Bishop No. 4—Enshure Mut—was born into a baron's family. He grew up on the family farm and was skilled in various agricultural tasks. He had no special dreams; if not for that accident, he likely would have inherited the family business and become a farm owner.
But in that accident, he lost everything: his family, all his property, his place of belonging, and his legs.
Just as he was feeling despair toward the world, he encountered followers of the Goddess Cult. Even though he had acted to stop the evil deeds of these cultists at the time, after truly coming into contact with this Cult, he realized the truth was not as simple as it appeared. This Cult was truly saving the world.
Yes, this unequal world must change, but it should not be changed by humans. History has proven that humans only repeat past mistakes, and the world falls into an endless cycle of regression, repeating fall after fall. Only a God can save this world—a God with supreme power who views all things in the world equally. Only such a being can change the world, even if it is a God of Destruction.
"Creation is born from destruction; the cycle of life and death is the logic of nature. After the twilight, a more beautiful world will arrive. Under the guidance of the equal and merciful Goddess, the New Humanity will move toward a brand-new future. That future will surely be free from any lack of freedom or inequality. We are the foundation for creating the new world; there is nothing more glorious than this."
Enshure sat in his wheelchair, looking at the silent place before him. This was the underground of the ruins, the center of the Sacrifice Ritual, and he was the leader of this ceremony. Rituals require a price, but members of higher status can reduce the payment. If multiple Bishops perform the ritual together, they can summon high-level angels without paying with their lives, though sacrifices are still necessary.
However, this time he was the only Bishop leading the ritual, and it was the highest-level Sacrifice Ritual. This meant that from the moment the ritual began, this man was no different from having sacrificed his own life, cutting off all paths of retreat.
"Begin the performance—The Twilight Finale. Your end is nothing but destruction; the new world has no need for flawed products like you. For the sake of the new world, become the foundation of its creation along with us—[Gospel Record: Multi-
ple Sacrifice · Life as the Price]!"
Mana that shook the ley lines was gathering on the plains. Just as the allied forces had finished their formation and were about to blow the horns, the cultists surrounding the ruins, kneeling in devout prayer, all emitted a scorching fire. Compared to before, the mana in these cultists had intensified more than tenfold! Each cultist instantly became a being close to the Hero Realm!
The war had begun!
The cultists rushed toward the allied forces like reckless ghouls. They remained unshaken even in the face of the allies' magic attacks. The cultists in the front turned their bodies into hard walls to pave the way for their comrades behind them.
In just a short time, the allied forces' formation was thrown into chaos. They had never seen such a terrifying assault. The unity and combat power displayed by those madmen were not human at all; they were more like an Undead legion or something similar. But unlike an Undead legion, the flexibility they showed proved they were indeed living humans who retained their thoughts.
The few in the sky saw the movement below, their reactions varied, though all were somewhat surprised. The allied forces were collapsing too quickly. In their original tactical projections, the allied forces' combat power should have been able to suppress the opponent. But now, except for Ainz Ooal Gown's Undead legion, which barely managed to hold against the enemy's offensive, the vanguards of the other units were basically wiped out in the first wave.
"Suicide attacks."
Although it was expected.
But they hadn't expected the Goddess Cult's tactics to truly be this. In just the first wave of attacks, within less than 20 minutes of engagement, the Cult's casualties exceeded 5,000, and the number was still rising rapidly. However, the results achieved were also terrifying; the casualties on the allied side had reached over 20,000.
Despite having over 100,000 allied troops plus 10,000 from the Undead legion, they couldn't even block the first wave. This was truly unexpected.
"That sacrifice magic actually has a berserk effect, capable of strengthening low-level cultists who are slightly stronger than commoners to the hero level. Just how great a price must be paid to obtain such an unusual effect!"
The Blood Emperor watched his unit's vanguard being engulfed in fire, his expression extremely grim. He couldn't believe those he saw were humans. Even when suffering fatal wounds, those people continued to charge, completely undeterred by fear or pain. Moreover, their vitality was even more terrifying than the Undead; even if an Undead had its legs broken, it wouldn't be able to use mana as fuel to launch its own body like a cannonball!
"The price is—life!"
From the moment this war began, not a single cultist intended to survive. Their lives had already been sacrificed when the ritual started. Now, they were "the dead," heroic spirits still wandering the mortal realm, warriors dedicated to sacrificing even more offerings to the Goddess!
[Gospel Magic: Life as the Price]
That was the special Gospel held by Enshure. Its basic effect was to gain mana and physical enhancement by sacrificing one's own life force. The more life sacrificed, the more power obtained. If one's entire life was used as the price, the mana and physical enhancement would be boosted up to fifty times!
Enshure used one-tenth of his life as the price to obtain the effect of Multiple Sacrifice. All the cultists used their own lives as the price to gain the strongest enhancement effect. Thus, what was originally an army of 20,000 ordinary people transformed in an instant into an army of 20,000 heroes, with an average combat power only slightly weaker than the Undead legion.
However, the characteristic skill possessed by the subordinates of Twilight—true damage that ignores all resistances and defenses—meant that even the Undead legion could not gain an advantage against such an army. Furthermore, the cultists' self-destruction was a passive skill; unless it could be precisely sealed or a large-scale instant-death magic was used, the skill would still trigger even if their heads were blown off.
The Grand Master of the Holy Knights watched the troops who had already lost their will to fight and gritted his teeth as he ordered: "Retreat for now! Send out the distress signal! We will fall back to the rear to reorganize our formation!"
Less than half an hour after the start of the battle.
The allied forces fired their first signal flare.
The troops of the Holy Kingdom began to retreat.
At the same time, massive chaos broke out within the Kingdom's forces. Because most of the Kingdom's troops were commoners who had been conscripted on short notice, the units collapsed instantly when facing such an enemy. Some commoners even temporarily defected; they had somehow heard the revelation of the Gospel at this moment and joined the opposing army.
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