magic high school

Chapter 169 The Ghost Hidden in Cyberspace

In the dark night sky, only in the far distance did a visible light burst forth—the flames burning across the entire Gensokyo.

Whether it was the paladins or the divine children who did it, before they left, the entire island was engulfed in flames, as if both the paladins and the divine children wanted to burn it to the ground.

However, the paladins intended to burn the divine children to ashes as well.

At this moment, besides the firelight behind them that almost dyed half the sky red, a faint light slowly appeared ahead.

It turned out to be a sphere of holy light floating above the ship, which explained its unusual radiance. Li Ge and the others were stunned when they discovered it.

"It's highly likely that the Holy Knights are good people, otherwise they wouldn't be constantly telling us how to evacuate on the radio. But just in case, we also need to be prepared. If the Holy Knights are just another kind of divine child, we also need to be able to fight back," Li Ge said.

Now that Xiaoye is completely exhausted and Valerie is drooling, there's no point in counting on those two. The only main force left is Yilian, who is only a little tired for now, and myself, who can only assist Yilian when I activate either Innate Evil or the Crimson Stone Domain.

As for zero—let's forget about it.

The group turned on the ship's searchlights, and soon the paladins' ship saw the conspicuous lights and headed towards them.

When they were still a few hundred meters away, a loudspeaker blared from the ship: "Are you a ship from Gensokyo? Everyone, lay down your weapons and submit to inspection! I repeat, lay down your weapons and submit to inspection!"

At that moment, everyone on the ship broke out in a cold sweat. Could it be that even the Holy Knights' main order couldn't believe it?

Yi Lian was ready at any time. He hadn't used his Noble Phantasm until now in order to preserve his last bit of strength, but now, if he wasn't afraid of the backlash, he could use his sixth Noble Phantasm form, which even included "Ocean Current," the Noble Phantasm most suitable for the current environment.

The treasure from the senior student of the Sea Element class can completely turn into a tsunami of natural disaster level in this environment. However, after using it, he will probably only be able to drool like Valerie.

As for Li Ge, Yi Lian only considered him as half a combatant, since even in his complete form, Li Ge's primary role was not in direct combat.

Seeing the ship approaching while issuing warnings, Zero seemed very nervous and said, "What do we do? What do we do?"

"Don't panic, this is a big problem, panicking won't help—" Li Ge complained. He felt this shouldn't be the case, the paladins shouldn't be like this—wait, we stole the gods' ship, not, as the radio said, sailed away from the underground cavern with that cargo ship.

"Wait a minute, we are children who escaped from Gensokyo, children who fled here following the message from the Holy Knights on the radio!" Li Ge immediately explained.

The next moment, he and Yilian were already prepared; if the other side showed any intention to attack, they would flip the table.

However, the opposing ship showed no intention of attacking at this moment. Soon, a voice came through the loudspeaker: "Wait a moment, stay where you are, don't panic, we're coming to rescue you right away."

"Wait a minute, get a little closer. Once I see them, I'll unleash a Natural Evil and see how they react—" Li Ge whispered to Yi Lian, who nodded in agreement.

Soon, they saw a paladin come onto the deck. However, he was more like a priest in the traditional sense than a paladin, his whole body wrapped in a long robe, making him look very serious and rigid.

However, they all had a bit of PTSD when they saw this outfit, because the old priest in Gensokyo was dressed in a similar way.

"A born evil old ghost!" Li Ge said directly.

The next moment, they could clearly see the priest pause for a second, but nothing happened. He seemed to simply glance at the sky, then close his eyes and pray, before making any further extreme reactions.

This reaction stunned both Li Ge and Yi Lian.

"He seems to be under divine suppression, but why is he behaving like this?" Yilian asked.

"Wait a minute, this seems... trustworthy..." Li Ge said tentatively.

Currently, the effects of the "born evil" ability are limited to a few types. First, it affects myself and Daphne. When affected by this thing, they only feel a slight tingling sensation, as if a pair of eyes are constantly watching them, but they get used to it after being stared at for a while.

Secondly, the nuns, after being poisoned by this substance, will immediately and frantically want to drink the blood of the Pure Ones to disguise themselves, and the Divine Child has a similar reaction.

The third possibility is the nun Li Ge encountered who was firing a submachine gun at him. However, she must have been suppressed as well, just not as frantic, and was still able to continue attacking him.

The fourth type is the priest who keeps repenting. His reaction is that he clearly feels the suppression of the God of Purity, but his method is to repent, to repent very devoutly and continuously, and it seems that his lips are even muttering incantations.

So Li Ge said they could be trusted. Based on the current situation, this reaction proved that they were not perfect and certainly had some sins, but not enough to warrant divine punishment from the God of Purity; it was probably just a simple warning.

Soon, the paladins' large ship approached the group, and a small boat emerged from it, coming to meet them. The person holding the orb of holy light asked, "Children, are you injured? Or why did you call for help?"

There were only three people on the small boat: two old men and a young man. The young paladin asked.

"Big brother, we're fine. We've taken care of some minor injuries, but it seems our fuel tank is broken and we can't get back to land." Li Ge stepped forward to negotiate, even deliberately using the cute way a child would act.

"The fuel tank is broken?" The young paladin was taken aback, then said something to the two old men. Afterwards, the two old men slowly came aboard Li Ge's ship, while the young paladin piloted the small boat back to the large ship.

"Did you drive here yourselves? That's impressive." After the two elderly men arrived, they glanced at the cockpit and then at the still-leaking hull of the boat, and said.

"Yes, we had no choice. We just followed the instructions of that paladin brother on the radio and escaped—" Li Ge pretended to be a child, and Zero next to him kept nodding.

"A radio—?" The old man froze for a moment. Li Ge noticed that his expression was strange; he smiled, but his eyes were clearly filled with sadness.

"Grandpa, is the older brother who told us to run away on the radio on your ship?" Li Ge asked tentatively.

The old man fell even more silent. Then, he slowly reached out his aged, scarred hand and touched Li Ge's head, saying in a very kind tone, "Yes, he's here with us—his name is Charles, he's one of us, a posthumously honored paladin—"

At this moment, whether it was Li Ge, Yi Lian, or Ling, their expressions almost became uncontrollable.

Charles, isn't he the holy knight with the hacker identity who was assassinated by the gods long ago?

No, he was just a hacker; his paladin status was posthumously conferred. He was a hacker hired by the old Pope to attack Gensokyo, but he was found and assassinated by the divine children.

Wasn't he already dead? Why is he still broadcasting on the radio?

"I----"

Li Ge was about to speak when the old man interrupted, "We came here and found you after receiving his distress signal. Don't worry, you're safe now. We have more important things to do. Keep heading in this direction and you'll get back to the mainland."

At that moment, Li Ge was also stunned. They had received a distress signal from Charles, but the location was on their ship—

This means that Charles actually heard what he said directly to channel 0.

In an instant, Li Ge had a conjecture. Charles was dead, but could it be that he was aware of something before his assassination, something like uploading his consciousness to the network, thus creating this cyber ghost?

That ghost that always hovers on channel 97.24 and always hovers over Gensokyo?

Soon, the young paladin returned in a small boat, carrying a can of oil and a toolbox.

He went to the bottom of the cabin and reinforced the wooden plug that Li Ge and the others had used to seal the perforation with glue and resin. At the same time, he went to the fuel tank and said, "Luckily, the fuel tank is intact overall, only the rubber sleeve and fuel line are broken, and a few fastening screws are loose. I'll add fuel here, replace the rubber sleeve, reinforce it, and finally fix it with resin. That should last a long time."

"Alright, that's settled then," the old man said with a smile, giving the young paladin his command. He was probably a bishop or something similar, clearly of higher status than the young paladin.

"Alright, that's about enough. It should last for at least a few hundred nautical miles. I'll put the glue and the remaining oil here too." After saying this, the young paladin picked up his toolbox and prepared to leave.

"Wait a minute, are we just leaving like this?" Yilian asked directly.

They never expected that, instead of another war breaking out or being taken back to safety, the paladins would repair their ship and prepare to leave.

The young paladin remained silent, but as he left, he glanced back, his lips moved, but he ultimately said nothing.

The old man smiled and patted Yilian's head, saying, "We have to do something very important, extremely important, so we won't be able to protect you as you return to the mainland."

"But you are all very strong children. As long as you keep walking in that direction, you will definitely be able to get back. I'm sorry." The old man smiled, as if he were coaxing a child.

"Then what are we going to do?" Li Ge asked.

"Grandpa is going to do something he couldn't do when he was young."

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