"Stopped, huh?" She said as she came within a few meters of him and stopped midair, floating some distance away.
"Madam, what do you want with me? Did this junior happen to do something he shouldn't have?" He asked in a nervous tone.
"What are you doing in this region? It's not common for Spiritual Saints to stay in those areas... You didn't seem to be just passing through."
As he heard this, he carefully observed the woman in front of him, mainly her red clothes, which had a small symbol of seraphim at the height of her left breast.
'Damn it!'
'A Patriarch of the Spiritual Church!'
'What bad luck!' He cried out in despair in his mind as he recognized the uniform Margot was wearing.
"I... I was traveling through the region. I was going to Elves Island, madam. It just so happened that I smelled a strong scent of blood nearby and went to see what it was." He used part of the truth to lie.
Elves Island was closest to any state on this continent when accessed through this region. So, it was usual for experts from all parts of the continent to fly through the skies of those areas towards the Snow Kingdom, from where any of them could navigate to that island.
At the same time, there was a strong smell of blood in the surroundings since one of the massacres of the previous day had left such a mark behind.
He finished. "I am from a righteous sect, so naturally, I felt it was my duty to ascertain the situation in the hope that there might be some survivors."
"Oh?" Margot looked at the surroundings and inhaled the air, quickly realizing there was a strong smell of blood.
'Come to think of it, many people in that city seemed to have recently participated in a battle...' She remembered what she realized after infiltrating Dry City, following in Maisie's footsteps.
Margot had arrived in Dry City a few minutes before Maisie, but she had not broken into that place since she had noticed this woman. After infiltrating, she first wanted to observe who was with her daughter and judge if this person was worth allowing to live.
Only after seeing what Gloria and Minos were like realizing how lovingly her daughter fed him did she decide not to kill this fellow who had impregnated her only daughter. At most, he deserved a good beating and to take responsibility.
Anyway, for spying on that city, she had used her powerful soul sense throughout the core of Dry City and seen the scenes of the battle wounded in the General Hospital and army headquarters.
She frowned her eyebrows and asked. "So, you have no relation to the Spiritual Saint who was in the vicinity yesterday?"
Gulp!
'She knows about it! Did she do it?' He tried to look calm on the outside, but he was panicking on the inside.
"What Spiritual Saint? Madam, it is not uncommon for people of that stage to rest nearby while traveling..."
"But this person was not resting... He attacked the King of the Black Plain." She looked intently into that person's eyes, sensing that he was not innocent. 'You decided to run away the moment you saw me, and this look on your face... That is the look of someone afraid of death!'
'No matter how much stronger I am than you, there is no reason for a member of the Spiritual Church to kill someone traveling through the region. There's no reason to be afraid or run away from me!' One of her hands behind her back gently closed, forming a tight fist.
"Is that so? Then he is crazy. I have no relation to him, so I wish madam good luck in your hunt." He turned to leave but then heard the worst.
"You know what? I don't think you're innocent. Then I'll allow you to surrender and prove otherwise. What do you say?" She continued with her hands behind her back as the air in the surroundings froze, forming vortices of spiritual energy from her sides.
Gulp!
'Damn!' This man felt despair, knowing that if this woman caught him, that would be the end. Even if his excuses were good and she was only using her intuition, if she investigated him, she would find out everything!
He knew this, so he made the only decision available to him!
When he made up his mind, Margot sharpened her eyes, realizing she had hit the nail on the head, seeing that man forming a ball of black energy as he suddenly aged.
"A sacrifice? You would rather have your existence erased than just die?" She commented, but it was already too late.
Margot had not acted fast enough against him because the sacrifice was something few would choose. That way, that man would not be able to escape her.
But to Margot's surprise, even someone in her cultivation stage would make the folly of sacrificing himself to protect his ideals.
'Madness!'
'Doesn't he know that he won't be able to reincarnate by doing that?' She did not move far away, only having begun to circulate her techniques to contain that person's outburst.
Unlike the Spiritual Kings that Minos had already seen sacrificing themselves, the sacrifice of a Spiritual Saint could destroy hundreds of kilometers from its origin!
Considering this, to protect the many human cities nearby, Margot decided to act on her own.
She was over 300% stronger than that man, so she activated her soul technique without fear.
Angels Avatar!
The moment she did this, that place that seemed to be about to freeze glowed with golden light, and a silhouette similar to Margot's appeared from her body.
Such a thing expanded for hundreds of meters until six large wings appeared from its back. After that, a powerful pulse broke from that figure, forming a sizeable golden sphere around that location.
In this instant, that Spiritual Saint slowly began to turn to dust, while the spheres of black energy in his hands began to decrease in size.
Then...
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Such a thing exploded similarly to a supernova, causing the surrounding space to tremble while tiny cracks appeared in it.
However, Margot's 8th technique could not be underestimated!
As a Golden-grade technique, one of the two techniques of that rank available to the most talented members of the Church in the Flaming Empire, it gave her a power similar to that of a Spiritual Sage!
Thus, the moment the space within that golden area seemed to want to collapse, the walls of the barrier created by Margot withstood the thud as the avatar's hands moved against it.
Margot made the same movements with her body, slowly pressing her hands against each other as if trying to crush something.
Puff!
Strong winds spread from that area as the black flames finally disappeared and Margot's avatar's golden light slowly faded.
"This little wind will destroy some houses, but no one will die..."
"Sigh!"
"I didn't get any of this." She complained before setting off toward the capital of the Brown Kingdom.
...
Sometime later...
"Your Highness, Lord Leo, he... He sacrificed himself!" An elder agitatedly said this as he stopped in front of the crown prince of Vogel.
"What? How could that have happened?" The royal guard standing there with Abe and other Spiritual Saints, someone at level 74, asked in incomprehension.
How could someone at their stage sacrifice himself?
Only if someone terrifying came their way could that possibly be plausible. But Leo was in the northern region...
"That..."
"How?"
"I don't know..." The old man who was holding Leo's soul lamp said. "I am only reporting what I saw, Your Highness."
Meanwhile, the level 74 man was pale with the thought in his mind. "Emerson, what are you thinking?" Abe asked in nervousness.
"Your Highness, let's stop getting involved with the Black Plain and cover our tracks. That place might have connections to Spiritual Sages!"
"What?" Everyone there exclaimed in surprise.
"How? Why would someone like that get involved with that place?" One of them asked.
"I don't know. But I can't imagine anyone else, other than someone capable of wiping out the family, being able to force Leo to sacrifice himself." He thoughtfully looked at the one who asked the question. "He did it to protect us."
Gulp!
"That..."
"Disgrace!"
"It's not for nothing that such a place has improved so much!" They began to despair as they ran back and forth, already preparing to erase all traces of what they had done.
"Damn you, Saints Killing Sect!"
"You'll pay me for this!" Abe said with hatred in his voice.
