"That child will be ok, right?" Katherine smiled and asked, as she held a genuine sense of affection towards Angel.
Within this advancing group, Katherine was not quite as weak as her slender frame suggested. If she was willing to, she could actually defeat a Red Sun Knight with her bare hands.
She was currently fluent in a total of 13 types of axle rituals. The targets of these axle rituals were either Evil Gods or certain unique dimensions, which would result in spells like [Strength of Giant] or [Skin of the Deep]; they were overall supportive spells that granted her vitality, tenacity, strength, and speed that would rival any Red Sun Knight, combined with various spells that allowed precognition, anti-ranged combat, as well as quite a few magical tools. And this was only the tip of the iceberg.
In the Hermit Order, Katherine was certainly the second strongest when it came to fighting prowess, but due to her feminine grace, she very rarely won against an opponent through close combat, but only using spells to fight from a distance.
Naturally, among these 13 types of magic, her utmost expertise lied in soul magic. It wasn't the release of [Origin], but rather an axle ritual that would train and temper one's soul through coming into contact with a dimension called 'God's Space'.
Negary was quite interested in this magic that allowed one to improve one's soul without the need of an [Origin] and had experimented with it together with Katherine quite a few times.
Practicing this magic granted Katherine a certain ability as a side product, which allowed her to see through the purity of one's soul.
Ironically, most people that Katherine comes into contact with during her daily life, including the knights and priests of the church, had souls so murky that it was sickening; while the purest individual she had ever witnessed was Angel, who had inarguably immersed themselves the deepest within 'Impurity' itself.
Naturally, this did not include 'that one'.
Observing Negary who was leading them all, Katherine had a complicated look on her face.
If Angel was said to be a lotus in the mud, then this person was the most disgusting, blackest mud she had ever seen.
His soul had been mixed with so many things that it had become a bog of indescribable black mud, one that would actually taint anything that attempted to taint him in return.
When an object became black enough, that blackness itself would be a kind of 'purity'.
〖 You need to trust in my 'technology'〗Negary wasn't too worried about Angel. With the current experimentation on the power of Impurity combined with the special 'full course' created to counter the Sun Shadow church's knights, as long as she wasn't stupid enough to fall into an encirclement of enemies, she would be perfectly fine.
〖 Up ahead is the third gate. More of the enemies should have already gathered 〗Negary announced: 〖 The third diversion group, prepare yourselves 〗
Without Birosius to draw most of the church's power, it would be impossible for them to break through the third gate. With how much power the church had accumulated over the long years, by the time they'd broken through the second gate, the forces gathered at the third gate would have been nothing but terrifying.
An entire company of Red Sun Knights, at least twice as many Glory knights, and at least 4 times more Iron knights compared to that, together with a large number of supportive priests. The force they could exert would be nothing short of crushing, not to mention the Night Watchers and some of their hidden forces as well. It was a fact that the Sun Shadow church held absolute suppression over the town of Lohr, and that was only the force of the Lohr branch of the Sun Shadow church, without mentioning the Divine Guards and the Holy Children at the Sun Shadow church's headquarters.
However, whether or not this force could actually be mobilized was the pivotal issue. With the feud of the Conservative and Reformist factions currently plaguing the church, the mobilization of each department could become stuck within their own bases; sometimes, the greatest enemy of the church was none other than itself.
After the third gate came the smaller passageways that led into the various facilities within the hill of the church, which the enemy could use to split themselves up. The church didn't know which department would be the goal of these invaders, so they had no choice but to all gather at the third gate.
After so many years, the Sun Shadow church truly didn't expect someone to actively attack the church's hill. Although they had set up a series of internal defensive means and no one had slacked off on their jobs, it was a stiff defense against a flexible enemy, with no one being experienced enough to take command properly.
It was to the point that some knights who were stationed in other areas would assume this invasion to be a joke if not for the emergency dispatch order.
Due to this reason, the forces gathered at the third gate were a bit weaker than Negary had assumed, but it was still more than enough to wipe out any lone evil cult in Lohr.
At the scene, there was a squad of 10 Red Sun Knights, a group of priests, as well as a few black-cloaked men who appeared unfit with the Sun Shadow church.
Negary smirked. Among his goals for launching this raid, collecting the supernatural knowledge gathered by the Sun Shadow church was only one of the reasons; the other, and bigger reason, was to probe the extent of the church's capabilities, as well as a sort of encouragement for the Hermit Order.
The Hermit Order had grown quickly in a very short period of time, accumulating a great deal of power in the process; after all, with the Sun Shadow church being the dominant power, a lot of talented people were either ignored or suppressed.
However, the Hermit Order's growth had also reached a bottleneck. Under the Sun Shadow church's total suppression, even the largest organizations would only grow up to this degree.
The invasion of the church's hill this time needed to succeed in order to stimulate and put the Sun Shadow church's Reformist faction into an advantageous position.
It was due to the lack of enemies up to this point that the church's Conversative – or rather, the pure-faith faction have had the upper hand. There was very little new blood to clean out the church's system, especially since faith also needed to be gradually nurtured in family members.
A large number of unambitious people had now taken high positions within the church, all of whom were descendants of the soldiers who followed the seven Righteous Gods in their invasion of the Moon Tree world. At this point, they were sheepdogs for the seven Righteous Gods, but after long-term conditioning, even wolves could be tamed into huskies, and other than their unwavering faith, these sheepdogs had no other redeeming features.
It wouldn't be until the appearance of a true enemy where the Reformist faction of the church could gain the advantage, and for some particularly talented people who did not quite have enough faith to reach higher positions in the church.
And only in this situation would the Hermit Order have a chance to break through their limits. Sometimes, the existence of an enemy was actually very important, and allowing bandits to train one's army was an actual valid tactic.
The Sun Shadow church's Reformist faction would need to be smart enough, and also ambitious enough to capitalize on this one chance. After all, there were seven Righteous Gods each with their own church, and the Sun Shadow church was only one of them. Even if these seven entities had allied themselves to attack and split the Moon Tree world among themselves, that didn't mean their relationships were actually amiable.
Otherwise, believers of the other Righteous Gods would not be few and far between in Lohr.
Borrowing this chaos, the Reformist faction must press their advantage and build themselves an enemy seemingly strong enough to force the church into reformation, only then would the church be competitive enough to expand their territory and influence.
〖 Attack, show them the strength of our Hermit Order 〗Negary laughed and declared. The Shade Attendants who had been hiding up to this point suddenly manifested from the shadows. Their weightless bodies caused the bishop who was commanding the blockade to be briefly shocked.
"Insolent sinners, you dared to blaspheme the dead souls!" the bishop naturally realized what the Shade Attendants were, or rather, where they came from. He really couldn't believe that there would be someone daring enough to borrow power from that place.
