However, Adrian couldn't accept this plan at all.
"I'm the king of New Parristol, how can I not care about my people!"
The people in the underground shelter were all civilians of Parristol. They had firmly rejected the Astralrealm Kingdom's tempting offers and chose to stand with their new king. So logically, Adrian absolutely couldn't abandon these people.
"Seriously, what's wrong with this guy? Got something more important than his own life?"
Seeing him grab his bow and arrow and rush out, Nicola felt like she'd met a real idiot.
Even knowing he couldn't win, Adrian still decided to go die! At least he thought his appearance might stop the Ancient God Religion from hurting civilians. But from Nicola's point of view, she couldn't just watch this happen, so she had to chase after him.
After all, as the only human who could control Lantine Oasis, she had to ensure his safety and make sure the enemy couldn't use him, not to mention that crown was still on Adrian's head!
Although she couldn't do anything with this "genetically bound" device, it didn't mean the Ancient God Religion was the same. That "Spring" god had left quite an impression on Nicola! Being able to give normal humans powers comparable to gods - if Selene got the crown, the outcome really hard to say.
"Slow down! Even if you want to die, no need to rush!"
After recovering from his injuries, Adrian's abilities far exceeded Nicola's current state. After turning a few corners in the complicated underground passages, he disappeared in a flash, making Nicola curse in frustration.
However, unexpectedly, Adrian stopped. But not to wait for her - he had met someone familiar.
"Lisa, what happened to you?"
When Nicola caught up, she saw Adrian questioning a woman dressed as a mage, while the light elements in the surrounding air increased several times.
She knew this woman too - seemed like she was one of the New Parristol guards who went up to the surface to support the king. Nicola remembered sensing weak light element aura from her, so could tell she was probably a light mage.
But the intense light elements in the surroundings obviously wasn't coming from her. Because Lisa's rank wasn't high, not even reaching fourth rank.
Adrian's subordinates had mostly been wiped out by the Grey Bishop, but that was limited to the personnel in the two breached control rooms.
Since they had also sent some people to other control room at first, and Lisa was among them, Adrian had been hoping to regroup with them. Unfortunately, looking from afar, both her appearance and reactions seemed somewhat strange.
"Lisa! Why you not answering my question? Where did you go..."
Seeing her slowly approaching with lifeless eyes, Adrian couldn't help raising his voice. But before he could finish speaking, an invisible shock suddenly hit.
With a dull "boom", Nicola felt intense pain sweeping through her mind. At the same time, she saw a terrifying thing behind Lisa - a pure white head surrounded by six white wings, slowly floating out from the deep end of the corridor, revealing its full form.
Then a voice she'd never heard before, not belonging to any language, sounded in her mind.
"I am Beluto, God of Light, and I'm facing an unprecedented crisis! Your body is still a bit weak, but it's enough for me to descend into the real world and escape from those who call themselves 'Spring'! Sign a contract with me, and I promise you countless glory and power!"
"God of Light Beluto? You still not properly dead in this world?"
Nicola suddenly found it funny - who would have thought she'd hear the voice of that Beluto here? If it was normal people or normal angels, they probably would have surrendered, unable to resist his mental control.
But who was Nicola? Now she just needed to isolate a bit of her newly accumulated wind elements around her body to block his mental influence.
After returning to normal, she looked up at Adrian again. This guy was also showing signs of severe headache. But fortunately, humans didn't have as much light element in their bodies as angels, and he had awakened Battle Qi! So he was not fully controlled - at least he could stay conscious for now, though his body could hardly move.
"Quick! Use this arrow, shoot at that 'Calamity'!"
Adrian obviously knew what that six-winged head thing behind Lisa was. Lying on the ground, he used all his strength to take out several black-feathered arrows and urged Nicola.
"Shoot arrow? I don't know how! Also who exactly is this 'Calamity'?"
Although Nicola said this, she still quickly went forward to take the arrows. But unexpectedly, Lisa, who hadn't said anything, suddenly rushed out and kicked Adrian away before Nicola could reach him.
"What? He's your king right? Why you so violent!"
Obviously Lisa was controlled by the six-winged head, but she could only follow simple commands. The black arrows in Adrian's hand scattered all over the ground, then she rushed forward to fight with Nicola.
However, even without wings, Nicola's current strength was still much higher than Lisa's. During the fight, she picked up an arrow and saw the word "Dark" on it, suddenly understanding Adrian's intention.
After some time, Nicola won without surprise and successfully stabbed the black arrow into the target's face.
From start to finish, the six-winged head itself never made any resistance, and its floating escape was very slow - its biggest threat was mainly mental. After being hit by the dark element carried by the black arrow, all mental shock effects instantly disappeared. Lisa, who was about to chase and kill them desperately, fell straight to the ground like a puppet with cut strings, and the six-winged head also slowly dissolved into points of light in the air.
"Tell me, what exactly is this 'Calamity' thing?"
Lisa was still unconscious at the scene, and Adrian should be fine even after being kicked away. Nicola took a deep breath, walked to Adrian's side and asked in confusion.
First, she understood that although the six-winged head was made of pure light element, it wasn't the Light God's true form. The real God of Light had no physical form and could at most be considered a medium for spreading his power. But the question was, what was the origin of the six-winged head? At least in her world, she had never seen such a thing!
"You're an angel but you don't know? 'Calamity' is what happens when male and female angels combine! It only brings terrible disasters to the world, must use dark element to remove it. And they say among angels, male and female combining is absolutely forbidden - all these not secret!"
Due to the aftereffects, although Adrian couldn't move normally, he could slowly sit up by himself. Hearing this, he looked at Nicola in surprise, then took out a bunch of things from his storage ring and placed them on the ground.
"Why become like this? Male and female combine shouldn't produce new angels?"
Nicola was shocked - she knew this world had both male and female angels, after all she had already gone through a mental shock when hearing from her other self that almost all classmates were still alive. But how could she accept that the product of their combination was that kind of thing?
"How I know! Even how angels come about, no one knows, we only know that angels live very long. Maybe it was already like this when they were created at the beginning of the world!"
Adrian didn't understand the reasons behind it, but his words later inadvertently reminded Nicola.
Because later when Nicola recovered some memories from her time as Liana, while sitting in front of me telling this part, she suddenly had an insight, seeming to remember why the angel ancestors originally set all angels in our world to be female -
Angels were initially born from the Angel Descent Formation, essentially a kind of magical product. Having bodies similar to humans was just simulating their form using light elements, but exactly to what extent this simulation went was unknown.
According to Nicola's speculation, this simulation likely had some defects. When male and female angels combined, their offspring, lacking the effective constraints of the formation, couldn't maintain high concentrations of light element in human form, leading to cases of devouring the mother. And the extremely high concentration of light element would likely attract attention from the God of Light whose soul wasn't completely dead in another world, using it as a tool to spread his influence in the real world - this was the specific source of "Calamity".
As for offspring between humans and angels, since they were no longer pure light element products - theoretically, the less light element in the human parent's body, the higher the survival rate of the offspring.