The Black Knight scanned the fallen and decaying limbs around him, then his eyes, glowing with a deep and mad crimson, turned to the magician who walked out of the shadows.
"Unexpectedly, this guest's performance was quite wonderful." Surprisingly, the magician didn't get angry when he saw the dismembered stitched monster, but instead smiled and started clapping.
The magician's expression was exaggerated, seemingly surprised that the Black Knight could kill the deformed monster, and his entire body language spoke of admiration for the Black Knight.
However, it looked somewhat strange.
After all, no magician's body would slowly swell up like a balloon when expressing surprise and admiration.
As the magician clapped, so did the audience below. While a thunderous applause erupted, the Black Knight noticed something unusual.
The corrupted and fallen monster flesh continuously disappeared.
"Where did it go?"
The hoarse and unpleasant voice was only heard by the Black Knight himself. He couldn't sense where those monster flesh pieces had gone.
Slowly turning his head, the Black Knight's gaze locked onto the swelling magician.
Tang glanced at the swelling magician on stage. "System, do you think just defeating a stitched monster counts as a miracle?"
'In mysticism, miracles are mostly considered things that are difficult, beyond ability, or impossible for one's own sequence to achieve, or events that can only be completed with extremely low probability or by meeting extremely difficult conditions.'
The concept of a miracle has a broad definition in mysticism, but clearly, none of the above fit the definition of a miracle.
For a Sequence Four Extraordinary to kill that stitched monster was within their ability and did not constitute a miracle.
Although the power of that stitched monster was strong for mid-to-low sequences, it was not difficult for high-sequence, demigod-level Extraordinary individuals to kill such a monster.
"So, challenging the impossible," Tang said in his mind.
This was the acting principle of Sequence Seven, the Magician.
The Extraordinary ability of a Miracle Invoker was like an upgraded version of a Magician, simply realizing the 'impossible' in the eyes of others.
This was one type of miracle.
The magician's swelling hadn't stopped. His cheeks were bulging, his body had turned into a ball, his tuxedo stretched and tore, and various limbs and organs spurted out from his ears, mouth, and nose.
Red, white, blue, green, even more like a Rose Bishop than a Rose Bishop, more like flesh and blood magic than flesh and blood magic.
"Then next, Mr. Cayo Wilkins will present to us an even greater—"
Tang's spiritual intuition throbbed violently. He quickly lowered his head, not looking at the stage. "That is..."
"—drama—!"
"Mythical creature!"
The magician's body reached its limit after saying the last word. He was like a balloon inflated to its maximum, lightly poked by a naughty child with a sharp object, and suddenly burst open.
A monster even more terrifying, more indescribable, and exuding an aura of poor modification suddenly appeared.
It had several heads, and unlike the previous monster, its body was not limited to animals; human limbs and heads were also embedded in it.
No, more than a stitched monster, this was more like a meatball piled up from countless pieces of flesh.
Painful, fearful, mad, trembling, bizarre, emotions intertwined, revealing an unspeakable color.
"Ugh—"
An untimely vomiting sound appeared in the fanatical crowd.
"Ahhh—!"
Someone screamed miserably.
Those who hadn't closed their eyes in time and saw the appearance of the mythical creature had countless jumbled pieces of knowledge rush into their heads at this moment, becoming alienated and losing control.
The audience around them stopped cheering.
A young man who hadn't seen it clearly and had only suffered peripheral contamination looked at them in horror.
Granulation tissue grew on his body, scales grew out, feathers grew out, the smell of sulfur emanated from him, and various things of different colors涌现ed from his body all at once. He was clearly contaminated by the power of the mythical creature.
"No, don't..."
A hand grabbed his hair, another grabbed his neck, countless hands tore at his body, countless marionettes, their spirit threads fluttering, flying towards the boundless sky.
"Miracle! Miracle! Miracle of life! Miracle of creation!"
"Ahhhhhhhhh—!"
The sound of limbs breaking accompanied the slow separation of the Extraordinary characteristics contaminated by the loss of control, held in the hands of the surrounding marionettes like secret treasures.
There were many such people. Almost one-fifth of them were on the verge of losing control because they hadn't lowered their heads in time and directly faced the suddenly appearing incomplete mythical creature form, and were killed by the surrounding marionettes.
"What sequence does a Sequence Four need to defeat to be considered a miracle?"
Tang already had the answer in his heart.
Could a Sequence Two Miracle Invoker create Sequence Three marionettes? The answer was obvious.
Perhaps the sequence of that monster was not comparable to Sequence Three, but a monster mixed with various limbs was clearly not an ordinary Sequence Four either.
"There was a Sequence Four of the Abyss pathway, a Devil, who died here before."
Tang lowered his head and instructed the System.
"Give that thing up there an appraisal to see if there's any demonic power."
'Okay-dokie.'
A few seconds later, the System told Tang the feedback, 'Host, yes, and that monster has a lot of demigod-level power from other pathways.'
"So many demigod-level Extraordinary individuals wouldn't have fallen here," Tang thought with a heavy gaze. "If so many demigod-level Extraordinary individuals had died in Tingen, the churches would have long since dispatched high-sequence Extraordinary individuals, maybe even Saints or Fallen Angels, to investigate."
"Many of the demigods who died during the War of the Four Emperors should have become the audience in this 'Never-Ending Theater,' becoming part of its composition."
"This is the real stitched monster, and not the ordinary kind."
Something that fused the torsos of various mythical creatures, the 'miracle' of life creation?
How come he didn't know that Miracle Invokers could pull off so many weird tricks.
Tang lowered his head and scribbled on the parchment.
The battle on the stage only lasted for a moment. With a muffled groan, the tall Black Knight fell backward from the stage.
However, he didn't die.
Half of his body had turned into rotten flesh, the armor on his body was shattered, and many strange things had also grown on him—the remnants brought about by the contamination of demigod-level power from various pathways.
He seemed to have suffered heavy damage, but the wriggling flesh of the giant mythical creature didn't kill him.
A Sequence Four of the Hanged Man pathway possessed the Extraordinary ability to inflict extraordinary damage to the spirit body. He had astonishing recovery abilities and could use more powerful flesh and blood magic. Because he had heard the voice of the True Creator, he also had resistance to the contamination and whispers of other pathways.
Moreover, the preceding sequence of the Hanged Man pathway was the Shepherd.
And the Shepherd could herd Extraordinary individuals of other pathways.
Multi-pathway abilities fought against the deformed mythical creature. Even though the wriggling flesh was like a monster pieced together from the remnants of many demigods, it clearly had spirituality. It was not a completely dead monster and also had a spirit body.
Having a spirit body meant that it could be harmed by the Black Knight.
This would eventually be a mutually destructive battle.
Of course, the power of the two sides was still unequal, but he had become the first Extraordinary person to walk off the stage alive.
However, he still couldn't leave.
(End of this chapter)