In Kanjur, an old man was walking in the cover of night, each of his steps carrying him incredible distances. He passed one block after another, reaching his destination swiftly. It was a well structured, historic construction that gave off the aura of ancientness. He reached the gates and nodded at the guards. The guards appeared strict but after looking at the old man, they smiled. As the old man went in, he passed through many guards and reached an elevator. The elevator took him to the bottommost basement of the building. He went through several spirit arrays that scanned him and confirmed his identity. After going through the passageway of security checks, the old man came to an extremely huge hall. The hall was huge, several times the area of the building aboveground. In this underground space, several intricate lines of spirit energy crisscrossed the floor. Thick, high-quality nature energy was flowing through these lines, and they formed a grand formation. At the centre of this huge formation, a person was currently kneeling. Chains made up of light were piercing his body at several points nailing him to the ground.
As soon as the old man entered, a middle-aged man came from his side.
> Middle-aged man : Thank goodness that you are here Reverend Alex. This time, we have captured a pretty powerful heretic! Even though his aura was only in the pinnacle realm, his strength had already reached the second layer of heavenly realm! We had to sacrifice many people to capture him. Most of his subordinates fought to their death. Many of them were in the second layer of heavenly realm. I had to personally lead the charge with Cardinal Magnus to corner them. But these people were incredibly powerful and had many methods.
>
> Alex : Bastards! The seeds of evil! Cardinal Victor, how many heretics were there in his group?
>
> Victor : There were a total of 200 heretics there. They were threatening the king and trying to control him from the shadows. But the king was quite clever and he managed to send us an encrypted message. We raided the place and managed to kill all the heretics in one go.
>
> Alex : Nice, nice! Now I want to take a look at this heretic's memories and see what his masters want!
Alex moved at incredible speed to reach the man kneeling on the ground. He then started to send the power of his soul to the suppressed heretics' soul. As his power flowed into the heretic's soul, a blinding light shone from him. The entire formation was torn apart in an instant and the heretic vanished! Alex coughed out a huge mouthful of blood from the backlash. Victor quickly went up to him, sending his power into his body and stabilizing his soul.
Victor: This was the first experiment where our church tried to look into a chosen one's memory. But it ended pretty badly. Looking at Alex's situation, it looks like he will need more than a few days to recover.
Heretics - they were beings who were not a part of the world. Heretics had been in Kanjur since time immemorial. Only the people who had been created by their God and were the bearer of his mark were recognized by the plane and the church. But since ancient times, some people did not have a mark at all. From the scriptures, it was said that these heretics were descendants of followers of different gods, other than their own. In the ancient Calamity era, when the foreign gods ravaged the lands, many of their followers came with them. It was a time that truly tested the faith of people. But after a long era of rampant evil gods, their lord managed to push back all the evil gods. As a result, the foreign gods left along with most of their original followers. But many of their descendants remained. These were fundamentally different from the people of Kanjur as they did not have the mark of their lord in their souls. For some time, these descendants held power but without the support of foreign gods, their reign was eventually toppled. The rightful owners of the plane took back their place and enslaved these heretics.
In Kanjur, the place of a heretic in the social order of things was much lower than even slaves. Heretics were at one time seen as the public enemy and many heretics were brutally killed and burned. But then, a new observation came to light. If the heretics were allowed to breed, after some generations, their descendants would again bear the mark of God. This revelation caused a big divide over the treatment of heretics. A lot of churches were in favour of killing all heretics. But quite a lot also wanted them to repent so that their later generations would bear the glory of Lord. Ultimately, the heretics were allowed to remain. But their social status was extremely low.
The heretics were constantly monitored and it was made sure that they could not gain too much power. But even though heretics were suppressed quite severely, not all heretics were helpless. Many were quite strong and had survived the hunt from several eras ago. They set up secret organisations around all Kanjur and became a curse that was an incurable cancer today. These organizations were spearheaded by the 12 zodiacs - backed by ultimate heavenly experts. These underground organisations were associated with many nobles and royals and even many corrupt priests and bishops. There were even a few churches that supported them internally. This made it so that these heretics were able to regularly cause havoc. But from two years ago, the situation had changed suddenly. Many heretics were found in a short period of time, each of them in around groups of a few thousand. These heretics were almost like an army and they tried to war over many countries. The churches responded swiftly and many were killed. Many heretics were captured as well and their memories were extracted, revealing a scheme from the evil gods! It seemed like while their Lord had managed to drive the evil gods away, they were still scheming something vile. This revelation caused great ripples among the different churches and the rules against heretics were tightened. It only took a few months of investigation to find tens of thousands of heretics who all seemed to be hatching some evil scheme.
But it was among these heretics, they found a few cases of exceptionally talented heretics. These were incredibly powerful at their level. All of them were in the pinnacle-mortal realm but they could fight heavenly realm powerhouses. But this was not worrying. There were many heavenly realm experts in the churches and the popes of each church were in the ultimate heavenly realm. Thus, taking care of these geniuses was not hard. What set them apart from the rest was that they all seemed to have the protection of evil gods. When they were about to die or when their soul was probed, they would vanish in a blinding flash of light. Not all heretics vanished like this. Only the chosen few, and hence they were called the chosen ones of evil gods. The chance of finding a chosen one of evil among heretics was incredibly small. But they were identifiable. Every chosen one was a genius. Their cultivation realm was pinnacle-mortal, and they were all capable of fighting first or sometimes second layer heavenly realm experts.
Different churches had tried to control the chosen ones or kill them, but none had succeeded. Till now, 8 chosen ones were discovered. This was the ninth chosen one that one of the churches had found. Cardinal Victor looked at the place where the heretic chosen one had vanished from and he felt a lingering fear at the sheer power of the light. It was a supreme power, the power of a god. But as he started praying, his fear subsided and his faith in his Lord grew. One could only imagine what would happen to him if he found that his god was not around anymore.
In a different part of the plane, a priest walked through the hallway of the church. This was the Church of Mercy, a church that was founded on the principles of humanity and mercy. They believed that their Lord loved all his creations and he was deeply saddened by their death. Thus, they did not propose war but advocated peace. They were one of the leaders of the moderate faction and did not support the oppression of gremlins either. They gave the best treatment to heretics as well. The heretics were treated the same as slaves in their social hierarchy. Kanjur only had a single God. This was because there was only a single mark found on all the souls of the plane. Thus, there was no debate on if they followed the same god or not. What the churches disagreed on was the facets of their god. Some churches believed that their god was benevolent, some believed in radicalism. The difference in ideology along with politics created many different churches in the plane.
The Church of Justice which Alex and Victor were part of was a radical church. They believed that all heretics needed to be killed off and that even gremlins were a blight on the name of their lord. They advocated war and usually aggravated other moderate churches with minor skirmishes. They were one of the leading ones in advocating hunting of heretics. They had the highest kill count among all the churches. Both these churches were pretty old, having existed since a time forgotten. A rank-4 ascendant was needed to hold a church. If a church did not have a rank-4 ascendant as their pope, the church would have to disband. Or else, they would be attacked by all the other churches. This was an iron-clad rule through history. One needed enough strength to protect one's ideals before they could preach it to others. But surprisingly, it was not cultivation that drove these churches but their ideology. There had been many cases of rank-4 ascendants appearing in history and setting up their churches. But these churches ultimately failed and ended up being forgotten. After the death of their founder, most of the churches ended up disbanding. For a church to continue, one needed to continue the lineage of rank-4 ascendants. For that, one needed to find talents who were willing to join their church. And for that, they needed to sell their idea.
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The ancient churches, like the Church of Mercy and Church of Justice, had an extremely solid philosophy that attracted many devotees. Many of them came over to become members of the church. Thus, they had a greater pool of talent. And for every rank-4 ascendant that died, there was someone who broke through to that realm. At any given time, they had multiple rank-4 ascendants holding the fort. This made these churches behemoths among others and so, they assumed the role of leaders. Thus, it was the ideology that drove the church while cultivators simply protected the ideology. The only way for this equilibrium to break was for someone to become an upper-ascendant. But in its entire history, Kanjur had never produced an upper-ascendant. Why? Because there was no inheritance for higher levels. Every upper-ascendant traced a path unique to themselves. And for that, one needed to roam the law ocean and come up with the inspiration to find their path. In terms of difficulty, the breakthrough from rank-4 to rank-5 was said to be the most difficult below the divine realm. It was because, for breakthroughs in the upper-ascendant realm, one had to travel further on their path. It was only at the end of rank-4 that one needed to find their unique path. This was why there had been no rank-5 ascendants in Kanjur ever since inception.
The priest walked along the hallway and reached the central altar. There, a reverend was standing in meditation. The priest stood to the side, waiting respectfully. The reverend completed his meditation, then looked back. One could see mixed emotions in his eyes.
Reverend: This guy only appeared two years ago to join the church. He had decent cultivation, so we took him in. But his battle power is simply astonishing. Given his power-level, he came to be associated with the chosen ones of evil gods. Then, in one case, he managed to subdue an evil god's chosen one cementing his position. The church had no other option but to declare him the chosen one of our god. But why did he appear at about the same time as the other chosen ones? What kind of cosmic game is being played between these gods?
The reverend looked at the priest. His most distinguishing feature was the sea-green eyes. He had never seen someone with eyes like those. Even though this guy was standing before him, giving pinnacle mortal realm aura, the reverend knew better. In the fabled battle of his coronation, he had battled another chosen one who was almost as strong as the reverend himself. And this guy had won easily! That meant, his strength was at least comparable to second layer heavenly realm experts. But the reverend could not be sure as to how much strength he was hiding. This guy was not very inclined to battle and even when he did fight, he avoided killing his enemies, even if they were heretics. The way he followed the doctrine of mercy even had the popes look at him in appreciation. This was Priest Michael, the chosen one of god.
Michael's appearance had caused many ripples in the world of Kanjur. At first, people were extremely apprehensive of this new priest who was ridiculously strong. After all, people already had some experience with chosen ones of evil gods. Thus, he was under great suspicion. But his soul carried the mark of the lord - something impossible for heretics. Thus, the different churches finally relented and accepted him. But it put forth other questions. Like what was going on and what was the role of these chosen ones. There were many speculations but no one was certain. The chosen one himself did not seem to know. But still, people gave Michael the respect someone of his status deserved. There were many ultimate heavenly experts in Kanjur but only one chosen one of god. As a result, Michael had incredible influence even among other churches.
> Reverend : What brings you here, lord chosen?
>
> Michael : There is no need for you to refer me as such, Reverend. We are all in service of Lord. While the lord may have blessed me, I don't have the arrogance to believe myself above you or anyone else. We are all creations of Lord and we should be respectful regardless of other's status.
>
> Reverend : Well said! Only someone like Lord Chosen follow the doctrines of mercy to such a level. There are many who become deluded with their power. For you to be sober-minded and down to earth even with all the power in your possession, your character is remarkable and is perhaps the reason that Lord chose you. Anyway, why are you here?
>
> Michael : Reverend, as you know, I have spread the doctrine of mercy to many places since the day I joined. I have even taken in many heretics who were misguided and taken them in as my enforcer unit. But these were all weak people, who were already not a threat. But there are people among the heretics who are a threat to us. The heretics have a few ultimate heavenly experts who are like a ticking time bomb by our side. While I preach for mercy, I am not blinded to not see their vile deeds. Thus, I want to intervene in their activities. I have found out recently that one of the gangs of heretics - the heretical twin blades have recently suffered a split. The twin blades have decided to call off their collaboration. From my sources, it seems like that one of the blades, Morgan betrayed the other blade Roger. In this situation, Roger is aggreieved and I propose to put forward a proposal to him. He will be able to use our church's power to kill Morgan but in return, he must agree for a soul-bind from the cardinal of soul path. This way, we can kill one heretic threat and subdue the other. This is like striking two blades with one stone. But for this plan to work, I will need the support of church. Please forward my proposal to the pope and have her decide.
>
> Reverend : Lord chosen, your intentions are good. But it does not seem likely. Roger would never agree to a soul-bind. There is no way. Besides, you going to meet him will cause great risk. If he tries to kill you, we will be in trouble. Our church would be questioned by other churches.
>
> Michael : I know this reverend but we need to take this risk. Let me tell you the story. It seems that Roger and Morgan have been in partnership for a long while. But Morgan cultivates a demonic manual that has twisted his mind. Both partners had a common lover - Aspherus. But it seems that in his insanity, Morgan beat her to death. This caused the twin blades to come to blows. In the battle, Morgan managed to severely wound Roger. Roger is currently facing trouble from all sides and as soon as other churches find out, they are bound to send crusades to hunt him. So, Roger would likely join us to save his skin. But most importantly, Morgan is now a rogue heretic who is deranged. The demonic art has taken away his sanity and left him paranoid. But he is very powerful and a single ultimate heavenly powerhouse is no match for him. We need a grand crusade to take him down. And we need to do this before other churches. Because Morgan has been active in our territory and because due to recent battles, most youths are flocking towards radical churches. Overall, this situation is ideal for us to turn the perception of public and gain popularity. After all, no matter how many heretics the other churches hunt, none of them have been ultimate heavenly experts.
The reverend stopped and considered Michael's words for a long time. This was indeed a feasible plan. Besides, given that Roger was injured, the danger that Michael would face would be significantly less. Thinking of all these aspects, the reverend went ahead and contacted the pope. Each church had a fixed hierarchy. First layer heavenly realm cultivators or rank-1 ascendants were called Bishops. Rank-2 were reverends, Rank-3 were cardinals and Rank-4 were popes. A church could have multiple popes at the same time. Of course, the status was not only based on strength but also on their contributions. In the mortal stage, people were priests and though they too had their ranks. Michael was only a priest, even if he was a chosen one. Thus, he was not permitted to contact the pope directly and had to go through the reverend. The council of popes took their sweet time deciding but they eventually decided on a plan. It was decided that a cardinal would tail Michael as he met with Roger and in case of any mishaps, they would intervene.
After setting up the plan, Michael left for his mansion in the outskirts of the church campus. Then, he checked around with intuition before taking out a message token and asked Ambrose to fix a meeting.
Michael came to this plane around two years ago but he took his time investigating. He found out about every little detail that was needed, learnt the culture and grammar, and completely transformed himself into a native Kanjurian. He even had a soul seal engraved on his soul which was the same shape as the mark of Lord. But there was a difference. The marks on other people were all on their conscients while Michael only had the mark on his soul. Besides, the marks had unique functions which Michael's replica could not emulate. But no one knew of these special functions and Michael only discovered them while doing a thorough examination of a native's conscient. The complexity of the mark exceeded his understanding. But replicating the rough shape on his soul was easy. He had engraved a seal of the same shape directly onto his soul but he had moved his conscient out of the way. Michael could also directly erode the seal from his soul. While it would cause a soul injury, it was nothing he could not handle with his healing abilities. But others could not do the same as they were not psychics. Their souls and psyches were one the same. If they engraved a mark on their souls, they would have to engrave it on their conscients as well. This would cause an injury of the conscient which was not something easy to recover from. And erasing the mark would become even more difficult. Thus, this was a method that only Michael could use.
This was the true aspect of the test of ability. While others had to be hidden, Michael could operate as a native in the plane. This was an overwhelming advantage. In the two years, he had already obtained a green pass for all his comrades. Thus, he faced no danger from any of the churches. In a way, Michael had already established his foothold and had passed the test. But he was not done yet. He did not just want to pass but also obtain the rewards. Thus, he was ready to hatch his well-thought plan.