Chapter 1028: one Group
Across the Milky Way, in a religious building that had turned quite silent to this point, Aderlard appeared, gasping for breath.
This location was none other than the abandoned Shrine of the Evergreen Religion and had once been their main base of operations. Ieme, in all his ambitions, had chosen to uproot them completely and move everything to EarthX1.
If the bet worked out, there was no doubt that there would be a great boon to take advantage of. However, even Arderlard couldn't have imagined that the Earthlings would be so powerful. At first, he thought that the only anomaly was Leonel, but he realized that without showing his hidden trump cards, he had no chance to defeat Arnold either.
He realized then that he had made a grave mistake. He had been so worried about the other religions come to encroach of the Evergreen Goddess' territory that he hadn't even considered the idea that Earth would fight back.
It was beyond just the idea of them having the strength to do so or not, though. Usually, lower level worlds were hesitant to fight back against religions because of the power their Gods and Goddesses represented. There was a reason why Aderlard was scared of the clergymen of other religions, but not of the other families and organizations aiming for Earth.
But, it was either that Earth was ignorant to what it meant to offend a God, or they simply didn't care. And, Aderlard was afraid that it was the latter.
The perfect counter to religious Force was World Force.
When Leonel fought his first clergymen at Valiant Heart Mountain, he had analyzed Evergreen Force to feel like a cross between Universal Force and World Force. In truth, he wasn't entirely incorrect as it had aspects of both.
Without getting lost in the details of it all, a powerful World Spirit was able to counter the advantages religions could usually create for themselves, this was why many religions targeted weaker galaxies to spread their religion.
With Earth's talent, Aderlard was sure that Earth's World Spirit was also powerful. He had originally thought that it would still take time to mature, but if they were actually so bold in killing clergymen without thought for the consequences…
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Aderlard took a deep breath and shook his head.
Leonel had no idea that his decisiveness had actually bought Earth valuable time to grow, while Aderlard had no idea that the wielder of the World Spirit, Leonel's mother, was nowhere near Earth's Fold of Reality right this moment.
'This is still an opportunity… I can make a trip to another branch and slowly replenish my Evergreen Force. Then, I can…'
Just as Aderlard was thinking of what his next steps could be, he froze. Up ahead, there was what could only be described as a Goddess descended from on high. She wore a white and fluttering dress and the small bits of skin she revealed were enticing to an extreme. It was just a shame that she actually wore a veil and no one could see what peak her beauty reached fully…
Aderlard was immediately on guard.
He had always been a cautious person but this woman had appeared without even alerting him. He even had a feeling that had she not allowed it, he would have never found her.
"Your Shrine has been uprooted?" She said lightly.
The voice was as delicate as a spring breeze and was easily ten times as refreshing. She seemed to sing with her words despite the fact she was only speaking normally.
"Y… Yes. Our Four-Layered Hand made a gamble and lost."
"I see, so you chose to try to plant a seed on Earth as well but you were destroyed."
Aderlard clenched his fists but didn't say anything. He couldn't understand why but his entire back was drenched with cold sweat. This young woman didn't seem to be exuding any killing intent and she seemed as harmless as a fly, but right now he wanted to do nothing more than turn tail and run.
The veil of the young woman shifted. It looked as though she might have smiled, or maybe she had frowned. Aderlard's palms were too drenched for him to focus on the difference.
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"You're scared."
She spoke so lightly that it was difficult to tell whether she was asking a question or stating something. She might have even been trying to comfort him, but he wasn't' in the state of mind to know.
"This tends to happen when people can sense my Religious Force and it mostly only does when I'm in the presence of other clergymen. I think that's why he was so fascinating to me… He could definitely feel my Religious Force, and yet he wasn't scared at all. In fact, he treated me like a little girl…
"But, I guess when you're so dangerous yourself, why should you feel fear?"
Aderlard had no idea what she was talking about at this point. It took everything he had to keep his knees from buckling and collapsing beneath him. Even his eyes were forced to rapidly blink as he tried to keep the sweat streaking down his brow from stinging them.
"He is very dangerous, too dangerous… But he hasn't done anything bad yet… It's a very hard moral dilemma… Should you kill someone knowing that they will do something horrible? Or should you wait until after they've done it?"
The young lady sighed, seemingly talking to herself at this point.
Shaking her head, her gaze fell onto Aderlard again.
"You have it with you, correct?"
Aderlard froze.
"According to customs, in case of a Head Clergymen going rogue, a second-in-command has the right to request aid, isn't that correct? And I have a feeling that a smart man like you used that aid to give yourself a way out. If I was as smart as you were, I would request… a secondary Shrine."
"You… You're…"
There was only one group of people that would care for the Shrine of a religion that wasn't their own…
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