Chapter 108: The Black Robes
In a certain Dark Dimension, a pair of evil eyes stealthily opened.
Belial furtively raised his head, looking left and right, only to be met with the disdainful gaze of his brother, Saraka.
"How did you die again?" Saraka asked icily.
Belial pondered for a moment, then mumbled sullenly, "I was careless."
"Careless? I think there's a problem with your thinking, isn't there?" Saraka said coldly. "Do you have some sort of opinion about our great Father?"
"Don't you slander me!" Belial's face flushed. "They were just a few clones..."
"You've already lost three in a row. Your strength wasn't that great to begin with, and now I imagine it's even more useless," Saraka sneered.
This was the truth. Although having a clone defeated wouldn't harm his true form, it was impossible to say there were no effects at all. Losing three "heads" in a row would definitely drain some of his vitality, significantly affecting his state of strength.
"It's really not my fault, I was targeted!" Belial shouted. "It's that damned Creature of Light again! I swear, wherever I go, he's there waiting for me. There's something wrong with that guy!
"I go anywhere, pop my head out, and *swoosh*—a ball of Light flashes right in my face just like that. What am I supposed to do?"
Belial spread his claws, once again expressing his helplessness.
"Oh, so you fed all three of those 'heads' to the same person." Saraka's disdain grew. "I seem to recall a human saying that not even a donkey falls into the same pit twice."
Belial was furious. "What did you say?"
"I said you're zero and three."
"I was really trying to kite him, but that Creature of Light also has a wicked set of Armor! It chased and blasted me all the way. I tried to fight but couldn't win, and I tried to run but couldn't escape! If you don't believe me, you can go look at the afterimage left by the clone!"
"Zero and three. Stop talking."
Belial: "..."
Having taken down five of the seven heads of the Seven Deadly Sins, and even receiving a bonus reward delivered to his doorstep, Orin Vale was in high spirits. After completing another harvest, he returned to his Armor and began the journey home.
He set the Armor to autopilot, letting Pal fly back along the planned return route. Meanwhile, Orin Vale used the built-in interface to continue his studies and research.
He had seized many alien gadgets recently, and the knowledge of countless galaxies was waiting for him to digest. Even with the processing speed of his brain, time was still tight. There was so much knowledge, so much content for him to learn.
Lately, he felt that the Super Brain of the little Kryptonian he was raising at home had also developed to a considerable degree. More than once, Orin Vale had considered letting Kara become his little research assistant.
After all, she claimed to go to school every day, but she definitely wasn't there to actually learn. It was partly to experience life and integrate into human society, and partly just because she found it fun.
In any case, she had a lot of free time every day; letting her Super Brain idle was a complete waste of resources. Orin Vale planned to find some work for her when he got back today to give him a hand and share some of the pressure of his research.
*Beep beep beep~*
A series of alerts inside the Armor interrupted his thoughts.
"Pal, what's the situation?"
"That's the alert for the Negative Phase Wave Radar being triggered, sir."
"Mark it for me."
Orin Vale glanced at the display on the interface. The intensity reading wasn't low—not even by Gotham's standards.
Moreover, it was more or less on his way back. After a moment's thought, Orin Vale took over the controls from Pal and turned toward the location of the radar coordinates.
An old-fashioned warehouse.
The night wind blew through the old buildings, sounding like a low moan, like the unwilling wails of forgotten souls. The cracked walls revealed dark red bricks, and intricate magic arrays were drawn all over the walls and the ground. Ancient, strange script was engraved with mysterious runes, emitting a faint, flickering light.
Some kind of cult?
Orin Vale frowned as his Armor landed silently in stealth mode. He stood noiselessly on the rooftop, observing the situation inside through a cobweb-covered skylight.
Black-robed figures moved within, their forms appearing grotesque and terrifying in the dim candlelight. They were silent; not a single person made a sound in the vast room, as if they were ghosts emerging from the abyss. Each face was shrouded in the darkness beneath a hood, and a strange light shone from their eyes.
And at the far end of the room, Orin Vale saw something that resembled an altar.
Using his X-ray vision, he looked deeper, penetrating the wall to a storeroom-like space behind it. There were corpses inside.
Nameless dead, their bodies carved with strange, intricate patterns in blood. Each had died a miserable death, their faces twisted in agony.
The black-robed figures surrounded the altar, motionless as statues. The one who looked like their leader stepped forward, holding a dagger. He slowly extended his left hand, revealing dry, pale skin from beneath his black sleeve. The dagger lightly grazed across the withered skin, leaving a thin line of blood.
Blood flowed from his hand onto the altar. Then, strangely, bubbles began to rise from within the altar. Thick, black blood seemed to well up from inside, quickly forming a pool that overflowed and dripped down its edges.
"O omnipotent, Great Lord. If you can hear us, please send down a divine oracle to guide your lost lambs..."
*CRASH!*
The skylight shattered. A steel body descended from the heavens, landing steadily in the middle of the room among the cultists.
All the black-robed figures froze simultaneously, their eyes widening as they stared at the abruptly appearing steel body.
Huh? The oracle really came? Is it really that effective?
Instead, the expression of the leader-like, black-robed figure holding the dagger changed as he realized something was wrong. "No, this isn't an oracle... An intruder! Get him!"
The faces of all the black-robed figures changed as they drew their weapons. Some drew machetes, some scythes, some chain hammers, and others wielded crossbows.
Their stances looked rather primitive, giving off the feeling of a tribal conflict in the African jungle. But as Orin Vale scanned the room, his sensors actually marked some peculiar energy reactions from these people.
Strange frequencies, their reactions not particularly strong, but they lingered around all the black-robed figures and their weapons, like some kind of energy field that had the effect of enhancing their weapons and physical attributes.
Fluctuations similar to magic.
So this group wasn't just some fraudulent, wicked little group. From the looks of it, they might actually be related to some Evil God.
Of course, it made no difference to Orin Vale. In the end, it was all just Experience. We fight Evil Gods, after all.
"Get him!" The lead black-robed figure brandished a crossbow with a flaming arrow and roared.
"For the supreme Lord!" As he spoke, the black-robed figure pulled the trigger, and the arrow shot out.
At the same instant, Orin Vale also moved.
The Mobile Armor swayed slightly, his figure seeming to flicker for just a moment. To a normal person, it might have even seemed like an illusion—that he hadn't moved from his spot at all.
Then he reached out and—*smack*—caught the magic arrow that was flying toward him.
An entire room of black-robed figures was already lying scattered on the ground.
When the last remaining black-robed figure, their leader, realized he had become a commander without an army in the blink of an eye, his face changed drastically, his expression contorting.
Without even lifting a finger, as if by a mere thought, an entire room of enemies had kicked the bucket. What kind of powerful ability was this?
An instantaneous burst of 'Mach Movement' made Orin Vale fast enough to sweep through the entire warehouse in a flash. He leisurely returned to his original spot after finishing, and the crossbow bolt that had been fired hadn't even reached him yet.
"I have some questions. I hope you'll be cooperative." Orin Vale approached the last cultist.
"This 'Lord' you speak of," Orin Vale asked, "does it have a name?"
The magic power reaction from their bodies wasn't strong, but it was enough to prove that a truly dangerous being was behind the scenes.
The cultist looked at him grimly, not saying a word, but raised his hand and pointed to the ceiling.
Orin Vale followed his gesture and looked up, his eyes narrowing slightly.
Carved on the ceiling was a massive mural.
Abstract artistry, crude lines, yet they vividly carved a ferocious figure. A blood-red carapace, three pairs of golden demon eyes—six in total. A mere mortal would lose all sanity just by looking directly at this abstract work.
Trigon.
(end of chapter)