The Cult of The One had a ranking system which went as follows. Follower, Devout Follower, Priest, High Priest, Deacon, Bishop, Rook, Cardinal and lastly the Pope. There were about 10 cardinals and 1 pope as the cult had at least a thousand followers. Just because one was willing to give up their life for the church doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be promoted from the rank of a Devout Follower to the rank of a Priest. Basically Scepticus and Serbius had run into trouble. Serbius readied his dagger once again only for the Cardinal to appear behind him and kick him into a wall. “So visitors. What brings you to our humble abode?” he said in a voice which had a low rumble. Are you sacrificing yourself for ‘The One’? Because if not… I have received special orders to kill all vermin entering this cave,” he said. “WHAT? The Pope already knew?” Serbius asked. The Cardinal didn't answer and just slapped Scepticus with his tail into the wall hitting Serbius causing Scepticus to cough up blood.
“SHIT,” Scepticus said as he coughed up more blood although he was still healing. Serbius however had managed to cushion the impact and was completely fine apart from a few scratches. He then spit onto The Cardinal. “YOU MEASLY BEING,” The Cardinal yelled out, “YOU DARE TO SPIT ON ME?”. “Yes,” Serbius replied as the stain on The Cardinal where he had spit turned into lava burning the cardinal slightly. Scepticus and Serbius saw green blood ooze out from the part which had been hit as the lava had completely melted through. “Student. What’s the best way to kill an insect?” Serbius asked Scepticus. “You burn them obviously,” he said as they both laughed and shot fire at The Cardinal who just weaved and dodged before commenting, “Too slow,”. Due to this comment Scepticus was slightly angered and used his favourite combo move. Hell’s Pyre, Thought Acceleration and Blitz which suddenly increased the speed of the Hell’s Pyre hitting the Cardinal. The Cardinal, surprised by the sudden increase in speed of the projectile, quickly held up his hands which gained scorpion armour which tanked the blow.
“Hmmm… Looks like I might have to take you two a bit more seriously,” he said as he charged towards Scepticus before moving his right hand outwards. Just before it was to hit Scepticus, it transformed into a giant scorpion claw, decapitating Scepticus. For a second Scepticus was confused. Why was he seeing everything upside down? He then realised that he had been decapitated and suddenly pain rushed to his neck causing his esophagus to latch onto his head and reattach it to his head. The Cardinal stood there frozen for a second slightly surprised before being hit by Scepticus who chanted ‘Slash of Freeze’. The Cardinal was cut across the middle as a freeze slowly went from the cut’s area and spread across his body. Serbius and Scepticus, not giving The Cardinal a chance to recuperate, both attacked him at the same time from entirely different directions, inflicting small wounds although many. After they had done their barrage of attacks they quickly dashed backwards, waiting for the Cardinal to fall to the floor. But he didn’t. Instead he stood there with green blood dripping from his wounds before he said, “Hehe… Fine… You asked for this,”. Suddenly a green beam appeared from the air creating a perfect hole which led all the way to the surface above the cardinal.
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The energy which cleared up revealed the Cardinal to be a bipedal Scorpion as he basically teleported in front of Scepticus and Serbius at the same time and touched him with their finger. A huge gust of wind appeared behind both Scepticus and Serbius as they were both flung outside the mine in separate directions. The loud sound attracted the attention of many followers as suddenly from their bodies, insects erupted as they all began to swarm towards Serbius and Scepticus at the same time. “Shit,” Scepticus said as he quickly got up and used his sword to cut the insects although he was growing tired quickly. Serbius on the other hand didn’t manage to get up. “Shit,” Serbius also said as he coughed up more blood. The insects then swarmed around him as he moved his arm up and flicked his finger. “Stored Mana: Release. Activate King’s Aura,” he said as his wounds quickly healed and a stream of water almost instantly eliminated all the insects. The Cardinal, who had felt this energy, was slightly surprised as this energy went from about 10 to 1000 almost instantly. “Well, I better end things quick,” he said as a blue robe of mana covered him and his hair grew longer as well as turning blue. As soon as this happened The Cardinal had almost instantly lost track of Serbius’ presence and to his surprise he was dropkicked straight to the other side of the mine, almost instantly killing him.
Scepticus who managed to sense the aura of his master almost increase in strength by 100 times was surprised and relieved at the same time. “At least he’ll take care of The Cardinal,” he said as the dropkick was just delivered. The cardinal got back up in a daze just for the robe of mana to grab him and begin to choke him. Suddenly the robe disappeared and both Serbius and the Cardinal fell to the floor. After clearing up all the bugs, Scepticus quickly ran into the mines looking for Serbius to find him. Scepticus had noticed that the son was in the middle of the sky already. Scepticus found Serbius lying next to The Cardinal as Scepticus attempted to kill him for good measure. But whenever he tried to kill him he just rolled out of the way, Scepticus never managing to hit him. “What a weird reflex,” Scepticus commented as he carried Serbius on his back and headed towards the altar of ‘The One’. He saw that the entrance to the altar had a much higher ceiling as well as two guards blocking the entrance. Scepticus swiftly dealt with them by stabbing them through their gut. He then pushed open the door to the altar room. “Welp, here we go,”.