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Ouroboros Serpent enveloped herself tightly in her cloak, ensuring no one could recognize her, leading the Fallen Witches behind her towards Compassionate Square.

The recent battle at Witch's Home not only allowed her to successfully recruit a large number of people, thereby strengthening her team, but also helped them acquire a new batch of weaponry.

These weapons, taken from other witches, were powerful; the witches remaining in Witch's Home were not weaker than the Fallen Witches who launched the attack. However, the sudden assault, the absence of Knights for command and organization, and the inability to unlock their weapons meant they could only utilize less than a tenth of their combat strength.

The defeat was inevitable.

And although they couldn't use these locked weapons, it didn't mean the Fallen Witches couldn't.

Throughout their prolonged conflict with the Sacred Order of Knights, the Witch Alliance gradually mastered the technology to crack the weaponry, repurposing the Order's equipment to arm themselves.

However, usually, their equipment was two to three generations behind that of those within the city. Acquiring so much advanced equipment at once brought smiles to many faces.

However, Ouroboros Serpent remained very serious, well aware that the real challenge had just arrived.

The most difficult part was about to begin; they were heading to Compassionate Square to seize the Pope, who would be mingling with the faithful during the festivities, and other high-ranking church officials as leverage to negotiate with the Church.

To exchange for the freedom of the witches and remove the eternal shackles around their necks.

This was not going to be easy, for the Pope would surely be well-guarded. However, the continuous explosions and attacks throughout the city had drawn a good deal of attention from the Sacred Order of Knights, significantly dispersing their forces.

This also provided Ouroboros Serpent and her group an opportunity; they had to finish the battle and secure the main hostages before the Sacred Order of Knights could react.

Recalling the advice the Shrike had given her before dying, Ouroboros Serpent clenched her fist, feeling a substantial weight on her shoulders.

Yet just as Ouroboros Serpent and the others were about to reach Compassionate Square, the scene ahead brought them to a stunned halt.

A group of knights clad in Power Armor appeared at the end of the street, blocking their path, and the number of people opposing them was even higher, led by none other than Li Wei, the deputy commander of the Sacred Order of Knights.

Seeing Li Wei, Ouroboros Serpent's pupils contracted sharply.

But before she could speak, a gunshot sounded beside her ear, and Ouroboros Serpent felt a pain in her chest. Looking down, she saw a blood hole as thick as a finger at the position of her heart.

She suddenly remembered that among the remaining witches by Li Wei's side, there seemed to be a very proficient shooter.
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It was only as Ouroboros Serpent's body fell backward that Li Wei finally spoke, "Surrender, or die."

His tone was very calm, yet filled with strong confidence and an authority that brooked no challenge.

In fact, he had good reason to be confident, as the Sacred Order of Knights had already deduced the main target of this attack by the Witch Alliance through investigations before the assault.

However, Li Wei did not act rashly, even intentionally showing weakness by overlooking several peripheral attacks, creating the illusion that the Sacred Order of Knights was preoccupied, all to draw out the main force of the Witch Alliance.

And now, it was time to close the net.

But perhaps because they knew surrender meant certain death, the witches facing them also fiercely resisted. Seeing their companions fall, not a single one dropped their weapons; instead, they charged forward, cursing vociferously.

Li Wei, seeing the situation, was unreserved and issued an order to the knights behind him, "Keep two alive for interrogation to find out how they infiltrated the city, kill all the rest."

The first to act were the knights who had betrayed the witches, who directly ordered the renegade witches to destroy themselves. However, this time the Ring of Order didn't function as it should have.

It seemed the Witch Alliance had some type of device that could temporarily block the influence of the Ring of Order.

The betraying witches, pale-faced and nervous upon seeing their own knights, soon realized nothing happened and gradually their spirits recovered.

Li Wei frowned at this sight. Although the malfunction of the Ring of Order wouldn't affect the outcome of the battle, it certainly was unexpected.

Intelligence had shown that previously, the Witch Alliance had means to remove the Ring of Order, but it involved extremely high risks with a death rate exceeding sixty percent.

Now their technological level had leaped forward, even managing to shield the Ring of Order, albeit temporarily. The effects were significant. Moreover, including that staff not found in the inventory of Holy Temple City, and these fallen witches that up until now, were still a mystery how they slipped into the Holy Temple City.

So many unexpected situations gave Li Wei a feeling of losing control.

The battle seemed to progress smoothly. The fallen witches, though full of fighting spirit and fearlessly brave, were facing the elite of the Sacred Order of Knights who had the home-field advantage and had prepared well in advance.

From the first moment the two sides engaged, the fallen witches were at a disadvantage and suffered heavy casualties before long. Those who remained were still resisting, but with their leader dead, their ultimate annihilation was merely a question of time.

Yet for some reason, Li Wei's sense of unease continued to grow stronger.

What was the problem?

As the vice captain of the Sacred Order of Knights contemplated this, a loud explosion rang near his ear, followed by a flash of white light.

The white light was so dazzling that Li Wei involuntarily closed his eyes, and his head spun momentarily.

When he opened his eyes again, he saw no fire, nor did he see smoke rising anywhere in the city.

It made one wonder if that moment was just an illusion.

However, shortly after, Li Wei received several messages, and this was just the beginning. Then, more and more messages flew in like snowflakes.

And all of these messages repeated the same event—The Great Tower was attacked.

If it were just that, Li Wei wouldn't have been so utterly shocked. What truly chilled him to the bone was the latter part of the message—the Holy Stone was destroyed.

According to the research by the Weaponry Department, this giant meteorite from outer space was of unparalleled hardness, an entity indestructible by any weapon on this planet.

Because of that, the Order Church had boldly suspended it from the ceiling of the 1st Level.

Yet today, this indestructible rock that harbored humanity's last hope was destroyed.

There was no one more aware of what this meant than Li Wei, who commanded the Sacred Order of Knights and those battling with Energized Plants.

Humanity's true apocalypse had now utterly arrived.