"These church old-timers have all been brainwashed into idiots. How boring."
Looking at the "Lightless One" Kriech who was praying earnestly beside him, Vahar Soren snorted coldly, fastened his short sword to his waist, and prepared to leave for his bedroom to rest.
Just as he stepped forward with his left foot, Vahar's expression suddenly changed. His body became uncontrollable, as if his foot had slipped on oil, losing balance and falling down buttocks-first.
Two seconds later, the somewhat bewildered Vahar who had fallen to the ground instinctively stood up and examined the floor he had just stepped on.
Since advancing to Iron-blooded Knight, he had never fallen in non-combat situations. What had just happened was too strange.
As a demigod, especially one from the Hunter pathway which greatly enhanced physical qualities, logically speaking, he couldn't possibly slip and fall. Even if he hadn't noticed, his spirituality would have given advance warning.
Patting the dust off his buttocks, Vahar looked at Kriech, who was still praying, suspecting the other had used some ability to cause him to fall.
Sensing the Iron-blooded Knight's gaze, Kriech didn't open his eyes, just slowly shook his head:
"You were simply careless. I didn't do anything."
"Hmph, it better be that way."
Hearing the other's response, Vahar snorted coldly, stepped forward with his left foot again, preparing to leave.
Just as his left foot made contact with the ground, that familiar feeling from before surfaced again. His body seemed to lose balance once more, falling straight down.
"Enough, Kriech! Don't think that because you're an Archbishop of the Eternal Blazing Sun, I won't dare to turn against you. If you keep toying with me like this, I'll definitely make you pay!"
After falling a second time, Vahar got up from the ground furiously, his eyes blazing with anger. Crimson flames ignited around his body as he roared at Kriech, whose eyes were now open with a somewhat grave expression.
"Shut up!"
Hearing Vahar's roar, the elderly Lightless One stopped praying, stood up, and barked once. Then he looked around the room:
"Fool! Why would the Soren family send you here? I really don't know how you managed to digest the Conspirator potion.
Do you really think your earlier fall was my doing? Haven't you noticed that we have a guest?"
"Someone has infiltrated here? Who?"
Hearing Kriech's words, Vahar was shocked. He immediately drew his short sword and began vigilantly observing every corner of the parlor.
Although they weren't currently in combat, for someone to avoid detection by two demigods' spirituality meant the intruder was at least a Saint.
After scanning the seemingly normal parlor, the expression on Kriech—this Archbishop of the Eternal Blazing Sun—became even more grave.
Suddenly he spread his arms wide, and rays of pure light emanated from his body, illuminating the entire parlor and leaving no corner with even a trace of darkness where any creature could hide.
"Lightless Domain!"
This was the core ability of the Sun pathway Sequence 4 Lightless One! As a demigod, he could construct a Lightless Domain that purified corruption, filth, decay, darkness, evil, disease, and other domains, making them dissipate rapidly until nothing remained.
Based on this principle, Lightless Ones could also remove mental contamination from Beyonder characteristics. If a Beyonder stayed too long within a Lightless Domain, their Beyonder characteristics would gradually separate out.
However, to Kriech's disappointment, even with the Lightless Domain covering the room and pure, warm sunlight illuminating every corner, no figure appeared. It seemed there was no one else besides him and Vahar.
As thoughts raced, Kriech extended both hands in an embrace-the-sun gesture and solemnly pronounced:
"God says: the false shall disappear, the hidden shall be revealed!"
Immediately, the entire Lightless Domain became much brighter than before. Under that pure white sunlight, even Vahar felt somewhat hot.
This was a Notarization! The ability of the Sun pathway Sequence 6 Notary!
Notaries could "notarize" the authenticity of Beyonder knowledge, including potion formulas, and gain tremendous physical enhancement!
Abilities that were notarized as effective could receive short-term enhancement, while abilities notarized as invalid would be weakened or forcibly dispelled.
They were also skilled at creating contracts. Once they signed and approved them, even Sequence 5s couldn't violate them, and even Sequence 4 demigods would have to pay a considerable price to forcibly break them.
This was also the symbol of the Eternal Blazing Sun in business and contract domains.
Seeing that even Kriech couldn't find the intruder, Vahar snorted coldly. His entire body ignited with roaring flames that leaped and danced from his body, gathering on his short sword and manifesting as a terrible flaming blade.
The blazing high temperature of those flames instantly ignited everything around Vahar, plunging the entire parlor into a high-temperature environment.
"Ha!"
The Iron-blooded Knight roared and single-handedly swung that massive flaming blade, directly cutting the entire room in half and setting the second floor of the city lord's mansion ablaze. Screams and cries for help immediately erupted.
"You're too impulsive!"
Seeing Vahar completely ignore the other people in the city lord's mansion's second floor and begin large-scale destruction, Kriech couldn't help but snort coldly.
"Hmph, they're just natives. Let them die. Find the intruder first!
His ability is very strange—extremely good at hiding. Those dancing flames tell me there's an anomaly nearby, but I just can't discover him!
Where's Fred Eggers? With such commotion, why hasn't he come out yet?"
Ignoring Kriech's criticism, Vahar seemed to transform into flame itself, standing in mid-air. Fire crows began condensing around him, illuminating the entire city lord's mansion.
"He's not here right now—he won't return until the day after tomorrow!"
"What? I saw him this morning. How is he gone by evening?
What the hell is that bastard up to? If we had his perception of spirits, we could quickly find this intruder!
Hmph, I'm still more used to acting with those diviners from the Secret Order. At least I wouldn't be like now, unable to even find where the enemy is."
Vahar's face, wrapped in flames, looked somewhat gloomy. What he hated most were these fellows with various strange Beyonder abilities.
In frontal combat, as an Iron-blooded Knight, his abilities—flame control, weak point strikes, crowd enhancement, metalization, and weapon improvement—were powerful enough to suppress any same-sequence demigod!
But in terms of bizarre abilities, hunters who focused all their points on combat and war were much weaker.
Just as he was about to control the fire crows to bomb the entire city lord's mansion, a light chuckle suddenly reached his ears:
"Someone from the Soren family? How rare. I thought Roselle had killed you all."