Chapter 232: Religious War [8]

Roy landed softly on the tiled roof of an administrative pavilion, a few hundred meters away from the lavish structure housing High Priest Arnold’s private chambers.

Night air filled his lungs as he stood with his hands casually tucked into the pockets of his obsidian trench coat.

With a silent flex of his mind, Roy tapped into his divine essence.

A translucent, iridescent dome of localized spatial aura expanded instantly from his body, expanding outward until it seamlessly engulfed High Priest Arnold’s entire building.

The barrier locked the structure within an isolated pocket dimension—an unknown, muted space where space warped upon itself.

No matter how violently the stone split or how thunderous the shockwaves roared inside, not a single vibration or whisper of sound could breach the perimeter to alert the outside world.

To ensure absolute perfection, Roy activated his Divine Authority of Mindcraft.

A subtle, invisible wave of mental pressure washed over the entire expanse of the Glorious Mythical Sect.

Within seconds, every disciple, guard, and elder currently meditating or sleeping within the surrounding pavilions slumped into a profound, unbreakable slumber.

satisfied, Roy turned his head slightly toward the distant building.

His dark eyes flickered with a faint, golden-crimson light as he shared the sight of the room directly through the eyes of Duchess Alisa.

Inside the trapped chamber, the air was as heavy as iron.

High Priest Arnold swallowed hard, a cold sweat drenching his back.

He stood backed against his desk, staring at the four figures closing in on him.

He knew, with absolute certainty, that his executioner had arrived.

‘Am I really going to die here like a helpless dog?’ Arnold thought, his jaw clenching so hard his teeth creaked. ‘No… I am a High Priest of the God of the Sky! If I am to perish, I will drag one of these demonic abominations to hell with me!’

His sharp eyes swept across his opponents, assessing the threat level in a millisecond.

Grand Chancellor Manuses was a terrifying monster he couldn’t hope to beat head-on, and Pope Croak’s sinister aura was completely unreadable.

However, his gaze locked onto Duchess Alisa and Duchess Eurenia.

They are only Martial Generals! Arnold realized, a psychotic spark of hope igniting in his blue eyes.

Before the others can react, I will obliterate them both!

Without a single word of warning, Arnold exploded forward!

BOOM!

His holy mana erupted like a dying sun, shattering the marble floor beneath his boots into a sea of flying debris.

He targeted Alisa first, his right hand shaped into a razor-sharp palm strike coated in concentrated, blinding holy energy, aimed directly at her throat to rip her head off in a single blow.

“Die, heretic!” Arnold roared.

His fingers were mere inches from her delicate skin—when Alisa’s lopsided, predatory smile widened.

SWISH.

Her body dissolved into a pool of pure, liquid shadow, completely vanishing from his sight just as his palm swung through thin air.

Before Arnold could even register her disappearance, the space directly in front of him ruptured.

Grand Chancellor Manuses materialised right in his path, his golden hair whipping through the air as he brought a heavy, steel-shattering kick sweeping directly upward into Arnold’s jaw!

BANG!

The explosive physical force of the strike shattered Arnold’s holy barrier like thin glass.

High Priest Arnold was sent rocketing backward through the air, crashing violently through two solid stone walls before slamming into the deep masonry of the outer structure.

“GROAH!”

Arnold bellowed in blind rage, bursting out of the crumbling stone heap in a cloud of dust and blood.

His face was slick with crimson from his split lip, but he didn’t stop.

Redirecting his momentum in mid-air, he launched himself toward Duchess Eurenia like an artillery shell.

He channeled every ounce of his remaining Martial Lord mana into his left fist, creating a swirling vortex of white-hot holy flames.

“Take this!” Arnold shrieked, driving the punch straight for Eurenia’s chest.

Eurenia’s eyes remained completely cold and detached.

As the scorching fist closed in, her body blurred with fluid, effortless grace.

She leaned her torso back at an impossible angle, letting the heat of Arnold’s fist graze her dark robes before executing a flawless, lightning-fast backflip over his head.

Her boots lightly tapped the ceiling before she pushed off, landing smoothly ten paces behind him and opening the distance instantly.

“Tsk!” Arnold gritted his teeth, spinning around to pursue her, but his path was blocked once again.

Manuses stepped into his line of sight, his golden eyes burning with cruel, sadistic delight.

“Your opponents are all of us, little priest,” Manuses sneered, stepping forward into a blitzing sequence of close-quarters strikes.

What followed was a brutal, one-sided slaughter masked as a duel.

Arnold desperately tried to shift targets, weaving through the room to strike at Alisa or Eurenia, hoping to find a weakness in their formation.

Yet every single attempt was ruthlessly intercepted by Manuses.

The shockwaves of their physical clashes tore the room to shreds; silk drapes exploded into cinders, stone pillars were reduced to gravel, and the very air inside the muted space rippled and groaned under the terrifying atmospheric pressure.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Arnold traded five rapid strikes with Manuses, but the raw, absurd disparity between their realms was an insurmountable wall.

How could a mere Martial Lord hope to stand against a Martial Saint?

His mind being so disoriented prevented him from activating his skill.

He was in deep trouble.

Manuses’ fists moved like phantom meteors.

A heavy left hook shattered Arnold’s right shoulder, caving in his silver pauldrons.

A follow-up right straight buried itself deep into Arnold’s sternum, cracking his ribs and spewing a fountain of hot blood from the cleric’s mouth.

BOOM!

A final, devastating knee to the abdomen folded High Priest Arnold in half.

He skipped across the ruined floorboards like a thrown stone, crashing to a halt at the feet of Pope Croak, who simply looked down at him with dark, amused eyes.

Arnold lay in his own blood, gasping frantically for air through a punctured lung.

His pristine white robes were torn to shreds, drenched in dark red, and his body trembled violently as he forced his broken arms to push his battered frame off the floor.

He staggered to his feet, barely able to keep his balance, his vision swimming with red.

“You… you beastly dogs…” Arnold spat out a thick glob of blood, his blue eyes burning with an unholy, psychotic fanaticism.

“Do you think… this is over? Do you think your filthy church can defy the heavens?!”

Arnold lifted his broken hands, his bloody fingers intertwining into an ancient, forbidden hand sign.

“By my soul, my flesh, and my blood…” Arnold rasped, his voice vibrating with a terrifying, self-sacrificial resonance.

“I swear to purge every trace of your heresy from this world! I WILL KILL EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU!”

HUMMMMM—!

Suddenly, Arnold’s bloody body began to shimmer with a blinding, violent, unstable golden light.

The temperature inside the room soared to thousands of degrees in a fraction of a second, and the very air began to melt.

Manuses, who had been casually dusting off his sleeves with a smug smirk, suddenly stopped.

His eyebrows furrowed into a tight, sharp line.

For the very first time since the battle had begun, the Martial Saint sensed a genuine, lethal danger radiating from the dying priest.