemed to have understood something. She looked at the Magic Stone embedded in her dagger—the one that belonged exclusively to her.

After the Old Woman finished speaking, Lu Shi added, “I’ve clashed with her quite a few times. Her vertical pupils are strange. Whenever she recites a Magic Spell, fixed and unusual runes appear in her eyes. It looks very similar to the state I enter when using a Magic Stone spell.”

“If you think about it carefully, there are several strange points. What exclusive Magic Spell could last for so long? What spell could be used so many times without her expending anything? How could that be possible?”

At the mention of vertical pupils, Zhao Qingsnow suddenly slapped her forehead. She remembered the Eye Orb she had seized earlier in District Twenty One.

“Do you remember the eye we obtained? I suspect that eye and hers come from the same source. My guess is that the Eye Orb granted her power.”

“No, no, that can’t be right! She didn’t use that Eye Orb when she fought the Moon Owl. That power was truly hers—the power of [Chapter Three].”

During the previous battle, Aphrodite had reached the state of unsealing without using the Eye Orb. In Lu Shi’s eyes, she was a genuine Magic Maiden.

“But why hasn’t she used her own exclusive Magic Spell? She hasn’t even used a common spell.”

That was the fundamental reason the Old Woman had connected these matters.

The Aphrodite before them came from the Seeker. As one of the Seeker’s Three Pillars, she could only use a single Magic Spell: [Turning Other Things into Weapons].

If this wasn’t because Aphrodite was incapable of using other spells, the Old Woman would have to question the Seeker’s selection process for the Three Pillars.

“Her current power comes from somewhere else. The Eye Orb granted her the ability to use Magic Spells. So I suspect she’s the disciple from the rumor—the disciple of a Seeker Pillar who couldn’t use Mana. Why don’t we try—”

Before the Old Woman could finish, the enormous Frostbite Fang became their enemy.

A weapon made of ice swept toward Zhao Qingsnow and the others. They condensed their Mana and desperately held it back.

The Old Woman seized the opportunity and called out to Aphrodite.

“You’re not actually a Magic Maiden, are you?”

Aphrodite’s figure paused. She flung countless shards of ice away.

That reaction perfectly matched the Old Woman’s guess.

“As expected. You’re the disciple of one of the Seeker’s Three Pillars—the one from the rumors who couldn’t use Mana.”

“Though I don’t know how you managed to break your seal or how you can use Mana, you don’t have your own exclusive Magic Stone. You can’t use common spells or exclusive spells, can you?”

Aphrodite remained silent in the air.

That silence only confirmed that the Old Woman’s words were true.

Then Aphrodite moved.

She gently removed the cloak from her body, revealing countless deeply etched patterns. Mana and Abyssal Aura surged within those markings, gathering at the center of her chest.

“You’re right. I’m not really a Magic Maiden. I don’t have a Magic Stone, and I was never chosen. But my teacher told me that I had great talent.”

“My teacher said that a Magic Stone is only a transfer station. True Mana is hidden here!”

Aphrodite pointed at her chest.

“My teacher was right. Through this method, I can use Mana too. But I can’t use Magic Spells.”

“However, the moment I took the position of a Pillar and touched this Eye Orb, I became the Magic Maiden you speak of.”

“But I’d rather call myself…”

“A divine apostle!”

A colossal surge of Abyssal Aura completely replaced the Mana, blasting the three people below into the air.

“The gods granted me the power to wield Magic Spells. They granted me the power to break my seal…”

“They want me to guide this corrupted world!”

【Your mother was a genius. But why did she give birth to a useless child like you? You have no Mana in your body and no Magic Stone… For your mother’s sake, go study with the Seeker and receive a title.】

【She’s the descendant of that expedition hero… They say she has no Mana and was forcibly assigned as a Pillar’s disciple.】

【How envious. My talent is far greater than hers, yet I may never climb to her position in my entire life. She only got there because of her mother.】

【Exactly. I can’t stand her.】

【She’s actually trying to study? She has no Mana. Can she even understand any of it? She probably can’t even become an agent. I truly don’t know why the Three Pillars value her, or why they helped suppress those “facts.”】

【You don’t deserve it!】

【You’re a useless piece of trash!】

【You can’t even handle something this simple!】

She closed her eyes and crouched in a corner, escaping from reality.

Then, suddenly, a pair of hands reached toward her.

【I can help you. But you’ll have to pay a price… Are you willing?】

“I am.”

She agreed without hesitation.

Then the owner of those hands died of illness.

And she became Aphrodite.