Chapter 965: Secret! The Former Holy Empire
Chen Rui bowed to the pseudo-angel and spoke up, “It turns out to be the sir angel of the church! It’s all just a misunderstanding. We just pa.s.sed by here occasionally.”
“Sir Kuhler! Don’t listen to their sophistry!” Chief Judge Seus’s voice sounded, “When we arrived here, the ruins were just opened, and only this couple were here. There is no doubt that they are the descendants of sin!”
Descendants of sin? This word repeatedly emphasized by Seus caught Chen Rui’s attention – In this case, the ‘black-robed leader’ is the so-called ‘descendants of sin’. What do these 3 words represent?
The pseudo-angel Kuhler’s eyes were filled with murderous aura, and an enormous amount of kingdom power had been condensed in an instant. Zola showed a dignified look when she sensed the opponent’s strength, and the 6 element kingdom power also began to surge rapidly.
At this moment, 2 silver lights lit up from Chen Rui’s hands. These were 2 silver-white chains that seemed half-translucent, but even the strong light around Kuhler couldn’t cover up the brilliance of these 2 silver-white chains.
When Kuhler saw the 2 chains, he blurted out in shock, “Chain of Mind!”
The appearance of these 2 chains made the pseudo-angel’s attention completely turn to Chen Rui.
“Sir, I said it was just a misunderstanding.”
“Sir Kuhler!” Seus didn’t understand the meaning of the 2 chains. Feeling that Kuhler’s murderous aura was rapidly diminis.h.i.+ng, he asked quickly.
Kuhler ignored Seus and just stared at Chen Rui with burning eyes as he asked, “You… should have 1 more thing right?”
Chen Rui didn’t answer immediately and just looked around, “Sir, don’t you think there are too many people here?”
“Seus.” Kuhler said immediately, “Ask everyone to evacuate.”
Seus was taken aback, and he didn’t dare to ask more. He immediately issued an order, and all the judges quickly left the site.
Chen Rui already had a badge in his hand which was a round ring badge. This time, even Seus recognized it and exclaimed, “Holy Ring Badge!”
This badge was not an ordinary thing, it represented the Archangels Raphael. According to Seus’ knowledge, only the archbishop and Holy Lady Eudora of the Holy Blessing Hall have 1. I can’t believe that this ‘descendant of sin’ actually has one!
“No doubt it’s you!” Kuhler had completely restrained his breath, “Why are you here?”
Chen Rui smiled wryly, “I told Sir Seus earlier that I was just pa.s.sing by. This is a complete misunderstanding.”
Seus asked cautiously in surprise, “Sir Kuhler, this sir is…”
“You should call him… Your Holiness.” Kuhler smiled, “Although the official sealing ceremony hasn’t happened yet.”
“So he is…” Seus finally understood. He no longer had any doubts and immediately gave Chen Rui a salute, “Your Holiness Arthur!”
Seus was a high-level church leader, so he naturally knew that the new owner of the Crown of Thorns, Prince Arthur, was inspired and canonized by Raphael. He was about to become the Holy Child of the church and the next successor of the pope.
The Tribunal was a direct force under the pope, so Seus showed considerable respect to the future church controller and his immediate superior.
“It’s too much of an honor! I haven’t been officially promoted yet, so just call me by my name.” Chen Rui seemed to have thought of something and said to Zola, “Help me cancel the disguise technique first.”
Zola pretended to wave her hand, and Chen Rui changed back to his original appearance of ‘Arthur’. He saluted back to Seus and said, “I was going to the Blue Glory Empire this time, but I was a.s.sa.s.sinated in the Yang Shao Empire. I fell into the trap set by the other party and was almost killed by the hobbits, so I made a plan to divide the troops, find someone to pretend to be me and the escort team to move on while I go on a different route.”
“I see.” Kuhler nodded approvingly, “No doubt you are resourceful and worthy of being a talent that Sir Raphael values.”
“Sir Kuhler has overpraised.” Chen Rui said modestly and changed back the subject, “I arrived at the Cloud City in the afternoon, and I heard that there is something weird here at night, so I was accompanied by the guardian to find out what happened. Unexpectedly, we ran into Sir Seus just in time, causing a misunderstanding.”
“Your guardian… has considerable strength.” Kuhler glanced at Zola and showed his appreciation. The guardian of the ancient civilization was no doubt extraordinary, but since it was the guardian of the ‘Holy Child’, it was equivalent to the power of the church, of course. Therefore, the stronger the better.
Zola nodded her head slightly to Kuhler in respect. Although Ms. Fairy Dragon was quite close to Demi-G.o.d, approaching Demi-G.o.d and reaching Demi-G.o.d were completely different. If they really were to fight in a 1-on-1 battle, Zola was by no means Kuhler’s opponent; it would be lucky if she was able to escape.
But then again, if the 2 sides really were to fight, Chen Rui could destroy everyone including Kuhler with [Red Pole Star Transformation]. The reason why he chose to show his ident.i.ty as the ‘Holy Child’ was because of his own considerations.
“In fact, before Sir Seus arrived, we had fought against several black-robed men. One of the black-robed leaders was defeated by my guardian and escaped, while the rest of the black-robed men committed suicide, leaving no survivors. They were quite decisive… What is the origin of these people?”
“This is supposed to be a church secret.” Seus thought for a moment, then he glanced at Kuhler again before he replied, “But for Your Holiness Arthur… Uhm, Your Highness, sooner or later, you have to get hold of this information, so I don’t have to hide it. Does Your Highness know about the Cloud Rider Empire?”
“Cloud Rider Empire?” Chen Rui moved in his mind and nodded, “Sir Gralin once told me about the Cloud Rider Empire.”
There were 3 Holy Empires coexisting in the human world, namely the Dragon Bright Empire, the Blue Glory Empire and the Cloud Rider Empire. The Crown of Thorns, currently owned by Chen Rui, was the holy relic of the Cloud Rider Empire. However, the fate of the Cloud Rider Empire was very tragic, and they were completely controlled by the Black Death Followers. All the people in 30 cities and towns in the country were blood sacrificed in an inhumane manner. After this incident was disclosed by the escaped survivors, this shocked the entire human world. Under the call of the church, with the Dragon Bright Empire and the Blue Glory Empire as the leaders, almost all empires united to eliminate the Cloud Rider Empire to resolve this terrifying disaster.
“Since this is the case, I won’t go into details. The Cloud City is the site of the Cloud Rider Capital. It used to be the sacrifice center of the cultists, gathering the resentment power of countless blood sacrificers. The dark ritual has caused these grievances to not dissipate for countless years. Up to now, the area of the Cloud City is still full of terrifying spirit power. Every night, it will spread out and affect all living creatures. Originally after reconstruction, this was a prosperous city, but due to this reason, it has gradually fallen into disrepair. The Cloud City of the Turin Kingdom is already in a state of despair. Every year this week, the power of grievance will continue to deepen. According to the latest survey results, this was man-made. Because this time period was the day when the Cloud Rider Empire fell, that is to say, the remnants of the Cloud Rider Empire, which had been completely eroded by darkness… is very likely that the descendants of the royal family were deliberately carrying out some kind of evil ritual, so I specially invited Sir Kuhler to lead the Tribunal elites here to set up an ambush, but we unexpectedly came across Your Highness.”
Ritual, royal descendant of the Cloud Rider Empire, black-robed leader…
Hatred, blood sacrifice…
In his memory, the words seemed to echo in his ears again, “This is all destiny, my destiny is doomed from birth”.
Suddenly, Chen Rui understood something.
“Unfortunately, I didn’t catch the leader. I’ll try to cancel the grievances here.” Chen Rui’s mind turned fast, the Crown of Thorns appeared on his head as the sacred breath was gradually released. The surrounding intense resentment immediately started to drop sharply.
“[Divine Blessing]!” Seus’s eyes lit up, and Kuhler nodded slightly. As expected of the owner recognized by the Crown of Thorns and the owner of the [Body of Light Glory]. Although he is only at the Warrior level, he can unleash such a powerful [Divine Blessing] power.
However, when the [Divine Blessing] power of the Crown of Thorns disappeared, the resentment began to return to its original concentration. There was no sign of abating.
“Arthur, don’t waste your efforts.” Kuhler shook his head, “Although the power of [Divine Blessing] can restrain the resentment here, the ‘volume’ of resentment is too great. What’s more, the past ritual left a lot of unknown hidden danger, so the Crown of Thorns alone cannot remove these evil forces.”
Chen Rui expressed his regret and asked, “Sir Kuhler, when I activated the Crown of Thorns just now, I got some strange feedback. It seems that there are words like ‘soul variant’, ‘Blood Sacrifice Soul’, ‘Abyss Lord’ and so on. I wonder what the meaning is?”
This question was Chen Rui’s true intention to ‘befriend’ the people in the church and reveal the Crown of Thorns.
“There is actually such a thing?” Kuhler was shocked, showing a horrified expression, “What is the specific feedback?”
“I don’t know either. The information seems to be fragmented. I think we must first understand the meaning of those words.”
Kuhler looked at Seus, and Seus immediately understood, “I’m going to organize the judges first to clean up the traps and altar-related things in this area.”
After Seus left, Kuhler set his eyes on Zola again. Chen Rui smiled slightly, “Sir, this Ms. Zola is the highest guardian of the civilization that I inherited, and also my wife. She will never betray me, so there is no need to dismiss her.”
Kuhler pondered for a moment and finally said, “There’s some real ancient mysteries involved, so I have to be careful… You’ve heard Gralin talk about the Cloud Rider Empire, so you should know about the Black Death Follower. The Black Death Followers wors.h.i.+p evil creatures that destroy everything. These creatures are called the ‘Abyss’, which can be interpreted as ‘forbidden’ in the old saying.”
Chen Rui nodded. When he asked Tetenis about the ‘Abyss’, the old man who inherited 1,000 years of knowledge thought for a long time, and the answer was only the word ‘forbidden’.
“The faith of these cultists is extremely terrifying, especially firm believers. The level of madness is terrifying. The Cloud Rider Empire once had a terrifying blood sacrifice that shocked the world. Countless living people were slaughtered, blood flowed into rivers, and life sacrifices were given to the Abyss creatures. The Abyss creatures are not in our world, but sealed somewhere. The purpose of the Black Death Follower is to let these creatures break the seal, enter this world, and destroy all things.”
Chen Rui had a deep understanding of this. The ancient alchemy civilization he inherited was destroyed by the Abyss creatures. Thinking of a new term he had seen in the Sky Wheel, he immediately asked, “By the way, sir, there is another term, what is the ‘main plane’?”
“You should know that in addition to the human world we are in, there is the Demon Realm in this world. It is said that these 2 worlds were originally 1. The G.o.ds had descended there many times. The life force there was the most powerful, collectively referred to as the ‘main plane’. However, in addition to the ‘main plane’, there are many ‘sub-worlds’ in different s.p.a.ces, and some worlds have intelligent life races similar to ours, but basically no miracles can be seen. The Abyss is sealed in one of the sub-worlds.”
Chen Rui understood it immediately. He already had a rough structure diagram of the universe as the plane in his mind. The G.o.ds descended on the main plane, the rest were sub-worlds, and the Abyss creatures, now in sub-worlds, tried to use various methods to return to the main plane.
Kuhler continued to explain, “The supreme ruler of the Abyss is the lord who can drive the army of the Abyss. There are 3 lords in total, named after hatred, fear and despair. Some of the strength or physique of the Black Death Follower can be carrying the will of the Dark Lord, then a certain mutation occurs, which is called the ‘soul variant’. The soul variant has high and low levels. The lower one is affected by the will of the lord, and the highest level soul variant can be converted to terrifying creatures of half Abyss or full Abyss. They can even be separated from the altar or other facilities and directly project part of the lord’s power. As for the blood-sacrifice soul… It can be understood as the existence of the Dark Lord pa.s.sing soul power and strengthening the will control through the main altar. That is to say, the higher the power of the main altar sacrifices, the stronger the will that the lord transmits to the soul variant, and the stronger the power it exerts.”
“Main altar?” Chen Rui noticed 1 of the key words.
“The main altar is the altar that is directly sacrificed to the Dark Lord. It contains special rules and the strongest power. It can automatically absorb the sacrifices of all the secret Abyss altars. In theory, each Dark Lord corresponds to only 1 main altar.”
Chen Rui’s eyes lit up, “So, as long as we destroy the main altar, we can cut off the lord’s control over the Black Death Followers… especially the soul variant?”
“At least, it can be greatly weakened.” Kuhler sighed, “But it’s easier said than done. The main altar has always been the biggest secret of the Black Death Followers. For so many years, we have been trying to find and destroy the main altar, but there is no sign of it… The information you get from the Crown of Thorns may be quite important. If you continue to have corresponding prompts in the future, be sure to pay attention. In fact, I know very little about the Abyss. If you have more doubts, you can ask Sir Raphael in the future.”
Chen Rui nodded with a strange look in his eyes – At least, he knew what was Shura’s biggest mission in that mysterious cult now.