"These sinners are as filthy as rats." The blessed warrior of the Holy Spear Knights looked at the entrance of the sewer with resentment. The stench formed by fermenting garbage and excrement, along with the sticky black mud on the inner walls, made them hesitant to move forward. Their mental obsession with cleanliness often affected their physical bodies. The holy warriors would rather face endless abyssal demons and the most evil dragon than trek through the world's dirtiest environment like sewage workers.
Bishop Roland silently condemned the grandiose design of the architect who created the sewer system. If the entire winding waterway was laid out in a straight line, it would be over a thousand miles long. Did he want to construct a building complex that rivaled the Minotaur's labyrinth?
The construction diagram in the Flondeck archive room was in tatters, with several worm-eaten holes making it impossible to discern the complete path. It seemed that the only way was to explore the waterways one by one, which would require a lot of time and energy.
Roland had no time to waste any longer. Anno's patience had reached its limit. If they could not successfully find the holy artifact, then for the rest of his life, he could only stay away from the Secretariat of the Holy See and become a missionary in remote and underdeveloped regions, with no hope of ever advancing again.
But if he succeeded, he would gain the coveted red robes, benefits and forever be proportional to the risk.
"The holy flames of the Seal of Light, please endure. All of this is for the dignity and glory of the immortal kingdom." Roland advised the holy warriors who hesitated to enter the sewer.
"Your Excellency is right," Roland's savior had finally arrived. Matilda Hepburn, the most noble girl leader of the Holy Spear Knights, stepped forward and devoutly preached, "The Lord controls everything in the world, and as His holy flames and spears, we move forward under His guidance. The Lord says that those who abandon glory and offend authority will be punished, and how can His humble servants hesitate?"
The young girl closed her eyes and murmured a prayer. Then, resolutely, she climbed down the small iron ladder on the wall.
The filth quickly stained her delicate flower-like appearance, leaving black marks on the white and red-trimmed knight's dress due to friction. Her slim arms and fair complexion were also unable to avoid being exposed, making her look very disheveled. She shuddered all over, her rosy lips losing their color due to disgust for the dirty surroundings, becoming pale, but she still persisted without fleeing.
"The command of Heaven is the humble destiny of both the holy flame and the spear," Matilda said, lifting her head. Her delicate face had regained its composure, and her blue eyes, forever devout, were pure without any impurities.
The dirty water and garbage seemed to be influenced by the girl's holy radiance, as if this were not a dirty sewer, but the most solemn cathedral with stained glass windows. The sunlight shone through the opening, forming a beam of light, and the floating dust in the beam danced like angels.
The hair dirtied by mud seemed to wear a crown of thorns of glory.
That almost hallucinatory sanctity and faith infected everyone present. The holy warriors felt ashamed and repented for their previous hesitation and reluctance to move forward. They chanted, " The command of Heaven is the humble destiny of both the holy flame and the spear."
They stood in neat rows, as if facing an army of millions of infidels and ready to die generously, before climbing into the sewer one by one.
"I love fanatics," Roland thought contentedly. " As long as it involves faith, even dog excrement can be treated as holy food. Oh, I shouldn't have such sacrilegious thoughts. I pray that the Lord will forgive my disrespect."
With faith, people could dig through towering mountains and fill rushing rivers. The holy warriors searched the labyrinthine waterway day and night, and within nine days, they had narrowed their search area down to waterways 32 to 45, which extended outside the city.
Roland happily considered which jewelry master to invite to make the Archbishop's miter to match the red robe that he was about to obtain.
Albert is still alive, which surprised everyone.
When he was infused with the power of the holy relic, his miserable appearance and body that couldn't move for several days made every member of the white coat believe that he wouldn't survive for long.
"What kind of monster have I accidentally created, with such a strong vitality!" The doctor sighed, but his joy did not infect Leo Angertes, the former Archbishop and the greatest blasphemer in the history of the church, who had already sensed the imminent danger with his invisible willpower.
The nest hidden in the sewer could be found by the Holy Warriors at any time. Although the magic array created by spells could isolate all long-distance detection divine power, it did not mean that it could not be observed with the naked eye.
When the Eternal Reliquary was activated, the unstoppable radiance would make everyone who entered the 44th Waterway see it clearly.
But this damn experimental process left Leo perplexed. All the experimental results were random.
Whether the artificially created body could maintain its durability and intricate brain structure, and whether it would inexplicably malfunction when restarted, could not be verified by the rigorous logic of science, and could only be attributed to luck.
Perhaps he should wait, use science to collaborate with divine magic, and wait for the theoretical simulation of the great resurrection to become more complete. But the approaching enemy did not give him the opportunity. Leo seemed to have heard the increasingly clear footsteps of the Holy Warriors.
He had to decide whether to take a risk.
"Activate the Eternal Reliquary with full power, and tell the doctor that I am going to occupy the long-prepared body." Leo finally made a decision, secretly praying that the god of fortune, who was in charge of luck, was on his side.
Albert Fraley, the stitched monster created by the doctor, had already regained all his memories.
He didn't know how many days had passed since the day he was murdered by Eric. The experiences and knowledge beyond cognition in the laboratory made him afraid that it was already a hundred years later, and everyone he loved and hated had disappeared in the torrent of time.
And from the murky reflection in the sewage, Albert saw his own ugly and inhuman appearance, which made him feel down for a while, but he soon cheered up.
"Being alive is already a great blessing of fate. Why should I refuse?" he thought to himself.
The desire to leave this place grew stronger and stronger. Several times, he wanted to sneak away while others were busy.
However, after careful observation, Albert realized that there were at least three people here who possessed supernatural powers. If they discovered that he had regained his intelligence and memory, he would be mercilessly destroyed.
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Albert forcibly suppressed his restless thoughts and continued to pretend to be harmless and foolish. He knew that he needed to wait for a good opportunity to carry out his plan.
"In this mysterious lair, I am unarmed, and no one can help me. I don't even know what the outside world is like. The most important thing right now is that I need to survive," Albert thought.
As usual, the stitched monster sat lethargically in the corner, and no one knew that the terrifying body had already regained its own soul.
Albert waited, and when he was bored, he began to recall his past. He reminisced about his naive and ignorant aspirations when he first entered the Seventh Street Court, the hardship of staying up late every night to memorize legal provisions, and the excitement he felt when he succeeded in the First Court. Many people regarded him as a legal genius, but no one could understand the effort he put into it.
Perhaps due to the after-effects of his resurrection, Albert found himself examining the past from a completely objective perspective, as if reading a detailed biography of a character. No matter how cruel the experience, he could calmly face it.
Only when he thought of the little wildcat and her grandmother did Albert feel a pang of pain in his heart. To avoid being noticed by others, Albert had to force himself not to think about them.
He could only think of his enemies, such as Penny, Eric Andreas, and the arrogant and conceited Leinshman family, and all the scum who made the world unfair.
When Albert was a child, he played a game where he covered the sun with his hand and clenched his fist, thinking he held the immortal light of the sky in his palm.
But those powerful and influential figures, arrogantly and casually raised a hand, causing him to lose the happy future that should have belonged to him, and leaving him with no hope of a better tomorrow.
The radiance in the dark waterway made the seven holy warriors solemn. After thirteen days of anxious and nauseating exploration, they finally reached the end.
"Should we wait for backup?" they asked their leader, Matilda. The narrow and lengthy passage forced the holy warriors to split into small teams for their mission.
"To retreat is to lack faith," the fanatic girl said. " The Lord led me here, and whether I live or die, the highest will has a plan."
The holy warriors did not agree with the girl's words.
Faith alone could not determine everything on the battlefield. The outcome of a battle depended more on careful planning. Entering an unfamiliar environment with a small team was a grave mistake.
"Let's use messaging spell to notify the teams in other waterways first," one holy warrior said.
"I think it's already too late," another more experienced old holy warrior said as he drew his long sword from his waist. Unconsciously, they had already stepped into a trap.
The dark moss on the stone walls was dark green to the point of being black. The delicate roots and stems grew at an unimaginable speed, while the thick, thorny vines, like octopuses in the deep sea, twisted and occupied the team's retreat. The hard bricks of the walls were torn apart by the expanding moss stems and leaves, leaving deep cracks.
The vines lashed out like whips, making piercing sounds.
"Decree: Protect," the old holy warrior had already begun to chant a divine spell. In the sudden change of situation, a light membrane of pale yellow covered the space within five meters of the team. The tough and elastic membrane was repeatedly dented by the vines' strikes but still blocked all attacks.
"One minute," the old holy warrior said. "The spell can only last one minute."
"The enemy should be druids proficient in natural magic, or a more mysterious plant-based dragon veins," the holy warrior who spoke was obviously skilled in analysis. "They must use plants as a medium to cast spells. Ken, can you pull out all the moss from the drain?"
"Nord, please remove the protection in ten seconds. Trust me," Ken, the holy warrior, said calmly. His weapon was a pair of crescent blades, an unconventional weapon that was extremely difficult to operate. However, in the hands of a skilled master who was proficient in agility and strength, its power was infinite.
The inexperienced girl leader of the group could not intervene and could only watch anxiously, her face in a panic.
"Leave it to Ken, and the rest of you search for the enemy's trail. He should be nearby," the holy warrior Nord instructed, ending with an uneasy reminder, " Captain Hepburn, you just need to take care of yourself."
The crescent blades spins in the air, leaving behind lingering silver trails in the air. Anything that entered its range, be it vines or stones, turned into fragments and fell to the ground.
"The enemy is on the sky ten yards ahead," as soon as the voice of a certain holy warrior fell, the thunderous roar of four muskets erupted almost simultaneously.
The hidden object formed by moss was pierced through, and the enemy who manipulated plants could not avoid it. Several bullet holes were pierced through the body, spilling blood.
As he watched himself about to fall to the ground, he was caught by a small figure, a dwarf-like person who fearlessly faced the approaching attack. The person's right eye emitted a green glow.
Ken's deadly attack was like a rusty axle, and its rhythm slowed down more and more. When he stopped, the armor on his body and the crescent blades in his hand melted into a liquid metal that flowed into the his mouth and nose like water, then the liquid re-solidified into metal.
Thus, the holy warrior was suffocated to death by his own trusted armor.
"Dragon vein who can convert metal molecules with their minds," Nord blessed everyone with a spell, hoping to offset the opponent's deadly attack, but it was very unlikely. The holy warrior's armor already had a defensive magic bonus, which could resist the erosion of curses and the impact of offensive spells. However, it was useless against the magical talent of the dragon vein.
Fortunately, the dwarf could not repeatedly use this strange ability in a short period of time, and the holy warrior who saw through this rushed forward.
At this moment, the incantation of divine magic suddenly resounded in the waterway.
"Decree: Spell Penetration", "Decree: Sluggishness", "Decree: Greater Imprisonment." The agile movements and lightning-fast attacks of the Holy Warriors were immediately paralyzed; they were forcibly shackled in place, unable to move.
The third enemy appeared, an opponent who continuously and relentlessly used high-level divine magic, immediately causing a furious cry from Matilda Hepburn.
"Leo Angertes' former deputy and accomplice, the dark priest Theo wanted by Anno," Matilda shouted, "you unclean sinner, how dare you appear before us."
"You ignorant little girl." Theo looked at her with a dead man's eyes. "You should be the vase Miss who serves as the captain. It's a pity, If only you had been more sensible and found a man to marry, you wouldn't have died in a smelly gutter."
"Oh, sacred seal of the holy light, you sinner must be punished," the girl shouted fanatically.
"Oh, I am eagerly waiting to see when that stupid kingdom..."
"Blasphemy!" Matilda interrupted him, her face twisted in rage, creating a stark contrast with her beautiful features.
Her blue eyes gradually became shrouded in increasingly thick green mist, and the pale flames under her feet burned recklessly.
This foreign fire seemed to be a projection of the heavenly flame in the mortal world, with no heat and unable to be extinguished. In the path of the spreading flames, all impure things, corrupted spells, were completely annihilated, and the bodies of the Holy Warriors, who were imprisoned, regained their freedom. The moss manipulator, who couldn't evade the severe injury, wailed in the white flame, and his body slowly melted away like a candle.
"Sinners, repent." Matilda walked towards the deepest part of the waterway, not even bothering to look at the two enemies trapped by holy flames.
"Mr. Theo, descend to hell." Nord walked towards the Dark Priests with his sword in hand. "I forgot to tell you that the most promising holy warrior in Anno, the fighter with both divine blessing and dragon vein, the next leader of the Inquisitorial Tribunal secretly cultivated by the Holy See, and the only captain of the nine knightly orders who is not just a decoration. Her name is Matilda Hepburn."
Before Theo was pierced by the sword, he continued to cast spells at the proud speed he was known for. But he was terrified to find that he couldn't even summon the faintest holy light.
The pale cold flame keeps burning, and within its burning range, any hostile energy was firmly sealed.
The girl walked through the corridor of flames. She couldn't summon the Holy Flame at will. Only when she was the most angry, the probability of success would greatly increase.
Now, it was her angriest moment.
"Anyone and anything related to blasphemers must repent and die," Matilda prayed. The command of heaven was her destiny.
At the intersection of the two waterways, Matilda felt the power of the Eternal Reliquary, and at the same time, a handsome man who should never have appeared in the mortal world, like a divine son, appeared before her.