Chapter 214: God? (13)

Compared to other buildings in the city, Weimar City's government office is not tall; it's rather inconspicuous, looking like a neat courtyard building on the street side.

Without a local guide, one might not even be able to find the place.

Militia Captain Dennis reported the situation to the guard at the gate.

Within a quarter hour, Luosen met the Guardian Mage of Anweimaer Province.

After bringing Luosen to the site, Dennis and the other militiamen did not linger at all; they waved at Luosen and left immediately.

Throughout the process they asked for no reward, took no advantage of Luosen, and even paid for their own hovercraft fare.

Very friendly and very upright.

This left a deep impression on Luosen.

"The grassroots people of Nawate are simple and loyal to their duties, not engaging in any crooked ways—no wonder they can hold out against demons for so long."

Using Faith Law to resist demons certainly requires upper-level wisdom and foresight, but the greatest source of strength is the ordinary populace of a nation.

If the citizens are petty and self-serving, the whole nation is like a foul cesspool, incapable of condensing a pure and holy guardian faith.

Even if the upper echelons are wise as gods, without faith power to support their ascent to legend, they can only sigh helplessly when facing gods and demons.

Looking at the plain government office before us and the swiftly visible Guardian Mage, we can see that Nawate's republic is a top-tier republic united top to bottom.

Mediana said Weimar City has three Guardian Mages.

In a spacious, bright but simply decorated room, Luosen saw all three at once.

The three Guardian Mages who possess Ten Rings power share a large office; a glance upward lets them see each other.

This fully carries out the idea of "United Resistance Against Demons."

As the guards brought Luosen into the room, he took the opportunity to observe the three.

The three Guardian Mages consist of two men and one woman.

Judging by appearance, one man is about thirty-five or thirty-six, the other is just past forty; both wear ordinary gray cloth robes.

One's magical power is at the Ten Rings initial stage, the other's at the Ten Rings middle stage.

One can sense that both have a high total of magical power, surrounded by a thick layer of Faith Power, like a barrier guarding their souls.

One can also sense that these two mages are actually under a hundred years old.

Their aged appearance likely results from their late promotion to higher rings.

The last is a female mage.

She looks the youngest, only in her early thirties, but her demeanor is the most weathered, especially her crystal-blue eyes; without living two hundred years, such an aura of having seen worldly splendor could not settle.

Her magical power is stronger: not only does its intensity reach the Ten Rings ultimate, but its total amount even exceeds Luosen's before his advancement by half again, and the Faith Power surrounding her is astonishingly strong—at least double that of the two male mages.

In Luosen's legendary perspective, he sees only a faith light sphere as bright as the sun, with glowing threads of power constantly flowing toward it from all directions.

"This female mage must be the Chief Guardian Mage of Anweimaer Province."

In just an instant, Luosen grasped these details and silently summed them up.

"With magical power reaching Ten Rings, she is almost the strongest soul below legendary, backed by the guardian faith from her position—hard to find fault."

Soon, Luosen was led to the male mage who is about thirty-five or thirty-six, and he was received by him.

But Luosen's just-made judgment ran into trouble.

When he approached to about three meters in front of this male mage, he faintly sensed a trace of elusive Void Power hidden on the other's body.

Extremely concealed; at a slightly greater distance it disappears, becoming detectable only at around three meters, and still flickering indistinctly.

Luosen is a legendary mage, naturally more sensitive to Void Power than a Ten Rings mage, and with Laifu's new analytical ability assisting him, his sensitivity surpasses that of an ordinary legendary mage.

Yet he could only barely perceive it, showing how deeply hidden it is.

If it were a Ten Rings mage, even standing face‑to‑face they would not notice it.

He felt a slight "click" in his heart.

"Have the Guardian Mages been infiltrated too? This demon is quite formidable!"

But he kept his composure, carefully filled out the form handed to him, and, as requested, dropped a drop of blood onto the detection device.

Meanwhile he covertly observed the opposite Guardian Mage.

Gray hair, gray robe, a kind round face, features well‑balanced, eyes gentle yet firm, with a hint of weathering.

Judging by appearance alone, nothing seems abnormal.

The other took the blood‑filled detection device and, as routine, poured magical power into it for inspection.

While he did this, Luosen's perception became clearer.

Roughly Ten Rings initial stage magical power, and indeed a trace of Void Power is hidden within it, its characteristics exactly matching those recorded on the nameless farmer, with strength at legendary six or above.

This shows that the Guardian Mage and the nameless farmer have been infiltrated by the same Void Creature.

The legendary‑six level of magical power is astonishing, but not unsolvable.

Because Luosen, after focusing with his staff, also achieved legendary‑five level magical power.

The judgment of legendary rank is based on Ten Rings ultimate magical power as the standard.

Legendary six is 1.6 times Ten Rings, while legendary five is 1.5 times.

In absolute strength comparison, legendary six exceeds legendary five by less than seven percent—not large—and the gap can be leveled by sheer magical scale.

Of course, greater magical power means higher sensitivity and finer control, so Luosen dares not be the slightest bit careless.

With a strong enemy, intelligence naturally comes first.

Luosen immediately allocated more computing power to Laifu's detection ability.

And indeed there was a new discovery.

Within the Void Power, there is actually an even more hidden trace of faith aura.

Nawate's guardian faith power is magnificent and righteous, like a blazing sun, while this trace of faith is dark and secretive, like a poisonous snake hidden in the grass.

One can also sense that the guardian faith power is granted by the populace of the Nawate Republic, an external force.

But this thread of faith power grew from within the guardian mage's own heart; it is an inner power.

In other words, the guardian mage's personal faith runs counter to Nawat's guardian belief.

Luosen also secretly wondered: "Legendary power and faith power appearing together—could this void entity be secretly preaching in the mortal realm?"

If it is indeed preaching, that shows the void creature is not a demon but a god.

Because demons' methods are simple and brutal, they wouldn't bother with faith.

But if it is a god, whether evil or benevolent, its threat to the Nawat Republic could be even greater than that of a demon.

Because the existence of demons indirectly helps Nawat coalesce its guardian faith.

But a god would undermine the Nawat Republic's organizational structure from the ground up, thereby weakening or even cutting off the source of power for the Grand Guardian Mage!

If this god is sufficiently powerful, it could even gradually transform the Nawat Republic into a Nawat divine state.

As Luosen pondered, the guardian mage's voice, tinged with a slight smile, came through.

"All right, no problem."

"Welcome, Mage Rolin, to travel in our Nawat."

With the voice, a silver badge was handed to Luosen.

"This is the Republic's passage insignia; with it you can move freely within the Republic." Luosen immediately took the badge and discovered it was actually a very powerful magical device, also possessing precise positioning.

In other words, wearing it means you are constantly under the surveillance of Nawat officials.

The guardian mage's voice came again: "Mage Rolin, this insignia is important; I hope you keep it with you at all times, otherwise it may bring you extra trouble."

Luosen immediately nodded: "I will."

Following that, they handed over a manual: "You might also need this. Of course, it requires purchase; the price is 200 walin."

Title: *Nawat Travel Manual*.

Luosen had brought a total of 100 silver xela on this trip; the manual was indeed useful, so he took out ten silver coins and handed them over: "Will this do?"

"Of course."

"Then, good luck."

Luosen then left the office with the insignia and the manual.

As he reached the door, he heard the laughter of three guardian mages behind him, chatting about trivial everyday matters.

Everything appeared completely normal, with no sign that the guardian mage had been infiltrated by void power.

Because the other two guardian mages stayed more than three meters away from Luosen, he could not determine their condition.

Feeling this was important, Luosen turned back into the office and headed straight for another male mage in his early forties.

The guardian mage immediately noticed, looking puzzled: "Is something the matter?"

As they spoke, Luosen had already come within three meters, and discovered that this fortysomething guardian mage also bore a trace of void power.

Luosen felt a secret shock, kept a smile on his face, turned his steps toward the strongest female mage, and casually made up an excuse.

"Um, I heard that Nawat has a powerful Grand Guardian Mage named Naya—are you that person?"

While speaking, he had already approached to within two meters of the female mage.

The result showed that this strongest guardian mage had no void power on her.

This discovery let Luosen silently breathe a sigh of relief: "Good, not completely infiltrated."

The female mage, hearing the question, unsuspecting, smiled and replied: "No, I'm Mage Arlena. If you want to find Mage Naya, you must go to the capital, Nedlin."

Luosen wore an expression of sudden realization: "Oh, I see, thank you for the information—I'll head to Nedlin right away."

He turned and walked away.

Walking, he thought.

"Anweimar Province is a border province of the Nawat Republic, situated on a plateau with relatively low population density; it should be the easiest province to infiltrate."

"Even I can only sense anomalies at extremely close range, and yet continually evade the ever-updating detection devices; the fact that two out of three guardian mages have fallen shows that the situation in this province is actually quite severe."

The reason things appear normal on the surface is that the void god behind them deliberately keeps a low profile.

Perhaps this void god will eventually be expelled, but it will inevitably inflict enormous damage on Nawat.

After leaving the government building, Luosen walked down the street for a while and, by the roadside, saw a pleasant little park with many chairs for people to rest.

Luosen entered the park, found a chair, and while scanning the travel manual's contents into his database, he pondered countermeasures.

At the same time, he used the Soul-Burning Secret Method to quickly restore his mana and poured the excess into the "Crystal Torrent Staff."

He not only considered countermeasures for this incident, but also thought about how the Natural Alliance would deal with similar events.

After much contemplation, Luosen reached a conclusion.

"Obviously, relying solely on organizational systems and public cooperation can indeed greatly suppress the frontal attacks of void creatures."

"But facing the void creatures' subtle, infiltrating attacks makes the difficulty much greater."

"And when confronting this faith infiltration, the best approach is to have a god that preemptively occupies the faith."

The good news is that the Natural Alliance currently possesses a "god" and has already firmly secured the faith positions of most believers.

Therefore, if this void god were to appear in the Natural Alliance, it would actually be less frightening.

"So, after all, the best means to counter demons is still a god."

"But, the gods and demons of the void are all non-human extraordinary beings; entrusting humanity's fate to them is no different than handing the trigger of a firearm to the enemy."

"Therefore, this god cannot be a void god; it must be a 'virtual god' created by mortals themselves, similar to Laifu, that soul‑GPT."

Since the last confrontation with the silver‑eyed demon, Luosen has been pondering countermeasures, and now he has fully figured it out.

"'Achieving a virtual god is definitely feasible; on Earth we can use crystal cores to realize supercomputing power, and this world naturally can do so even more."

"'When I return to Weilan, I will immediately launch a project to build a rune computer!'"

"'My natural lifespan of a thousand years is no problem; it's enough for me to forge a virtual god of our own making.'"

"As for the troubles in Anweimar City, Luosen is ultimately an outsider, so there's no need to risk his life over them."

Of course, he wouldn't just stand by.

"Guardian Archmage Naya shared her legendary knowledge with me, which helped me immensely; I owe her a great favor, so I'll quietly tell her this—consider it repaying the debt."

As for how to deal with this invading Void God, that's the Nawate Republic's own business.

The Burning Soul Secret Technique charges very quickly, and Luosen has deliberately increased its operational efficiency.

It's been over three hours since he arrived in this world, and he has been rapidly recovering his mana.

At this moment, not only is his own mana fully restored, but the Crystal Torrent Staff also stores 30 of Luosen's legendary 5 mana.

That's enough for him to protect himself.

Thinking this, he prepared to rise and leave the park, take a large airship to Nawate's capital Nedlin, and visit Guardian Mage Naya.

But just as he was about to rise, a stranger appeared.

The man approached all the way, sat down at the other end of the park bench, less than two meters away from Luosen.

As soon as he sat down, Luosen sensed the subtle Void power on him, and his heart slightly startled: 'No wonder he's a Legendary 6 entity—he detected me so quickly.'

At the same time, the alert level of the Heart of the War God had risen to its maximum.

The stranger made no extra movements; he spoke to the air before him: 'I never expected the city to hide such a powerful mage.'

Obviously, those words were meant for Luosen.

Luosen didn't know the opponent's intentions or whether it was good or bad, but the Heart of the War God automatically activated the Eternal Fate spell, weaving fine threads of fate into a net and scattering it within a one-kilometer radius around Luosen.

Of course, all this was done by the Heart of the War God, very covertly, while Luosen himself made no move.

He also stared at the air before him.

"So, you're with those three?"

"Obviously not; I have nothing in common with those rough fellows. Of course, due to some accidental coincidence, we share a common goal."

"I like challenges, and Nawate is an excellent challenge target, isn't it?"

"Then why come to me?"

"Because I view this challenge as a very fun game, and I'm fully immersed in it."

"And you've obviously detected my presence and will ruin this fun game."

"So, I want to talk with you. Or rather, make a deal."

(End of chapter)