Soul of Negary

At the next moment, a torrent of black poured in from the hole on the roof. The noise of crows filled the entire area, and the pitch-black feathers completely overwhelmed the light of the Graces.

Negary stood in the battlefield, shuffling between black and white, occasionally waving his hands to kill the enemies. The Grace of Tenacity could only delay death, not completely stop it, if the Grace of Salvation did not arrive in time, they would still lose their lives.

The torrent of black and white gradually subsided as more red appeared in the area instead, the blood had stained everything red. Negary walked up the stairs step by step, approaching Luen who was holding the scepter while trembling.

Behind Negary, a large number of corpses had piled up with humans and crows among them, but the number of crows still won out in the end. At this point, some crows had even landed on top of the corpses and indifferently pecked at them like food.

〖 Not running away? 〗 Negary gave Luen some respect and asked.

"I am the messenger of God, and behind me is his Divine Hall. Evil creature, I will never let you take a single step inside" Luen trembled, but did not retreat any further. It had been 10 years since he escaped from Reystromia in panic, 10 years.

The reason why he was so eager to climb up and develop the Church of Divine Grace was only partially because of his ambition and desire for power, while the remaining part was because of his fear.

After leaving Reya, he still felt fear every time he thought of Negary's strength. The deep sense of powerlessness continued to stimulate and push him forward. It was only by holding even more power in his hand did he feel like he was able to escape that fear.

After becoming the Pope, he initially thought he could finally overcome that fear. But only when Negary appeared in front of them again did he realize how deep-rooted that fear was, and felt despair.

"God is with me" Luen looked straight at Negary right in front of himself and softly declared. He borrowed the influence of his family and mentor to become the Cardinal, then the Pope. Borrowed the power of the Church of Divine Grace to influence the Kingdom of Interkam, or perhaps even the entire continent.

But all of this was useless against Negary. When all that he was dependent on had been stripped away, when he had no choice but to face this fear, Luen suddenly felt like there was nothing to fear in the first place.

In such a situation, one would either be overwhelmed by fear and could no longer stand up, or they would face their fear and truly recognize themselves.

"Negary!!!" Luen's body shined with a dazzling white light and swung the scepter in his hand to strike Negary with all his strength.

〖 Your unyielding spirit, I shall accept! 〗 Negary evaded Luen's attack, pierced through Luen's chest with his palm, pulled out his beating heart and directly crushed it. Then, he slowly absorbed his Soul Essence.

Luen's success was largely due to the influence of his family and mentors, but while there weren't many people with the same background he did in the Church of Divine Grace, there weren't few either. And yet among them all, why did only Luen manage to become the Pope? Regardless of anything else, one must admit that he had his own merits for his achievement.

Negary pulled his hand back out and picked up the scepter. This scepter had a deep connection with the original Evil Spirit, being able to channel its full power for a short time to bestow the Graces to many people.

Without the help of the crows, even if Negary had taken his dragon form, it would have been difficult to fight against so many lunatics who had nothing but God in their hearts and support from the 9 Graces at once.

Breaking open the gate of the Divine Hall with a wave of his hand, the scenery inside revealed itself to Negary. A stone platform was enshrined at the center of the large hall with various unidentified patterns etched onto it that looked extremely coordinated.

Above the stone platform, there was an incandescent ball of light. Whenever the people of the Church of Divine Grace were bestowed their Graces, they must come to this place, stand on the stone platform, and receive it from the ball of light through a special ceremony.

Generally speaking, because of their physique, normal human beings could only bear up to 5 Graces, an extraordinarily powerful human might be able to bear 6 Graces, while the single most powerful knight of Divine Grace in history was able to bear a total of 7 Graces.

As Negary looked at the light ball floating in the air, his eyes were full of jest.

If other people came here, they would feel a sacred sensation from the bottom of their hearts, as if the ball of light up there was truly the incarnation of God and the creator of all things.

〖 That ball of light itself probably thinks so too 〗

〖 As an entity that emerged from the first flame and the original Evil Spirit, it had actually been brainwashed by a group of ordinary people, how shameful 〗

From the shadow of this Divine Hall, a few people in white robes came out. If Luen was here, he would recognize these people as some of the most veteran Archbishops in the Church of Divine Grace.

"Negary, do you seek to blaspheme God?" a white-robed man with a scar on his face coldly questioned.

〖 God? 〗 Negary slowly stepped forward: 〖 Let's not kid ourselves here 〗

〖 Although his soul physique exceeds mine, this 'thing' dominated by the will of scums like you is definitely not God! 〗 Negary scoffed and made the expressions of everyone here change.

For the Council of the Secret Gods, it didn't matter if the Church of Divine Grace was destroyed. As long as they still had control over the original Evil Spirit and could continue to bestow the Graces upon believers, they could always rebuild a new Church of Divine Grace.

If the secret of the Church came to light, the dignity of 'God' would be no more, 'God' would become a mere treasure that anyone could control, and the Church of Divine Grace would become a target for all. If they still had their knights of Divine Grace, they would be able to fend off most of those greedy gazes, but since the Church had just been slaughtered by Negary, if this secret were to be exposed, they would be hunted down by the whole continent.

〖 You had better think about how to save your own lives first! 〗 Negary held the Pope's scepter and continued walking towards the people of the Council of Secret Gods.

"Negary, your biggest mistake was to covet the Pope's scepter!" another bald white-robed man declared with a cold laugh: "Do you think we left this thing to the Pope without any countermeasures?"

The scepter in Negary's hand suddenly shone with a dazzling white light, causing Negary to feel his soul form becoming unstable as it was being sucked towards the scepter.

"The main material of that Pope's scepter was the souls of the previous generations of rebellious Divine Grace personnel. Through the countermeasure, that light allows the scepter to devour the soul of its wielder" an old man with a white beard among them chuckled as he spoke.

"Dick, you've said too much" the scar-faced white-robed man turned and admonished the white-bearded old man. Even though being sucked into the Pope's scepter like this would mean the end for Negary anyways, some secrets were better off kept to themselves.

But the white beard old man, Dick, didn't pay him any attention at all and continued: "I have prepared all the documents about using souls to forge weapons, Lord Negary"

〖Well done, Dick 〗 Negary waved the scepter and smashed the scar-faced man's head in. The other members of the Council of the Secret Gods frantically cursed at Dick, not understanding why he would betray the Council in the first place.

They then tried to use the original Evil Spirit to repel Negary, only to find that Negary also knew how to control the original Evil Spirit, and Negary's spiritual power was much stronger than theirs. In the end, they were killed off one by one in despair by Negary.

"Lord Negary is truly powerful enough for anyone to despair" Dick said flatteringly, the wrinkles on his face had all churned together to form something that resembled a smile.

This man, Dick Thacker, was the biggest traitor that Negary had instigated in the Church of Divine Grace, and the main reason why he was spurred into betrayal was that he was old.

Although he had joint control of the original Evil Spirit, had the Grace of Vitality transplanted into his body, and maintained decent daily care of himself, he had simply lived for too long. He could feel his life coming to an end, and so he chose to follow Negary and sold out the Council of the Secret Gods.

Negary turned to him, summoned a crow over and pierced through the crow's body with his finger. Some black substance could be seen seeping out from the crow's body onto his finger. He then tapped the finger on Dick Thacker's forehead, the black substance then became animated and crawled into the man's body through his skin.

〖 Your body will gradually be replaced by the [Black Crow] germs, but vitality doesn't come out of thin air, you will need to consume the lives of others in order to maintain the [Black Crow] germs' activity. But you probably don't mind that little trouble 〗

"Thank you Lord Negary! Thank you Lord Negary!" the germs on Dick's forehead continued to permeate into his body and caused him to fall into the pool of blood of his previous colleagues from the exceptional pain, but he was still madly thanking Negary out of joy.

〖 Don't mess this up 〗Negary took the original Evil Spirit and walked away. The crows were carrying several books in groups, these were the knowledge from the Church of Divine Grace that Dick provided.

A large number of crows landed on Negary's shoulder and brought him to the sky, flying towards the Sacred Valley. The last few mysteries that this world had left to offer would be revealed at that place.