"No." Agatha interrupted him. "Just as with demons' blood, the flesh should be taken from a living witch."

He heard Nightingale gasp behind him.

"This was the most important secret of the Quest Society. Not long after the experiment began, I left the stone tower of the Holy City. The only thing I knew about the experiment was that it used the blood of weak and old witches, mixed it with G.o.d's Stone of Retaliation, and injected it into the bodies of mortals to make mortal's body change." Agatha's tone was a bit grave. "Judging from the notebook you found, this research must have succeeded."

"How much blood was needed?"

"More than half." Agatha's answer saddened Roland. "The blood must come from the same person, otherwise the magic powers contained in it would reject each other and their effectiveness would greatly decrease." She paused. "You guessed correctly. A witch died for every experiment, and mortals could barely survive the erosion of the weakened magic blood. In the beginning, no one could survive. A great number of society members objected to it because they believed that mortals could never gain magic power. If not for the insistence of Chief Alice, this plan might not have been carried out fully."

"But now the church has a huge G.o.d's Punishment Army... According to Tilly's information, there may be 500 to 1,000 G.o.d's Punishment Warriors," Roland said, frowning.

"Suppose the success recorded in the notebook refers to the increase of the transformation rate to 10%, it means that at least half of the witches had been killed. I don't think those people could gather such a large number of old witches."

"The church arrested and raised witches so that they could drain their blood and create powerful extraordinary warriors?" Roland felt the hand on his shoulder clench involuntarily. "d.a.m.n it. Hundreds of witches with all kinds of magic powers died in the Holy City of Hermes for no reason, and they were branded as the Fallen and were loathed by the public. Such an ignorant organization must be destroyed, even if its original intention was to fight against the demons."

"Rest a.s.sured. I'll stop them," Roland said word by word.

After Agatha left, Nightingale shut off her Mist and appeared in front of him. She gritted her teeth and said, "I didn't expect that was how G.o.d's Punishment Army was produced! If the Church really came from the Union, their chief must be a lunatic! "

"Indeed." He sighed. "Now it makes sense why the church has been adopting female orphans and abandoned babies everywhere—they were only collecting materials for creating a huge army. Perhaps slandering the witches as Devil's minions was also part of their plan, in order to justify their treatment of witches."

"..." Nightingale did not respond, but her face was full of anger.

Roland slightly worried about her. Holding her hand, he said, "You don't intend to..."

"Pick a fight with the church by myself?" She shook her head. "I'm not that silly. If they were so fragile that they could be overturned by a witch, someone else would have done it long ago."

The prince felt a little relieved. "The ultimate goal of creating the G.o.d's Punishment Army is to strengthen the church. If there're extraordinary ones among the witches the church raised, they won't have to give blood... Even escaping into the Mist won't guarantee safety when facing witches loyal to the church. When we wage a war against the church, the safest strategy is to push forward step by step following the firearms of the First Army. Whatever the enemies are, they are no different in front of bullets." He paused. "I've said that in the new world, witches will be able to live a normal life without restrictions, just like ordinary people do."

"Hmm." Nightingale whispered, putting her forehead on Roland's head. "I'm sure you can do it all."

*******************

Wendy sent Paper back to the witches' building and happily returned to the Lord's castle.

Recently, she felt her days were very fulfilling. Although her previous life was quite comfortable, she'd always felt something missing. Now, with this little girl who was well-behaved and full of admiration for her, she believed there was nothing more pleasing than this.

"Winter has come. This is when the witches' awakenings happen the most. In the following months, there might be more new witches joining the Witch Union, so there'll be more kids for me to take care of." This thought excited Wendy very much.

She gently hummed the song she heard from His Highness. But when she pushed open her bedroom door, what she saw startled her.

G.o.d, what do I see? Nightingale sits in front of the book table, reading the Natural Science Theoretical Foundation!

Did she fight with His Highness Roland?"

"Ahem." Wendy coughed twice. "I'm back."

Nightingale nodded, giving no response. From the side, her face seemed very upset and sad.

She must have guessed correctly.

Wendy stepped forward, patted Nightingale's shoulder, and softly comforted her. "This is love. You sometimes quarrel, but when you think about it, it's nothing serious. Sleep on it and you'll feel better afterwards."

"What are you talking about?" Nightingale frowned.

"You and His Highness... Fighting is only temporary, so don't take it seriously."

"Why would I quarrel with him?" She said, touching her forehead.

"Uh... you didn't?" Wendy paused. "Then why are you reading all of a sudden?"

Nightingale sighed and told Wendy about the Experiment of G.o.d's Punishment that Agatha had revealed to her. "I just feel I need to become stronger to help more in future battles to overthrow the church."

"I see." Upon hearing what Nightingale said, Wendy solemnly nodded. "I didn't expect that the church built monasteries to obtain witches' blood... If it weren't for Ashes, who had suddenly awakened as an Extraordinary and drew all the guards' attention, I'm afraid I would have been among the other corpses in the church."

"Nightingale is right. Perhaps the environment in the castle is so relaxing that I've let my guard down." Wendy suddenly realized that the enemies were very close. Be it from the church or demons, their threats weren't completely eliminated, yet she hadn't improved for a long time. Although her magic power was slowly increasing, her fighting skills and ability to create wind weren't so different from the time when she was in the Witch Cooperation a.s.sociation, and evolution was totally out of the question.

Sisters such as Mystery Moon, Hummingbird and Echo were studying very hard. Compared to them, she seemed to be slacking off. As an older predecessor, she couldn't even light two Magic Stones on the Sigil of G.o.d's Will. If this continued, she would feel like an unworthy elder to the other witches.

"You're right. I need to study hard as well." Wendy took a deep breath. She decided that from that day on, she would spend two hours every night before bed learning the knowledge from His Highness.

She went to the bathroom to have a quick wash, returned to the room, and found Nightingale lying on the desk, asleep.