Chapter 191: First Encounter with the Enemy

"So, you truly believe the Good Gods are benevolent and the Evil Gods are malevolent?"

Li En was slightly surprised; he had assumed most people, like himself, possessed some understanding and vigilance regarding these churches.

At the very least, they should not believe blindly.

"Spare them; most of them never had the chance to study. Their enlightenment often comes from various heroic tales and fairy tales, and in those stories, how could the Good Gods and the Shanshen Sect possibly be portrayed negatively?"

The Snake, for his part, quite cheerfully snarked about the local abysmal state of average education.

After his moment of astonishment, Li En glanced at his temporary companions, briefly explained the equity relationships of the slave market, and did not challenge their cognition too severely.

As the Snake himself said, Li En had underestimated the weight of religion in this world. Think back to Earth's Middle Ages; who dared question the justice and sublimity of the church?

This world is polytheistic; the authority of each church is not quite that high, but the reputation of most Good Gods is indeed higher than the royal families of various nations.

Li En was not saying the Shanshen Sect was a group of hypocrites; on the contrary, they were a massive benefit to the stability, morality, and kindness of the entire world. Many Good Gods were worthy of respect, and when many Evil Gods or world crises appeared, they were the most dominant force in responding.

It was just that in Li En's impression, they were still organizations composed of humans, containing both good intentions and malice, both nobility and baseness.

A massive organizational structure inevitably brings corruption and malice; for a "public official" wielding vast authority to become evil might be a matter of a single thought.

In the eyes of the local common people, the Shanshen Sect comes with a halo; ninety-nine percent are good, and any occasional problems are mere exceptions.

"I actually discussed this with Larry quite a bit before clarifying the issues within it." Dimon himself had only recently come to a clearer understanding of the current situation.

These past days, he had obtained many ledgers and correspondence from the slave market, and his attitude toward the originally sublime ones had become increasingly rational.

Nobles like Larry were actually the most rational; living within the Shanshen Sect, he clearly knew that the believers around him were merely ordinary people, and many joined the church simply for a meal.

But most ordinary people have no chance to dispel the illusion; they often hold excessively high expectations for the Shanshen Sect.

The reality is quite ironic: the poorer and more suffering one is, the higher their expectations and trust in the Shanshen Sect, and the more easily they believe blindly.

"The Good Gods are merely powerful individuals. They can guarantee the general direction does not go wrong; not violating their own doctrines is already good enough, let alone that they often have their own selfish motives. Look, aren't some Shanshen Sects mortal enemies? If they were all correct and all sublime, how could there be conflict or even death battles?"

Words of blasphemy, spoken from the mouth of a Paladin, surprisingly carried persuasion.

Li En used this sentence to declare the end of the topic; he did not intend to convince anyone, because that was simply impossible.

He merely hoped that since they had met, they would not blindly believe in the so-called Good Gods, otherwise they might fall into a trap or be tricked into becoming cannon fodder working for free.

"Is this the reason you are a Free Oath Paladin and do not worship any Good Gods?" Dimon, at this moment, asked a question.

"I am simply unwilling to entrust my fate to the morality and lower limits of others."

Calm words were the most blasphemous words toward the deities; this man, from beginning to end, doubted the conscience and morality of the so-called gods.

But this was merely an individual; a rational cognition viewing the deities as equal existences. He could not entrust his life and future to the so-called gods who stood high above.

Eyes, some astonished and some enlightened, turned toward him. To them, these were words completely incomprehensible.

Yet upon the blade he slowly drew, that golden radiance proclaimed that he had not violated the essence of the path of goodness.

"Evil-Cleaving Slash."

The power of Light exploded upon the blade; a small gargoyle that was activating and still hanging on the rock wall was directly split in half by him.

Dragon Eyes looked toward the rock walls on both sides and above, seeing those small gargoyles trembling slightly, activating from their slumber.

"Evil-Cleaving! Blade-Breaking!"

And the more radical one was Dimon, who seemed to have been very calm all along.

That chopping war axe, carrying an explosion of Light, directly detonated a small gargoyle in a single strike.

Li En looked at Dimon, feeling some surprise and some approval.

Even with Su Er's inheritance, Dimon's progress was fast enough.

"Looks like I need to work hard; otherwise, the next Sword Technique Sublime Art might be mastered by Dimon first."

The inheritance of Su Er's Sword Technique Sublime Arts was relatively complete; compared to so-called sword talent, it perhaps required more time and hard labor. "Snap."

With a snap of his fingers, Li En completed a quick spell cast.

The thrown Magic Missiles hit the loose stones overhead; those slight force explosions were insufficient to injure people, but sufficient to shatter the connecting stones beneath the feet of those small gargoyles!

"Crack!" Two small gargoyles fell straight to the ground; one even had its head hit the ground and cracked directly.

Without being activated, they were truly just stones.

More small gargoyles were activated; these were remnants of the last beast riot. Having fallen into slumber, they had evaded the culling over these past two days.

Scarlet pupils flickered one by one in the darkness; the awakened small gargoyles called out to their kin, and floating small monsters appeared in front and behind.

"My Lords, the Knights shall hold the front; we shall hold the rear!"

The adventure party instantly sprang into action. A female knight, holding a shield in one hand and a spear in the other, stood at the rear.

The round shield she raised emitted a cabbage-like luster, seemingly actively attracting the attention of the small gargoyle swarm.

The dwarf, raising his war axe, let out a roar and chopped toward the small gargoyles attacking from the rear.

The gnome illusionist began casting spells; a hazy phantom shadow covered the two front-line warriors, providing them with more solid defensive capabilities.

Using metamagic casting techniques to simultaneously add protective illusions to two teammates, the gnome illusionist pondered for a moment, then began preparing Magic Missiles.

With the small gargoyles and the dark environment, the hit rate of some insufficiently agile spells would be pitiful.

The power of the Magic Missiles was indeed a bit pitiful, but they could still interfere. We have just entered the underground ruin area; we must conserve some mana.

The Wu Seng silently pulled out a hand crossbow.

His skill level was not yet sufficient; striking stone with bare hands was not impossible, but under the current state, the loss would be greater.

The main force on the front line remained the two warriors, but neither the spear nor the war axe was suited for dealing with stone; they could only chop slowly, sending stone chips flying.

"Need help?"

The sudden words came from another direction.

The gnome illusionist turned his head sharply, only to see amidst a ground full of monster rubble, the black-armored Paladin revealing a calm smile as if in his own home.

"Ten or so and it's already over..."

Only four or five small gargoyles had arrived behind; now the party had only killed one, yet the two Paladins had resolved everything so quickly. The illusionist saw that pig-man trying hard to pull his war axe out of the gargoyle.

To be able to insert the blade of a cleaving axe this deep into stone, what kind of brute force is this? What kind of weapon is this?

They looked like ordinary battle axes and battle swords, at most.

He was momentarily dazed and failed to respond in time, but Li En did not stop.

With a soft, low chant and simplified hand gestures completing the spell, a black-armored knight suddenly appeared atop the centaur!

He had arrived in the midst of the circling gargoyle swarm!

"Holy Sword: Evil-Slayer."

The radiant holy sword instead dimmed at this very moment, while the lightless battle sword traced a crescent arc through the air.

"Snap!"

The moment the battle boots touched the ground, what fell with them was still a sky full of flying gravel.

Each small gargoyle was sliced in two; heads and chest cores were cleanly severed. This mid-air slash had shattered at least most of the remaining gargoyles.

"Boom!"

The remaining gargoyle, struck by the thrown battle axe, exploded violently in a burst of light that blew away half its body.

When two equally "low-rank" paladins acted, it took merely a dozen seconds for this anticipated bitter battle to end completely.

"Continue."

Li En merely picked up the battle axe for Dimon, tossed it back, and walked toward the darkness ahead.

It was as if the skirmish just now had been nothing more than kicking aside a small pebble on the road.

(End of this chapter)