Millennium Witch

Book 3: Chapter 243: Lightning

A dozen minutes later, after confirming he had truly received that stroke of serendipity, Ezra left the inn and slipped into a deserted, dark alley.After making sure no one was passing, he set his hand lightly to his chest, felt the silver-white silhouette of the maiden sigil there, and began to pray devoutly.

As he did so, the sigil began to warm, as if tiny currents were darting within it; the next moment, an unprecedented power surged out from that spot.

It wasn’t a gentle warmth—it was crackling lightning.

When Ezra raised his hand, he could even see a silver-white arc flicker across his fingertips with a faint crackle.

“So this is the power of a Benediction—” he murmured, voice hoarse with excitement.

As he triggered the sigil’s power, hazy images rose in his mind: lightning racing full tilt, bolts rending the dark—a force stamped with lightning and speed, immensely strong.

He was certain that with such power, he might truly return to Lute Village and take revenge on those cultists!

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Over the next two days, Ezra left Aina at the inn and made excuses that he was going out to “pick up odd jobs,” when in fact he hid in the woods outside the city to try to master this Benediction.

At first, he had no experience at all. The breakneck speed made him crash into trunks again and again. He had no swordsmanship foundation either, so with the ferocity of his speed and his sloppy form, he often nicked himself when he swung. If not for the protection of a lightning barrier, he might have battered himself black and blue before revenge even began.

Fortunately, long hardship had changed his temperament; like many adults, he had learned to sum up lessons and adjust. Too fast was hard to control—so slow down. Until skill came with practice, the on-hit lightning and the barrier still made him formidable enough.

And so the days passed. By the third day, he could no longer bear it. Who knew whether his father was dead or taken back? If his father still lived, every day’s delay was one more day of danger. He had to carry out his plan for revenge at once.

Thus, on another night of heavy clouds and a dim moon, Ezra set out.

To keep his sister safe, he booked a pricey room in the Middle District and settled Aina there, leaving most of their money and a farewell letter in case of mishap. He himself took rations and a newly bought secondhand longsword.

After one last look at his sleeping sister’s face, he drew a deep breath and slipped into the darkness of the street.

With the Benediction upon him, he was like a bolt of lightning. In no time he had left Adelock and reached the dark forest near his old home, a blue-white wraith.

He braked in the dark, taking in the familiar village outline shrouded in ominous stillness. His figure flickered again, appearing near the village entrance at the mountain’s foot.

At the entrance, the post carved with an eye was still there, a silent sentinel in the night.

It was only a post, strictly speaking, but the sight of that eye still put him a little on edge. To be cautious, he circled to a secluded corner at the village’s side. From memory, he knew a weed-choked path there led straight inside.

Soon he slipped into the familiar village. But before long he saw, within the village, a shape swaying—

a sturdy figure carrying an oil lamp, humming off-key, passing right before him.

Ezra’s pupils tightened. He knew this man—Bal, a notorious village thug, a faithful believer in the Eldritch God, and the priest’s loyal underling.

He’d been among those hunting Ezra’s father that day. Ezra could still recall Bal waving a bone-cleaver, shouting that he’d lop off his father’s head.

In an instant, hatred whooshed up and burned away Ezra’s reason. He knew he should have scouted first and checked for others—but he was only a boy in his early teens. When emotions surged, you couldn’t always press them down, especially now that a deity had his back.

He burst from the darkness at once, a silver thunderbolt; a faint scorched smell lingered in the air where he passed.

From Bal’s perspective: the stout, slightly plump youth didn’t know what had happened. There was a flash—and a fist sheathed in blue-white arcs smashed into the soft fat of his belly.

“Urgh!”

Bal let out a muffled cry, eyes bulging, body folding like a boiled shrimp. The oil lamp flew from his hand, rolled, and went out. He had never known pain like this—his belly blazed, and his whole body tingled with numbness. He almost blacked out on the spot.

But he, too, was a Benediction-bearer who had sacrificed more than one soul. As his power flared, his body swelled into a musclebound hulk over two meters tall, lava-like red lines flowing over his skin—clearly some sort of fire-aspected power.

Gritting against the pain, he glared at the boy. “Y—you—Yarrow’s little whelp—damn you, I’ll kill you—”

He spat a few curses before his wits returned, then blurted in shock, “Wait—how did you—”

He knew Ezra and Aina had escaped. Holko and his two had gone missing, too, which had enraged the priest so badly he briefly suspected the three had turned traitor and fled.

But how had a brat barely in his teens suddenly gained such terrifying magic? Had he, in this short time, stumbled on some stroke of luck and apprenticed to a lightning-aspected magic swordsman?

“Where is my father?” Ezra asked coldly. “Where is he?”

“Brat, you’ll be seeing him soon enough—” Bal snarled, a molten giant with Benediction power coursing through him.

Clearly, he thought the earlier blow had only landed because he’d been ambushed. With his Benediction unleashed, there was no way Ezra could be his match.

But in the next instant—before he could react—a sword was already at his throat. Lightning danced along the edge, making his protective mana shudder.

Right then, Bal finally sobered. He didn’t know where Ezra had gotten this strength, but he knew that if he resisted, the blade would punch through his mana ward and take his head in the very next second.

“I—In the granary! There’s a dungeon under the granary—” Bal stammered. The fear of death crushed his loyalty to the Eldritch God. He begged, “Don’t kill me! I’ll tell you everything—the priest keeps the captives in that dungeon—planning to sacrifice them on the full moon—”

Before the words had faded, Ezra’s sword moved—without a flicker of hesitation. A flash—and Bal’s head flew. It was a decision that required no pause; anyone still moving freely in the village bore more than one life on their hands. Each was steeped in sin and deserved no mercy.

Even so, as the blood fountained, Ezra was a little surprised at his own composure.

He cast a glance at Bal’s corpse, then turned to head for the granary.

Just then, he felt the maiden sigil on his chest heat up.

He started slightly and saw a translucent doorway appear beside him, as if bound by unseen threads to the sigil.

Next, a tiny gray sphere flew out of Bal’s corpse, was sucked into the doorway, and vanished without a trace. The doorway faded with it.

Ezra didn’t know what had happened, but he figured the Goddess must be purifying the Eldritch residue—saving this land.

After all, the Goddess was benevolent, fundamentally different from an Eldritch God.

What Ezra didn’t know was that, at that very moment, Yvette stood in the shadows not far outside Lute Village, quietly watching what unfolded inside while holding a freshly acquired Benediction sphere in her hand.

She didn’t have that much material on hand, nor was she willing to spend Aberrant Mana to fabricate the faith-element shell for a Benediction.

So the best plan was to take someone else’s—steal the cultists’ Benedictions and make them her own.

Just now, while she was waiting to pick the spoils, a thought struck her. If she could use a Benediction as the medium to craft a passage—something she did not yet fully understand, likely involving spatial runes but workable—to transmit a set amount of will and power, then could she, in reverse, use that same passage to draw in something far away?

She tried it—and it worked on the first go. She seized the Benediction from the cultist Ezra had just killed.

Though the passage’s constraints meant her true body couldn’t go through and she could only move small things with low mana “spec,” at least she could now transport items anytime, anywhere. A lot was going to be far more convenient from here on out.