What witch? The Deadly Pharmacist!

Alice then noticed the extremely dangerous thing Leon was holding in his other hand. There was no time for her to react or retreat; the flames of the red mercury erupted in front of her.

The searing pain overwhelmed Queen Alice, followed by a touch of fear.

Since Saint Astartes, no saint has been born in this world who can rival Queen Moirand, who has inherited her lineage.

Having never faced a direct threat in her life, she was confronted with the threat and fear of death for the first time after learning of the existence of the Red Mercury from the Nemesis organization.

Now, that threat is right in front of her. Although what is here is only an avatar of hers, the excruciating pain of her magic being ignited is still incredibly real.

The intense light nearly blinded them, and the high pressure instantly filled every corner of the underground space with flames. Queen Alice was pushed to the end of the cave by the explosive force, and the red mercury flames scorched her body and ignited her magic.

After detonating the incendiary bomb, Leon did not stop there. He instructed Freyd to adjust the brightness of the barrier and then drew his gun to fire continuously at the location of Queen Alice.

Now that he knew Queen Alice had the trump card of re-incubating her body, he had to take action as much as possible. Even if these few bursts of bullets couldn't penetrate the flames of the red mercury, they should still be able to cause some damage to the re-incubated body and buy them more opportunities.

Freyd struggled to maintain her domain. Theoretically, a second-tier sacred ground could block the impact of a red mercury incendiary bomb at close range, but that didn't mean it could be done effortlessly.

The intense, sun-like light finally subsided, and Leon and Frey focused their attention on Alice's body, which had been pushed to the deepest part of the cave. Although the barrier blocked some of the intense light, the heavy flames still made it difficult for them to see the situation clearly. The flames of the red mercury could also interfere with the perspective of the God of Mystery's Blessing.

Queen Alice's body was still burning when a huge rift split her in two, and the impact from the inside out shattered the shell into pieces.

The newborn Queen Alice successfully hatched using the original body. However, Leon was somewhat surprised to find that this Queen Alice... seemed even smaller than when he had predicted her last time, and her age seemed to have regressed a bit, making her look like a child under ten years old.

His fierce shooting just now seemed to have interfered with the Queen's hatching. Perhaps in order to protect her body from being contaminated by the red mercury and to treat additional wounds, Queen Alice sacrificed a portion of herself, causing the hatched body to shrink as well, and even her natural majesty was somewhat diminished.

Even in this state, Leon dared not underestimate them. Since the heart of this clone was still intact, Queen Alice should still be able to instantly kill them once Freyd's barrier was broken. He had already experienced it firsthand.

Queen Alice was clearly still somewhat concerned. After hatching this body, she checked it briefly and then frowned. Displeasure flashed in her eyes. This was the first time she had successfully hatched a clone, but she was forced to hatch a body of this size.

However, she was relieved in an instant because she realized that she had successfully found a way to deal with the Red Mercury Flame.

“I must thank you, Fenrir,” Alice said, looking at Leon. “Thanks to you, I was able to force myself to overcome my fear. You helped me surpass myself once again.”

"Surpass yourself?" Leon couldn't help but laugh when he heard the Queen say that again.

"Insolent fool! What's so funny?" Queen Alice narrowed her eyes in displeasure upon hearing this.

Chapter 706 The Moth's Awareness of Flying into a Flame

Queen Alice's first reaction was that her current appearance had diminished her dignity, causing the man before her to look down on her.

“I apologize, Your Majesty.” Seeing an opportunity to stall for time, Leon seized the chance to continue the conversation. “I have no intention of being rude to you, but I would like to point out that you have neither truly faced the fear of death nor made any changes. So what is this talk of transcending? For someone born at the top, surpassing oneself should be a rather rare experience, right?”

Queen Alice inherited unparalleled saintly power through her birth. When facing the Red Mercury Flame here, she used her clone instead of her main body, which was safely hidden in Moyland. This experience of fear is completely different from truly facing death.

Alice has now found a way to escape the red mercury explosion by re-incubating her body. This sense of accomplishment makes her mistakenly believe that she has surpassed others, but neither her mindset nor her strength has fundamentally changed, so how can she surpass others?

To put it bluntly, it was simply that the experience of overcoming difficulties was too rare for Her Majesty the Queen, leading her to mistakenly believe that she had made some kind of breakthrough.

Leon himself has faced life-or-death situations to get here, so he has a certain authority on this matter.

"Perhaps." Queen Alice did not refute, but simply raised her hand and began to summon those strange bird-like monsters with her own blood. "I was born at the pinnacle, while you are the one who has constantly crossed the despairing death zone and grown all the way to this point, but so what? My power is still far superior to yours. Once you die here, what chance will you have to continue to surpass yourself?"

"On the other hand, if I don't die, I'll have the opportunity to rise to a position equal to yours. Your Majesty, the reason you came is because you know very well that if I were allowed to obtain the blood of Moirai, what could truly threaten you wouldn't be the Church's secret weapon." As Leon said this, he fired at the monsters while simultaneously releasing blood-sucking mosquito bats with his own blood.

Although the monsters he created couldn't compare to those created by Queen Alice, they still caused some damage.

Queen Alice is now much weaker than in the pre-rehearsal, and she summons fewer monsters, but she still has overwhelming power over them.

To survive in the end, Leon must weaken her as much as possible.

"What surprised me was that Lamia would choose to help you obtain the Blood of Moirai. She must have desperately wanted this power to protect herself. Did you force her, or did she lack the courage to face me?" Queen Alice asked Leon.

Leon kept Freyde, who was in charge of releasing the defense, behind him, while avoiding eye contact with Queen Alice. Alice had been trying to weaken him with her Cursed Gaze, but the effect was not very strong.

Lamia's regenerative blood has been helping Leon resist the corruption of the curse. This doesn't mean that it will work as long as Leon receives Lamia's blood. Lamia herself also needs to be somewhere nearby, continuously blessing Leon.

Leon and Freyde weren't the only ones standing here to confront Queen Alice; Lamia was also supporting them from behind.

"Or perhaps, she doesn't actually want to fight you to the death? Just like yourself, Your Majesty."

While reducing the number of bird-like monsters, Leon kept an eye on Queen Alice's position and used his shooting to keep her occupied.

"I hate your presumptuous tone when you say you know me so well." Queen Alice's voice turned noticeably colder.

“Every time you talk about Lamia, you can’t even pretend to be nonchalant. And with your overwhelming power, I really can’t imagine how she could have survived and escaped if you had gone all out against her when she was off guard?” Leon asked with a smile. “Your Majesty, you didn’t deliberately let her escape here, did you?”

"..." Queen Alice did not refute, but instead began to manipulate these bird-shaped monsters into an array, concentrating their attack on a single point of the barrier.

She has found the weakness of this barrier. As long as she concentrates her attack on one point, the sacred land will be destroyed sooner or later. Once this layer of protection is gone, her full-force curse will be enough to instantly kill Fenrir.

"Between revenge and family, you can't choose. Perhaps all you need is someone to make the choice for you to free you. That's why Lamia helped me, and it's also her way of confronting you." As Leon spoke, he brandished his flaming holy sword, unleashing flames that burned a wave of monsters charging toward the sacred land to death.

However, Queen Alice's summons continued to pour in one after another.

"Interesting. She thinks you can do it? With your abilities?" Queen Alice's voice was unusually emotional, clearly showing some displeasure.

Leon's words were indeed a rare offense to her. She had been weighing the issues of family feuds, national hatred, and the lives of her loved ones for a long time without finding an answer. Yet this man, whose power was far inferior to hers, dared to boast that he would make the choice for her.

“For me, it’s not a matter of whether I can or cannot, but a matter of necessity. This is the only path I have to take,” Leon said.

He kept trying to slow down Queen Alice's offensive, but the monsters kept attacking the barrier, making it extremely fragile, while poisonous fog spread out from the front.

"It's a pity you'll die on this road!" Queen Alice couldn't wait any longer. She concentrated her magic on her transformed dragon claws and charged towards the weak point of the barrier with her horde of monsters.

The monsters she hatched were not big enough, and the number she could summon was limited. The magic power of the maze was almost exhausted and unusable. If she continued to consume it like this, she would eventually be unable to deliver that fatal blow.

However, at that moment, Leon made a gesture to Frey.

Nearly pushed to the limit, Freyd understood and suddenly withdrew from the sacred ground, turning and rushing towards the entrance of the cave. Meanwhile, Leon accelerated towards the poisonous fog in front of him, swinging his longsword towards Queen Alice's heart.

Queen Alice was caught off guard; she hadn't expected Leon to dare to step forward and fight her at close range at this moment!

The flames from the holy sword scorched the queen's body, and Leon accelerated to the maximum, unleashing a series of slashes that quickly left several deep wounds on her.

Leon's speed gave him a slight advantage, but soon his movements became stiff, and contact with the pervasive poisonous fog, along with his acceleration, would cause the Queen's curse to spread even faster.

In his final strike, Leon chose to pierce Queen Alice's heart, but the queen did not dodge; instead, she deliberately opened her body and allowed the sword to pass through her chest.

The moment her heart was pierced, the Queen unleashed the full power of the curse, enveloping Leon in a desolate domain that instantly petrified his hands.

"Your resolve to fly like a moth to a flame won't change anything; it's all over for you." Queen Alice stared into Leon's eyes.

Chapter 707 The Merit of Killing the Witch Queen

Having escaped to the vicinity of the exit, Frey once again opened her sacred ground to protect herself. However, when the desolate domain released by the Queen's ruptured heart pressed down on her, she still vaguely felt suffocated even through the sacred ground.

That curse forcibly strips all life within the domain; it is the essence refined from the blood of evil curses and the gaze of evil curses after discarding the medium that carries it—it is the concept of death itself!

Freyd couldn't hold out for long, but fortunately, Queen Alice could only maintain this domain for a short while by using her clones.

However, Queen Alice didn't care about Fred; she only cared about Leon from beginning to end.

Fenrir, this man is the one she must eliminate!

She has almost achieved her goal. Leon directly came into close contact with the eruption of the desolate domain, and also directly came into contact with the poisonous mist formed by the monsters summoned by Queen Alice. Now, she has even met the Queen's cursed gaze directly.

Even with Lamia's regenerative blood, the curse still eroded his body extremely quickly, causing him to petrify rapidly from the surface.

In the blink of an eye, Leon's hands turned into blocks of salt, and his feet became immobile. The grayish-white surface quickly covered his torso and spread upwards along his neck.

But at this moment, Leon actually laughed, lowered his head and replied to the Queen: "If there is only a worthwhile goal to pursue in the fire, then being a moth drawn to the flame is a transcendent act of daring to face death, isn't it?"

He spoke somewhat incoherently, and the stiffness had spread to his throat.

"But you failed, you achieved nothing." Queen Alice continued to cast her curse, her tone flat, devoid of any sarcasm.

"If I can do that, you..."

Before Leon could finish speaking, his face froze. A deathly gray-white spread across his head, then covered every inch of his skin, even turning his hair into a mineral-rich salt beard.

Alice looked up at the petrified Leon as if she were gazing upon a statue of a god.

The scene at this moment was quite peculiar. Leon, petrified, had a slight smile on his face as he lowered his head to speak to the young-looking Queen Alice. His expression was kind and even made the scene somewhat heartwarming—provided one could ignore the sword piercing the queen's chest in his petrified hand.

Queen Alice ignored the wound on her chest and weakly adjusted her breathing.

In order to avoid being re-incubated by the red mercury, this clone abandoned most of its body and was constantly injured and consumed new blood to repair itself. Now even its core heart has been consumed, so it can't hold on for much longer.

Fortunately, she achieved her goal; she eliminated Fenrir as a threat... or rather, she was about to eliminate him.

Leon is not actually dead. The petrification is still gradually eroding from the surface inwards, and Lamia's new life blood is still putting up a stubborn resistance, protecting his vital organs.

But that only applies before Alice takes Leon's heart. With the end of his life, this body, which Moirai cherished for some unknown reason, will turn into a lifeless salt stump.

Queen Alice raised her hand, which had transformed into a dragon claw. Although Leon had said that his uniqueness was irreplaceable, and Alice basically believed him, she still intended to take Leon's heart away for research. This man was indeed a unique specimen, and at least one should be kept.

"He talked so much big talk, but in the end he still died like this?" Alice thought to herself.

For some reason, she felt somewhat unhappy at this moment. It wasn't that she had any disgust or contempt for Leon, but Leon's words, which pointed out her predicament, did touch on a part of her that she didn't want others to reveal.

You want to liberate her? That's easy for you to say.

This was the first time someone had said they wanted to help her solve this problem. Although it was just empty talk, at least the man in front of her was the first person to dare to say it.

In the end, it still couldn't be done, but...

"If I could do it"—Leon's last words still lingered in her mind, which puzzled Queen Alice somewhat. He was about to die, so why did he dare to say that? What was he trying to say?

Never mind, none of that matters anymore.

Although she probably won't forget, the story of Fenrir is about to come to an end in her hands.

She aimed at Leon's heart, ready to strike, when a blinding red light suddenly erupted from Leon's chest.

With absolutely no room to react, Queen Alice experienced the same pain as before, the unusual burning sensation and the corrosive feeling of igniting the magic within her body were exactly the same as before.

A burst of red mercury-like flames suddenly erupted from Leon's body, engulfing Queen Alice and instantly igniting her petite frame.

Queen Alice did not scream, but simply looked incredulously at her body, which had turned into a torch, and then looked at Leon with the same expression.

Her hands quickly began to char; her body had consumed too much life force, and the flames of the red mercury had further eroded the magic of her dragon form.

As for Leon... only part of his petrified body was melted by the high temperature of the red mercury eruption, but he was not ignited like her.

Leon's body surface was petrified. These parts, considered necrotic, naturally lacked his own magical flow and could not be ignited by the red mercury. They also served as an outer shell to block high temperatures.

What puzzled Alice greatly was why there was a second wave of red mercury's flames.

Isn't it said that mercury must reach a certain amount to ignite? Once ignited, it has the power to destroy a town. Why can it ignite like ordinary fuel without any warning, bursting into a fireball that only envelops the two of them?

She had vaguely sensed something special about Leon earlier, but her attention was drawn to the more prominent presence of the red mercury incendiary bomb.

Could it be that Fenrir possesses... a technology that even the Church doesn't have, allowing him to ignite mercury at will?

The moment this thought crossed her mind, a chilling fear gripped Queen Alice's entire body. Unlike before, when she had only experienced it through this clone, this time she truly felt the fear.

This man must die!

She desperately reached out her nearly broken hand to Leon, wanting to undo some of his petrification and then ignite him with the flames on her body. With just that one moment, the magic within Leon would also be ignited.

But at that moment, a beam of white light pierced through her hand, shattering her charred hand.

Queen Alice turned her head, her eyes, scorched by the flames, could no longer see clearly, but she could still recognize that the attack came from Princess Frey of Norn, whom she had ignored.

“I thought he was just talking nonsense, but I didn’t expect him to actually create such an opportunity for me.” Fred looked exhausted, but her eyes were still fixed on Alice with sharp eyes, her rapier poised to strike.

Killing the legendary Queen Moyland, even just an avatar, should be considered an achievement worthy of being recorded in history.

Chapter 708 Entrusting His Life to the Princess

Just minutes before, Leon was still in the temple communicating with Frey.

"Mix and activate the sample of pure magic essence and red mercury, and during the few seconds of delay, undergo petrification to avoid the flames of the red mercury..."

Fred tried to summarize Leon's plan and then gave his assessment: "One wrong step and you're dead."

“Losing means death anyway. Besides, this tactic has been tested and proven effective by the blessing of Astartes. I’ve already passed the test, which means it works,” Leon said.

“The future may not develop in this way, and besides, you were already unconscious at the time and couldn’t see what was happening, right? If it happened again, what are your chances of success?” Fred said.

"Let's split it in half," Leon said after thinking for a moment.

“That’s really low a standard,” Fred said.

"To be able to maintain a 50% chance of winning against an evenly matched avatar created by the world's most powerful saint is already a gift from fate," Leon said.