Chapter 468
EX Heretic Church 1
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Sometimes hard work pays off. Sometimes it doesn't.
If there's one organization in this world that embodies the latter right now...
"What a disgrace! What a result! At this rate, we can't even repay our god!!"
The flickering torchlight barely illuminated a cave. A massive round table sat in the middle of this dim space. The shady group holding a meeting here fit the description perfectly.
The man slamming his hands on the table was one of them.
The Heretic Church. The leaders of its southern continent branch had gathered here. All of them had chimera tattoos somewhere on their bodies.
Only three sat at the round table.
Each had guards behind them. Those guards remained silent.
"Calm down, Bishop Julud."
"Calm down!? We started with the stampede in the royal capital. We've launched one plan after another, staking the Church's prestige. And we've yet to see a single major success! And you tell me to calm down!? Bishop Ardagón!"
A meeting of the Heretic Church's faction leaders.
If the temple had found out about this, they would have sent a large force to wipe them out.
But this place had remained hidden for years. Their base.
The leader of the Julud Faction, the mainstream on this southern continent, was ranting. The leader of the Ardagón Faction, who supported them from the shadows, tried to calm him down.
"Yelling won't bring back what's lost. If you really need to yell, I'll punch you in the face right now. That might shut you up."
"Tch."
Quiet advice didn't work. The last of the three finally spoke. The man from the Bend Faction, the most physically imposing at the table. Now they were ready to talk.
"We all grieve. I've lost a lot of believers myself."
"Same here. My hand-picked fighters aren't coming back."
They didn't have the virtue to comfort each other. But they could at least pretend to cooperate. These three weren't mindless fanatics.
Well, they were. But they'd learned to be冷静. Maybe that's the way to put it.
"The damage has reached the point where we can't ignore it. We have ways to recover, but they're hard to execute. You understand why, don't you?"
These men became bishops because they had the冷静 to achieve their insane goals. They didn't just charge forward on momentum.
"We need to identify what's getting in the way of that recovery."
"Yeah. There's a nuisance out there."
The Ardagón bishop and the Bend man looked at the Julud bishop. Different expressions. The Ardagón bishop was expressionless. The Bend man radiated anger.
"Indeed... the enemy of the gods. Liberta."
"Yes. We've been at war with the temple for ages. They're our sworn enemies. Allying with them is the same as opposing our god."
The Julud bishop frowned and said the name. The Ardagón bishop nodded.
Three heroes had received oracles and shaken the world. They were chosen by the gods. The Heretic Church couldn't ignore them.
"The problem is we spread our forces too thin dealing with the other enemies of the gods. While we were stretched, this one grew in the shadows. Losing Azhdaha, our biggest trump card, was a complete miscalculation."
That didn't mean the Heretic Church had done nothing.
They'd been proactive. They planned to kill the heroes.
They'd committed manpower to that.
But not on the southern continent. On the other three.
"...We focused too much on other continents. That left us with too few believers to deploy here. So we backed Duke Bordrinde. It was our all-or-nothing plan to destroy the enemy of our god."
They didn't attack the one who was most visible first. They'd concluded no hero would appear on the southern continent. That's why they were late finding Liberta.
"Originally, that plan should have killed most of the people on this continent. And that would have weakened the fools in heaven who rule this world."
"Look at the result. Even our attack on the temple's headquarters was thwarted by that brat Liberta. We got almost nothing out of it."
"Reports say Liberta was also in that town we were supposed to secure the other day. Bishop Ardagón, what's the truth?"
"We're investigating. The temple has a heavy presence there now. We can't send believers. We're using proxies, but it's likely a false report."
The Heretic Church usually had the initiative. Surprise attacks. Assaults. They rarely reacted.
But that didn't mean they couldn't.
"A false report? Really? The temple shouldn't have even known about that town. Then it was suddenly surrounded. Our believers there were captured. Collaborators too. And the circuit priest who resupplied there vanished. We even sent skilled guards. Twice over."
"It's too clean. The temple's nose isn't that good. I don't believe those prudes found us that easily."
They reflected. They tried to learn. Middle management was usually selfish, thinking nothing was their fault. The top was different.
The Bend man and the Julud bishop were skeptical of the Ardagón bishop's words. Partly because they didn't trust other factions.
"I understand what you're saying, Bishop Julud. I sympathize. The lack of evidence makes me suspect Liberta was involved."
"Then we're on the same page. Let's hit back. I want to say that, but..."
The real reason was they all agreed Liberta was too mysterious, too suspicious. They couldn't trust the "no connection" theory.
The Ardagón bishop didn't think his subordinates' reports were lies. But he also didn't think they'd uncovered everything.
To these three, Liberta was an Othello piece. White on the surface. Black underneath.
No proof. But they knew.
"We can't get close to that place. Can't infiltrate it."
"In populated areas, you can send not just proxies but real believers. Not there. That fortress is strong. It's still growing. Everyone knows everyone. No room for outsiders."
"We can't even sneak in. We watch day and night. Look for gaps. Never feel like we can get in."
What backed that intuition was the sudden appearance of a massive fortress covering a vast area north of the old Bordrinde territory. Even farther north. On the frontier.
Construction on that scale would take a decade with a huge workforce. It appeared in months. It's still expanding.
The samurai guarding it and the invisible group's surveillance mean outside情報 is limited to distant visual observation. The inside is still a mystery.
"Even trying to sneak spies in among orphans is useless. They use contracts."
"We tried sending dwarf believers. The temple caught them."
"Infuriating."
This was harder to handle than the other heroes, the three thought. A small population seems like a disadvantage. For someone trying to send spies, it's a nightmare.
"If we don't do something about that town, our influence on this continent will keep shrinking."
"We can't send any more fighters. We have other places to deploy."
"Do you understand the situation!? If this continues, the southern continent will fall completely into those fools' hands!!"
Had the Church's power on this continent ever been this weak? Most of their capable believers were gone. They were cornered. Unable to move.
The Julud bishop's aged face emerged from his robe. His expression was fierce enough to be demonic.
"I can't wave a sleeve that isn't there. I'm a messenger from my faction. They won't help this time. If you have a problem, I'll tell the Bend boss. Tell him Bishop Julud wants a fight."
"Bastard!"
"Both of you, calm down. Fighting among ourselves won't solve anything."
"So you have a solution, Bishop Ardagón? The calm one? I'd love to hear it."
At a time when they needed to unite, the Bend faction was pulling out. The Julud bishop was furious. The Bend man felt no benefit in continuing to cooperate after repeated failures.
The Ardagón bishop tried to mediate. The Bend man looked at him with contempt. Like a weather vane.
He didn't trust the man who never gave opinions, never set direction, just supported from the shadows.
"...I propose using a corrupted spirit."
If the Ardagón bishop had started preaching about talking and finding common ground, the Bend man would have laughed and left. But this proposal made his eyes go wide.
"You can't be serious! It's too early! We haven't fed it enough lives!"
"I don't know the details. But will it even work against the kid who's been outsmarting us?"
His wide eyes met the Ardagón bishop's gaze, hidden in his robe. The Julud bishop knew about corrupted spirits. He stood up so fast his chair nearly tipped over.
"It's not ready yet. But the chance is good enough."
"Hmph."
"We're currently sealing it in Zulunbe Valley. Building up its magic power."
"If you can seal it, it can't be that strong."
The Bend man had been intrigued. The Ardagón bishop's explanation killed his interest.
"No. That corrupted spirit chose to be sealed. It made a contract with us. After all, it's a greater spirit that once rivaled the Spirit King for the throne."
"What?"
His smirk vanished.
"How strong? Losing to the Spirit King is one thing. It depends on how close the fight was."
He sensed it. This might be the southern Church's last resort. He leaned forward.
"Even in defeat, it fought the current Spirit King on equal ground. I spoke with it when we made the contract through our god. It wasn't lying. Right now, it's sealed, gathering the magic it needs to regain its true power. We made a contract. We help, and in return..."
The Spirit King was a presence the Heretic Church couldn't ignore.
"...we get one command. We can't make it kill itself. But we can order it to destroy a city. Its current power is below Azhdaha's. But it's far above any普通 monster. If it attacks a city at the right time..."
A corrupted greater spirit that fought the Spirit King on even ground. Dorus.
The Ardagón bishop's lips twisted into a smile.
"What do you think will happen?"
An event Liberta never knew from the original story was about to unfold.