"What?" Gloria asked in astonishment, finding all that information brought by that Bishop very sudden, entirely out of reality.
Only a few hours ago, she had been with Emmett and some of William's widows. How in such a short time could so much have happened?
Suppose something so brutal had happened in the short time since she had returned to this temple. Why did she not hear sounds of explosions or see chaos spreading throughout the city?
After all, if such strong people had been killed or kidnapped, this could only happen if a widespread conflict occurred, right?
However, she had not noticed anything strange since leaving the royal palace earlier. So, she could not help but feel disbelieving right now.
"Are you serious? How could something like this have happened? I didn't hear any sounds of battle from my room, so how did these people get killed?" She asked this while having a solemn expression on her face.
But that Bishop was neither surprised nor displeased by Gloria's reaction. After all, he and others of his colleagues had reacted the same way upon receiving such information.
He then said. "Archbishop, I know the information is absurd, but it is true!"
"From what seems, someone has managed to infiltrate the royal palace and kill more than a dozen powerful Spiritual Kings... Because of this, the entire city is already under martial law, and the royal guard has called for the church's support."
"They don't know what to do in this situation!"
Seeing the seriousness of that man, Gloria frowned her eyebrows, sensing that he was not making any jokes. But, instead, he talked about a tragedy of proportions never before seen in this part of the Continent!
"Wait a moment..." She said this before finally returning to the residence she was staying in at this temple and going to change clothes.
...
After a few minutes, Gloria and a dozen of the local Bishops were hurrying their way towards the royal palace, passing the sidewalks of the central area of Athela.
And just in that small area separating the Spiritual Church temple and the royal palace, Gloria could finally see the evidence that what that Bishop had said was accurate.
That's because, at that moment, there were already hundreds of royal guards in that part of the city, many of them forming a security perimeter around the headquarters of the Walker family.
At the same time, several of these guards were raiding establishments in that area, arresting people on the streets, creating chaos.
Not only this, several of the people who usually worked or enjoyed themselves in these parts of the day were now running around, shouting and screaming in desperation as they fled that area.
No one understood what was happening, but from the actions that had begun a few minutes ago, anyone who went against the royal orders would be beaten and arrested!
Consequently, the many who had seen such acts in their surroundings were already fleeing to their homes, fearful of what might happen to them.
As for the royal guards, no matter how much they had the official mechanism of oppression, they looked no better than those many frightened citizens.
They had pale looks on their faces. They seemed to be in a difficult moment in which they might have to fight for their lives at any moment!
And seeing all this, Gloria was getting more and more serious as she wondered what was behind all this.
'How could something like this happen inside their own headquarters? That place doesn't seem to have been invaded...' She pondered as she looked in the direction of that place, which still had its defensive barrier intact.
'But even if a group managed to infiltrate that place, how did they do it to kill so many regional experts?'
But just as she entered the area protected by the medium-level grade-2 defensive array of that palace, Gloria put those thoughts aside and just followed one of the soldiers who was escorting her group.
...
"What a terrifying thing!" One of the Bishops said this, feeling bad for having to see the pieces of the bodies of former acquaintances of his.
It was common to see corpses in the Spiritual World, especially considering that many people lived hundreds or even thousands of years.
But still, seeing the corpse of a friend, colleague, a close person was not easy even for those experienced cultivators. That was especially true for brutalized corpses, as in some cases of those in the late William's residence.
Different body parts were scattered around, various bloodstains mixed with brains and other internal parts of human bodies, all over the floor, walls, and even the ceiling.
At the same time, some bodies had been cut in different ways, leaving their internal parts visible, while others had been deformed in such a way that it would be difficult to identify such people only by their faces.
That was the case with one individual who had had his head blown off by a kick from Minos.
And seeing that place where so many influential people had died, those Bishops could not help but feel bad.
"What a tragedy!"
"The Walker family will never recover from such a loss!"
"Sigh... It's truly a disgrace."
"How will they be able to carry on after such a misfortune?"
"Tsk!"
They continued to talk among themselves while Gloria watched the surroundings, feeling bad that she had to see the bodies of the people who only a few hours ago had dined with her.
Following the example of such people, there were the bodies of the Walker ancestor and Charles' mother.
'It looks like sword blows killed them...' She pondered this, looking at the cut pattern around Charles' mother's neck and the diagonal wound that had cut Emmett's body in two parts.
She then saw that woman's black eyes, which had the same characteristic as the rest of her face, which showed that she had had a significant burst of anger before she was killed.
'From what I can see, they were killed very quickly...' Her eyebrows frowned as a terrible idea flashed through her mind. 'Only a Spiritual Emperor or a Spiritual King from outside the region could do that!'
'There's no way that regional enemies could have done...' She was about to consider this, thinking that someone had violated the rules of the region under her control when one of the royal guards there said something to her.
"Your Excellency, unfortunately, we won't know for sure what happened here until Princes Wilfred and Blake wake up from their unconscious states."
"In the meantime, we have just found a witness!"
"What?" The Bishops standing there asked in surprise, curious to find out the truth.
"Where is the witness?" Gloria asked.
"Please come with me."
...
As they walked through the Walker family headquarters, those people were chatting with the royal guards escorting them, trying to understand the current situation of this state.
"General Laurence, who is in charge at the moment?" One of the Bishops asked a royal guard.
"Sigh..."
"It hasn't been decided yet. But since General Ulric is the strongest one left here, I think he will be in command until one of the princes wakes up or some elder returns from the battlefield on the Black Plain."
"So, that's how it is..."
"Tsk!"
"The devil Minos will be the biggest beneficiary of all this!"
"What a lucky wretch!"
"Hmm, that's true... But what will happen now, General Laurence? King William's funeral cannot occur in the absence of all his family members."
"And so many others have died..."
Gulp!
"Really... I hadn't thought of that!" That royal guard commented as he wiped the sweat on his forehead, feeling quite pressed at the moment.
"In any case, we cannot continue with His Majesty's funeral."
"Hmm, we'll leave that for when we understand this matter..."
And while they were talking, they finally arrived at the disciplinary area of that estate. In this place, a pretty young woman with black hair, dressed in the uniform of the royal guard, was sitting alone on one of the two chairs around a round table, the only furniture there.
That Spiritual King then introduced her to the members of the church. "This is one of our guards, Ava, who was supposed to be with His Highness when he disappeared."
"Oh?"
"We still don't know what she may have seen since, besides the fact that we just found her, she seemed in a state of panic when she was brought here."
"But we believe she knows a little more about today's incident!"
...
