199: Chapter 199 The Dark Church Appears Again

Chapter 199 Dark Church Appears Again

"Shouldn't have been exposed, right?"

Gazing at the magic spirit orb, Lister pulled back the hood of his wizard robe, his brows tightly knitted together into a deep frown.

Judging from the calm tone used to speak with him just now, the Black Witch Church member on the other side of the magic spirit orb probably hadn't noticed anything.

Yet, after all, he wasn't a worm in the other's belly, and he couldn't figure out their true thoughts.

After much pondering, all he could do now was hope that the other party truly believed Golan, whom he was impersonating, and his false rhetoric.

As for other matters, even if he had the heart to do them, he was powerless to act.

Picking up the cup of lukewarm milk on the table, he gulped it down in large mouthfuls, the warmth causing his previously tense body to relax slightly.

Reaching out to place the empty cup back on the table, he was the first to put the magic spirit orb into his storage ring, completely separating it from other items and resources.

This accidental activation of the magic spirit orb had nearly made him step one foot onto the dangerous edge of a cliff; had it not been for his wit, the consequences would surely have been unimaginable.

Unless there was some future necessity, he would no longer fiddle with the magic spirit orb to avoid looking for trouble for himself.

Soon, all the items and resources piled on the table and the floor were sorted and organized together, then orderly placed into his storage ring.

At this moment, the sun outside the window had risen quite a bit, and bright sunlight spilled in through the window.

Standing up, he walked over to the windowsill and pushed open the window. Immediately, a cool breeze rushed toward his face, causing the heaviness in his heart to instantly dissipate a lot.

Looking far away with his deep eyes, the water-blue sky was cloudless, and the grayish-white cold air unique to the bitter winter was mixed in the air.

Enveloped by the sky, Blackwood Town was wreathed in a thick hum of noise.

The figures of the Serfs working hard and the smiles overflowing on their faces resembled a peaceful picture that would only appear in a dream.

This bitter winter might be much harder to endure than before, but he believed that under his governance, the Serfs would definitely live much better than before.

This point could be very well verified from the scene he saw before his eyes.

Exhaling a long puff of white mist, the corners of his mouth curved into an arc: "Let's see how the divination luck is today."

While gazing at the reassuring scene before him, he drove his will to summon the white ancient book in his mind.

His luck over the past two days had generally been quite good; taking advantage of this good momentum, he wanted to see if it could continue today.

Looking at the thick three-dimensional book floating before his eyes, his will moved once more, and the originally tightly closed book automatically flipped open to a blank page.

Immediately, lines of text filled with an ancient aura slowly emerged from left to right on the blank page.

[Divination 1: The messengers dispatched by Count Theodore to carry out the "military draft" have all completed their missions.]

[Divination 2: Multiple Pioneering Lords in the southwestern fringe area of the Pioneer Territory reasonably rejected the "military draft" under the pretext of battling tribal forces.]

[Divination 3: Golden Knight Wells's failure to rush to the front lines to fight caused the High Priest of the Beast Tribe, Bartholomew, to sense something was amiss.]

[Divination 4: Reijana, the Archbishop who failed to investigate the cause of death of Archbishop Zimmerman in Aetheria, will obey the temporary command of Cardinal Spert to go to the Chenxing Mountain Range to investigate news of the Ice Demon.]

Lister looked at the first piece of divination information, his calm expression showing little change.

Several days had passed since the last messenger, Lev, came to him.

Calculating the time, it was completely normal for him and other messengers to have completed the "military draft" transmission mission by now.

In the coming days, according to his projections, the southwestern Pioneer Territory, which was previously largely peaceful, should become very lively.

The "military draft" was different from other commands; its far-reaching implications and heavy weight did not allow anyone to treat it lazily.

As long as it was determined that one had responded to the command of the "military draft", anyone, regardless of who they were, had to set off to reinforce at the fastest speed.

If one delayed the reinforcement progress with various excuses, once discovered, they would face positive and severe punishment, even if some of them had considerable backgrounds.

"With so many Pioneering Lords leaving, the pressure in the border areas will definitely increase. I must pay extra attention."

His gaze condensed slightly, his fingers tapping lightly on the windowsill, and he muttered to himself: "Furthermore, the matter regarding the Shadow Leopard Tribe must also be executed as soon as possible."

As his voice fell, he looked at the second divination information, his expression involuntarily showing a slight surprise.

Someone actually used the exact same excuse as him to reasonably reject the "military draft".

Previously, he rejected the "military draft" firstly because he didn't want to waste his military strength on the northwestern front.

Secondly, it was because through divination, he had advanced and accurately learned about the impending raid by the Beast Tribe squad.

With these two factors combined, he had taken the risk of being discovered to put on an act for the messenger Lev so that he could reasonably reject the "military draft".

Why on earth did these Pioneering Lords refuse? And which Pioneering Lords refused?

For these two questions, he couldn't come to a conclusion for a moment.

Thinking of this, the corners of his mouth raised into a curious smile: "It seems my understanding of these close neighbors is still insufficient; I should interact with them more in the future."

However, this was also fine; if the Pioneering Lords close to the tribal forces all left, in case any problems arose then, it would most likely affect him as well.

Then he continued to look at the third divination.

It was Bartholomew again!

Regarding this High Priest of the Beast Tribe, although he had never met it once, he had already learned a lot of information about it from the previous few divinations.

It was the mastermind who previously planned the ambush and encirclement of the two Golden Knights, Montgomery and Wells.

In the current extremely tense political situation, for it to obtain intelligence that could almost change the direction of the entire battle situation, both wisdom and methods were indispensable.

Now this piece of intelligence was the same.

Wells's delayed appearance in the frontline battlefield was clearly due to the instructions contained in Count Theodore's message.

If his guess was not wrong, Wells should have arrived at the front lines long ago, but had simply never appeared on the frontline battlefield.

Furthermore, to ensure he wouldn't be ambushed alone, Montgomery definitely wouldn't take the lead in charging anymore either, but instead would oversee the rear and observe the battle situation.

Under this circumstance, the ambush and encirclement planned by the Beast Tribe could not be directly executed.

After all, their ultimate goal was to encircle and kill the two Golden Knights. To take a step back, if they really moved ahead of time and only killed Montgomery...

Although this would also cause a huge impact on the kingdom's side, it still couldn't play a decisive role by any means, and instead would usher in the kingdom's fierce counterattack.

Besides, Montgomery wasn't a fool; clearly seeing that he was about to be surrounded and killed, he would definitely retreat beforehand.

If a Golden Knight was desperately trying to escape, it was almost impossible to hold him down without three equivalents in combat power.

Meanwhile, the High Orcs currently openly arranged by the Beast Tribe on the frontline battlefield were still only Grand Commander Tharos and High Priest Bartholomew.

If it were just to kill one Montgomery, yet expose the whereabouts of other High Orcs, they would still have to carefully weigh whether the gains outweighed the losses.

These problems that he could think of, High Priest Bartholomew, with its clever brain, could certainly think of them as well.

Now he estimated that after Bartholomew sensed something was wrong, it was most likely trying to buy intelligence from a traitor within the kingdom.

Thinking of this, his eyes condensed slightly, and he asked himself in a low voice: "I wonder how much power this traitor really has, and whether he knows about Count Theodore's message?"

Even though he wasn't on the front lines right now, his concern for the front lines was definitely no less than anyone else's; after all, this concerned his grand enterprise of future development.

Yet this question could only be kept in his heart for now, and it wasn't appropriate for him to continue meddling in the affairs of the northwestern front, at least not for the present.

No longer dwelling on this matter, he immediately looked at the last divination. His distinct pupils suddenly contracted sharply, and his expression underwent a considerable change.

Dark Church! Archbishop! Chenxing Mountain Range! Ice Demon!

Several terms that he had long seen, was very familiar with and wary of, as well as those he had just seen and left a deep impression on him, all burst into his field of vision.

The Dark Church, an evil organization that in his view was even more powerful than the Black Witch Church, and perhaps powerful by more than just a notch.

Such a church organization had also participated in the investigation of the Ice Demon, and moreover, the ones sent were powerhouses at the Archbishop level.

Last time in Aetheria, he had already witnessed the might of the Dark Church's Archbishop.

If not for the appearance of that mysterious youth, Count Elsid and the other knights might not have really been able to keep them behind.

Now, even if this Archbishop named Reijana was only exploring the Chenxing Mountain Range, who could guarantee at that time whether she would once again temporarily receive orders to execute other missions?

Cardinal Spert—

He didn't know how strong this person actually was, but the strength displayed by Archbishop Zimmerman last time was definitely among the strongest batch of advanced wizards.

A Cardinal, who was even higher than the Archbishop level—he already somewhat dared not continue thinking about it.

Because if it really was as he thought in his heart, then the overall strength of the Dark Church was probably not weaker than the Pedan Kingdom, and might even surpass the kingdom.

Taking a deep breath of the chill-filled air, the stuffy feeling inside his body was instantly dispelled quite a bit.

"Now everything is just speculation, and besides, even if the sky falls, there are tall people holding it up; what on earth am I worrying about now?" He comforted himself while looking out at the distant scenery.

Facing the cold wind blowing wantonly against his face and body, after a long while, he collected his thoughts and took back the white ancient book floating before him.

Using both hands, he gently closed the window, purposely leaving a crack for ventilation.

The snow melting gradually from the roof of the house dripped down from time to time, emitting crisp sounds of "da, da, da".

Afterwards, he returned to the sofa and sat down, beginning to practice the three newly acquired Wizardries.

According to his usual thought logic, practicing many things is not as good as mastering one; the main cultivation path he specialized in right now was the Knight's Way, and battle qi cultivation should be his primary focus.

But recently he could clearly perceive that his body's cultivation in battle qi was somewhat overflowing; although continuing to cultivate could successfully achieve a breakthrough, it was also highly likely to cause the drawback of an unstable realm.

Since it was the main cultivation path he decided to walk in the future, naturally he didn't want a situation where his foundation was unstable.

Otherwise, in the later stages of cultivation, trying to make up for it would be as hard as ascending to heaven, let alone causing other negative impacts.

Furthermore, there was another point: even if he improved his realm now, it would at most elevate him by one rank, and his overall strength improvement wouldn't be particularly large.

A little more or a little less wouldn't raise his combat advantage by much in the subsequent battle with the Beast Tribe squad.

Unless he could advance to Gold in one go, but for such a baseless matter, he could only think about it in his dreams for now.

Based on his insights into cultivation during this period, if he wanted to continue breaking through the knight realm while ensuring a solid foundation, it was best to polish his Spearmanship to the mastery realm.

However, this Spearmanship mastery—

"Sigh, when on earth will I be able to reach Spearmanship mastery?" He couldn't help letting out a long sigh, wearing a helpless expression.

It was precisely because of all these reasons that he decided to practice Wizardry.

If before the Beast Tribe squad attacked, not to mention all of them, as long as he could successfully practice two primary Wizardries, there would be a huge boost to his combat power.

If he could successfully practice an advanced Wizardry, that boost to him would be even more terrifying.

He had long yearned for powerful attack-attribute Wizardry.

Among Mesfield's Wizard Scrolls, although there were many types of Wizardry, almost all of them were defensive attributes.

Those few attack-attribute Wizardries that did exist were all weak spells that couldn't be more entry-level.

Even if learned to a profound level, its power ceiling was still right there, unless he could independently deduce and create subsequent evolutionary branches, but his talent clearly didn't reach that level.

Having decided on the cultivation direction for the next period of time, he looked at the three Wizardries on the table and gently opened the fire-element Wizard Scroll among them.

Multiple Fireball Roar.

Judging by the grade marked on the scroll, it was only primary, but its power should not be underestimated.

When cultivated to a profound level, the caster could condense hundreds of fireballs capable of scorching even the air, and the volume of each fireball was as large as five or six soccer balls fused together.

Yet it also had an obvious drawback in itself: it required sufficient and pure fire-element magic power for support.

Otherwise, it would cause instability and loss of control in spellcasting, and in severe cases, it might even harm oneself and teammates.

Carefully and earnestly finishing the introduction on the scroll, he put on the amethyst knight's gloves and began trying to practice according to the magic power and...

fire-element mobilization methods on the scroll.

As the Spiritual Power in his sea of consciousness was released, he drove it to sense the explosive fire-element energy in the air.

Explosive fire-element energy was a minor attribute branch of the fire element. Similar to how living beings naturally possessed different personalities, the same was true among identical elements.

Soon, after his Spiritual Power carefully distinguished the core of the fire-element energy, streams of scorching, fierce, and passionate deep-golden-red fire energy particles surged madly toward his body.

They were like wild, untamable magical beast horses that had broken free from their reins, their essence filled with unstable characteristics.

Feeling this, he immediately mobilized the pure magic power within his body, cautiously guiding them to converge in front of him and fuse.

Their unstable nature caused them to emit immense exclusivity, jumping and darting around in an attempt to break free from the guidance of the magic power.

Yet his magic power inherently possessed the magic power of Baize, and its internal domineering attribute forcefully suppressed these restless explosive fire elements.

As the temperature inside the room gradually became sultry and hot, a soccer-sized scorching fireball condensed and formed in front of him.

The explosive fire elements inside it churned and surged constantly, exuding a thick aura of danger.

Supporting the deep-golden-red fireball suspended above his palm, he came to the windowsill and opened the window.

Looking at a large tree not far away, he waved his arm forward slightly, and the fireball instantly shot violently toward the large tree.