Chapter 85: Jier's Change of Image

"Little Crow, no, it's Knight Jier. Ahem, Knight Jier, an order from Lord Clark has been sent back."

A Hunter carrying a bow without a bowstring walked over, holding a vibrant little snake that had not yet turned into a wooden carving.

Jier recognized that it was this wooden snake that had delivered his 'cooperation request' Scroll earlier.

"Let's see what this Priest of the Hunting God Church has to say." Jier reached his hand out in front of the little snake, and the creature obediently spat out a thumb-sized Scroll.

Unfolding the thumb-sized Scroll, Jier quickly scanned the content on it.

His expression was somewhat surprised, which made the three Church Hunters who hadn't seen the content of the Scroll extremely nervous. Because they knew that the content of the Priest's reply would determine their life, death, and fate.

If the Priest chose not to cooperate and instead resisted, then the three of them would undoubtedly die. After all, they had come with the mission of defeating and killing Jier.

And if the Priest chose not to cooperate but also ignored Jier's affairs, then the three of them would likely survive, but the specifics would depend on Knight Jier's mood. However, in that case, the three Church Hunters would inevitably lose the chance to participate in this major event of hunting the Alien Evil God.

This was even harder to endure than killing the three of them.

Everyone else was participating in the hunt for the god, but only the three of them were incompetent and had been captured before the battle. How could they continue to mingle in the Church Hunter circle in the future? People all care about their reputation; the three of them were each highly skilled and respected hunters in their own villages. If they were talked about like this, they probably wouldn't even be able to return to their hometowns, and would have to live in seclusion, spending their whole lives alone in remote mountains and forests.

Now, they could only hope that Lord Clark would choose to cooperate; only then could they survive and potentially participate in the activities of hunting the Alien Evil God in the coming days. Even if they weren't the main force, just being able to participate in the event on-site and launch one attack against the Evil God would make them extremely satisfied.

"Ha, look at how nervous you three are. Your leader, that Priest of the Hunting God Church, is named Clark-Wox, right? He chose to cooperate with me! And not only that, he intends to bring people over himself to attack with me from the direction of the southeast forest of Momona Village."

Jier said with a smile.

These words made the three Hunters heave a collective sigh of relief; they wiped the sweat from their foreheads, and their previously tense shoulders relaxed.

"However, before the other party comes over and formally reaches a cooperation with me, your weapons and equipment cannot be returned to you yet. I hope you understand." Jier said with a smile, appearing as if he too had let out a sigh of relief that the Hunting God Church had chosen to cooperate.

Jier couldn't help but sigh in relief; the Hunting God Church possessed the strength to hunt a god, which in no way looked like something he could confront head-on. Therefore, Jier, not wanting to run away in disgrace, had to take the risk to talk to the Church.

Fortunately, the other party had the willingness to cooperate.

Not only that, Jier had to make some preparations in advance.

He had to make himself look as if, just as he claimed, the Divine Dependency of the Great Bird God had been taken away by the other party beforehand, rather than being defeated by him, allowing him to obtain that portion of the Great Bird God's power.

Jier now understood that that power was not like the kind ordinary Church Priests had, where they made prior agreements with gods and churches to refine the faith of the masses into Divine Power and borrow the god's Divine Power; the Priests and the gods they worshipped were in a superior-subordinate employment relationship.

Instead, after defeating the Divine Dependency of the Great Bird God, what he obtained was the essence of the Great Bird God's power, which had been preserved until today.

In other words, he now possessed a part of the Great Bird God's essence; he was a part of the Great Bird God, and the Great Bird God was also a part of him. Unlike general Priests who needed to act according to the restrictions and requirements set by the gods and use Divine Power, Jier's use of the Great Bird God's Shadow Bird power—that is, Shadow Divine Power—was only limited by the quantity of Divine Power, with almost no other restrictions.

When he used the Shadow Bird's power, there was no need for Prayer; the Shadow Divine Power changed and was used according to his will.

This was a terrifying thing when he thought about it carefully.

Therefore, this point must be carefully hidden in front of the Priest of the Hunting God Church.

Fortunately, Jier's body was a mix of everything at this time, with various powers and the Divine Power of gods remaining; the Sun God Priest's Divine Power and abilities, which he usually looked down upon, could now become the perfect protection to cover his identity.

"Exactly, before that Priest Clark comes, I must prepare well so that the other party understands that I am not a subordinate of that ancient god. I have a god above me! And it is none other than the great Sun God!"

Jier changed his expression, pretending to be pious, and hurried to find the Tusi Brothers; all the various things the Sun God Church had compensated him with as the Sun Child were kept with the Tusi Brothers, who were always walking in the middle of the team.

He took off the 【Night Ambition】 he had been wearing over his Plate Armor and instead put on that gorgeous white-gold Knight Tabard of a Divine Knight over his armor.

Afterward, he adjusted the equipment at his waist, putting the 【Heart Fire】 Magic Dagger back into the small Backpack on his back, and instead hung the Blessed Short Staff named 【Light of Pioneering】 and the small Baishi Sun God Statue kept in a small Leather Bag on the right side of his belt as sidearms.

The blue axe 【Water-Crossing Skull】 was also put back and hung on the hook behind his armor, properly hidden under the wide Divine Knight tabard.

He then took out the Hunting Sword, and after drawing the blade, let the sword body emit a bright Divine Power glow even in broad daylight.

With this change of equipment, he looked exactly like a very qualified Divine Knight of the Sun God Church.

The real deal! If you asked him if he was a Knight, Jier was of course a Knight; although his Life Energy had not undergone a qualitative change, he had the genuine Sun God Church Priest's Divine Power in his body, the kind at the level of a novice Priestess, as genuine as it could get.

With Divine Power, being a Knight, and a set of bright, white-light-emitting weapons and equipment. He then had the two young Sun God Church Priests accompanying the team stay close to his side; now, every time the two Priests opened their mouths, they said 【Sun Child】, which made it impossible for him to have any connection with an ancient, primitive, bird-shaped god that used Shadow Divine Power, no matter how you looked at it.

If anyone told Jier that he could have any connection with the Great Bird God, Jier would sue them for slander!

This change in Jier's image surprised the other Priests accompanying the team, especially the Priest of the Agricultural God Church, who found it emotionally difficult to accept, constantly muttering apologies to the great Agricultural God.

Seeing this, Jier comforted the two Priests: "Don't be nervous. I haven't directly defected to the Sun God Church; it's just that the Priest of the Hunting God Church will be bringing people over to discuss cooperation and fighting the enemy later. With only my identity as a young Knight, I have no background or utility, so I must temporarily rely on the Sun God Church. Once this matter is over, I will change back to my previous appearance."

The two Agricultural God Priests looked helpless: "It would be best if it were as you say, but no matter how you look at it, your current situation looks like the result of the Sun Child method succeeding. How are we supposed to explain this to our God? We invited you to Sasi County to assist, but ended up losing you, a warrior of the Agricultural God."

"Hey, don't worry, really, don't worry."

But no matter how much Jier repeatedly persuaded them, it was of no use; the two Agricultural God Priests remained dejected.

Of course, the happiest ones were the two Sun God Priests accompanying the team. They secretly discussed that it turned out the forbidden method of the Sun Child was really this effective; they had previously thought it hadn't worked on Knight Jier, but it turned out it wasn't that it didn't work, but that it needed a few days to settle.

Jier's subordinates had no opinion on Jier's changes; after all, whether Jier personally leaned towards the Agricultural God Church or the Sun God Church, that was Jier's personal matter of Faith. If anything, Jier's current image made him even more awe-inspiring in the eyes of the Warriors.

If Jier had previously gained the awe of his subordinates through his personal strength, then the image he displayed now would make the Warriors respect him even more in terms of social status. After all, the Warriors were mostly self-farming civilians with average status, and they had to be careful when meeting any Priest lord, for fear of offending any Church Priest from their hometown.

And now, the two Sun God Church Priests following behind Jier were actually facing Jier respectfully, which made them respect Jier even more.

This kind of social thing was an important, subtle, and inconspicuous change.

The Warriors might not have realized this, but they were indeed more in awe of Jier because of this social discipline based on social status.

Just like this, Jier changed his image and led his subordinates to move toward Momona Village for Scout and reconnaissance. Because Jier had put away the 【Water-Crossing Skull】 Two-handed Axe, the people in the front row cutting down trees became several Warriors.

The Warriors cooperated with each other; one person pulled the Rope from far away toward the front, while the others, enduring the hot weather, took turns using felling axes to cut down the large trees on the road.

When the tree trunk was felled, the Warriors pulling the Rope in the front row would exert force suddenly and keep running forward, guiding the large tree to fall into the empty area ahead.

This method could only be used to cut down some trees that were not very large; for even larger trees, the pulling of one or two people could not safely guide them when they fell, so another more complex safety method had to be used.

By the afternoon, Jier and his group had dealt with several more waves of parasitic Monsters coming their way; this time, there were not only Monsters with deer bodies and human legs, but also parasitic Monsters with human bodies and deer legs that Jier had not seen before.

The latter were more difficult to deal with than the former, because the front hooves of the former Forest Deer were not convenient for holding things, so they could only use thick and clumsy Wooden Sticks during battle; once familiar with them, they were not difficult to handle.

The latter, however, could smoothly use Human weapons, and their bodies were also wearing the protective Armor worn by the parasitized people before they died, so they were naturally more troublesome.

But these parasitic Monsters, which were not large in number, could not block Jier's team for long. The Warriors grouped up and spread out, each luring away one of these half-human, half-deer Monsters, and relying on their mutual cooperation and the well-maintained Plate Armor on their bodies, they quickly killed these parasitic Monsters using Human weapons one by one.

This was also because the Plate Armor on the Warriors' bodies had no effective protection against heavy, thick, wooden sticks, but when facing Human weapons—especially blunt weapons and armor-piercing weapons not specifically designed to deal with armor—they possessed excellent protective power.

Long Swords and Curved Sabers, including some lighter Single-handed Axes, had difficulty causing effective damage when facing the Warriors' Shields and Plate Armor.

On the other hand, over at Bell's side, the ordinary Town Guard and Armed Civilian did not have good protective equipment, so they naturally found it difficult to resist the half-human, half-deer parasitic Monsters. They were actually not very good at dealing with the half-deer, half-human parasitic Monsters either.

But fortunately, the most troublesome parasitic wild boar herd had been dealt with by the Church Hunters of the Hunting God Church.

This meant that Jier and Bell did not need to face this problem.

—

"Who is there?"

After the group had struggled forward through the mountain forest for another while in the afternoon, Jier, who was walking in the ranks, twitched his ears and heard the 'warning' issued in advance by Mao Mao from a tree on the right.

Relying on his keen hearing, Jier shouted in advance toward the depths of the trees on the right. That was just an ordinary Shulin, with no figures or anything else that seemed strange.

The three Church Hunters following in the group realized at the first moment that Priest Clark had arrived.

"Knight Jier, please do not attack! That must be the Priest!" the three shouted in unison.

Jier heard them, but on the principle that courtesy demands reciprocity, since the other party used methods to approach stealthily, he had to use some methods of his own as well.

Otherwise, he would be suppressed by the other party in the momentum of their cooperation.

The Luminous Longsword held in Jier's hand merely had its tip turned slightly, and in the next moment, it emitted a strong but short Divine Power Flash!!

Swish————

The white light flashed without distinguishing between friend and foe, but the Warriors on his side only saw white before their eyes and were fine after rubbing them. The image of the other party, which was difficult to identify and thus hidden in the surrounding environment, had its Divine Art broken immediately after being illuminated by the Blinding Divine Power Flash.

It turned out that the young Priest of the Hunting God Church, while moving along the road, heard the roar of trees being felled ahead and immediately realized that he had led people close to Jier's group, who were approaching Momona Village.

Priest Clark waved his hand to stop his group, then performed a Prayer and cast a Divine Art that could utilize the complex surrounding environment to conceal the figures of several people on his side.

This Divine Art could not make them directly invisible, but it could mask their Human outlines, individual colors, and conspicuous appearances in places with mottled and complex environments. Added to the dull Cloak each Hunter wore, it was extremely difficult for the naked eye to see and identify them. Sometimes, they could walk right up to their prey like this, and even some alert wildcats might not necessarily discover the Hunters' approach.

However, not being able to see them was one thing, but the noses and ears of the Mao Mao discovered this group of outsiders sneaking closer.

The Divine Power Flash shone over them, and the few people hiding and approaching immediately saw a vast whiteness before their eyes, even including Priest Clark himself. Not only was the Divine Art on their bodies broken, clearly revealing their respective images, but these few people were also temporarily blinded.

"Stop! Please stop! Knight Jier, we are people from the Hunting God Church!"

The Priest immediately shouted out.

Because in the next moment, someone approached rapidly and placed a tough, sharp Long Sword against his neck!

Jier chuckled, his voice coming from one meter directly in front of Priest Clark: "Haha, so it is the Priest and Hunters of the Hunting God Church! I thought it was some parasitic Monster with new abilities!"

"Sorry, haha, truly sorry. Everyone wait a moment, the blinding Divine Power white light before your eyes will disappear very soon."

But although he said that, in reality, it would take half a minute before the Hunters could see things again.

Because Priest Clark had the Divine Power of the Hunting God in his body to resist, he recovered much faster. At this very moment, he was observing this young Knight Jier, whom he was meeting for the first time, at close range.

To tell the truth, the other party was not at all like the image described in the various reports he had received!

No one had told him that this young Knight Jier was actually a Divine Knight of the Sun God Church!

What is going on?

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