Chapter 159: The Church Splits

The cloaked man was also stunned for a moment, and instinctively replied: "I've practiced it, I've practiced it, I've even practiced the Church version and the Adventurer version."

Nai Ge Li Si was speechless—this was the posture of being ready to surrender at any moment.

Lightning poked his head over: "Recite the Church version once, I don't believe your words can fool those stubborn minds of the Church."

The cloaked man was stunned, seeing that Nai Ge Li Si didn't stop Lightning's action, he had no choice but to stand up, and with another thud, knelt down again and shouted: "May the Holy Light bless me, I'll buy Indulgences, three of them!" while raising his hand high, a magic crystal card resting on his palm.

Nai Ge Li Si curiously picked it up and looked: "This is an anonymous magic crystal card from the Mages Guild, ten thousand magic crystals each."

"Yes yes yes, the most reputable Mages Guild, as reputable as the Goblin Merchant Guild, this is a tribute to you, my lord." The cloaked man said respectfully.

"That's not right either, the Church's Indulgences are two thousand magic crystals each, what you have is enough to buy five tickets." Nai Ge Li Si said.

The cloaked man couldn't help but complain: "What you said applies within Church territory, this kind of borderland has long since raised the price, four thousand each, ten thousand for three."

"Tsk tsk tsk, four thousand magic crystals, and you can redeem the sins of a heretic like you? How has the Church of Light rotted to such a state?" Nai Ge Li Si clicked his tongue in wonder.

"You can't put it that way either, if it's still not enough, I can also perform a skit about a heretic abandoning his faith and turning to the Light, like cursing: Hermeltos is— bzzt —."

Nai Ge Li Si was impressed, let alone that, the Church of Light really does fall for this: a heretic turns to the Light, abandons his faith and curses the evil god, offers his family fortune to redeem his sins.

With a title, it could be the kind that gets sung in epics.

"If the Church of Light is this easy to fool, then which kind of person are you most afraid of running into?" Nai Ge Li Si asked curiously.

"Of course it's young noble masters and young ladies, for example there was a crazy female mage just now, I tried to persuade her nicely for a long time, but she still said she wanted to destroy me, I closed the stone gate, but she teleported in by herself, scared me to death, without a coordinate beacon she could still teleport in accurately, this kind of method is too terrifying, what place in the world could possibly stop her?"

"And she crashed headlong into the worm nest, shaking the mother worm and worms inside to death, I thought I was done for, but she was scared screaming by the worm corpses, and then ran off on her own."

Nai Ge Li Si imagined the scene, and suddenly understood why that female mage would scream and run off without even taking her clothes. Anyone afraid of bugs who crashed into a pile of worms, whether alive or dead, would surely be scared off.

"Next would be undead, although undead don't care about their lives, they care about souls." The cloaked man added.

A smile spread across Nai Ge Li Si's face, what a coincidence, most of his own group were undead, just as he was about to say something, Seeing Ange suddenly stretched out a hand and pointed at the ground not far away, and let out a howl.

The little zombie pounced over, the hoe in his hands flying, chipping the ground with a clanging sound.

Seeing this, the cloaked man sprang up in a flash. In no time, a plump worm was dug out, because of its size, it was stuck in a crack in the stone.

Seeing the worm, Nai Ge Li Si suddenly realized: "You've been chatting with us for so long, turns out you were stalling for time? What is this? Your soul-transferring phylactery? How did it get stuck?"

The cloaked man, who had been cooperating calmly all along, now let out a desperate roar: "Damn Life Acceleration! My worm was accelerated and grew too fast, it got stuck in the crack!"

Roaring, the cloaked man charged over desperately, but had only taken two steps when a Shadow Blade slashed out from the darkness and struck his head.

Luo Ge perfectly demonstrated what a true Dark Warrior is—everyone will overlook him, but when he's needed, he'll definitely be there.

Nai Ge Li Si sighed: "I was actually moved by what you said, I was going to spare your life and let you help us raise worms, you just needed to dedicate your soul, I didn't expect you to actually deceive us."

From the headless body, the cloaked man emitted an urgent thought: "Dedicate, dedicate, I'm willing to dedicate my soul, please spare my life."

As soon as the words were spoken, Seeing Ange's great scythe came down and hooked his soul out.

With practiced ease, Seeing Ange tilted his head and said: "They're going to Gnaw the World Tree."

Whether it was the two from John Village, or the one encountered when they first came in, Seeing Ange had not found any useful information in their souls, until this cloaked man, finally some key information was obtained.

"You mean, these cloaked men are preparing to move around and create chaos everywhere, and the ultimate goal is the World Tree?" Nai Ge Li Si asked.

"Yes." Seeing Ange nodded.

"In other words, this big giveaway from the elves, the massive loss of diseased branches, let these worm tamers discover that gnawing the World Tree can greatly extend the worms' lifespan and improve their bite, they want to breed new worms with super long lifespans that can gnaw through anything?"

Seeing Ange nodded: "They're infiltrating, into human territory, preparing to enter the Elven Forest."

Nai Ge Li Si shook his head helplessly and said: "Elves, oh elves, you're in big trouble now."

These worms aren't very strong individually, if it were Seeing Ange and the little zombie standing there, with their tough bark-like bones, the worms couldn't gnaw through them, but as long as one enters the elves' forest, the elves will have a lot of trouble.

"Let Lisa notify the elves, let Anthony notify the humans, this kind of thing requires everyone to be on high alert, otherwise if one place breaks out, it doesn't matter how well other places are controlled." Nai Ge Li Si said.

Nai Ge Li Si actually really didn't want this news to spread, because the first to discover the worms was Fallen Longhu, if the news spreads, it will attract the attention of the entire plane to Fallen Longhu, then all of Seeing Ange's actions there will be known to others.

No matter who it is, upon learning that Seeing Ange has cultivated a kind of magic rice that can be grown in saltwater, the first thought would be to claim it for themselves, especially those coastal countries or countries with lots of saline-alkali land, this is a divine artifact that can rewrite the power balance of all forces on the entire continent, a hundred times more useful than any weapon.

He originally wanted to handle it alone, but now in this situation, there's no time to handle it alone, he can't just hide this news because of a little concern, otherwise humans and elves could suffer heavy casualties.

Using soul connection to notify Lisa and Anthony, letting them notify the elves and humans, then Seeing Ange didn't care anymore, happily collecting the worm corpses, then burning them to ashes.

Behind the stone gate was a very large underground space, roughly tens of thousands of square meters, divided into many sealed small rooms, each small room raising different types of worms, very much like a worm breeding and cultivation base.

In the largest space, there was a statue, the base of the statue had been smashed, surrounded by worm corpses, this should be the worm nest that was smashed by the female mage.

After searching around, apart from worm corpses, there wasn't even a single ghost, the only one who could talk was that cloaked man who had been killed.

Nai Ge Li Si walked around, and couldn't help but ask: "That's not right, is this all there is? Where's Hermeltos?"

They came to kill Hermeltos, Seeing Ange even brought the Titan Farmer, all stuffed into the Rest Palace, even the Shoushen Sect's Te Xi was fully charged, ready to be dragged out and join the battle at any time, and this is it?

At this moment, Seeing Ange, the little angel, and the little zombie were all gathered in front of that statue, looking up at it, hearing Nai Ge Li Si's words, Seeing Ange pointed.

"Hermeltos is inside the statue?" Nai Ge Li Si looked up at the statue in confusion.

The moment its eyes met the statue's eyes, its entire soul seemed to be frozen, unable to form any thought.

An overwhelmingly powerful consciousness was being cast upon its soul through the statue's eyes, the mighty divine power like the winter wind, freezing the soul solid.

The gaze of a god really can stare a weak life to death.

Nai Ge Li Si certainly wasn't weak, so it still had the ability to say to Seeing Ange: "Smash it!"

"Oh." Seeing Ange responded, the little angel beside him excitedly spread its wings at once, but was grabbed by Seeing Ange, making it angrily pout its little mouth.

From the moment they entered the underground, the little angel hadn't taken any action, it had long been unable to hold back, even the little zombie got the job of digging out worm corpses, it got nothing.

Seeing Ange shook his head, then raised the Rock hand on his right, the phantom of Jian Gu Luo Ke appeared before Seeing Ange, reached out and clasped hands with him, the two figures merged into one—Ultimate Transformation.

"No need, right? You're using this move just to smash a statue? Too wasteful." Nai Ge Li Si muttered.

But Seeing Ange ignored it, transformed into Jian Gu, he arched his body and let out a piercing shriek toward the statue, an overwhelmingly powerful soul impact slamming into the statue.

The consciousness on the statue emitted a wave of terror, a faint, barely audible scream.

Boom! Boom boom boom! Boom boom! From the top of the head to the soles of the feet, the statue was like having magic eggs planted in it, exploding all the way down, turning to powder, scattering all over the ground with a clatter.

Negris still maintained his muttering expression, mouth slightly open: "Damn it, you soul-shook a god?"

Not only did he soul impact a god, but the other party seemed to be injured too, oh god, is this a divine war?

The statue crumbled to dust, and the will projected upon it vanished without a trace. Seeing Ange could not confirm whether that will had been injured, or how badly, so he could only set it aside.

In some unknown darkness, a hoarse voice let out a pained shriek: "Ancient nest, terrible, stay away!"

Shhh-shhh-shhh. The words of the hoarse voice, carried by a series of rustling vibrations, spread far into the distance.

After clearing all the bug corpses and burning them, Seeing Ange obtained roughly five tons of bug ash—more than ten times the previous haul. That earlier batch, about a cubic measure of bug ash, had weighed less than two hundred jin.

"Still, the enemy's nest yields a richer harvest. With this much, it'll last you a long while, won't it? Want to sell a bit to the elves?" Lord Nai Ge asked.

This kind of bug ash might not be the 'yin' the cloaked people spoke of, but mixed into soil, it has a certain healing effect on the ash-spots on the World Tree. The elves would surely be very willing to buy this kind of fertilizer.

Seeing Ange shook his head firmly. He hadn't even figured out all the uses of this bug ash yet—there was no way he'd sell it to the elves.

"Fine, fine, save it for later and sell when you have more." Lord Nai Ge said helplessly.

If it could, it still wanted to save the World Tree. Even though that fellow said it still had over nine thousand years of lifespan left, living those nine thousand years in good health and living them riddled with illness were entirely different concepts.

Leaving the bug nest, along the way Seeing Ange pinched the bug ash, sprinkling a bit on everything he saw—on moss, a sprinkle; on mushrooms, a sprinkle; on puddles, a sprinkle—completely bringing back the enthusiasm he'd had when he first got his hands on the Life Essence.

But he only sprinkled, without using his halo to accelerate it. In a short time, no change could possibly take place—it was a complete waste.

And while he was carelessly sprinkling bug ash, several thousand miles away, Anthony held a thick glass cloche over a few beetles, gathered all his subordinates, and solemnly declared:

"The Hermel Plague has reappeared. The Eastern Diocese is immediately entering wartime control. Everyone must comply with the requirements of wartime control and obey the orders of the Archbishopric. Anyone who disobeys will be arrested on the spot!"

Upon hearing the words "Hermel Plague," everyone was startled and instinctively looked toward the glass cloche in Anthony's hand.

The Hermel Plague is a famously terrible disaster—it is tied to famine. Every time the Hermel Plague erupts, the following year brings a massive famine, with the number of people starved and worked to death counted in the millions.

This is a disaster that absolutely cannot be taken lightly.

But the moment the phrase 'wartime control' popped out of Anthony's mouth, everyone's expressions subtly shifted of their own accord. Some of them couldn't tell whether a real plague had broken out, or whether Anthony was using the plague as a pretext to tighten control.

During this period, the Church of Light had nearly entered a state of de facto schism. Ever since Anthony claimed to have been assassinated but received divine favor, growing more than a dozen years younger and returning to the world, the Church's split had begun.

The current Eastern Diocese is nearly independent of the Holy See, and has already refused to obey any orders transmitted from the Holy See's side.

Originally, such a thing was unthinkable. A mere Cardinal Archbishop achieving the schism of the Church was far too difficult—fundamentally, no one should have followed him.

Yet the truth was completely different from what everyone imagined. Many of the Eastern Diocese's families, factions, alliances, and so on, for the most part, followed Anthony's orders without hesitation.

Even if at first some opposed him, once Anthony personally visited and told them: "Your grandfather, great-grandfather, ancestors, and so on, should all have left wills, right? Bring out their wills—the time has come."

Who could have imagined that a fellow named Piero had been laying out his plans since a thousand years ago?

During those years of his continual reincarnation, in every generation he left behind some fiercely loyal subordinates. Some of these subordinates had already declined, but many had grown into great families with deep roots and flourishing branches. Their descendants remembered at all times: when someone comes bearing the token and speaking the code phrase to tell them the time has come, then obey.

Of course, there were also some who did not obey, or were not part of the forces Anthony had left behind. At such times, some pretext was needed to carry out a purge—such as 'disobeying wartime control.'

Not long after, a world-shaking piece of news spread across the entire continent: the Eastern Diocese of the Church of Light declared independence, inherited the Light's creed, and renamed itself the Holy Church.