At that time, he thought he would never use it, even if corpses lay everywhere and rivers of blood flowed, he was unwilling to take that step.
But now... he watched insect corpses wailing in the fire, watching everything he painstakingly built collapse in the flames.
Perhaps this was what she meant by "the last resort."
"I have no choice... but to use it."
He slowly bowed his head, forehead resting on the Divine Chain, as if praying, but in fact, it was a descent into depravity.
It was no longer a plea to the gods, but an opening of a portal to the Abyss.
The Forbidden Curse was then recited in a low voice: "The passing of a heartbeat, the nesting of blood. Oh Goddess, forgive my desecration of your womb."
In an instant, the air seemed hollowed out.
The surrounding sounds, heat waves, even the roaring flames froze in that moment, leaving only the depths beneath the earth.
"Thump! Thump! Thump!" The heartbeat grew closer, louder, as if some giant being was stirring, struggling, awakening.
"Retreat!!" A Knight shouted at Louis’s command.
The Flamethrower Squad swiftly retreated without hesitation, the flames extinguished, iron boots kicking up scorched earth.
Even with their battle-hardened experience, they felt the pressure and fear emanating from deep within the earth.
It was something beyond their capacity to handle.
And at that moment, the ground suddenly cracked with a "crack! snap!"
What followed was a nauseating birth ceremony.
From the earth’s veins, an entire expanse of gray-white resin nest body wriggled and emerged, its moist, peeled texture unnerving.
The surface of the nest body was covered with living structures, semi-transparent cavities slowly contracting, like breathing lungs, or like a giant... hive.
And the four nest pillars on the ground squirmed and crawled like twisted limbs, leaving destruction and mud in their wake.
The Nest, as if a living Divine Being, had descended in person!
At the nest’s opening, insect eggs rapidly swelled and deformed, then burst open like rotten flesh tumors, splattering murky fluids with a ’splut.’
What crawled out was no longer ordinary insect corpses but evolved pinnacle beings!
Clad in Bone Armor, limbs like blades, mandibles split to ear level, remnants of human armor and clothing scraps still clinging to their bodies!
They emitted twisted, piercing screeches, charging into the fireline, frenziedly hunting the Knights.
Thankfully, the Knights had already withdrawn some distance; otherwise, even the Flamethrowers might not have been a match for these elite insect corpses.
The Priest laughed maniacally to the heavens, his laughter tearing through the air like a spike amidst the flames and shrieks, unsettling the mind.
"Hahahahaha! You foolish mortals!!"
He trod upon the still-wriggling resin nest, the hem of his robe wildly dancing in the scorching hot wind, like a banner, his whole being seemingly edged with flames, standing atop Hell singing hymns.
"Do you know? This is the true power of the Snow Swearer! This is the ’Divine Grace of the Goddess.’ Did you think mere flames could shake her?"
He shouted as he raised his hands high, eyes bloodshot, throat nearly hoarse, yet the more he shouted, the more frenzied and deranged he became.
"You will all die here!! In this sacred and joyous blood sacrifice, die gloriously!!"
This was a feast belonging to him! It was the Goddess’s grace to him!
And just as he laughed wildly at will—
From the distant highlands, Louis merely raised his hand slightly, palm pointing diagonally forward.
"Fire."
As the words fell, the Knight pulled the trigger of the launcher.
A sudden roar erupted.
A sound like the angry roar of the thunder god cleaved the sky, shattering eardrums.
The heavy tripod suddenly tilted back, and what the Magic Bomb Launcher released was not a bullet, but a descending fury.
It trailed a long tail of light and flames, burning so intensely it seemed to tear open the night sky!
In Ah Long’s pupils, the orange-red fireball, a thousand times brighter than any flame, seemed to traverse space, descending from the sky!
The last bit of remaining ecstasy in his heart suddenly froze.
He had only enough time to hear a sharp "whee—" wail, like a blade piercing his eardrums.
The next moment—
The sky shattered with a boom.
An orange-red heavy Magic Explosion Bullet trailed a flaming tail several meters long, roaring as it fell from the night sky.
It was not an ordinary fireball, but a doomsday-loaded meteoric strike, crashing straight into the core of the insect swarm, landing at the junction of the altar and the Nest.
"Boom—!!!!"
As the explosion’s heart detonated, the ground seemed to flip.
The entire mountain base violently sank, within a fifty-meter radius it was directly consumed by the scorching fire core, surface rocks instantaneously melted under the high temperature, turning into a churning crimson lava like blood.
The Nest’s zone bore the brunt, several tentacles as thick as turrets snapped directly in the shock wave, joints exploded, surfaces unraveled.
Hundreds of insect corpses were carbonized before they could even wail, then vaporized, leaving no trace of residue.
The blast pressure within eighty meters then surged out, the shock wave carrying twisted hot air currents, like a giant wall of flames crashing forward, hurling the second circle of insect swarm on the hill, along with dirt, broken rocks, and corpse fragments, into the air.
Those fortified insect corpses could have taken on a Knight alone but now rolled and burned like leaves, unable to even scream.
The central area of the Nest was like Purgatory come again.
Its huge heart sac swelled to the limit in the heat wave, its insect fluids boiling, shell cracking, only to burst in a roar seconds later.
The hatching sacs and parasitic structures inside were completely shattered, turbulent insect ichor oozed out with black smoke.
The flames had not yet dissipated, but the entire area around the altar had become a charred death zone.
The ground collapsed into a charred pit over three meters deep and several dozen meters in diameter, with molten rocks rolling up from the pit bottom, mixed with the residue of carbonized insect corpses.
The air warped, the stench of charred flesh mingled with gunpowder assaulted throats, the searing pain unbearable even a hundred meters away.