Chapter 84: Proving Once Again, the Cleansing Spell is a God-Tier Skill!

“Don’t panic!”

Celeste’s voice wasn’t loud, but it possessed a strange, penetrating quality that sliced straight through the dark cloud of despair hanging over everyone’s heads.

The restless, murmuring crowd miraculously fell silent.

“It’s not time to give up yet!”

Her gaze darted between the enemies flanking them. The Death Knight exuded a terrifying aura, yet it remained motionless, seemingly content to assess the battlefield from afar. The true, immediate threat was the Stitched Abomination, which had just heaved itself another heavy step forward.

This big guy had to go down first.

“Selene!” Celeste commanded.

“Understood!”

Selene nodded heavily. Without a shred of hesitation, she hefted the massive shield, Immovable Mountain, and charged forward to meet the monster head-on.

She didn’t try to block its attack directly. The beast-bone club in the Abomination’s hand whistled through the air with the sound of wind and thunder, smashing down with enough force to blot out the sky. Its massive shadow completely swallowed her.

At the last second, Selene dropped her center of gravity, engaged her core, and angled the face of Immovable Mountain at an impossibly precise, tricky angle.

“CLANG—!”

A deafening metallic shriek exploded outwards, the resulting shockwave becoming a visible ripple that tore through the air.

Selene wasn’t sent flying.

The rocky ground beneath her feet spiderwebbed with cracks as the mountain-like force shoved her backward, her boots carving two deep, shocking furrows into the stone. But in the end, she held her ground.

By using the shield’s curved surface and her own precise force-deflection techniques, she had successfully redirected more than half of the Abomination’s absurdly violent power, shunting it harmlessly to the side.

‘It’s not just big sister who’s gotten stronger!’

Selene gritted her teeth, the muscles in her arms trembling violently under the massive load, but her eyes were startlingly bright. Ever since the Domain trial for the college entrance exam, she had spent every spare moment in a frenzy of targeted training, learning stance and technique from her sister.

Her sister’s combat style was wild and imaginative, her damage output simply stunning. As for her, the younger sister and the team’s most solid shield, her job was more than just taking hits. She had to learn how to use technique, how to use skill to confront terrifying existences whose raw power far exceeded her own.

“Well done, Selene!” Celeste praised, her voice filled with sincere pride. Her sister’s growth was a source of genuine relief.

But the battle waited for no one.

Celeste raised her staff, and clusters of pink light whistled out one after another, slamming into the Stitched Abomination.

“Healing Spell!”

“Healing Spell!”

“Healing Spell!”

A violent sizzling sound erupted as the holy light made contact with the Abomination’s filthy, desecrated flesh. It was like pouring boiling oil onto a block of ice. Large swaths of rotten meat were burned away, revealing the wriggling, unidentifiable sinews and ghastly white bones beneath. A nauseating, scorched stench filled the air.

The Abomination shrieked in agony, its attacks growing even more frantic.

Just then, the chibi unicorn phantom wearing a tiny crown, “Little Ika,” materialized above Celeste’s head.

The passive skill, Sunny Rainbow Little Ika, had triggered.

A brilliant rainbow tornado, accompanied by an adorably out-of-place “Biu!” sound effect, slammed fiercely into the Stitched Abomination’s forehead.

Boom!

The monster was knocked off balance, its colossal body actually forced back half a step. A colorful, perfectly circular barbecue mark was now seared onto its brow. This only enraged it further, and the frequency and power of its attacks increased sharply.

Relying on her increasingly proficient deflection techniques, Selene blocked the Abomination’s onslaught time and time again, narrowly avoiding disaster with each blow. Every block sent a shockwave through her body, leaving her blood churning and her palms numb, but her defensive line never collapsed.

Su Wan and Xia Lian immediately followed up with their own attacks.

“Ice Spear!”

“Armor-Piercing Arrow!”

Su Wan’s spells no longer aimed for wide-range control. Instead, she compressed the ice element into razor-sharp spears, specifically targeting the wounds Celeste’s “healing” had opened on the monster’s body. Xia Lian’s arrows were just as precise, sinking into the same patches of mangled flesh.

The results, however, were minimal.

The Abomination’s sheer size was a problem, its vitality a seemingly bottomless quagmire. Just as they blasted a fist-sized hole in one spot, the flesh on another side would begin to wriggle and writhe, threatening to heal itself in an instant.

Celeste maintained her high-intensity “Healing Spell” barrage, her mind racing.

‘No, this is too inefficient.’

Although her pink holy light was causing continuous damage, it felt like trying to bail out a water tank with a teaspoon. At this rate, her sister wouldn’t last long enough for her to “heal” this monstrosity to death. She could already see Selene’s face turning pale, each shield block visibly heavier and more sluggish than the last.

She had to change her approach.

Celeste’s brain spun frantically. ‘Abomination… Stitched…’

Her gaze was pinned on the monster, sweeping past the squirming, rotten flesh before finally locking onto the hideous black stitches that crawled all over its body like giant centipedes.

Those stitches, imbued with dark magic, were the key. They were what forcibly bound countless severed limbs and corpses that didn’t belong to the same entity into a single, cohesive whole.

‘Wait a minute… those stitches aren’t technically part of the body itself, right?’

An incredibly absurd, yet thrilling thought suddenly sparked in her mind.

The Cleansing Spell. The spell she used to avoid taking baths.

Do stitches count as “dirt”?

For this “whole” composed of countless corpses, do the threads that splice different bodies together count as something that was “originally” part of it?

This was practically a philosophical question.

But there was no time for a philosophical debate right now.

‘Might as well give it a shot!’she thought.’It’s not like trying it would get anyone pregnant!’

“Su Wan, Xia Lian, keep attacking and draw its attention! Selene, prepare to fall back!” Celeste made her decision in an instant, rattling off the orders.

She aimed her staff at the Stitched Abomination, which was still frantically pounding on her sister’s shield. This time, she mobilized the same surging holy light within her, but the “concept” she imbued it with was completely different.

Not healing. Not punishment.

But cleaning.

Her mental power focused with laser-like intensity, locking onto those ugly stitches. She imagined them as stubborn oil stains on her clothes, as mud splatters on her skin.

Then, she waved her staff and chanted the all-too-familiar incantation.

“Cleansing Spell!”

A gentle halo with a faint pink-purple hue spread out like ripples in a pond, silently enveloping the Stitched Abomination’s massive body.

The scene stunned everyone.

The Stout Captain was just about to roar, “Girl, did you use the wrong skill?!” but the bizarre sight unfolding before him made him swallow his words.

The ice spear Su Wan had just launched froze in mid-air, her ice-blue eyes wide with confusion. Xia Lian’s fingers, already drawing her bowstring, went rigid.

Even the Death Knight across the canyon, who had been watching with cold indifference, seemed startled. Its skeletal warhorse pawed uneasily at the ground, and the two points of scarlet soul-fire in the gaps of its helmet flared violently.

Under everyone’s disbelieving gaze, the impossible happened.

Those hideous black stitches, buried deep within the Abomination’s rotting flesh, suddenly began to wriggle and twist violently. A moment later, as if seized by invisible hands, they were forcibly yanked out of the monster’s body.

Shnk! Shnk! Shnk!

Thick, gore-slicked threads shot out from all over the Abomination’s body like snapped rubber bands, flying chaotically through the air before falling to the ground with wet splats.

Having lost the magical stitching that held it together, the massive monster, cobbled together from countless corpses, suddenly went rigid. In its mismatched eyes, an emotion akin to “bewilderment” appeared for the very first time.

It seemed to look down at its own body, which was in the process of… disintegrating.

And then…

Clatter—!

It was like watching a tower of toy blocks have all its key supports pulled out at once.

Before the very eyes of the jaw-slacked crowd, the Stitched Abomination’s massive body collapsed.

Countless severed limbs, ruptured organs, and disembodied heads of various sizes rained down from the sky in a torrent of flesh and blood. In an instant, a mountain of corpses, emitting a powerfully foul stench, piled up on the ground where the monster once stood.

The entire battlefield fell into a deathly silence once again.

Only the chibi unicorn phantom, Little Ika, with the tiny golden crown on its head, was still hovering above Celeste. It let out a few soft, cute “Dudu” sounds, as if cheering for the neat and tidy result of this “big cleanup,” before winking out of existence, its job done.

[Ding! Congratulations to the Host for successfully discovering a brand-new use for a skill, successfully converting a “philosophical question” into a “physical question.” Elation Coins +1234!]

Celeste stared silently at the mountain of meat in front of her, then looked down at the staff in her hand, her expression growing rather complicated.

‘Perhaps…’she thought.’I really was born for the Path of Joy.’

[Elysian’s Note:

Having a good time with the story?

Every single bit helps immensely:

Thanks a ton for making this journey possible!]