A Powerful Martial Artist Reincarnates as a Nun Knight

The initial strategy of ambushing the unwary witch, severing her head, and stabilizing the rampaging life force and mana by manifesting the Will-o’-Wisp seemed successful at first glance. However, it was the party who was struck in that momentary lapse of caution.

{KyyyyyAaaaaake—-!}

Spewing an inhuman screech, the witch had revived. Though her skin lacked warmth, her eyes had no pupils, and tentacles writhed like ornaments on her back and nape, she had nonetheless been revived.

In fact, the momentary lack of a commanding host had caused the monsters’ movements to become erratic, but they soon began moving with a certain tendency, albeit more violently.

And that tendency manifested in an extremely simpleminded form.

“Oh, um. It seems all the outside monsters are converging on the mansion?”

Hildegard commented with a troubled expression.

“Thankfully, the residents appear to have been completely disregarded. Good.”

Perhaps due to the overly simplified commands, the monsters swarming the mansion had utterly lost interest in the Aghno residents, leaving them be like scenery as they single-mindedly rushed towards the mansion.

Nodding, Sophia nonchalantly continued:

“Then let’s lure them all in here.”

Sophia calmly suggested luring all the incoming monsters inside. Her words flowed so naturally and indifferently that Hildegard and Conra initially agreed without a second thought, only belatedly realizing something was amiss a few seconds later to protest:

“Wait, seriously?”
“You must be joking, Master?”
“Does it sound like a joke to you?”

Having intertwined the rampaging witch’s tentacle attacks into a makeshift tug-of-war rope with her exquisite alchemical methods, Sophia calmly smiled as she replied. Realizing her words were sincere, Conra accepted it with a resigned expression and took position by the window, spear in hand.

“I’ll block any that come through the windows.”
“Then I’ll take the entrance side.”

With Conra the spell-caster volunteering for the windows, Hildegard naturally moved towards the entrance. The situation had already become quite urgent.

Fortunately, the revived witch only flailed about mindlessly without casting any significant spells while Sophia kept her restrained. In the meantime, Conra and Hildegard had to lure in and exterminate as many monsters as possible.

Conra swiftly engraved occult sigils and runes around the windows and scattered alchemical reagents. He intended to set up spell traps to intercept any enemies breaching the windows. As Conra chanted spells like a melodic verse, thorny vines soon began sprouting from the engraved sigils and runes.

If there was any difference from ordinary thorny vines, it was their outrageous thickness, length, toughness akin to kudzu vines, elasticity in their stems, and the lethality of each thorn spine capable of grievously wounding monsters.

Moreover, the vines sprouting from the reagent-scattered areas emitted a faint violet alchemical luminescence – a phenomenon arising from alchemy’s principles of breaching the spiritual realm from the material plane.

Sure enough, as the monsters approached the windows, the vine whips extended like lashes to ensnare and shred them, scraping away indiscriminately whether winged chimeras, crawling undead, or ethereal wraiths and spectres.

With each whip-like swing came the sound fwip, clang! as numerous monsters were caught and ground away by the mana-imbued thorny vines.

Hildegard was also hard at work guarding the entrance. Infusing the corridor walls with luminous force to repel spectral undead while simultaneously employing masterful halberd techniques to effectively fend off any encroaching chimeras and corporeal undead.

“Light, prevail!”
[…!!]

She did not forget to periodically call upon her holy spirit Ariel’s aid to detonate bursts of radiant force as well.

With Conra and Hildegard respectively defending the interior, Sophia was slowly biding her time against the witch.

Not because she couldn’t slay the witch – though revived, this was still a mere mindless monster raving on pure instinct and impulse, an easy kill for Sophia. Rather, Sophia refrained because it would ultimately be meaningless.

‘To offer your own life as a sacrifice to complete the demonic pact at that very moment – truly a cunning witch.’

Sophia clicked her tongue. At the instant she had ambushed and decapitated her, the witch, sensing her impending demise, had completed the long-deferred pact with a demon, using her own life as the final sacrifice.

Fundamentally, while witches’ flesh remained human, their souls neared demons’. Through the pact’s power, the revived witch’s body had already shed its human confines, becoming a chimeric undead monster.

‘However, the pact has yet to be fully realized at this stage.’

Essentially, the witch’s pact with a demon involved the witch becoming the demon’s subordinate in exchange for a demonic body. Demons were beings transcending humans, possessing superior physicality, magic, corresponding intellect, and formidable spellcasting abilities derived thereof. In other words, the pact required not just physical transformation, but the accompanying mental capacities as well.

Yet the mental faculties of this witch, who had momentarily tasted death, remained unrestored. This meant she had not fully reincarnated as a demon – the pact was incomplete. Thus, no matter how many times Sophia struck her down, she would simply revive cost-free through the pact’s power.

With each death compounding, the witch’s lost intellect would take longer to return, leading to an endless war of attrition for the party.

Therefore, Sophia waited for the precise moment when the witch’s demonic intellect fully recovered.

“Jibreel, be ready to move at any time.”

As she magically grappled the flailing chimeric undead’s movements, scattering her like a ragdoll, Sophia instructed Jibreel. She intended to execute the witch the instant her intellect returned and she became a true demon, without giving her a chance to retaliate.

Witches and demons would devise any trickery if given the slightest opening. When dealing with such beings, one must not heed their words or be deceived by their methods, but simply put them to the sword without parley – that was the answer.

This had been Sophia’s unwavering conviction ever since becoming a nun knight. Due to her repeated, almost mechanical executions, she had even earned the moniker ‘Executioner’ among demons. But whether demons called her that or not mattered little to her.

To Sophia, a member of the Church, demons were mere vermin to be exterminated on sight. Conversely, to demons, the Church was the hated enemy who deprived them of their rightful dominion over humans as cattle or slaves and banished them from the mainland.

They were not acquaintances to cheerfully converse with. When facing each other, one had to strike first before the other schemed maliciously. There was no need to dwell on rumors or evaluations.

Eventually, the witch’s previously erratic attacks began refining into intricate patterns. Just as Sophia had anticipated, the witch’s demonic intellect was gradually restoring.

“You’ve sharpened up considerably.”

As the straightened, sword-like tentacles swept around, parried by Sophia’s longsword, she remarked admiringly. Spinning her blade clockwise to control the tentacle thrusts, she then swung a fallen chandelier like a flail to batter the witch.

As the witch screeched, blown back by the chandelier strike, Sophia immediately employed the Flashing Step technique to charge the fallen witch’s location. Her intent was to unleash a relentless assault to disorient the witch upon her intellect’s return. However, Sophia had to pay for slightly underestimating the witch.

{—-!!!}

A definite cry laced with restored intellect, different from her previous mindless screeches. In a fraction of a second, Sophia’s mind processed its significance before she shouted:

“Brace for impact, everyone!”

Simultaneously, a spherical shockwave radiated outwards from the crouched witch in concentric circles. At the same time, the mansion, its structure weakened from the earlier clashes with the outside monsters and Sophia’s fight against the revived chimeric witch, could no longer withstand the strain and began collapsing.

Boom! The detonating shockwave and crumbling wreckage of the collapsing mansion forced the nun knight party to desperately respond.

Hildegard used her halberd to deflect falling debris and airborne monsters, reducing her descent’s impact, while Conra hastily extended his vine whips to slow his fall before shapeshifting into a werewolf form to safely land at the last moment.

Initially blown away by the shockwave, Sophia coincidentally gained retrograde from shattering the skull of an airborne monster in her trajectory before elegantly descending like walking down a slope through fluid martial techniques.

However, her expression lacked the same poise as her movements. Sophia urgently called out:

“The witch!”

Heeding Sophia’s call, Conra turned to see Hildegard already engaging the witch head-on, fully deploying her luminous force.

{Foolish Paladin! Your weapons cannot reach me!}
“Save your drivel for sleeptalking! Trya ap!”

As the witch’s fingertips, enveloped in a crimson barrier and shadow servants, gestured towards the radiant Hildegard charging forward, tentacles suddenly sprouted from the witch’s back, each generating their own intricate spell arrays aimed squarely at Hildegard.

From each array emanated an ominous extradimensional power intermingled with the uncanny miasma demons characteristically exuded. Clearly noxious at a glance, Hildegard recoiled in dread.

“Insane, what is that!? Come, Ariel!”

As Hildegard summoned Ariel, the holy spirit flew in and embraced her, amplifying Hildegard’s luminous force into a frontal barrier.

“That’s not enough! I’ll add my power!”

Sophia shouted, dashing forward to Hildegard’s left side as Conra simultaneously rushed towards the right in a leaping, salmon-like motion against the current.

Soon, dozens of tentacles completed their spell arrays in unison. The fully charged arrays immediately unleashed a concentrated barrage of spells – violent forces that rent the air with raging roars like a waterfall’s onslaught.

Without delay, Sophia extended her left palm forward with fingers pointing down in the yu-yuan-yin mudra, pulling it towards her body, while her right hand thrust out gripping her sword-hilt squarely ahead.

“Nаmah samantā buddhānām! Oṁ toro toro tiṃhiri svāhā! (Mantra pacifying the deities of all directions)”

As she chanted the mantra, Sophia felt an immense pressure threatening to snap the two sword-grasping fingers. She had narrowly succeeded in deploying a barrier just as the witch’s barrage was unleashed.

In sync, Conra also stabbed his spear-staff into the ground and shouted:

“Bhūtāile ai jinās ar gach treo! Mí a shaosaint ó bhagait ná bhiométáilí orcu! (Elemental spirits of each direction, guard me from malicious forces!)”

With his invocation, the five-elemental and six-elemental pentagrams alternately manifested under his feet, exerting their effects – specifically, banishing certain elemental energies and their sources from the designated area!

Soon, Conra felt an overwhelming pressure as if his entire body would be crushed, straining against the banishment barrier he had erected.

‘Tremendous magical power.’

Gripping his spear-staff tightly until his fingertips turned white, Conra thought. Had he not been wearing the Giant’s Belt, his posture might have crumpled instantly under the strain.

It was at that moment Hildegard took another step forward. While the spell barrage undoubtedly packed immense force, it generally lacked lasting momentum. She intended to seize an opportunity amidst the lull between the barrage’s end and the witch’s next attack.

Relying on her radiant barrier, Hildegard pushed forward with brute strength to breach the spell barrage. Simultaneously, Sophia and Conra immediately dropped their barriers and took cover behind Hildegard’s back. Having lost their target, the spells harmlessly passed over Conra and Sophia’s previous position, gouging a large trench into the empty ground.

Twirling his spear like a pinwheel, Conra chanted:

“Ainmhithe agus plandaí éigeandálacha! Ceangail mo naimhde! (Spirits of animals and plants, bind my foes!)”

With his words, tree roots and vines erupted from the earth while spectral bear and monkey-like figures appeared in the air, possessing the vines to entangle the witch.

Sophia too activated her meridian inner ki, chakra kundalini, anointed mark on her brow, full-body Geas covenant, and legacy blessings of Martial and Heroic Ordeals accumulated across incarnations. Heightening her astral brain’s awareness and bulking up her astral muscles, she intended to slay the enemy with a decisive strike.

{But I was a bit quicker this time!}

Unfortunately, despite the earlier barrage, the enemy had already prepared her next move. Just as a tremor like an earthquake shook the ground and unsteadied the party’s footing, an inky miasma akin to a tidal wave surged forth from the witch, engulfing them all.