It was a lie that there was only one religion on the continent. In reality, in that turbulent era where G.o.ds suddenly vanished and idols and statues depicting deities suddenly cracked and turned into pieces of rubbles, apart from the belief to the G.o.ddess of Life, another one had survived. Although this religion"s believers were small and were even hiding from the world.Who were these people? Once, seven years ago, the G.o.ddess mentioned them to Jiang Li, and her tone back then was not very nice. Bald and wore saffron robes or sometimes old rags all year round. They were the monks living in the southern part of the Empire.
They were not really heretics, despite being called that way by the girl. In the first place, they were not true believers of the G.o.ddess who just went against the norms or refused the accepted truth. Their faith lies in someone else, a being called Creator.
In their holy text pa.s.sed down to the chiefs of every generation, the world has two realms, one for the mortals, the other for G.o.ds. The G.o.ds disappeared because a great ma.s.sacre happened in their realm. Only two divinities managed to preserve themselves.
It was said that the Creator, the most powerful of them all, was the one who saved the G.o.ddess of Light. Because he got too injured from the fight with the Deity of War, he sunk into a deep slumber and left the management of the mortal world to the G.o.ddess. It had been a few millenniums since then. Through the course of time, many changes happened, and not all were positive.
It was unfortunate but the G.o.ddess" power was not as vast as the Creator or the other higher beings. She did not forbid the use of other magics. But without the other G.o.ds, the mana in the world continuously lessened, leading to the number of magicians also dwindling.
The Creator left the world in her hands. But she couldn"t even do a good job maintaining it. The only good thing she had done so far was to summon a Saintess. But even that was questionable until this summoned person showed results.
It was due to this that the monks of the Southern temple held the G.o.ddess in contempt. When these monks were still mingling with the believers of the G.o.ddess, they frequently vocalized their complaints about Her, thus earning the wrath and displeasure of the G.o.ddess" devotees.
In the end, they got driven out of the capital, labeled as heretics. Even now no monks could step into the capital. They could only inhabit a fairly prosperous island in the South, refusing to interact with outsiders and silently maintaining their faith in the Creator.
This was a piece of information Jiang Li learned through browsing an uncountable number of books and scrolls.
A day after he arrived in the East, he found those reference materials extremely unreliable.
Hehe... Upon arrival, he immediately saw a few monks wandering the streets of his family"s territory. He then issued an investigation, and guessed what? Apart from the capital, the monks were in the other regions too!
When did they begin to establish branches of their monastery?
The last record he read detailing their close-off culture was written two years ago. Did the monks start ma.s.s recruitment since then?
Jiang Li nodded in amazement as he looked into the reports.
"The Emperor and the other n.o.bles did not notice anything."
"If these people had truly worked in the shadows, growing their numbers in secret, they are too effective and efficient! Good seedlings!"
This afternoon, after going through the usual routine, going to places with many people and distributing relief goods that were bought using the church and the fief"s funds, he disappeared. There was n.o.body with him, not even the knights a.s.signed to him.
He didn"t leave the city so the accidents he encountered along the way were limited to falling into a manhole, getting stabbed by a thief, and getting chased by a dozen crows.
The moon was in a crescent-shaped, it made him annoyed since it looked like lips that were smirking at him. After all, when he had reached near a nipa hut in the outskirts of the town, he looked a bit miserable, a large part of the clothes on his back was missing.
"What are you doing in front of a monk"s house?" The voice came from behind. When he turned around, a pair of red-rimmed eyes was glaring at him. The distance between him and the bald man was only four meters. He could not see much of the other person"s facial features due to the dimness of the place, and he didn"t truly care. The hostile stance of the other was more concerning.
"... This guy"s voice is a bit too loud and the face too contorted. Why so aggressive?"
Jiang Li would have loved to reply... If not for finding himself being encircled and attacked by more than five monks. There was also the fact that he couldn"t answer.
His intention was only to observe these people from afar. Curiosity got into him, especially after finding out that these folks seemed to be having operations in various cities. This was why he made this trip.
However, for some reason, even though he was still more than a hundred meters away from the house referred to by the monk, he was discovered and then surrounded.
"Why are you not answering, Prophet of the G.o.ddess" Holy Church?"
He stared at the leader in astonishment. A kick almost grazed his head. Thankfully, a hole somehow appeared underneath his feet which messed up with his balance but saved his face. Within a second, he stabilized himself and continuously jumped back to evade the incoming palm strikes from two slender monks.
When he successfully managed to distance himself with the enemies, although a fatal attack almost landed on him, his mind was on the question thrown at him earlier.
"... The senses of these monks are so good. And they seemed to know my appearance even though I have only been here for five days? Wow. But within those five days, I didn"t even show my face since I was wearing a mask. Even now, I"m wearing a mask. What the h.e.l.l?"
If he asked the biggest baldie among the bunch how he recognized him and the other party answered through his body figure, he would not hesitate to kneel down.
Jiang Li was tempted to engage in a conversation. However, replying would mean admitting who he was. He resolved to quietly fend off the strikes aimed at him.
The leader figure seemed to have become angry at Jiang Li"s silence so he joined the people ganging up on the target. "If you don"t want to answer, then die!"
"... Wow. How unreasonable."
Jiang Li had to be thankful that the men from the monastery of the Creator preferred martial arts and fistfights instead of magic. Also, about the misstep earlier, even without it, he could avoid the attacks. The monks had a good defense against magic and could evade them or nullify them with their own arts. But since Jiang Li"s goal was to escape from the encirclement, the barrage of ice and illusion was enough to give him that opportunity.
The man hurriedly slipped away when an opening presented itself to him. He didn"t remain unscathed. However, the number of wounds and injuries were nothing serious. He could just find a priest to heal him. Actually, his convoy had a dozen of them. And it would easy to create excuses on why he ended up wounded and dirty. The people from the mansion and the church were aware of his unusual unluckiness. It greatly helped that the enemies were not weapon pract.i.tioners so the bruises could just be attributed to numerous falls.
In a few minutes, he managed to break away from those people"s pursuit. While panting for breath, he slumped on the ground and leaned his back against the trunk of a huge tree. Staring into the endless blanket of stars in the sky, he began to ponder.
He was very careful. How come the monks knew he would be there?
The exchanged of blows earlier also crossed his mind. The attacks had been deadly and always aimed at his vitals.
"... I was targeted? And possibly by the whole monastery?"
The realization dawned upon him only when he reached his lodging and changed into a clean set of clothes.
As he burrowed into his blanket, he frowned, wondering if the weird feeling he had for the past days, that he was being watched, was from the monks scattered outside the capital.
The creased on his forehead stayed for a long while. But oddly, before dreamland had truly claimed his consciousness, a corner of his mouth slowly formed a smile. He seemed to have thought of something again.
The being who was always observing him from somewhere didn"t know what was in his mind at that time. However, she stood in front of the mirror, frozen. A hand of her automatically reached out to the image.
She wondered why she felt like she had seen images from her own memories similar to the current one before her. Impatience blossomed from within her.
Suddenly, she couldn"t wait for the coronation day to come as faith and prayers addressed to her would spike up in number and intensity for certain.
That day was also a day dedicated to her. The first day of the week-long festival commemorating the first miracle of the G.o.ddess.