Chapter 291: Enter! Definitely Enter!
Chapter 291: Enter! Definitely Enter!
Saints Convocation! Holy Envoy?
Roel couldn’t believe what he had just read. He turned around and looked at the corpses littered behind him.
They are all from the Saints Convocation? There should be no doubt that the Saints Convocation is an evil cult, but the ones who did this to them are evil cultists as well… Is this a falling-out?
Roel blinked his eyes in surprise. He didn’t expect the first group of victims he stumbled upon to actually be evil cultists.
He was deeply familiar with the name, ‘Saints Convocation’.
Back when he was on the Golden Fleet, he had come to blows with one of the Saints Convocation’s top brass, Douglas. He chased down the latter’s main body and killed off the young Origin Level 2 Puppetmaster.
Roel still couldn’t shake off his hatred even after shattering Douglas into thousands of ice fragments—how could he when the latter nearly took Charlotte’s life?—so he asked Nora about the Saints Convocation after returning from the Witness State. After some investigation, Nora told him that the Saints Convocation had stopped their activities in the Theocracy for many years now.
Roel breathed a sigh of relief after hearing that news, but that didn’t lessen his worry about the cult that worshiped the Mother Goddess. The Six Calamities did have the power to annihilate humankind, so he couldn’t afford to let down his guard at all.
He never thought that he would bump into the Saints Convocation here.
Not wanting to miss any information on the letter, he took his time to read it carefully. Once he was done, he lowered his head and began processing the information.
First and foremost, the letter allowed him to ascertain the era he was in—Year 612 of the Third Epoch, which was around four hundred years back from the present time. The location was the outskirts of the Capital of Academies, Leinster.
“This should be the era where humankind faced the Second Deviant War. I recall that Leinster faced some sort of turmoil during this period of time too…” murmured Roel as he tried his best to recall everything he knew about this era.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much information for him to work with.
The main crisis faced by humankind during this era was the Second Deviant War. Historians spared no efforts to praise the unyielding spirit of humankind in fending against the ferocious deviants in epic battles.
As someone well-versed in history, Roel could spend an entire day talking about the events that had transpired in the Second Deviant War.
In comparison, there were hardly any records about the turmoil in Leinster.
Even the Sofya Kingdom that was a powerhouse in its era was almost completely forgotten within eight hundred years. Considering how the unrest in Leinster was viewed to be of minor importance compared to the Second Deviant War, it wasn’t surprising that most of the details surrounding it were forgotten over the span of four hundred years.
All that was mentioned in the books was that the evil cultists had staged an uprising in the Country of Scholars, and this was corroborated by the letter he had just found.
The author of the letter was the leader of Saints Convocation Leinster Branch, Bradley. The content was also fairly straightforward—it was an SOS letter.
It seemed like Leinster had dispatched far too many elites to the frontlines that it created an opening for the evil cutlists to exploit, and they did. It was just that the perpetrator of the uprising wasn’t the Saints Convocation but the Salvation Brotherhood.
The relationships between evil cults were a blind spot that was often overlooked. Outsiders tended to think that the evil cults were all on the same side, but that was simply wrong.
Different cults had different goals.
Take the Saints Convocation for example, they aimed to cleanse the world through the Six Calamities and lead humankind back into the embrace of the Mother Goddess, or to use more conventional terms, they wanted to destroy human civilization.
Roel didn’t know what the goals of the Salvation Brotherhood were, but their allegiance definitely didn’t lay with the Mother Goddess. It should be safe to assume that they probably weren’t too fond of the Six Calamities either.
Taking a step back, even if the Salvation Brotherhood was another bunch of imbeciles who aimed for world destruction, it was unthinkable for them to ally themselves with the Saints Convocation.
Why?
That was because the gods they worshiped differed. It was not just the final goal that mattered to them; the means of achieving it was equally important as well. Unless they were in a desperate position, they were unlikely to collude with one another.
The current circumstances in Leinster reinforced that point.
According to the letter, the Salvation Brotherhood had managed to gain control of Leinster using the power of a holy artifact they had obtained. The city’s garrison troops and citizens had all retreated into the Saint Freya Academy and activated its defensive mechanism, holding the fort firmly.
Knowing that it would take some time to besiege the Saint Freya Academy, they turned their attention toward the other evil cultists who refused to bow down to their leadership. One of their key targets was the Saints Convocation.
Of course, an established evil cult like the Saints Convocation had its own trump cards too. It was just that most of its means could only be invoked by the Holy Envoy, which was why they sent an urgent SOS letter out.
A pity it was that the Saints Convocation was never going to receive the aid of its Holy Envoy, for the Holy Envoy was actually the dead young man.
I guess it’s over for them then.
The letter gave Roel a good grasp on the current situation in Leinster. He was glad to see that the evil cultists were fighting one another, but a choice stood before him right now.
Should I enter the city or not?
Leinster was in a state of chaos right now, so entering the city meant exposing himself to great peril. It wasn’t implausible for him to camp it out in the forest till the countdown was finally over; in fact, it was the safer option here.
Roel was also reluctant to get involved in this chaos as he wasn’t in a good state right now.
The timing in which he was transported here was horrendous. He had gone all out to ensure that he could crush Marceus without a sliver of doubt, resorting to using Glacier’s Touch and sapping his life force. His condition wasn’t as bad as to be bedridden, but there was no doubt that the side effects severely impaired his fighting prowess.
If he chose to enter the city, regardless of whether he encountered the Saints Convocation or the Salvation Brotherhood, a fight was bound to ensue. The only side he could safely side with was the weaker Saint Freya Academy.
The problem was that he had to tread across huge swathes of enemy territory in order to get to the Saint Freya Academy. Even if he managed to pull it off, could he really convince the garrison troops and staff members that he was an ally?
It was always better to err on the side of caution during times of crisis. Even if those camping in the Saint Freya Academy were in need of reinforcement, it was more likely that they would choose to block Roel from entering than to risk allowing a spy to sneak into their midst.
Staying away from the city was obviously the wiser decision here in terms of safety.
It was just that he wouldn’t gain much if he chose to do so. While the Witness State was fraught with dangers, he would always be able to gain great power and learn the truth of history each time he overcame the trials. He would be abandoning a precious opportunity to grow stronger and gain valuable intelligence if he refrained from entering the city.
In Year 612 of the Third Epoch, the Twilight Sages Assembly hadn’t dissolved yet. It was likely that ‘Academic’ was still in the Saint Freya Academy. He could potentially solve a lot of the mysteries if he could just meet ‘Academic’ in person.
Most importantly of all, if Lilian is in the city…
Under the moonlit night, Roel tightened his grip on the letter in his hand as he struggled to make a decision. The night gale howled like the cries of the dead, and the persistent blood stench seemed to forebode a greater calamity.
Roel’s golden eyes shone brightly as he compared the pros and cons against one another, but the calculations he made faded away as something far more important dominated his mind. Eventually, all he could see was a woman reaching for his face with trembling hands.
The moment he thought of Lilian, a surge of warmth gushed into Roel’s chest as he felt a tug on his heartstrings. To him, she symbolized something that the Ascarts lacked but cherished the most—kinship.
Lilian had been deprived of kinship from a young age, which ironically made her almost fanatically obsessed with it. But she wasn’t the only one who felt this way.
Awakeners of the Ascart Bloodline had always been alone in their respective generations. They had to shoulder heavy responsibilities all alone, and the stress that was heaped upon them was not something outsiders could fathom.
What Lilian desired was the same as what Roel dreamt of.
From the start, there was only one answer to the question.
“I have to enter the city. I must…” murmured Roel resolutely.
Because that’s where my bloodline kin is.
But soon after he came to a decision, a deep frown formed on his face.
“I’m in a horrible condition right now. I have to avoid combat no matter what, but how can I do so…”
Roel squeezed his forehead as he struggled to figure out a feasible plan.
Dark clouds drifted over the moon, plunging the outskirts of the forest into darkness. Roel stood as still as a statue in the midst of the shadows. Slowly, a daring plan started to take shape in his mind.
He quickly raised the letter in his hand and carefully analyzed it word by word. Once he was done, he tossed the letter into the fire and watched it burn down to ashes. Following that, he walked over to the fallen carriage to deduce the direction they were traveling toward before they were ambushed before making his way over.
…
Two hours later, at Leinster’s city gates.
Dark clouds had settled in once more, robbing the sky of the moon. There were torches fixed along the city walls that provided some illumination, but it did nothing to light up the despondent looks on the faces of the Saints Convocation’s disciples.
It had been days since the Salvation Brotherhood took over the city and started slaughtering those who refused to submit to them. The Saints Convocation suffered consecutive defeats in their hands, causing their morale to be at an all-time low.
Those monsters that looked as if they had climbed out of the gates of hell were simply too terrifying. No one could approach them at all. The overwhelming prowess displayed by the Salvation Brotherhood left everyone wondering if the Country of Scholars, which the Saints Convocation had dominated for several centuries now, was going to switch hands.
The disciples waited with deepening hopelessness till they heard a sudden noise in the latter half of the night. The sentries quickly took a closer look and saw a young man walking all alone in their direction.
His fearless but graceful gait hinted that he was someone of significant background, which led to a fervent discussion amongst the disciples. It was some time later before one of them finally shouted.
“Who are you? Identify yourself!”
There was a moment of silence before they received a response.
“Get Bradley out here to talk with me.”
The young man raised his head, revealing his majestic golden eyes.
“I am the Holy Envoy of the Saints Convocation, Roel.”