IBHJ Chapter 961

The magi of the Age of Gods were more than just spellcasters. They were priests, blessed by the gods, wielding powers that operate on another level compared to modern magecraft. These powers were the raw forces of nature that ancient people revered, the very building blocks of modern magecraft. They could level mountains, boil oceans, and wipe entire cities off the map.

Vortigern, the man-made god and the last gasp of a fading era, was hailed as the last god. His power might not have matched that of the greatest gods, but it dwarfed that of lesser gods, pushing Shirou and the others to their absolute limits back then.

Now, these magi of the Age of Gods wielded concepts like "Underworld" and "Death"—powers far more fearsome even than Vortigern's and connected to major gods. But against the Shirou of today, these powers were meaningless.

Evil Blossom had consumed the remnants of the Lord of Salvation within Manaka, fusing with Angra Mainyu's "All the World's Evil" and countless other evils. The resulting Evil Blossom was something beyond Noble Phantasms, beyond even divine weapons. It was an evil that defied definition.

Its curse was so strong it could effortlessly twist even divine authority into mana that Shirou could absorb.

"Even the divine authority of the Underworld and other gods..." the leader muttered, staring in disbelief at the malicious mud around Shirou. He couldn't fathom that something capable of surpassing divine authority could exist in this world.

"Damn adventurer...!" The roar tore from his throat, raw with hatred and fear.

Adventurers. He despised them more than anything in this twisted new world. They were the usurpers, the ones who had toppled priests from their divine pedestals.

Memories flashed through his mind. Once, he had been more than a man—he had been a priest. A servant of the Gods, a wielder of divine authority. He had stood at the pinnacle of Mayan society, part of the esteemed Wisdom God faction. Power, prestige, purpose—he had it all.

Then came the UOs.

Everywhere they went, Gods fell. The world itself warped, becoming little more than a virtual playground for these... these power-hungry dogs.

And the priests? Those once-revered intermediaries between mortal and divine?

They were cast down. Reduced to ordinary, expendable nobodies.

All thanks to the adventurers.

His fists clenched, nails biting into his palms. Here, right in front of him, stood the living, breathing reminder of everything he had lost, everything that had been taken from him. An adventurer, casually wielding power that made divine authority look like child's play.

It's easy to get used to the good life, but much harder to give it up.

Having tasted the privileges of the elite, being forced back into the ranks of the ordinary was more than he could bear.

So, he cast aside his old loyalties and reached out to priests from other factions. He joined this group of magi from the Age of Gods, hunting down the three-eyed people.

He didn't care about their lives. They were just refugees, after all, sneaking in from who-knows-where. And when the organization got its hands on something that could reignite divine authority from the bodies of people from Gandhara, he became interested.

He joined the hunt. His hands were stained with blood, but he also reclaimed the divine authority he had craved day and night.

The gods were gone, but the remnants of their authority still lingered within them. If they could just drive out the invaders and wipe out the adventurers, they would be the gods of this new world.

Driven by this ambition, he threw himself into the hunt, relentlessly pursuing the people of Gandhara.

But now, their precious divine authority was being swallowed up by Shirou's black mud.

Just like the gods' futile resistance against the UOs, it was being wiped out without a struggle.

How could this be? How could they allow it?

The leader's fists tightened, his eyes locked onto Shirou.

To bring back the old order, where priests ruled supreme, divine authority had to be absolute.

They couldn't tolerate anything that could so easily crush divine authority.

"I'll erase you," he snarled. "I'll erase all of you, and return this world to its proper order!" And then he reached up to pull back the hood on his head.

Grandma Enos sensed something was wrong and shouted a warning, "Be careful!"

They had reclaimed some divine authority, yes, but they needed to capture more three-eyed people. There were secrets about Gandhara that the previous generation of priests had desperately tried to hide, and they had to uncover them. They couldn't afford to be careless.

"It's too late!" the leader cackled, a manic edge to his voice. "You're all going to die!"

"Is that really so?" Shirou's expression remained unreadable.

Even if they had some grand trump card up their sleeves, at this range, it was up to him whether they got to use it. Did they really think he was some kind of battle junkie like Goku, who'd let them power up right in his face?

Besides, he wasn't alone here!

Just as the magi reached for their hoods, preparing to unleash whatever desperate measure they had planned, the ground beneath them erupted. A wave of shimmering silver gushed out, engulfing them in a flood of mercury.

"What... what is this?" The magi's cries were tinged with panic, their voices gurgling as the quicksilver swirled around them, trapping them in its fluid grasp.

Grandma Enos observed the mercury with a hint of surprise. "It holds the power of nature, but there's no divine aura... Is this a conceptual Mystic Code created by processing the concept of a territory?

"You have a keen eye," a surprised voice said. The next moment, Morrigan appeared behind the trapped magi, astonishment written across her face.

Her Mystic Code wasn't like the ones other magi used, carefully crafted through family magecraft and old materials. No, she had used her own concept as the Lord of the Island to embed the very essence of Britain into her Mystic Code.

This meant that whenever she used it, she received a powerful boost from Britain, similar to how Arcueid received support from Gaia. Because it forcibly transplanted the concept of a whole territory, Merlin had once called it the tyranny of a nasty woman, even going so far as to break it during the reign of King Uther.

But that didn't make her Mystic Code, the Black Madonna, some simple toy. The magi of the Age of Gods in the British nunnery saw it as an unrepeatable miracle, something they could never truly comprehend.

That's why Morrigan hadn't expected Grandma Enos to see through the true nature of the Black Madonna so easily.

"As expected of a priest of the Wisdom God..." Morrigan sighed in admiration.

The Wisdom God was the king of the South American pantheon, on par with the first generation of Greek gods. Even though the UOs had struck him down, his power was undeniable. Naturally, his high priestess was no ordinary magus.

Grandma Enos inclined her head slightly, a ghost of a smile on her weathered face. "You flatter me, Lady Morrigan. It's just that my Lord's wisdom hasn't completely faded from this aged body."

After a moment, she glanced at the magi struggling in the Black Madonna's grip and added urgently, "Lady Morrigan, don't let them remove their hoods. If I'm not mistaken, they've transplanted Gandharan eyes onto themselves."

Morrigan's lips curled into a confident smile. "Don't worry, once they're caught in my Black Madonna, they won't break free without the strength of a mighty god."

Unless one possessed the strength of a mighty god capable of lifting the entire island of Britain, there was no escaping the Black Madonna. It was infused with the very concept of the British Isles.