These two high-ranking members of the orthodox churches were exactly as Don had expected—both were demigod-level Beyonders.
They seemed to have just experienced a battle and looked somewhat disheveled.
One of them, an elderly man as tranquil as the quiet night, gazed into the distance, seemingly looking toward the massive crater at the end of the crimson moon.
At this distance, even Don, who was in Euclidean space, couldn't see clearly, but this elder still seemed to sense something and gazed into the distance.
Was it because of the Evernight Goddess's divine descent?
Don stopped where he was, glanced at the crimson moon in the sky, then cast a glance in a certain direction. Not detecting any pursuit from the gazes of the Goddess or Adam, he boldly used Euclidean space to examine the information of these two demigods.
Euclidean space was anti-divination and anti-prophecy, and could also isolate certain inexplicable gazes. Having traveled such a long distance in Euclidean space, with this space's authority as a barrier, even if Adam and the Goddess wanted to pursue him, it wouldn't be possible for them to catch up so quickly.
"Chanis? The Archbishop Chanis who laid the foundation for the Sleepless pathway system of the Church of the Evernight Goddess?"
Examining the information of the two demigods, Don was somewhat amazed. He truly hadn't expected to encounter this figure here.
As for the other one, oh, a high-ranking member of the Church of the Lord of Storms—not important.
So these two demigods took so long to arrive because they were affected by the inherent debuff of Storm Church Beyonders: "Late but Present"?
Does this thing even have area-of-effect friendly fire?
"In the future, I should directly avoid the Church of the Lord of Storms and notify the Church of the Evernight Goddess and the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun directly... Although the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun is also outwardly strong but inwardly weak, it's still better than the Storm Church that can't make it to anything on time..."
[Host, you're so humorous.]
Don: Oh, so what about it.
Cold.jpg
During the process of examining the information, Don also roughly understood why these two demigods had traveled so slowly.
"They were ambushed by an Intis demigod on their way here, a demigod of the Hunter pathway... Is it the one who was previously by the river with Augustus and that Planter pathway demigod? He was also polluted and influenced by the Abyss?"
Don cast his gaze toward the direction the two demigods had come from, took out a gold coin from his pocket, and flicked it with a 'ding.'
As the coin fell, he didn't look at which side it landed on to confirm whether the attempt was dangerous. After putting it back in his pocket, Don directly headed in the opposite direction from the two church high-ranking members.
After advancing to demigod, the spiritual enhancement provided by the potion and the growth of divinity had caused Don's own spirituality, already that of a Bizarro Sorcerer, to increase exponentially. Even when using Euclidean space for travel, he could afford the massive spiritual consumption in a short time.
To be safe, Don didn't plan to leave Euclidean space here and use his Traveler marionette to travel.
System sighed: [Host is truly one of the three masters of survival...]
"System, you're being bold."
Could this be called survival? This was called being cautious, cautious, alright?
"This is called following the will of the heart."
[Hehe, alright, alright, whatever the host says.]
Don: "..."
Really want to beat this thing up.
The scenes in Euclidean space flashed rapidly again. Don's overflowing divinity wrapped around his own spirituality, constantly browsing the surrounding interactive information streams and extracting the information he needed.
Soon, following the lingering spirituality left by the two archbishops during their journey, he found the place where several demigods had fought. Through the traces of pollution remaining here, he found the Intis demigod who had already left this place far behind and was hiding by a stream.
He no longer looked like a normal human. His entire body showed varying degrees of gigantification, with the stench of rotting demons constantly polluting the surrounding environment. His body was pitted and scarred, as if struck by lightning, with some parts missing, as if they had been erased.
But overall, this Intis demigod looked more like a monster than a human.
Don remembered that this Intis demigod had previously mentioned that multiple collective sacrificial incidents had recently occurred within Intis, causing large-scale deaths of town residents.
"These collective sacrifices probably also subtly influenced this Hunter pathway demigod at the border, planting seeds of pollution within him."
Combined with the pollution lurking within that Planter pathway demigod, when Don fought desperately with that divine vessel of the Dark Side of the Universe and the Abyss appeared, the pollution here erupted simultaneously, driving this Intis demigod mad and making him desperately prevent the Loen Church demigods from going to provide support.
Hmm, it was all too reasonable—so reasonable that Don didn't know if there were traces of some Spectator pathway schemer's arrangements in all this.
The Spectator pathway—truly terrifying.
Don stood beside this Intis demigod, watching the other's gradually dimming eyes that were losing their humanity.
After his death, the pollution would completely transform this area, turning it into an abyss that humans couldn't approach.
Holding the Sun Scepter, Don confirmed that this Iron-blooded Knight could no longer be saved and could only wait to die.
The Abyss's pollution was powerful and strange, having already penetrated the other's body, heart, and spirit. Even if there were demigods of the Sun pathway or high-sequence powerhouses of the Spectator pathway to treat him, they couldn't completely extract this kind of mental pollution rooted deep in the astral body.
"The Abyss's mental pollution feeds on emotions and uses the astral body and physical body as nourishment to grow wildly."
He prepared to use a high-level charm of the Death domain to kill this demigod, while simultaneously using the Sun Scepter to quickly extract the Iron-blooded Knight's Beyonder characteristics, giving this Intis demigod a quick end so he wouldn't have to suffer the double torment of losing control and pollution.
"Although marionette transformation would be more efficient, I certainly don't want my marionettes to retain Abyss pollution. Even brief marionette transformation would cause the pollution to reversely affect my own stability through the Spirit Body Threads."
Don raised his hand, preparing to take out the charms he kept in bundles in the system inventory.
But before he could act, he suddenly frowned and stared at this Intis demigod for several more seconds.
After advancing to Sequence 4, his mastery of Euclidean space had become increasingly profound, and his observation accuracy and precision were rapidly improving.
Just a superficial observation had made Don notice something wrong.
Instinctively letting his spirituality envelop the other, this Intis demigod's projection in Euclidean space became an information stream itself, and Don saw all of this demigod's secrets.
He suddenly cursed under his breath, the Sun Scepter appeared in his hand, and without hesitation, he performed a dimensional reduction. The golden hammer immediately appeared, amplifying this mystical attribute attack, directly causing black sunlight to bombard this demigod.
The filthy and corrupt black sunlight seemed even more terrifying after another "solar ascension," instantly polluting the Iron-blooded Knight's astral body, with the Sequence 4 Beyonder characteristics rapidly precipitating. At the same time, Don saw that within the polluted astral body, black seed-like things had taken root in this Iron-blooded Knight's astral body like parasites, as if they were the embodiment of Abyss corruption.
This black seed expanded rapidly layer upon layer when it contacted the black sunlight, as if it wanted to become a small abyss, yet it was rapidly purified by the power of the Darkness-less One. It wasn't until this Sequence 4 demigod's astral body couldn't withstand the impact of the pollution and collapsed and dissipated that the black seed finally couldn't hold on and unwillingly disappeared among the astral body fragments scattered on the ground.
The Dark Side of the Universe had hidden another move!
Don felt disgusted. If he had let this Intis demigod die here and be polluted by Abyss power, in a few years there might have appeared a Hunter pathway demigod organizing sacrificial ceremonies to open the gates of the Abyss!
Looking at the Beyonder characteristics on the ground, Don glanced up at the sky, divined once more to confirm there were no problems, then came out of Euclidean space, picked up the Beyonder characteristics from the ground, and threw them into the system warehouse.
Finally taking one last look at the corpse of the Intis demigod that had completely transformed into a monster under the corruption burst from the black sunlight and the Abyss, Don remained silent for a while, then snapped his fingers to ignite his body.
Afterward, Don entered Euclidean space again, concealed his tracks, prevented spying, and returned to Saga Fort City.
Inside Saga Fort City.
The tremors in the earth were still continuing. The war between the three countries naturally didn't happen. Having received the news, the high-ranking members of the Church of the Evernight Goddess and Church of the Lord of Storms who had set out early had already notified the orthodox churches of each country. The church high-ranking members who had urgently dispatched barely managed to stop these military high-ranking members who were controlled by desire.
Facing this huge commotion caused by the Dark Side of the Universe, the high-ranking members of all the major churches couldn't help but break out in cold sweat, secretly grateful that things hadn't developed to an uncontrollable situation.
If a real war had broken out, not to mention the impact on the countries, although the churches' faith would become unprecedentedly strong during war, the already unstable friendly-hostile relationships between countries would also be instantly shattered.
The elderly, weak, women, and children would die, young and strong adults would join the war, and even eight or nine-year-old children would probably have to go to the battlefield early. This would be a devastating blow to the population of all countries. The shaking of the anchors of the gods—even if the churches could harvest faith from this, the final result would still be more harm than good. The churches wouldn't and couldn't let it happen.
And not letting the Dark Side of the Universe's intentions succeed naturally didn't cause too much casualty.
The military high-ranking members of each country who had awakened naturally knew they had been schemed against. Not having caused huge consequences, under the protection of the church high-ranking members of each country, they needed to quickly calm the emotions of the border soldiers and stabilize military morale to avoid brewing any major disasters.
And the two consecutive major earthquakes gave all countries an opportunity for ceasefire and reconciliation.
However, Loen's army did have a minor conflict with Intis's army. The casualties weren't many, but the only regrettable thing was that a colonel died while leading from the front during the conflict with Intis.
The Intis military high-ranking members expressed regret for this and gave up some negotiable interests to ensure the relationship between Loen and Intis wouldn't cause the emotions of the two countries that had just been appeased to be stirred up again.
The Intis high-ranking members were also drunk. Who knew how that Loen colonel's brain worked? Wouldn't it be nice to stay safely in the rear? He just had to fight head-on, using his life to gain benefits for Loen. Are you a dog of the Augustus family?
Even dogs wouldn't be this desperate!
Regarding this, Loen's military high-ranking members posthumously promoted this colonel who had made contributions to Loen to brigadier general, held a memorial service for him with brigadier general treatment, and mourned this brigadier general's achievements.
Many officers attended this brigadier general's memorial service, and aside from mourning this deceased brigadier general, his child, Liliana Bernstein, became the biggest focus of this memorial.
Liliana Bernstein, the child of Brigadier General Whisleck (TL/n: Previosly called; Hewesley) Bernstein, was extraordinarily beautiful and pitiable. In Saga Fort City, this young lady was equivalent to having the protection of the military high-ranking members.
If someone could take her into their embrace, it would be equivalent to gaining the attention of the military high-ranking members and obtaining early admission tickets to some high-ranking officer clubs.
At the memorial service, some gentlemen with not many achievements and no ability to advance upward were restless.
They looked forward to having an encounter with this young lady who had just lost her father and looked somewhat pitiful, to help her walk out of her grief.
Owen was holding red wine when his shoulder was patted.
He looked back and saw Ange, who had appeared at some unknown time, pointing to the side, indicating for him to go over.
Owen put down his wine glass, politely apologized to the officers beside him, and under their strange and confused yet suddenly normal gazes, quietly stepped into a corner that had been pre-arranged with rituals to isolate internal and external connections.
"Don?"
The dark corner seemed to hide something. Owen's expression gradually became serious. He looked over and saw transparent worms crawling all over that corner.
Those worms were all transparent and seemed to possess extraordinary vitality. Each transparent worm seemed to have its own thoughts. They all raised their heads together, seemingly noticing someone had intruded into their territory. Owen could see very clearly that each worm had a human face...
"Are you performing worm crawling?"
He suddenly asked.
The transparent worms disappeared, the magician's illusion was lifted, and Don walked out from the corner.
"If you can't speak properly, then don't speak. This is called illusion, a magician's performance, understand?"
He was just being a little "Bizarro Sorcerer," what do you mean worm crawling? That's called dark and twisted writhing, alright? Can you speak properly?
Owen's mouth twitched. It seems your description isn't much better than mine.
"What happened? Your marionettes was speaking vaguely before, and also, did you advance?" he asked alertly.
Huh?
Hearing this, Don looked Owen up and down and muttered: "What kind of intuition is this accurate?"
Is this the spiritual intuition gained by trading with the brain?
He smiled, "Well, to put it briefly, I fought with a divine vessel of the Dark Side of the Universe, won, and completed the ritual by the way."
No more pretending, showdown—he's Sequence 4, a demigod now.
Owen: "Oh, you fought with... you fought with what?"
His face immediately changed.
"A divine vessel of the Dark Side of the Universe." Don spread his hands, ready to accept admiring gazes. "Just what you're thinking. I beat him to death on the ground, and then I advanced. Oh, right, you..."
"Wait, about what happened before, you don't need to keep it brief, tell your brother what happened first."
[Yo yo yo yo yo, host, you're going to be in big trouble~]
The system's mocking voice sounded.
(End of Chapter)