Elden Ring: With God Mode Enabled

Chapter 352: The Astonishing Old Man

After the voice called out to stop them, the somber tone vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, followed by silence.

What came next was a relentless barrage of barbed, golden arcs that assailed them from every direction.

In an instant, Bai Shi and his companions were completely surrounded by the golden crescents.

It was clear that regardless of their reason for coming here, the Horned Man guardian had no intention of letting anyone pass.

Bai Shi scoffed lightly.

Although the golden arcs were numerous, they were nothing more than a basic incantation from the Tower Settlement.

The thought of trying to stop him with such a rudimentary spell was almost laughable.

With a casual wave of his hand, Bai Shi summoned a fierce gust of wind that effortlessly shattered all the golden arcs hurtling through the air.

At the same time, the wind expanded, churning into a furious tornado that connected the earth and sky as it swept into the distance.

Empowered by the furious Divine Beast, the divine tornado roared, instantly dispelling the mist.

As the fog that blanketed the valley floor was swept away, the figures hidden within were fully revealed to them.

Several figures of varying shapes and sizes appeared amidst the tombstone-littered woods.

However, among these individuals, only one gaunt, slender figure was real; the rest were all spirits, standing in deference to the withered Horned Man.

It had been these spirits, hiding within the mist, that had unleashed the golden arcs from all sides.

Seeing the withered, old Horned Man, Bai Shi was quite surprised.

A living Horned Man?

He had seen plenty of dead Horned People and their shadowy counterparts lately, but he had encountered very few who were still alive.

Aside from Miquella's Horned Man follower, there had only been the Hornsent Warriors and the Horned Crone.

Bai Shi fixed his gaze on the figure. The Horned Man was draped in heavy yellow robes, his face completely obscured by a hanging yellow cloth that left nothing exposed.

Atop his head grew enormous, composite horns shaped like those of a moose—the result of several horns growing together, twisted and intertwined.

Even his shoulders bore clusters of spiraling, composite horns that pierced through his robes.

The Horned People worshipped their horns, viewing them as a mark of honor.

To have so many, this man was undoubtedly someone of great importance.

And just as Bai Shi suspected, the man before them was indeed of no ordinary origin.

Jori, the Elder Inquisitor—the one who stood at the pinnacle of all inquisitors, the very answer of the Tower Settlement.

But at this moment, the highly experienced Elder Inquisitor looked rather pathetic.

His once-magnificent inquisitor's robes had become tattered over the long years, wrapped around his body like rags.

Jori had to plunge his dazzling, golden barbed staff into the ground with both hands just to keep his footing in the storm.

Disbelief churned in the Elder Inquisitor Jori’s heart.

The moment the mist cleared, Jori had immediately sensed the power of the Divine Beast on Bai Shi.

There was no doubt—this powerful storm was infused with the aura of a Divine Beast!

But after a brief moment of shock, the Elder Inquisitor Jori quickly determined that Bai Shi was not a Horned Champion.

There was nothing wrong with his eyes; he could tell Bai Shi’s identity at a glance.

Only someone like the Horned Crone, who had to rely on aura to discern things, would be deceived by the scent of a Divine Beast.

If he wasn’t a champion but possessed the aura of a Divine Beast, then he could only be a plunderer.

He must have stolen the talisman of the Divine Beast Dancing Lion from the Tower Settlement to gain such power. A detestable thief.

Jori gritted his teeth, glaring at Bai Shi with hatred.

Trespassing into a forbidden land was already a capital offense, and now he had another reason to be executed.

In his mind, he had already marked Bai Shi as a subject for torture, planning to please the gods with his agonizing screams.

Excellent. Torture would be a welcome diversion during this long, tedious wait.

—

Among the Horned People, there was a special position known as the Inquisitor.

Unlike the inquisitors of ordinary civilizations, the Horned People's Inquisitors were not mere interrogators.

The Horned civilization was a bloody and cruel one, yet also deeply religious.

And torture was one of their sacrificial rituals to revere the gods.

For this reason, Inquisitors in the Horned civilization often possessed immense power and held high positions, viewed as emissaries of the gods.

Among them, the most experienced Inquisitors held an extremely lofty status, akin to the senators of ancient Rome.

Jori was the most astonishing of them all, a man his colleagues referred to as a monster.

And he was entrusted with missions that only he could accomplish.

For example, the very reason Jori was here:

To seal Middla, who had touched the Frenzied Flame, to purge the manor, and to lock down the entire valley.

Countless years ago, Jori—the monster among master inquisitors—led his forces into the valley that had been scorched by the Frenzied Flame.

Although there were some losses, the mission was completed with unexpected ease.

There was almost no meaningful resistance. Within the valley, utterly consumed by the Frenzied Flame, Middla was quite reasonable and allowed himself to be impaled by the Greatsword of Eternal Punishment.

The follow-up work also went smoothly, and the area was completely sealed off as a forbidden zone where none may tread.

The golden barbs, instruments of torture, were also the most effective means of sealing a sinner's power.

To prevent the power of the Frenzied Flame from leaking out and to stop the sinner from escaping, Jori filled the valley with golden barbed arcs, constructing a massive ritual.

This ritual transformed the entire valley into a forbidden domain that nullified teleportation.

Anyone who attempted to teleport, whether to enter or to leave, would find their destination redirected here.

Those with ill intentions were left with no choice but to face the inquisitors in this place.

Once his replacement arrived, Jori could return to the "Spiral Tower," Enir-Ilim.

But for reasons unknown, no one ever came to relieve him.

Jori could only wait here, watching as the men he brought with him died off, one by one.

—

Bai Shi recalled how this Horned Man had tried to stop them from entering the valley, preventing them from approaching the Lord of Frenzied Flame.

He then remembered what Lilianna had said about the Lord of Frenzied Flame's strange state of imprisonment.

Bai Shi immediately deduced that his earlier failed teleportation was also this man's doing.

Thinking of this, Bai Shi asked the Horned Man across from him:

"Did you seal the Lord of Frenzied Flame?"

Jori sneered, replying coldly:

"I have no need to answer you."

"All who set foot in this forbidden land must die."

"You should be grateful to become my sacrifices to the gods."

As soon as he finished speaking, he brandished the large golden staff in his hands.

The golden barb at the end of the staff, a symbol of torture, continuously fired golden arcs.

These golden arcs, launched by him, were astonishingly fast, a completely different kind of attack from the ones in the mist.

At the same time, two spirits of inquisitor crones, holding barbed candlesticks, raised them high to perform the Tower's sorcery.

One was responsible for restoring health, while the other would boost the attack power of all inquisitors present.

A relentless assault rained down on Bai Shi and his companions like a tempest.

A massive Horned Man, built like a swine, even charged forward, slamming its stomach at them in a corpulent-flesh assault.

Unfortunately for him, his body slam, along with his giant stomach, was kicked into smithereens by Melina.

Not only were the attacks numerous, but the ones unleashed by Jori were also incredibly powerful.

Even though it was just the most basic golden arc, the power contained within surpassed even the attacks of the Hornsent Warriors.

With the buff from the Scadutree granted to the locals, these attacks had reached a level capable of harming a demigod.

Of course, his physical fragility was also painfully obvious.

Bai Shi waved a hand, and the storm swirled around Melina, Irena, and the others.

The golden arcs shattered one after another against the tempest's barrier, breaking into tiny fragments.

Melina glanced at Bai Shi, looking eager for a fight.

However, Bai Shi simply shook his head.

"Leave him to me."

Living Horned People were not a common sight, and he happened to have a new technique he wanted to try out. This old thing’s attacks were starting to get on his nerves.

To him, the onslaught was no different from a light drizzle, but when the numbers grew, the special effects became a form of light pollution.

He had thought he might be able to get some information, seeing as they were the ones who had sealed the Lord of Frenzied Flame.

But the old man refused to answer his questions, lost in his own little world.

He must have held a high position in the past, but now he couldn't even recognize the chasm in their power levels. How pathetic.

In that case, he was utterly worthless.

Perfect. He could be used to test a new technique.

It was a move he had just developed two days ago from studying the Numen's healing arts, specifically designed to counter the Horned People.

Bai Shi aimed his palm at the Elder Inquisitor, and a deep purple magic began to gather at a slow yet undeniable pace.

"I have studied your kind..."

"Lifeform Disintegration Ray!"

Watching the ominous purple light intensify, Jori felt a sense of foreboding.

His entire body trembled, as if every cell was screaming in terror.

His biological instincts were warning him that this was an extremely dangerous attack, one he absolutely could not afford to take!

The next moment, a purple ray shot through the air, heading straight for Jori's position.

The ray struck a tombstone, completely shattering a corner of it and leaving behind an insignificant crack.

Having just used a secret art of the Tower to teleport away, narrowly dodging the attack, Jori looked at the chipped corner of the tombstone and suddenly felt like laughing.

That's it? After all that fanfare, that's it?

Why was the display so grand, yet the power so minuscule? It couldn't even break a tombstone?

If he had known, he wouldn't have used the Tower's secret art. It consumed a great deal of mana and had a long cooldown before it could be used again.

Jori shook his head.

It seemed he had been out of battle for too long and had become a little jumpy.

This looked like a move meant to intimidate the soul, a setup for other attacks.

By now, Melina had already taken down the inquisitor spirits, one by one.

Surveying the battlefield, Jori felt a pang of regret.

He had been tricked by a feint into using his teleport. A bad move. He would have to be more careful from now on.

The missed shot didn't discourage Bai Shi in the slightest.

As a new technique, it was indeed imperfect. For instance, it wasn't very fast; even someone with the reaction time of a genuine old man could dodge it.

However, he could afford to miss countless times. The opponent only had to fail to dodge once.

Besides, who said he could only fire one ray at a time?

Bai Shi spread his arms wide, and a cluster of deep purple gravity orbs materialized in front of him, all simultaneously charging destructive rays.

The next instant, a dense lattice of rays crisscrossed, weaving together like a birdcage as it closed in on Jori.

This time, Jori could no longer teleport and was forced to rely on his own agility to evade.

Amidst the dense barrage of laser-like rays, Jori displayed a nimbleness that belied his frame.

Weaving and dodging, he even found an opening to counter-attack.

A wide, golden crescent swept through, clearing a large space by wiping out countless rays.

But despite his sharp reflexes, which allowed him to evade most of the rays, Jori was ultimately grazed on the thigh by one.

Feeling the slight sting on his leg, Jori scoffed.

With such meager power, he might as well have just continued using the storm.

At least with the power of the Divine Beast, that storm could block his attacks.

But mortals were destined to never truly grasp the power of a Divine Beast.

Jori surmised that the reason he didn't use the storm to attack was because he couldn't truly control it.

But soon, Jori could no longer maintain his composure.

Because, suddenly, he couldn't feel his thigh anymore.

Jori looked down. He didn't know when it had happened, but half of his thigh was simply gone.

Losing his footing, Jori collapsed toward the ground, barely managing to prop himself up with his staff.

It was only then that the Lifeform Disintegration Ray revealed its true fangs.

The part of his body that had been hit was crumbling before his very eyes, turning bit by bit into dust, and he hadn't even felt any pain.

In his long career of torture, Jori had never encountered anything so bizarre. He let out a horrified scream.

Bai Shi pursed his lips.

"Screaming? That won't stop the clock."

Instantly, several more rays of destructive light washed over him.

When the light faded, Jori's entire lower body had vanished, disintegrated, and turned completely to dust.

And the destructive power lingering in his body continued to spread, deconstructing his form bit by bit.

The once-strongest Inquisitor could now only watch helplessly as his own body crumbled away.

Watching Bai Shi approach step by step, Jori trembling, aimed his staff at him again, only for it to be swatted away.

Through the cloth covering his face, Jori glared at Bai Shi viciously and roared:

"Whatever you're planning, trespassing in a forbidden land and attacking an Inquisitor is a capital crime!"

"The Inquisitors will come to avenge me!"

"Enir-Ilim will not spare you!"

"And then! You will surely learn the meaning of the Horned People's wrath!"

Bai Shi gave him a strange look, suddenly finding him rather pathetic.

"It seems you know nothing of what's happened outside."

"How pitiful. You don't even know that the Horned People are on the verge of being exterminated."

"Even your precious Enir-Ilim has been sealed away by someone else."

"You were lucky to escape it all, hiding in this place no one can find. Now, go on down and reunite with your kinsmen."

A look of utter despair finally crossed Jori's face from beneath the cloth.

"What...?"

Bai Shi gave him no chance for any last words, firing another Lifeform Disintegration Ray.

This time, Jori's entire body was struck dead-on and immediately disintegrated.

The astonishing old man had died in an equally astonishing manner.

Looking down at the pile of inorganic matter at his feet, Bai Shi shook his head.

If he had been there during the Holy War, things would have been so much simpler.

Some might call the complete annihilation of a species, leaving behind only inorganic matter, a wicked war crime.

But Bai Shi called it efficient.

Lilianna flew to Bai Shi's side and asked:

"Should we teleport?"

"Now that he's dead, it seems the power restricting teleportation has vanished with him."

Bai Shi thought for a moment, then shook his head.

"There are still some frenzied flame creatures up ahead. We'll clear them out along the way."

"The fact that they sealed this place was indeed necessary. It wouldn't be good if those things got out."