Chapter 201: Guests from a Different Continent

As Miss Le Qiao Qiao landed from the tree, holding the unconscious ambusher with a nervous expression, ready to bolt at any moment, Miss Vilyric, crouching near a rock, had already stacked up the engraved tokens of the sacred beasts, piling them up to almost half her height.

“Uh, boss? What happened to those bad guys? Did they run away?”

The Priestess turned to glance at her, pointing to a scar-faced man tied to a tree, unable to move, with his mouth stuffed with grass, his eyes wide open in protest.

“Look, isn’t that one?”

“Uh…”

The Thief Girl surveyed the night around her, which was starting to return to normal, and while rummaging through her memories, she tentatively asked, “I mean, is there a possibility that they came in a group of over ten people?”

“Oh, you’re talking about those small fry, huh? Since only one alive was needed for questioning, I took care of the rest without worry. Don’t stress, they concentrated all their loot and crystal gems on this leader, and I got them all! Look, there’s this much~.”

Miss Le Qiao Qiao’s tension faltered, her grip slipping on the man’s hand, causing him to fall to the ground with a painful “thud.”

“So soon? All by yourself? And about that cleanup, it can’t be…?”

“Oh, just to clarify, I didn’t specifically go out to kill them, they brought it upon themselves.”

In fact, besides the initially unlucky guy that Vilyric kicked to death, the rest of the attackers had met their demise in the backlash from the [Feather Cloak of Glarya]. This artifact’s feature was to reflect a portion of melee damage, so if they didn’t come at her with murderous intent, the retaliatory damage wouldn’t take their lives.

But clearly, none of them were innocent, and Vilyric had no reason to spare the lives of villains.

Of course, this revelation, falling on the ears of the clueless Miss Le Qiao Qiao, changed flavor entirely, and her gaze toward the black-haired girl shifted several times, finally turning into a mix of awe and… admiration?

“So, so cool… as expected of the boss!”

“?”

The Priestess tilted her head in confusion.

Wait, has this person… never killed anyone before? Clearly, her strength was already considerable among ordinary people.

On this note, not to mention people, the wild chickens and rabbits they previously caught had also been skillfully speared by Vilyric on her journey, while Miss Le had never actually laid a hand on killing, and even the initial processing of meat had been handled personally by the Priestess. This had puzzled her for quite a while.

Clearly, the cooking and eating were pretty decent, yet she never personally hunted, seemed unaccustomed to a fight, yet flinched at the slightest adversity, always thinking about running away; could it be…

“Le Qiao Qiao, you wouldn’t happen to be the fabled fainting-at-the-sight-of-blood type, would you?”

“Ugh!”

Instantaneously, the Thief Girl let out a peculiar sound from her throat, awkwardly turned away, unable to meet the eyes of her temporary boss.

Whoa, guessed right…

With a helpless shake of her head, Vilyric didn’t press on with this rather strange Thief Girl. After sweeping all the crystal gems from the rocks into her bag, she made her way to the ambusher that Le Qiao Qiao had caught earlier, the one who had jumped from the shadows to attack her the moment she was distracted by the chirping of the young birds.

This guy still had bloodstains on his arm from the arrow’s scrape, and he was likely the strongest of the group, even above that scar-faced leader.

Moreover, he probably wasn’t from the same crew, to be accurate… this guy wasn’t an assassin, which was clear from the faint hue of his soul.

She had already casually questioned the scar-faced man earlier, who cooperatively provided most of the information he knew, but that didn’t satisfy the Priestess.

Hopefully, this guy knows more.

…

Isaac was a high-ranking believer of the [Church of Truth].

This sect did not originate from the Ancient Spirit Realm but rather migrated over three hundred years ago from a distant continent across the sea.

It was said that the Church of Truth was rooted in a land called the Holy Empire, which was even stronger and broader than any of the four countries in the Ancient Spirit Realm today.

The Holy Empire was founded on religion, thus they had their own beliefs, and while the [God of Truth] worshipped by the Church of Truth was not recognized by the main faith of the Holy Empire, the Empire was not a completely intolerant dictatorship regarding heterodox beliefs. Thanks to divine grace, the Church of Truth, though small in scale, boasted a long history and a loyal group of followers.

However, this peaceful coexistence was overturned during a war against demons.

That so-called holy nation suddenly became extremely exclusionary and radical regarding religious issues, starting a full-force crackdown on faith, launching a massive purge against almost all outside religious forces. The Church of Truth had no choice but to flee eastward, guided by the [God of Truth], across the eastern sea to this continent.

Though Isaac wasn’t amongst those who sailed, merely a descendant of those believers who arrived here, he could sense the significant cost the Church of Truth paid for this journey from reading records of this event.

Seventeen ships in total, all the accumulated resources of the Church of Truth over centuries were almost torn to shreds by the terrible storms in the East Sea and attacks by sea monsters. In the end, only three pitiful ships staggered to the western coast of the Ancient Spirit Realm, and less than a thousand of the tens of thousands of believers who managed to survive.

Yet, they had escaped the pursuit of the [Church of the Goddess].

Upon reaching the Ancient Spirit Realm, the followers of the Church of Truth regrouped, trying to survive in this equally prosperous land, attempting to restore the worship of the [God of Truth].

However, the evangelism process was not smooth.

While there wasn’t a similar religion in the Ancient Spirit Realm, the locals worshipped something akin to faith or some obscure mountain gods and strange entities, but more directly pointed towards the seemingly ethereal yet indeed protective sanctuary of this land—the [Lingyin Fairy Island].

Lingyin Fairy Island was the largest and most absolutely dominant religion in the Ancient Spirit Realm; as long as it existed, the Church of Truth would never have a chance to rise.

The problem was that, unlike the [Church of the Goddess] of the Holy Empire, which had formed actual control over the area and rarely interfered in mundane matters, the penetration of Lingyin Fairy Island into ideology and culture surpassed the latter significantly. For a dwindling sect like the Church of Truth to oppose it was like trying to break a stone with an egg.

It was at this time, as the Pope was vexed by this situation, that the [God of Truth] offered guidance once more.

That guidance provided a real way to shake and even overthrow the absolute dominance of Lingyin Fairy Island in faith, but implementing it was still fraught with challenges.

Thus, after receiving divine guidance, the Church of Truth went underground, striving to develop and expand their influence amidst heavy resistance while waiting for the arrival of the promised opportunity.

And this wait lasted a full three hundred years.

The leaders and members of the Church of Truth had changed generations, but those who believed in the [God of Truth] maintained their original decree, and finally, as the opportunity had come, they enacted their plan.

Isaac was one of them; he followed the Pope’s orders to participate in the Four Saints Selection Tournament in the Dongyuanzhi Kingdom, tasked with creating chaos during the event to undermine the prestige of the four nations of the Ancient Spirit Realm and Lingyin Fairy Island, laying the groundwork for subsequent actions.

Even if it required some underhanded methods, they were necessary; everything was to seize more faith from Lingyin Fairy Island to offer to the great God of Truth.

Uh… But how unlucky! He just happened to run into a formidable character right from the start.

   

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