Chapter 335: The Purest Is Nicola

In the dwarven army's camp, inside an ordinary military tent, the core decision-making group under Seeing Ange was holding a discussion.

"This camp is built to standard — cheval de frise, pit traps, magical ground nets, anti-air ballistae, uninterrupted wizard's eyes, defense towers, all arranged in layers. No matter which direction you attack from, you'll run into three-dimensional firepower strikes. Truly worthy of elites pulled out of the Fallen Lands," Lord Nai Ge Li Si praised.

Guli Anni curled his lip, a little unimpressed, but said nothing.

If he were the one to set it up, he could do it better and tighter, but the current arrangement couldn't be called bad either — more than enough to handle the present situation, since they were only temporarily stationed here.

Even Guli Anni had to admit that such defenses would be very hard to break in a short time. If the assault dragged on, the enemy could upgrade their defenses, and taking the camp without heavy losses would be unlikely.

Apart from not building walls, the enemy had built everything a temporary camp should have. The problem was, this was only a temporary camp — what were they guarding against? Dwarves?

That didn't seem right either; dwarves came and went from their camp easily, and quite a few dwarves had already gone in to find drinks.

If they weren't guarding against dwarves, then building it this way was just habit — elites pulled back from the Fallen Lands, keeping their old style of doing things and camping habits, habitually building camps like this.

This is what core elites look like.

As frontline troops who had long faced the undead legions, the army of the Fallen Diocese was poor, but well-trained, well-supplied, and of very high overall quality.

"A well-built camp is useless — we're not planning to attack the camp anyway. Once they start marching, we'll charge over and hack them down," Dwarf King Copper Hammer said in a rough voice.

Guli Anni shook his head: "If they keep this habit, you might not get close that easily. They'll definitely keep a certain distance from friendly forces while marching, and might even split into front, middle, and rear sections. Even if one part takes losses, the overall strength won't suffer too much."

"Then what do we do? Have someone sneak in and suddenly cause trouble?" Copper Hammer asked.

Guli Anni shook his head: "Too few people sneaking in won't do anything; too many, and can you bear the cost?"

He couldn't bear it. The dwarven race hadn't taken part in large-scale warfare for many years; losing thirty or fifty people was already a serious matter. If hundreds or thousands died, everyone would have a hard time accepting it for a while.

Just as Guli Anni had guessed earlier, if it weren't for the matter involving the War God and the God of Forging, given Copper Hammer's temperament, he might really have swallowed it and pretended nothing had happened.

The dwarven race didn't have the ability to independently launch a war against humanity. This time, it could actually be seen as the beginning of his alignment with Guli Anni.

Guli Anni wasn't a lapdog of the Light, yet somehow he'd become a Weidazhu Sect, and now had even broken off independently into the Holy Church. Copper Hammer cooperating with him could be seen as an "internal picking of sides," not as betraying the dwarves' pact with the Church of Light.

Even the monarchs and kings under the Church of Light would curse Gris Weight: "Can't even keep a straight-laced dwarf in line — what's the use?"

Not only could they avenge the War God and the God of Forging, but along the way they'd give Guli Anni a hand, help him hollow out the Church of Light, and the dwarves would gain two powerful allies without taking on too much pressure themselves — like economic blockades.

All essential goods could at worst be bought from the Eastern Diocese; under Guli Anni's rule, the Eastern Diocese's economy was even more prosperous.

After much deliberation, Copper Hammer made his decision — to throw in fully with Guli Anni — and his decision received the support of all the Lei Ting warriors.

These Lei Ting warriors, who had watched the replay of the War God's chessboard, were all furious, itching to rush into human territory that very day and smash the heads of those Light lapdogs.

But a bit of token fighting was fine; taking heavy losses was another matter. The dwarves' current situation wasn't great — they were no longer the dwarven empire that could stand on equal footing with humanity.

"We can use airships to fly up high and drop magic eggs on them."

"No good. If they're prepared, aren't magic eggs just delivering weapons to them? A single wind mage can blow the magic eggs off course — what if they land on us?"

"Have my lord Aisi open a magic-suppression domain and go down with the magic eggs."

"Then when the magic eggs explode, what happens to my lord Aisi? Blow up together?"

"Have Luo Ge go take out their command post?"

"Why don't you send Nai Ai Li? When it's a suicide mission, you think of me?"

Everyone chimed in with suggestions — after all, it wasn't that they truly had no way to deal with these enemies. If they really wanted to brute-force it, with two Truth Mages, a pile of Esoteric Nightwatchmen, a pile of Purple-Bone Titans, several living and dead dragons, a Weidazhu Sect-affiliated soul warrior, and a pseudo-demigod —

Oh, and a Fallen Saint, Xia Mala's name — to the people of the Church of Light, it carried even more intimidation; no one wanted to be corrupted into the Fallen.

With these high-end forces, they could gnaw the camp down even by brute force. Everyone just didn't want to mindlessly brute-force it, which was why they'd gathered here to discuss.

In the end, Guli Anni said: "Actually, Dai Sen is the core holding this force together. Many of them have been in the Fallen Lands for a long time — grew up there since childhood — and have no sense of belonging to the main plane. Without Dai Sen, they'd collapse immediately."

"As long as I send someone to preach and promise some conditions, it's easy to pull more than half of them to my side. After all, serving the East is also serving the Light."

At this, everyone burst into laughter, the air filled with a joyful atmosphere.

"So, if we get the chance to pinpoint his location, we'll have my lord Seeing Ange carry us over, and we'll jump out and kill him on the spot," Guli Anni said.

"Isn't Dai Sen right there in the enemy camp now? I can go visit him right now; my lord Seeing Ange just needs to pretend to be my attendant," Copper Hammer said.

Guli Anni shook his head: "No, the one in the camp isn't necessarily Dai Sen. I've seen three Dai Sens in the Papal Court with different habitual micro-movements. One likes to press his lips together — he doesn't do it in front of others, but his lips have old bite marks."

"The second habitually steps with his left foot first; the third habitually wrinkles his nose. I suspect he once had chronic rhinitis — it was cured but left a habitual motion. I've only observed three differences so far; whether there's a fourth or fifth, I don't know."

Everyone was dumbfounded — could one really observe that much? Lu Se was unconvinced and asked: "Couldn't it be the same person? These micro-movements can all appear on one person."

Guli Anni laughed: "Of course it was observed. Some micro-movements can appear on the same person — like picking at feet, lecherously peeking at saints and nuns, and so on. But these three micro-movements — as long as one appears, the other two absolutely won't."

Miss Miss Lisha couldn't help sighing: "No wonder you, my lord, could become a Weidazhu Sect."

"Heh, just be more careful…" Guli Anni said modestly, but before he finished, Lord Nai Ge Li Si beside him suddenly collapsed onto the ground.

"This is… disconnected?"

After a while, Lord Nai Ge Li Si re-projected onto his body and said with a wry smile: "Didn't you say it was very hard to find Dai Sen's true body? Now it's fine — he delivered himself to our door. Seeing Ange slaughtered him."

"What? Didn't my lord go to farm?" Guli Anni said in surprise.

"Yes, Dai Sen passed by his field and even 'greeted' him with Holy Word," Lord Nai Ge Li Si said with a wry smile.

The other had clearly used Holy Word · Intimidation to frighten him, yet Seeing Ange had taken it as a greeting.

"Could it be a decoy?" Guli Anni hesitated.

Impossible — a whole group of them had discussed it and couldn't come up with anything, and my lord had such good luck as to quietly take someone out?

"Have you ever seen a decoy that has ignited divine fire? He was also carrying a divine-bone skeleton and over twenty golden skeletons. Come, let's go take a look together."

A crowd rushed to a wasteland dozens of kilometers away, only to find the place a mess, golden bones scattered everywhere. The skulls belonging to these bones — over twenty golden skulls — had been picked out and piled into a heap.

The soul fires inside these skulls were still burning, their jaws opening and closing rapidly, as if furiously cursing at something.

Because the skulls had been set aside and there were no body bones nearby to assemble with, they could only open and close their jaws futilely.

One skull propped itself up on its jaw, shuffling forward bit by bit with great difficulty.

But before it could shuffle far, the little zombie had already run over swiftly, picked it up, and tossed it back onto the skull pile.

After tumbling a few times, the skull finally landed on the back of its head, so that even its jawbone couldn't touch the ground, leaving only empty eye sockets gazing at the sky.

One pristine skeleton remained intact, but whether it was scared or for some other reason, it stood stock still, motionless.

Big Bone lugged his own arm bone, chasing the little angel: "Help me reattach it, help me reattach it."

A large pit had appeared at the edge of the farmland; Seeing Ange was tidying it up, pushing soil over to fill the pit, which was now a quarter full.

At the bottom of the pit, Dai Sen lay in utter despair, his left shoulder crushed by a small hammer—the Redemption Hammer of the Goddess of Redemption.

His legs below the thighs were smashed by the Thunder Hammer of the Dwarf King, while the Great Earth Hammer pressed heavily on his chest, pinning him and his divine fire firmly in place, unable to move.

Only the descendants of Duke Heishan can lift the Great Earth Hammer; why is this hammer in the hands of that Holy Spirit Angel?

Why is the Redemption Hammer of the Goddess of Redemption in the enemy's hands? Why is the Thunder Hammer of the Dwarf King in the enemy's hands? Why?

He had just asked this question, and the other replied: "Stolen."

After igniting his divine fire and wielding the power of the gods, Dai Sen could not withstand three hammer strikes from the other; it shouldn't be like this. He had longed to ignite his divine fire, yet why is he still so weak after igniting it? He is a god, after all.

If the Goddess of Redemption and the God of the Scales heard his question, they would surely sympathize deeply. If even these veteran gods are no match for Seeing Ange, what hope does someone who just ignited his divine fire have?

Perhaps his muttering was heard by the Great Earth Hammer, which suddenly asked: "What divine fire did you ignite?"

"You... you can speak?"

"I am a Demon Spirit, of course I can speak. How ignorant. What divine fire did you ignite?"

"You're... pressing me so hard I can't speak. I... haven't awakened any divine skills yet, and haven't... defined my divine fire."

"Oh, so you're a rookie god. Do you know what kind of creature is opposite you? Never mind, I won't say more; it's too discouraging. Do you know the God of Undeath?"

To discourage him further, the Great Earth Hammer, which had just said "I won't say more," quietly listed Seeing Ange's titles, leaving Dai Sen in utter despair.

The person he thought was a farmer turned out to be a god of the Abyss Wanderers; how could he be so unlucky? Meeting such a being just by walking?

"Is it really my lord Dai Sen? What happened to you? Were you stepped on by a horse? Why are you injured so badly? Should I call an emergency priest for you? Out here in the wilderness, emergency fees are very expensive." A voice full of schadenfreude sounded, and Anthony's head popped up at the edge of the pit.

In recent years, to gather money, the Church had developed many services; for instance, when some nobles, landlords, or wealthy merchants fell ill but did not live within the city, instead residing in country manors.

At such times, priests and clerics with healing abilities could leave the city, travel to the patient's location, and provide treatment services, with fees charged according to distance and danger level.

"Anthony!" Dai Sen ground his teeth.

Grinding his teeth was useless; Dai Sen's head was chopped off and taken by Anthony, who surely had another scheme to deceive someone.

As for Dai Sen's divine fire and the equipment on his body, they naturally all belonged to Seeing Ange, along with two storage rings.

Seeing Ange used the Spot-Removal Technique to erase the demonic runes on them and opened the storage space.

The space in the first ring contained very standard bishop's items: robes, ceremonial vestments, scepters, ceremonial staffs, holy seals, badges, and the like; even if the space were opened wide for you to see, it would clearly be the storage space of a pious and honest good bishop.

The second ring was different; it contained all sorts of chaotic items, and the space was especially large, holding totem poles, masks, bone artifacts, soul artifacts, and the like. If one only looked here, one would never imagine this was the storage space of a Great Archbishop of Light.

"There are so many items that are quite old; what is Dai Sen's background?" Nai Ge Li Si flipped through the space of the second ring and said curiously.

Lisa replied: "My lord Anthony once said he is likely the leader of an internal organization within the Church of Light, the Fire Stealers. My lord Anthony once infiltrated the Fire Stealers in a past life and knows many of their secrets."

"Sigh, without gods, the Church of Light is truly riddled with holes; how could the leader of a secret organization climb to the high position of Great Archbishop?" Nai Ge Li Si sighed.

"Uh, my lord Anthony is the same; it seems among the three Great Archbishops, Nikola is the purest." Lisa sighed.

As a former Holy Maiden of Light, seeing the Church degenerate into such a state left her with complex feelings.

"Eh? What is this?" Amidst a pile of chaotic items, Nai Ge Li Si dug out a segment of purple-gold finger bone.

Seeing Ange took it, tilted his head, dug out another segment of finger bone from the space, and matched it with this newly acquired one; they fit together perfectly.

This was originally exchanged from the hands of a Dimensional Beast; Seeing Ange had originally thought it was Harvey's finger bone. Could it be not?

Gazing doubtfully at these two segments of finger bone, Seeing Ange vaguely felt some fluctuations emanating from the bones, as if trying to erase certain aspects of his will.

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