「 I am… Bardimor 」
As this thunderous declaration resounded, Negary stopped his advance, then continued forward again.
〖 By using his name as a conduit for information, a normal person's soul who couldn't endure this flow of information would naturally change themselves to adapt to it 〗
Information can influence an individual. One example of this was the natural laughter reaction when seeing something funny, and Bardimor's technique was the application of this principle to a greater degree.
There was information hidden in his name, which would encourage an individual's soul to subconsciously perform certain actions. For example, twisting a part of their soul and turning it into a receiver that better accommodated sending and receiving information.
Naturally, this didn't affect the members of the Sun Shadow church who had the Blessing of Glory and faith to protect themselves, and those with a bit of knowledge about the soul could also quickly prevent this effect if they reacted quickly enough.
However, Bardimor's goal wasn't to affect these people, but rather ordinary people who were helpless to resist. These people's memories might not contain too many things, but they were still natives of this world, and their existence itself had recorded a large amount of information about this world.
As for whether or not these individuals' souls would collapse or turn mad due to the extreme flow of knowledge from his forceful extraction of information wasn't part of Bardimor's concern.
Naturally, these people could also gain something from acting as the bridge for information extraction in this world: they could either learn of lost knowledge from the past, or recall certain memories of an ancestor.
Everything was possible, as long as one could endure it, and one only gained as much as they lost. The caveat being that there was no guarantee what you gained was truly what you wanted.
As the corpses of two knights collapsed, Negary pushed open the door to the storage room, revealing a long corridor leading to numerous rooms with labels on them.
All of them contained the things that the Sun Shadow church had obtained over the last few years.
In truth, the Sun Shadow church had become less and less concerned with this location for the past few years, since the things they could offer every hundred years during Divine Offering Day had gotten increasingly less useful. Most of the knowledge had been rehashed and patched-up work from previous times, which made it nearly impossible for them to obtain any reward from God.
Negary didn't stop his advance and continued straight towards his goal. Opening the large door labelled 'magic ritual', he first used the power of Impurity to pollute the protection barrier over the room, then tossed a piece of bone forward. This piece of bone looked like pristine white jade, except there was a thick stench of ominous presence drifting over it.
Simply observing this piece of bone could cause one to shiver, as this was something that originated from the Unrepenting Abyss: the bone of an elf.
The elves had been extinct for a very long time, enough that the elven bloodline itself had become cursed and hailed as the blood of evil. This curse extended to everything that used to belong to the elves as well, including their bones, which was now perpetually clad in an ominous aura that plagued them for eternity.
For magical rituals related to the Unrepenting Abyss, there were three levels of crucial spell casting components, which were respectively the bone of non-believers, the bone of elves, and the bone of the unrepenting; the last of which referred to the remnant bones that were still fighting inside the Unrepenting Abyss.
A huge volume of twisted aura exuded from the elven bone, formed a connection with an unknown unique space, then finally opened a hole filled with drifting mist and darkness, from which a large body slowly crawled out.
Clad in intricate jewelry and a thin veil of silk created from Soul Essence, this dead soul carried an indescribable sense of charm thanks to her perfect facial features and her delicate figure that was half-lying down on her stomach in the room.
"Why have you summoned me…?" this elven dead soul slowly propped her torso up with both arms, her pair of large eyes stared straight at Negary as she spoke with a perfect gentle voice that sounded almost like she was singing.
The Soundless cult's manner of speech was a mimicry of the elves, but when compared to the real thing like this, the Soundless cult sounded irritating more than anything else.
The insanity and hatred that swept in every direction from her body did not diminish her beauty even a single bit. This was a characteristic of the elves, regardless of whether they were male or female, they were always perfectly beautiful. Or perhaps, it was more accurate to say that elves were a race that strived to pursue beauty.
〖 Take all of these items away, Lor 〗Negary pointed at the various books and unusual tools of measurement on the shelves, then continued: 〖 I will pay you another visit quite soon 〗
"Then this one shall welcome your arrival" the elf called Lor answered in a soft voice. As a member of the elven race, she was actually not that old and only participated in the final hundred years of the elven race's wars.
She lost her life in battle right before the end of the war, thus inducted into the elven Heroic Spirit Burial Grounds. At the same time, due to her new induction, she luckily managed to escape the ensuing battle of all reawakened heroic spirits, so her curse wasn't too deep. Although she was trapped in the Unrepenting Abyss, compared to the rest of her kin, she was surely the most fortunate of them all.
Of course, for her personally, this would not necessarily be considered fortunate, as the elven race had already gone extinct by the time she woke up, what was once the honored burial ground of heroic elven spirits had been turned into the Unrepenting Abyss, and her previous home had been completely taken over by the enemy.
The seniors she once respected had either become monsters, scraping to survive day by day, or were completely gone.
At the same time, her relatively respectful attitude towards Negary probably had a lot to do with the will of the world.
Otherwise, Negary refused to believe that something important like an elven bone would so easily fall into his hands.
Watching Lor carry the precious documents back into the Unrepenting Abyss, Negary didn't feel any greed towards the rest of the items here, he retrieved the elven bone to close the connection to the Unrepenting Abyss and left the room, preparing to retreat.
Maintaining the connection to the Unrepenting Abyss required Negary to continuously expend his energy. Simply maintaining it for the short period just now had already caused Negary's soul to feel a bit fatigued.
He could naturally head into the Unrepenting Abyss through that connection, but it wasn't the time for that just yet. After receiving this attack, the Sun Shadow church would soon undergo changes, which might affect the Hermit Order.
For now, the Hermit Order still had a lot of use to Negary and wasn't something he could easily give up, so it was best that Negary remained in Lohr to handle the situation.
Fortunately, Bardimor's descent had drawn the majority of the church's attention, which made Negary's retreat from the church's hill considerably easier.
To strike the church where it hurt the most, the knight whose light of glory had turned green, Raymond, already informed Negary of everything he knew about the church's internal structure, which allowed Negary to quickly reach the front gate of the cathedral.
Pushing the unmanned gate open, Negary entered the cathedral on top of the hill from the inside.
Turning around, he could immediately see the Eternal Heat's statue of worship. The Eternal Heat's name had never been mentioned in any records, his statue wasn't humanoid either, instead appearing as a sphere surrounded by tentacles, almost like it was radiating heat.
He was the embodiment of the Sun, the representation of Eternal, infinitely hot, limitless light, boundlessly grand. Although he didn't appear humanoid, he still exerted a great presence over all humans, causing them to want to prostrate themselves and pledge their eternal worship.
Negary stared closely at the statue for a while, then summoned a bone blade from his arm and vanished through his optical illusion. His invisible figure proceeded down the hill through the front gate. Sooner or later, such entities would also fall under this domination, undoubtedly so.
