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ArabicGenshin Impacti: This Priest is Cringe, But She's Also Unbeatable — Chapter 50
Chapter 50: The Bard’s Night Flight
The Undead Knight’s roar swept across the battlefield like an invisible shockwave.
The very ground trembled, and loose gravel on the hillside cascaded down with a dry rustle. Black fissures spiderwebbed across the earth, and from within, pale, withered skeletal arms clawed their way out, reaching for the sky in a silent, desperate plea.
More undead were crawling back into the mortal realm from the depths of hell.
“Damn it! This BOSS can see us from here!” Zhao Shihao cursed, his face twisting into an ugly scowl.
A distance of nearly a kilometer, and they were still within the creature’s perception range. That far exceeded their worst estimates for an elite-tier BOSS.
The expressions of the other teams sank in unison.
“This is bad. The number of undead is still climbing,” the captain of the standard four-person team, a shield warrior who radiated an air of composure, said in a low, grim voice. “We’re surrounded.”
He was right.
The skeletons and zombies that had just clawed their way out of the ground didn’t charge the church. Instead, they turned, forming a massive, ever-tightening encirclement around the hillside where the candidates were hiding.
The Undead Knight intended to clear the field first.
“What’s the plan? Charge in, or break out?” Beside a silent swordsman carrying a greatsword the size of a door, a frost mage spoke. Her voice was as cold and sharp as clashing ice crystals, utterly devoid of warmth.
“Break out? To where?” Zhao Shihao sneered. “Behind us is an endless wasteland. Where do you plan on running? The only path to survival is in that church!”
His logic was sound. This area had become a deathtrap. Forcing a breakout would only lead to being hunted down by an inexhaustible tide of undead until they collapsed from exhaustion.
The only variable, their only hope, lay within the church.
“But that Undead Knight is standing right at the entrance. How are we supposed to get past it?” the priestess in the standard team asked, her voice trembling with a fear she couldn’t conceal.
The mere presence of that knight radiated a suffocating pressure. It was clearly not something they could challenge at their current level.
For a moment, a deathly silence fell over the group.
It was a perfect dead end. In front of them stood a lord-level BOSS flanked by elite guards; behind them, an endless sea of undead minions. They were trapped.
Selene was so nervous her palms were slick with sweat, her knuckles white as she gripped the edge of her shield. She glanced at Celeste, only to find her sister staring blankly at the grey sky, her expression unreadable.
‘What is she thinking about at a time like this?’
“Sis?”
Celeste didn’t answer immediately. Her mind was racing, processing the situation at lightning speed.
‘The situation is terrible, but it’s not a total checkmate,’ she thought.
After its roar, the Undead Knight hadn’t launched an attack. It had turned and walked back through the church gates, leaving two rows of massive, shield-bearing skeleton guards at the entrance. This told her one thing: its primary mission was “guarding,” not “hunting.”
And while the undead minions on the periphery were numerous, they were slow and their attack patterns were simple. Their only real threat was their overwhelming numbers—a classic undead zerg rush.
‘If we can just break through their encirclement, rush the church entrance, and take out those elite guards, we’ll have a window to get inside and find a chance to survive.’
The problem was, how? How could a dozen people possibly break through a horde of hundreds, maybe thousands, of undead? A blind charge was just suicide. They needed an efficient method, something that could tear a hole in the enemy lines instantly.
Celeste’s gaze swept discreetly across her temporary “allies.”
Zhao Shihao was a fire mage with high burst damage, but his range was limited, and his most powerful spells required a long casting time. The frost mage probably had decent crowd control, but against a horde this size, her frost storm would be a drop in the bucket. The others didn’t seem to have any game-changing abilities either.
Then…
Celeste’s focus finally turned inward.
The Venti trial card, an item whose potential for social death was off the charts, materialized in her mind once more.
‘What is Venti’s power?’she asked herself.’It’s wind. The kind of wind that can sweep everything away and forge a new path.’
A bold, utterly insane plan clicked into place.
She took a deep breath and turned to Selene, her expression more serious than her sister had ever seen.
“Selene, I have a way. It might just get us all through this.”
“Oh! You mean… flying?” Selene understood instantly, but her face clouded with worry. “Can you carry this many people?”
“I can.”
Celeste glanced over at the others. They were still arguing, completely oblivious to the sisters whispering in the corner. The timing was perfect.
“Selene, listen carefully to my instructions,” Celeste said, her words coming out in a rapid-fire burst. “In a moment, I’m going to create a massive updraft that will lift everyone into the air. You need to tell them immediately that this is my hidden trump card, and it can fly them across. Warn them not to resist, or they’ll fall and be eliminated.”
“Huh? We’re taking everyone?” Selene was stunned.
“Yes, everyone,” Celeste confirmed, her eyes glinting with a calm, calculating light. “Right now, we’re all in the same boat. Every extra person is another bit of strength we can use. We need them to help clear out the elite guards at the church entrance.”
It was an incredibly rational, even manipulative, decision. But in this desperate situation, it was the only correct one.
“I understand!” Selene nodded, her expression firm.
Celeste darted away, moving with an agility that belied her usual laziness. She slipped behind a giant rock, completely vanishing from everyone’s line of sight.
She closed her eyes and steeled her resolve.
‘Alright, you tone-deaf bard. It’s showtime.’
“System, use the Venti trial card!”
Emerald green particles of Anemo energy materialized from thin air, swirling around her like a billion fireflies before instantly enveloping her body.
When Celeste opened her eyes again, the bard outfit that made her toes curl with secondhand embarrassment was already fitted perfectly to her form. Her cheeks were burning, but a fierce, competitive fire was blazing in her chest.
“For the championship… a little shame is a small price to pay.”
She muttered the words to herself, a desperate mantra to suppress the overwhelming urge to rip the ridiculous green beret from her head. Then, she stepped out from behind the rock.
“Now, Selene!”
Her voice was different—crisp and melodic, carrying a strange, airy rhythm, like wind chimes tinkling under the eaves.
Selene was already poised for action. She took a sharp step forward and roared at the bickering group, “Stop arguing! My sister has a way to get us across!”
Everyone froze, their heads snapping in her direction.
Zhao Shihao, at the peak of his frustration, was about to snap back with a self-pitying retort. “What kind of method could she possibly have? Is she going to fly us to the heavens or something?!”
The words had barely left his mouth.
A massive, overwhelming torrent of Anemo energy, drawing upon the very power of the heavens and the earth, exploded from the center of the bard in green who had just appeared beside Selene.
Celeste grit her teeth against the soul-crushing embarrassment, spread her arms wide, and chanted a poem of the wind in a tone that was almost a religious canticle:
“O Wind, answer my call, and take us to where we ought to go!”
A colossal cyan wind field, over fifty meters in diameter, burst into existence, instantly covering the entire hillside.
Every candidate present, including the still-clamoring Zhao Shihao, felt the ground vanish from beneath their feet. A gentle yet irresistible force lifted them from the earth.
“What the—?!”
“Holy crap! I’m flying!”
“What kind of skill is this? An area-of-effect group flight?! You have got to be kidding me!”
A chorus of shocked screams erupted. Everyone’s mind went blank, their bodies rising dozens of meters into the air, completely out of their control. Looking down, the undead army that had been a source of suffocating pressure was now just a swarm of wriggling black dots on the ground.
“Everyone, don’t panic!” Selene shouted, reciting the script they had agreed upon. “This is my sister’s hidden trump card, Heroic Spirit Possession! This wind field will take us directly to the church entrance! Don’t move around, because if you fall, not even a god can save you!”
The crowd snapped out of their daze. They looked up with wide, shocked eyes at the figure in green floating at the center of the wind field, her clothes fluttering gently, as if they were looking at a monster.
Although that outfit… was definitely a bit of an eyesore.
“My god…” the assassin from the standard team breathed. “With an ability like this… forget the outfit, I’d fly naked if I had to!”
“In the face of this kind of power, appearance is meaningless,” the shield warrior captain said with sincere reverence, his eyes filled with pure awe and envy. “This level of control over the wind element… it’s unheard of.”
Zhao Shihao’s face cycled through shades of blue and white, his cheeks stinging as if he’d been slapped. He had just mocked her about “going to the heavens,” and in the very next second, he’d been packaged up and flown there.
Finally, he could only squeeze out a single sentence through clenched teeth. “Hmph. The look is a bit weird, but this ability… is just plain outrageous.”
Celeste heard their hushed discussions, her heart a whirlwind of conflicting emotions. On one hand, she was secretly thrilled by the sheer power she was wielding; on the other, she felt like a clown tied up in the public square for execution.
But at this life-or-death moment, she could only force herself to remain calm.
“Everyone, please follow me and ride the wind!” she called out in Venti’s uniquely lighthearted tone, guiding the massive wind field steadily toward the dark church in the distance. “The wind will guide our path forward~”
The wind howled in their ears, and beneath their feet was an ocean of death. This perspective, transcending the battlefield entirely, sent a surge of emotion through every gifted youth present, so powerful it was almost suffocating.
So, this was how combat could be.
So, in the face of absolute power, a so-called “dilemma” could truly be so elegantly and unreasonably… erased.
[Ding! Host, under the watchful eyes of all, you have magnificently turned the tide and led everyone to safety, earning a large amount of shock, awe, and praise! Elation Coins +1250!]
‘System, if you make one more sound, I swear I will uninstall you the second we land.’
Celeste silently gnashed her teeth, praying that this public execution of a flight would end as quickly as possible.
The one-kilometer distance, propelled by the wind field, passed in the blink of an eye. They were soon flying directly over the church.
At the entrance below, the soulfire in the empty eye sockets of the two rows of elite skeleton guards flickered violently. They had spotted the uninvited guests in the sky. Raising their huge bone shields in unison, they produced a threatening, grinding clatter of bone on bone.
“Oh my, the friends below don’t seem very friendly~”
Celeste finished the line in that same breezy tone, but then her voice instantly turned sharp and cold, laced with killing intent.
“Everyone, get ready to welcome the slaughter. The wind field is about to disperse. May the Anemo Archon protect you!”
Her voice cut cleanly through the wind, reaching every ear.
“Understood!” the shield warrior roared, already bracing himself behind his massive shield.
Zhao Shihao just snorted coldly. In his palm, a fist-sized, scorching fireball was already spinning wildly.
Just as the wind field carried them over the square in front of the church, Celeste willed it, and the updraft vanished.
A dozen figures plummeted from dozens of meters in the air like stones.
But with a final, gentle buffer of wind, everyone landed solidly on the ground, completely unscathed.
“Now! Go!”
Selene and the shield warrior captain let out a simultaneous roar. One on the left, one on the right, they charged like two crazed rhinoceroses, kicking up dust as they violently crashed into the grim skeletal defense line at the church entrance.
The heavy, sickening crunch of impact instantly echoed across the square.