Chapter 325: The Parasitic Network

The purple-white light atop the lamppost at the head of Coal Wharf alley glared blindingly for a few breaths before slowly dimming.

On the vast square in front of the Temple doors, tens of thousands of Royal Capital citizens were still kneeling flat on the ground, no one daring to stand up on their own. The tiny faith threads slowly flew up from the tops of their heads, converging toward the two people standing at the foot of the lamppost.

Kaelen stood leaning in Sane’s arms, looking down at the faith silk threads currently burrowing into his palms.

Four hundred thousand citizens of the Cathalan Royal Capital sounded like a lot, but after hundreds of years of brainwashing and exploitation by the Church of Light, the vast majority of people here had only just transitioned from fear to astonishment at the miracle before their eyes, not yet able to immediately generate pure and firm faith like the citizens of Lyra city.

Therefore, the amount of faith gathered at this moment, though not small, felt like a small dipper of water poured into a dry lake when it flowed into Kaelen and Sane’s bodies. The rule seal layer of the Great World pressing heavily on the two True Gods only vibrated slightly, opening an additional tiny crack of less than one-tenth, then continued to stand completely motionless.

Kaelen frowned slightly, clenching his hands.

"It seems completely lifting the seal in this world won’t be that simple." He said softly to Sane.

"Of course it isn’t simple." Sane released his waist, his deep purple eyes looking coldly toward the Temple steps: "If just smashing a few stone statues could restore the world’s rules, Heavenly Dao wouldn’t have had to hold his head crying bitterly throughout the past thousands of years."

At the foot of the steps at this time, the one-hundred-and-twelve-year-old Pope was still lying curled up like a dried shrimp.

The life force he had leached from the white flame in the basement for the past forty years had been cleanly sucked dry by the six-winged envoy in just a snap of the fingers. At this moment, he didn’t even have the strength to raise his head, only able to open his cloudy eyes staring blankly into space, his breath feeble like an oil-depleted lamp.

Meanwhile, inside the Temple hall, the fourteen Cardinals wearing mink hats hiding behind the stone pillars were terrified to the point their souls scattered. Seeing that six-winged envoy was so powerful yet still got smashed into dust by the purple-haired man, the Cardinals, without needing anyone telling anyone, quietly crawled backward toward the side door behind the hall, intending to gather gold and silver to flee.

Unfortunately, they had just lifted their feet running a few steps when the ground beneath their feet shook violently.

Kaelen completely didn’t even bother turning his head back, only indifferently flicked his finger once.

Dozens of thigh-thick vines immediately shattered the earth from under the paving stone crevices of the Temple, crawling up and fast as lightning wrapping tightly around the ankles of all fourteen Cardinals along with their trusted monk crowd, dragging them backward then hanging the whole bunch upside down from the rafters right in front of the main doors!

Mink hats, silk scarves, and countless bags of gold coins hidden in their ceremonial robes fell clattering down onto the steps, exposing fourteen shiny bald heads screaming tragically.

The citizen crowd currently kneeling below the square raised their heads watching that scene, buzzing with commotion.

Bartholomew, the coal porter guy standing in the front row, pointed his finger at the several velvet bags that had just spilled out full of gold leaf and precious stones on the steps, shouting angrily:

"Everyone look! Last month the Temple just called for donations for famine relief, turned out our money is all in the private pockets of these bald old men entirely!"

"No wonder the name-eating lamp completely didn’t bother shining!" Madam Hilda hugging the ceremonial robe bundle standing beside also loudly chimed in: "Not even daring to write out your real names, only good at hiding under the Deities’ shadows to suck poor people’s blood!"

Kaelen did not pay attention to the uproar erupting in the square. At this moment his entire attention was focused on the mental root strand he had stealthily attached to the tail of the envoy’s white thread bundle earlier.

He closed his eyes, concentrating on sensing its path.

Initially, Kaelen kept firmly believing that after being severely injured, that envoy’s remnant soul would immediately fly straight up to the high sky layer to return to the God of Decay’s true body.

However, the truth completely fell outside his expectations!

That white thread bundle, after soaring up to the cloud layer to escape the sight of people on the ground, completely didn’t fly further up high, but suddenly made a large turn then swooped back down to the ground in the distance.

Through the blurry vision of the mental root strand, Kaelen saw that white thread bundle automatically split into three small branches.

One branch soared toward the East, burrowing down into the sea region where the seven autonomous cities of the Merchant Council were located. One branch darted straight up to the North, crossing the treacherous snowy mountain range where three kingdoms were fighting each other snatching every single river. And the largest and thickest branch crossed the vast immense bay, embedding straight down into the dark continent on the other side of the bay, the place Godfrey’s Maritime Fleet once rescued four thousand slaves to return!

Right when the three white thread branches touched the ground in those three areas, the deep underground immediately manifested a complex grayish-black underground vein network like blood vessels, swallowing the three white thread branches while simultaneously cutting off Kaelen’s tracking root strand!

Kaelen opened his eyes wide, his complexion visibly darkening.

"What’s wrong? It managed to cut off its tail huh?" Sane standing beside seeing his complexion was not good frowned asking.

"Not only managed to cut off its tail, but it also showed me a very disgusting thing." Kaelen took a deep breath, his voice freezing cold: "Sane, all this time we still thought the Church of Light in this Cathalan kingdom was the largest den of the God of Decay. But no. That underground basement beneath the Temple’s feet at most is only a tiny auxiliary root of his."

Sane narrowed his eyes: "What do you mean?"

"The white thread bundle earlier completely did not fly back to the God of Decay’s true body, but it split into three branches burrowing underground in the three directions East, North and the land on the other side of the bay." Kaelen explained in a deep voice: "Underneath the ground of this entire Great World there is a giant grayish-black underground vein network currently tightly locking the continent’s dragon veins. The God of Decay is currently using the very wars in the North, the chaotic greed on the East coast and the human trafficking hell on the other side of the bay as the main food sources nourishing that network!"

Kaelen had just finished speaking, Heavenly Dao’s yellow illusionary image quietly appeared on the lamppost peak right above the two people’s heads.

This time Heavenly Dao was completely not joking, his face carrying a few parts of helplessness:

"Now do you two understand why I couldn’t personally lift the rule seal for you guys?"

Kaelen and Sane simultaneously looked up.

"The God of Decay has learned from the defeat in the Beastman Continent." Heavenly Dao sighed once, pointing his finger down at the ground beneath their feet: "In this Great World, he doesn’t bother showing his face to fight directly with you, but he chokes out every single link in the Orbit of the Eight Deities. Nature is drained, Life is trampled in slave mines, War turns into meaningless massacres, Rules are manipulated by the merchant crowd’s money, Knowledge is monopolized and covered up by the Church, while Light and Darkness he turns black and white upside down!"

Heavenly Dao stared straight into Kaelen’s eyes:

"As long as the next six links in the Orbit have not been cleared by you guys on this continent, the parasitic underground root network will remain intact. By that time, let alone finding the true hiding place of the God of Decay’s true body, even opening the spatial gate to welcome your children from the Beastman Continent over here will be blocked by the world rules!"

Kaelen hearing finishing remained silently for a very long time.

Nature, Life, War, Rules, Knowledge, Light, Darkness, and Destiny.

For the past fourteen months in Lyra city, he and Sane had only laid the first brick for Nature and War, lightly touching a bit on Rules and Knowledge within the scope of a small city. Compared to an entire vast Great World having up to hundreds of countries and countless races currently sinking in the mud puddle of despair, what they managed to do was truly only like a small spark in the dark night.

"No wonder..." Kaelen slightly burst into a laugh, but in the depth of his eyes flared up a fiercely unprecedented battle intent flame: "He thinks just rooting all over this continent as a shield then we will tie our hands submitting to capture huh?"

Sane standing beside reached out draping his arm over his shoulder, his deep voice carrying the familiar arrogance:

"It painstakingly set up such a large chessboard, if our husband and wife do not go pulling completely clean every single root of its then we are too ungrateful for its good intentions. Let alone..."

He looked down at Kaelen, his mouth corners curving up:

"Our kid bunch over there cannot personally come over here yet, but with the faith amount just gathered in Cathalan today, opening a small rift to throw each kid or send their toys over assisting exactly according to the Orbit order then is completely more than enough."

Kaelen’s eyes immediately brightened: "That’s right! My next link after Nature is exactly Finnick’s Life!"

Heavenly Dao sitting on the lamppost hearing the husband and wife calculating his eyelids twitched, hurriedly reminding:

"Hey, before calculating the matter of going to other regions to pull roots, you two go finish handling the crowd currently running toward this direction first. They are about to kneel wearing out the paving stones of the Royal Capital there look!"

Kaelen and Sane turned their heads looking back toward the stone bridge crossing the river.

Only seeing from the Royal Palace direction, Emperor Valcourt along with Seal Keeper Count Aldric Thorne were currently leading the entire twenty-two high officials of the Royal Council hurriedly jogging across the bridge.

Closely following behind them was an entire mighty Royal Guard troop currently escorting two wooden prison carts. Inside the first cart were Baron Harlan Voss and butler Pym currently trembling like wet dogs; while inside the second cart were the entire ledgers, land deeds, and gold chests confiscated from Duke Alban’s mansion in the Royal Capital!

Not yet running to the head of the square, Emperor Valcourt proactively took his hat off, leading the whole royal court kneeling dropping down exactly ten footsteps away from Kaelen and Sane’s spot, his voice resounding across the river surface:

"The Sovereign of the Cathalan Kingdom along with the entire Royal Council bow to meet the two Supremes! The Cathalan Royal Family vows to abolish the heresy, offering the entire right to reform laws and education in the kingdom up for the two Sirs to handle, begging the two Sirs to raise high and strike lightly!"

Kaelen looked at the Emperor who was once high and mighty currently bowing his forehead close to the stone floor before his face, then looked at the trembling bald high official crowd behind, his mouth corners slightly curved up.

Wanting to clear the Orbit of the entire Great World, first just start from turning this entire vast Cathalan Kingdom into the most solid stepping stone of Lyra city!