Chapter 1540: Splintering of the Faith (Part 3)

A good number of believers from the faith disappeared without a trace on Myers Mainland. Under the leadership of Baudelaire, all of them left Myers Mainland. The core members among them had even followed Saleen to the edge of the chaotic void. Some of the younger children were scattered throughout the many subcontinent planes.

The children were raised worshipping Saleen the great mage from young, before embracing the faith of the Goddess of Myers. After they were all spirited away from Myers Mainland, they began to embrace the faith of magic in earnest.

What Saleen did t had never been attempted by mages before him. Ancient mages were powerful and had no need for such methods. The children would believe in magic in earnest after they grew up, and they would have an easy time learning magic. The people who lacked talent would make excellent enchanters.

The Nature Faith had finally splintered, and Saleen tore down Nature City, moving it away, leaving an empty Nature Temple behind. Pope Baudelaire was nowhere to be found and the Water Fox was gone as well. Don was the only one left commanding the knights corps.

When a follower of the goddess came to Nature City, they saw a dead town. There was not even a city wall left, and all traces of the faith disappeared altogether.

The follower found Don and demanded an answer, while Don simply said that he knew nothing. Baudelaire controlled the faith, and Don was just a commander of the knights corps. Questioning the pope was not part of the authority bestowed to him.

While the Temple Knights had a sworn duty of protecting the faith, the knights corps did not consist only of believers. That follower felt very exasperated. It was stated in the new codex, that while Don was not a high ranking officer, he was nonetheless someone the follower had no business commanding.

Don answered only to Saleen, and everyone knew that.

Saleen had helped Don wipe the Holy See out from the plane, taking his revenge for him. Don had had no intentions of continuing to live to begin with, and threats were pointless for him. Furthermore, Don had not the slightest affinity for the Nature Faith to speak of. Telling him to believe in the goddess would have been near impossible.

Demons had taken most of the officer positions in the knights corps, and one would need Nailisi’s permission to control the demons.

It was fortunate that Don did not bother arguing, and had let the follower head to the temple to host the ritual of selecting the next pope. The goddess’s emissary was caught off guard. He had expected a lot of troubles ahead, yet the only trouble he faced at the moment was that he was there all alone. There was no one to help him out with the ritual.

Having run out of options, the emissary asked for help from the goddess.

The goddess saw everything from her temple and felt amused yet vexed. Saleen had indeed chosen to avoid a head-on confrontation, but his methods were even more exasperating than expected. What he did had ended up causing a substantial loss of believers to the faith.

The lesser half of the remaining believers had a population over 100 million, but they were basically all believers converted from the faith of the Lord of Glory. The conversion process was something Saleen pulled, making it so that none of the people would be able to be of pure faith forever.

Cutting the ground from under one’s foot—a very ancient way of doing things, but the most effective way.

Saleen did not bother doing anything fancy at all, and opted to just move all the ones loyal to him away, leaving a shell of a religion behind for the goddess.

Nature City had no teleportation portal, and the nearest city that had one was Guderian City. However, it was apparent that Guderian City would not let the goddess’ followers use the portal. The follower was forced to resort to flying back to Purgatory Dessert.

What Saleen did bought him considerable time, but the goddess did little but smirk at the turn of events.

The shell that Saleen left behind would let her bring true believers away with her, even if she lost in the eventual fight. She considered that to be a trade, as Saleen had no intentions of going to the extreme while there was no certainty of emerging on top.

If he crushed the religion altogether, then the goddess would have little to lose. It was as if the situation where the entire world were filled with no one else but believers of the Lord of Glory came true, and Saleen would not have bothered about safety of the plane, casting forbidden curses above level 16 without the slightest hesitation, turning everywhere he tread into hell. It would have cost him less than 100 years to clean up all remaining resistance forces throughout the mainland.

The splintering of Nature Faith had no effect on the Fifth Dynasty at all. Lex followed Saleen to the edge of the crystal wall system to train, leaving Safilos in charge of the dynasty. Everything went as normal, but there were a few hiccups—Grand Duke Iron Blood declared independence.

The Iron Blood Kingdom was established, but it was on three subcontinent planes instead of Myers Mainland.

Grand Duke Iron Blood invited dragons from the dragon plane to settle on his planes. Holy Rock City did not respond to it at all and did not send any troops to quell what was considered a rebellion. Saleen had actually given his silent consent to it. The Grand Duke had chosen to make compromises due to the opportunity of being able to sit on the throne of the Fifth Dynasty. With the successor of the Fifth Dynasty being Safilos, any hopes of changing that would have been lost, and the Grand Duke found it better to just establish his own kingdom instead.

That hiccup was quickly let go. The agreed time between the goddess and Saleen was not short, so she opted to rebuild the knights’ corps, sending them overseas and conquering lands that Saleen had never reached before.

The goddess spent decades conquering the seas in the east, south and west, leaving only the northern seas untouched. There were hardly anyone in the north, and the Oceanic Ice Block was the territory of magic beasts.

That had once been the place where the Imperial City of the Abyss had been hidden, and only the Cemetery of Heroes remained behind.

Over 20 years passed and Saleen finally returned to Metatrin City one day, summoning the emissary left behind by the goddess.

“Tell the goddess that I’m ready to head out to the Imperial City of the Abyss.”

While he was still at the pinnacle of level 17 after his time in the chaotic void and had not advanced, his condition was different. The goddess was unable to see Saleen’s face at all. The focus of the emissary was scattered, affecting visual perception. She could only go and see Saleen herself.

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“Yes, Lord Saleen.” The emissary bowed to Saleen respectfully and left Metatrin City. He did not use the teleportation portal and instead opted to return to Purgatory by flight instead.

The goddess descended from the sky with her followers just as the emissary emerged out of the city.

The emissary felt that something was off and became ashamed. The goddess said plainly, “it’s alright. You’re not Saleen’s match, as your level differences are just too huge. This is not your fault. Just return to the temple.”

“Acknowledged.” The emissary returned hurriedly. The goddess gazed at Saleen’s Metatrin City and smirked.

Saleen resembled the emperor of the First Dynasty somewhat, making his lair nigh-impregnable. Unless the one to attack the city was a level 18 being, there was really no way the city could be torn apart right away.

Saleen sensed the goddess’ arrival while he was still in the temple. He unlocked the city gates and let the goddess’ entourage enter. The goddess was no longer like she had been before. At the moment, Saleen thought she looked like the young woman depicted on the mural when he first saw it—naive, pure and seemingly harmless.

The goddess walked barefooted, and she wore a flowing dress. Her attire was simple and the only accessory she wore was a red wooden bangle. She walked slowly into the city. The wind within the city gates seemed to follow her footsteps, and her followers even seemed to have a hard time catching up.

The footsteps were a natural fusion, which was more powerful than Saleen’s earth magic movement skills.

While it seemed as if the goddess had taken a step of a length equal to the previous one, Saleen knew that her next step could have been anywhere.

“See that now? Seems like I’m still quite a distance away from the goddess then.” Saleen thought, a little resigned.

He had to continuously learn new things, while the goddess had only needed to restore her former powers.

Saleen took several steps and walked right outside the temple’s vicinity, mimicking the goddess’ movements unconsciously. However, he was still using the power of earth magic to do so. He was incapable of walking like the goddess.

But such a way of movement reduced the burden on his body considerably. If he were able to adapt it into his Comet Flash spell, he would be able to fight drawn-out battles using Comet Flash.

They both met on the road and Saleen lifted his head, looking at the goddess, who was not far away. He greeted, “Lady Myers.”

“Good day, Saleen.” It was the first time the goddess had truly greeted him.

“I’m fine indeed. Very fine.”

“What do you plan on doing against the Cemetery of Heroes?”

“I’ve got everyone I need, and things are going to go without a glitch,” Saleen assured the goddess.

“So we leave now?”

“Very well!” Saleen waved. Rafel and Abyrus appeared right behind him. Be it coincidence or deliberate arrangement, both of them had been former angels. Saleen’s followers continued to train in the magic amplifier. Baldur’s Gate had fused with the magic cube in the core of the magic amplifier. So long as the magic power was embedded with ample power supply, they would be able to alter the flow of time and provide more training opportunities.

The goddess smiled and came to Saleen’s side. The two of them then took flight, heading north.

There were no wasted words between them. The two sides had already decided on how to deal with the people from the Cemetery of Heroes—the goddess helped him to conquer the lands across the seas, while Saleen helped her to wipe out the heroic spirits for good.

The two of them just kept traveling north. They flew at extreme speeds and at heights above the atmosphere. Temperatures dropped below freezing in the thin air. However, neither of them felt any discomfort and actually chatted amicably.

Saleen inquired about some problems about magic, and she elaborated a lot of things to him about what happened after the collapse of the First Dynasty. Saleen knew little, but he was able to calculate more contents from certain materials told to him, using divine and magic calculations.

“Saleen, do you think that I’m overbearing and unreasonable?” The goddess asked all of a sudden, catching Saleen off guard.

Saleen answered in a baffled manner, “nonsense. You’re the most reasonable powerful one that I’ve ever come across.”

“Well, that means the world turned to sh** when I perished back then.”

“To the weak, there is no era where it will be easy to survive.”

“What I think Lex is doing is giving all weak ones a chance to live with dignity.” The goddess was talking about Lex’s plans of a magical empire. Under Lex’s leadership, the Fifth Dynasty had prospered. Mages who lacked financial resources never had to live in a dilapidated manner or had to curry favor from nobles anymore.

“There are no dynasties that last forever. Lex has her ideals, and I simply back her up,” Saleen acknowledged.

“Tell me, Saleen, what are your ideals then?” The goddess asked seriously.