Volume 10 Chapter 539: The Church’s Secret Buried Underneath the Other World’s City of Gusta for Over 30 Years
In the largest gra.s.sland in the southern part of the Octavia Empire, the central region of the Victor Plains, the Other World’s City of Gusta, after Bella and the Knight King Liath had a round of exploration, they finally managed to enter the center of the Snowman City. There, they discovered the remains of the Radiant Church’s expeditionary army. Among the remains scattered on the ground, they could find gold coins issued more than 30 years ago, which proved that the Radiant Church’s expeditionary army had come here more than 30 years ago.
Bella speculated that the female pope trapped in the Ice Throne was the previous generation Radiant Pope. She remembered that she had looked up a lot of information about the Radiant Church when she was working there. However, the previous generation of the Radiant Pope was not mentioned anywhere. The strangest thing was that the popes before her had detailed records. Only her records had been erased deliberately, and even her name had been removed.
Bella did not think too much at that time, a.s.suming that the previous generation pope could not leave a record for some reason. Now, it seemed that the problem was complicated. The previous generation Radiant Pope obviously did not die, so it was questionable how the current Radiant Pope had gotten to his place.
“Bella, there’s something wrong near that throne. Don’t get too close!”
“Liath, you also noticed?”
Bella and Liath had discovered a trap near the Ice Throne. Those lifelike ice sculptures in the center of the city were actually frozen living people. Bella picked up a small round s.h.i.+eld on the ground and gently tossed it toward the location of the Ice Throne. When the small round s.h.i.+eld flew near the Ice Throne, a mysterious blue light from the sky froze it without surprise. It turned into an ice s.h.i.+eld that fell to the ground.
If Bella and the others had approached it just now, they would likely have been frozen by the blue light. Even though Bella and Liath were strong and not afraid of being frozen, it would be very troublesome. The source of the attack behind the freezing blue light was the colorful, mysterious aurora in the sky.
The mysterious aurora seemed to have consciousness. After seeing Bella and the others not take the bait, it tore off the layer of camouflage and attacked with dozens of blue lights. At the same time, it fell from the sky like lightning. In order to avoid the trouble of spending a lot of effort to break the ice after being frozen, Bella chose to dodge it and did not receive the attack of this blue light.
In terms of escaping, Bella and Liath were very fast. They dodged with the help of those broken tiles and dilapidated walls of the ruined building and successfully evaded the attack of dozens of blue lights. After escaping to a certain range, the aurora in the sky gave up the pursuit of Bella and the girls. It might be because they had gotten out of its attacking range, so it could not judge and track their location. As a result, it could only give up on the attack.
“Bella, that throne seems to be a reflection. The person on it and the throne are not real. I saw it just now. That light pa.s.sed through the throne. It’s not solid at all.”
“Liath, you even noticed this. You’re worthy of being a Knight King. I didn’t notice that.”
“Now you know how good I am. Let’s look around. If my speculation is correct, the real throne is hidden underground. We should be able to find the entrance nearby.”
Thanks to Liath’s suggestion, they searched for suspicious entrances near the periphery of the center. Such entrances were not hard to locate. They soon found a mysterious altar heavily guarded by many Snowmen. These Snowmen were different from those wandering outside. Although they had snow-white fur, they wore equipment and had great killing intent. Compared to the Snowman that Bella and the others had encountered, it was like the difference between ordinary residents and soldiers.
That mysterious altar was more like an opening; one could only move down through the entrance. Bella did not know about the Perception Barrier, so she could only rely on a G.o.d-grade artifact like the Invisibility Cloak to sneak into the altar with Knight King Liath. The Invisibility Cloak that Bella used, which she had exchanged with points in the City of Sin, actually belonged to one of the Other World’s artifacts.
These Snowman Guards could not see through her Invisibility Cloak. Bella and Liath, who had donned the cloak, easily fooled the Snowman Guards’ eyes and carefully explored the mysterious altar. The entrance to the altar was slanted, so the duo walked down the slope as if they were going straight to the underground world.
“Bella, your Invisibility Cloak is too heretical. If it falls into the wrong hands, isn’t it an evil object that allows people to do whatever they want?”
“Uh, Liath, you think too much. I’m a decent person. How can I use this Invisibility Cloak to do bad things? Don’t say something I don’t understand!”
Bella somewhat awkwardly evaded Liath’s doubts. She had long been using this Invisibility Cloak as a tool to do a lot of bad things to bully girls. Liath’s reaction was too slow. Bella had been able to skillfully use this Invisibility Cloak to infiltrate the room of the girlfriends to do all kinds of evil things.
The dark environment in the underground pa.s.sage made Knight King Liath remain on alert. She stopped asking Bella all sorts of embarra.s.sing questions. The darkness of the underground pa.s.sage only lasted for a while before the light appeared. It was unusually dazzling, making Bella and Liath, who had been in the darkness for some time, unable to open their eyes. After a period of adaptation, they slowly opened their eyes and surveyed the new underground world.
This was an underground s.p.a.ce built with cold ice and covered a large area. Bella visually estimated that it was the size of five or six soccer fields. The dazzling light before was emitted by the cold ice. The architecture of this underground s.p.a.ce was still the style of the Snowmen. There were some strange buildings of unknown origins everywhere. Bella still could not decipher the meaning of those buildings.
Bella and Liath soon focused on the center of the underground s.p.a.ce, where there was a human-style cathedral. It looked out of place in the underground s.p.a.ce that was full of strange architecture of the Snowmen and was easily noticed by visitors. The style of that church was very similar to the cathedral architecture of the Radiant Church. Bella had seen many similar cathedrals of the Radiant Church.
The door of the Cold Cathedral was not locked. Furthermore, there was not a single Snowman guarding the entire underground s.p.a.ce. In their eyes, this was probably their holy ground. Even if there were no Snowmen guarding, it did not mean that there were no other guardians, though. Bella would prefer to encounter those blockhead Snowman Guards. Compared to the guards here, the Snowman Guards at the entrance outside were obviously much better to deal with.
The guards patrolling the underground s.p.a.ce were tough Ice Cyclops that were five meters or taller. These guys had a pair of devil horns on their heads, with a terrifying eye that took up almost half of their faces. They looked very scary. The Ice Cyclopes’ eyes were not some ornament but an evil thing that could emit Glacial Rays.
According to the records of the Explorer Hunters Union, to hunt an Ice Cyclops that had escaped from nowhere and was attacking villages and towns, a total of several A-grade or higher exploration teams and mercenary teams had been used. After hundreds of elite warriors and adventurers turned into ice sculptures and froze to death, a Swordsman finally chopped off the Ice Cyclops’ head.
That siege, in fact, did not have to sacrifice so many people. It was purely because the adventurers and mercenaries besieging the Ice Cyclops wanted to obtain its eye. It could be sold at an astronomical price as a precious Magic Artifact. Had they not coveted its eyeball, they could have let the senior Archers stand in front and shoot the Ice Cyclops blind. It would not have resulted in having so many casualties.
There were many Ice Cyclopes here. Fortunately, they and the dimensional Snowman Guards were ‘blind’ and could not see through her Invisibility Cloak. This was good. Bella also avoided the trouble of fighting with hundreds of Cyclopes. Her main goal now was to explore the Ice Throne without fighting.
The Ice Cyclopes did not lay out a defense in the Ice Cathedral. Bella and Knight King Liath entered this dusty Ice Cathedral, where there was an obvious cold wave inside. Such coldness penetrated deep into the soul, obviously not on the same level as the coldness outside that gave gooseb.u.mps. The actual Ice Throne should be here.
The Ice Cathedral exhibited evil icicles sealing beautiful naked girls. They were likely to be from the missing exterminated mercenary groups and exploration teams here. After being stripped naked, they were brought here and preserved with freezing magic as a collection.
Bella sensed the mastermind behind the event was a ‘fellow traveler’. She wondered how the old gentry did it. These beautiful girls had been frozen in the moment of o.r.g.a.s.m and looked like those adult games’ CG screenshots. The grasp of the fire was very demanding to be able to produce such an effect.
“Those are… How could they do this in a sacred church? This is sacrilege!”
“Liath, it’s just art. You’ve been asleep too long to keep up with the times. Besides, from the way you’re blus.h.i.+ng, are you thinking of something else?”
“N-No. Bella, don’t spout nonsense. Let’s hurry up and look inside!”
Knight King Liath avoided Bella’s teasing gaze. She could not see exactly how those objects were art. Besides the erotic feeling, she could not sense anything else.
Liath was clearly incomparable to a senior ‘dirty girl’ like Bella. Bella had been even more naughty in the cathedral and had done much more erotic things. Such a level was normal to her. If this was considered sacrilege, then Bella’s was subversive.
After Bella and Liath walked through the display of evil icicles, they came to the real Ice Throne area in the depths of the Ice Church. The real Ice Throne was the same as Bella had seen on the surface. The difference was that the female pope on this throne was clearly visible. As Bella expected, she was also a beauty with delicate features and a sense of sharpness.
Bella’s initial feeling had been right. That female pope was indeed of demonic origin. At least, she had the aura of a demon on her. This time, Bella could see a pair of red demon horns on her head—the mark of the demon without a doubt. The Demon Princess Bella previously saved, Sky Demon King Dolores, also had similar demon horns. Only when high-level demons were forced to reveal their true strengths would they show their demon horns.
The female pope’s eyes were opened, and she seemed to be sleeping. Her golden pupils reflected no human figures. Bella was more surprised to see Snow Dragon Queen Eli Sh.e.l.ley, a beautiful woman wearing a snow-white queen robe, standing on top of the Ice Throne. She laid on the female pope’s lap with a very flirty position, which looked as if she had been given a princess carry by the other party.
The Snow Dragon Queen’s visuals were not inferior to that of the female pope. Her long snow-white hair and ice-blue pupils, as well as the special pair of small dragon horns on her head, proved her ident.i.ty as one of Six Pillars Demon Dragons. Her aloof appearance made Bella want to bully her. Both the female pope and the Snow Dragon Queen Eli Sh.e.l.ley had larger busts than Knight King Liath. Liath jealously looked at those two sisters with much bigger cups.
Even if she was a Knight King, Liath also had the usual idea of girls: the pursuit of the bust. Bella’s focus was different from Liath, though. She discovered that Snow Dragon Queen Eli Sh.e.l.ley was also in a confused state with open eyes. It looked like the two were frozen in time. Bella did not bring Time-s.p.a.ce Magic Demon Noesha here, so she could not tell if the female pope and Snow Dragon Queen Eli Sh.e.l.ley had suffered a magic similar to the Times.p.a.ce Prison.
These two beautiful women’s posture was too flirty. Bella nearly thought they were lesbians and had been frozen when they were about to get intimate. Fortunately, they still had their clothes on. Otherwise, she was probably going to think wrongly. Though, she already had imagined many evil scenes in her mind, like the female pope and Snow Dragon Queen Eli Sh.e.l.ley having a love-hate relations.h.i.+p and finally ended up being sealed here.
The blue light covered the Ice Throne and wrapped it whole. Bella had encountered such a defensive boundary in the raid on the Thunder Throne. At that time, Thunder Dragon Queen Geleman had tried to rely on this defensive boundary to resist Bella’s attack, but unfortunately, she had failed in the end.
There was a huge hole above the real Ice Throne that was directly connected to the fake Ice Throne on the ground. That fake Ice Throne’s reflection was created by the real Ice Throne. The Ice Throne floating around in the night sky that Bella had seen was also an illusion. The difference between the real and fake Ice Throne was that Snow Dragon Queen Eli Sh.e.l.ley was sitting on the real Ice Throne.
However, there was another person near the Ice Throne. That guy was the real controller here. He looked like a human, wearing an ice-blue wizard costume. Bella could not feel the aura of the human race on it, though. Compared to the human race, its aura was akin to a demon. Still, it was different from the demonic aura on that sealed female pope. It was as if it was a demon of a different attribute.
When Bella and Liath walked in, that guy was still talking to itself and did not realize someone was behind him. Bella and Liath were Knights, so they did not have a deadly sneak attack like a.s.sa.s.sins. Even if they successfully sneaked into the other party’s back, when unsure about the other party’s strength, they could not rashly make a move.
“Your Majesty, you’re too stubborn. You actually want to go and make peace with the human race. They have nothing worthwhile for us to learn except to make use of each other.”
While that guy was talking to himself, Bella had roughly figured out what happened. This Other World’s City of Gusta was summoned to this dimensional world by a mysterious force over 30 years ago and happened to land on the Victor Plains of the Octavia (Knight) Empire. The previous Radiant Pope, which was that queen, had brought an expeditionary army of the Radiant Church to investigate the situation here.
However, a great battle broke out here with Snow Dragon Queen Eli Sh.e.l.ley, who ruled the Snowman Race. The weakness of the Snowmen’s intelligence had been fully exploited by the Radiant Church. With mutual casualties, the female pope and Snow Dragon Queen Eli Sh.e.l.ley had the intention of peace talks. They did not expect that when doing so, there were traitors in both camps who had colluded with each other. They plotted against their supreme rulers, who had consumed too much energy due to the battle and were temporarily weak.
Because of their negligence and carelessness, these two capable women had been betrayed by their most trusted men. They were sealed in the Ice Throne. The traitor on Snow Dragon Queen Eli Sh.e.l.ley’s side was the Ice Wizard in front that intended to abrogate her rule and ascend to the throne. That plan now seemed to be very successful. At least, it had made Snow Dragon Queen Eli Sh.e.l.ley trapped in the Ice Throne for over 30 years.
This wizard did not mention the name of the traitor on the Radiant Church’s side. It probably did not bother to remember the name of the human race. However, the ident.i.ty of the traitor at the church’s side was easy to guess. The current pope was a primary suspect. He had also partic.i.p.ated in the expeditionary army at that time and had returned alive to inherit the position of the pope.
Bella had inadvertently discovered the truth about the change of the Radiant Pope more than 30 years ago, which became an opportunity for her to intervene in the church later.