Instantly, everyone except Herta, who had been prepared, and Hector, the screamer himself, was left with ringing ears from the piercing shriek.
Herta even saw lights flickering on in house after house along the town's streets. Hector's outburst had likely woken half the town.
He scrambled over to Martin, glanced at Herta, and stammered, "Captain Martin! It's her!!!"
Martin rubbed his ears in relief. Miss Witch's behavior had actually cleared her of suspicion of being an Evil God. After all, what kind of Evil God sneaks around trying to scare people?
Herta deactivated the sound-dampening magic around her ears and said, "You've misunderstood. I'm not an Evil God."
Hector, emboldened by his conviction that Herta was an Evil God, dared to argue, "You're too beautiful to be human!"
Hector was actually right. After all, this world was set in 1850, where ordinary women struggled just to feed and clothe themselves. Overworked and sallow-faced, they bore no resemblance to Herta; they might as well have belonged to entirely different species.
Even noblewomen, who indulged in daily feasts and elaborate cosmetics, couldn't compare to Herta's natural beauty. Hector's description of her as "inhumanly beautiful" was spot-on.
Herta chuckled. "Thank you for the compliment, but I was simply born this stunning. Alas, it can't be helped. If Droidhead hadn't glanced my way back then, I would have become a pure and beautiful Emanator."
Hector froze, lost in thought. He didn't understand what Herta was talking about, but he recognized her words as blatant narcissism. Normally, when someone is praised, they'd offer a modest reply, not eagerly join in self-aggrandizement. Was she really that conceited?
Wait a minute! Hector suddenly realized he hadn't intended to compliment Herta at all, but her response made it sound as if he had. It was as if she had deliberately twisted his words into a compliment.
He shook his head and continued, "And your power! You annihilated thirty or forty Cultists and even a Familiar of the Flesh God they summoned! With such absurd strength, how can you claim you're not an Evil God?!"
Martin and the eight Secret Keepers stared in disbelief. "You annihilated an Evil God's Familiar?!"
This feat defied description. The last time the Secret Keepers had faced such a creature, they had lost five thousand elite soldiers!
And that was just the death toll; the total number of participants was far greater. At least twenty thousand soldiers had been mobilized to encircle that single Familiar.
In this era, lacking advanced firearms, humanity could only rely on unconventional "black technology" and the sheer sacrifice of lives to counter Evil God's Familiars. Wave after wave of soldiers charged onto the battlefield, driven forward by Executioner Squads stationed behind the lines.
These squads weren't there to eliminate deserters. On that battlefield, every soldier was a hero, the bravest of all humanity. Retreat was unthinkable. Yet even the most fearless warriors were still mortal, their wills vulnerable to corruption, contamination, and manipulation by the Evil God's Familiar.
They might descend into madness, mistaking their teammates for enemies, or commit other unthinkable acts. The Executioner Squad existed solely to eliminate such individuals at the first sign of corruption.
This illustrates the sheer terror the people of this world felt toward Evil God's Familiars, and makes Herta's feat of instantly killing one seem utterly unbelievable.
Martin stared dumbfounded at Herta, his gaze silently questioning, "Is this... real?"
Herta shook her head. "It wasn't me. I didn't do it. Stop spreading rumors."
Martin breathed a sigh of relief. But before he could speak, Herta added, "It wasn't me who killed it. It was my Puppet."
Martin let out a strangled gasp.
The Captain felt like he'd just ridden a rollercoaster, plummeting from heaven to hell and back again, nearly losing consciousness from the shock.
This is even more absurd!
With practiced speed, Martin retrieved a heart medication from his pocket and popped it into his mouth. It took a while for him to regain his composure, but he soon realized that befriending this Witch might be their world's only hope for breaking free from its fate.
Martin had never believed Hector's claims about Herta being an Evil God, not even for a moment. Well, maybe for a split second at first.
Regardless, watching Hector continue to babble incessantly, desperately trying to prove Miss Witch was an Evil God, Martin pulled out a rope and tied him up, just as Hector had initially requested.
Hector: "???"
Martin: "You admitted your mind might be compromised, so everything you're saying is questionable. We'll discuss this properly when we get back."
Hector fell into deep thought. If Herta wasn't an Evil God, his entire argument was pointless from the start. But if she was an Evil God, everything he'd said would be dismissed as the ravings of a compromised mind, utterly lacking credibility. Either way, he couldn't prove his claim.
Damn it! This is a logical dead end!
Martin, of course, had long since realized Hector was perfectly fine. He was tying him up simply to shut him up and prevent him from further provoking Miss Witch.
Ironically, Herta hadn't been angry with Hector at all. Instead, she found him rather amusing.
Meanwhile, having learned the Flesh God's location in Africa from Martin, the Herta Puppet immediately set course for the continent.
At an altitude of 30,000 meters, where the air should have been bitterly cold, the Herta Puppet instead felt a bizarre, sweltering humidity. Piercing through the clouds, she looked down to find the familiar outline of Africa gone, replaced by a pulsating landscape of flesh and blood.
The entire continent had transformed into a colossal, living heart, beating with rhythmic force.
Thump... Thump...
Listening intently, the Herta Puppet could actually hear the thunderous heartbeats echoing from below, despite her staggering altitude.
From this height, the Puppet couldn't discern many details. But when she glanced upward, a massive Dimensional Rift spanning the horizon caught her eye.
Far larger than the one beneath the sea in the Main World, the last time she had witnessed such a colossal fissure—a tear in the fabric of reality itself, threatening to split the sky in two—was during her time in the Beast-Eared Girl World.