Chapter 211 — The Heretical Undercurrent
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 3
"They intended to create a plague and spread it simultaneously through the Western Marches and the Mosswood," the priest said, gesturing at the nearby walls. On those blood-polluted surfaces, faint pale-gold runes of holy light glimmered, and wisps of black miasma dissipated swiftly under the holy radiance. "When I arrived, the whole building was already saturated with the breath of plague. Thankfully the Lord guided me to discover the cultists' plot in time, so I could disperse this near-formed evil magic at once and set up a purification ward. My lord, there is no longer any need to fear the plague."
"These depraved, twisted freaks! Their souls ought to be collected by devils and never allowed out of hell!" Baiyu Franklin's anger was rare and genuine, yet he strove to keep his composure, and nodded to the holy-light priest. "Father, you saved this town and the lives of everyone around it! You deserve my thanks and my reward."
"Purifying evil is the path the Lord has set before us," the priest said with sorrowful compassion. "More than any personal gain, I fear those frenzied cultists striking at regions that have not received the Lord's protection."
"The church of the Blood God is right near this trading house, yet its priests knew nothing of the evil at their doorstep," the Duke said, shaking his head. "The first to arrive were you and the holy-light pastors you lead…"
"Do not blame the envoys of the Blood God," the holy-light pastor said at once. "It is simply that their divine arts happened to be of no use here. The power of the God of Holy Light specializes in combating evil; we merely happened to encounter work that was ours to do."
A thoughtful look came over the Duke's face. "Combating evil… The cultists in the kingdom grow ever bolder. What we need at a time like this is the power to combat evil…"
The priest bowed his head deeply. "The servants of the God of Holy Light shall not shrink from the duty."
……
The cultists were plaguing the nobles of Ansu on every side—yet in the Southern Marches, where they had first stirred up trouble, the situation was instead growing calmer by the day.
It seemed that after the Assembly of the End of All Things and the Sleepers suffered setback after setback, the dark sects found this region—bordering the Gondo Wasteland and itself desolate and backward—something of a thorny proposition. With plenty of other targets still available throughout the kingdom, they had for the time being abandoned their plans to keep making trouble here.
Gao Yang could not guess the cultists' thinking, but he was glad to accept this rare spell of calm, and intended to use the opportunity to keep advancing the technological tree of his domain.
The basic rune arrays that Jenny and Rebecca had decoded were gradually proving their worth.
On the desk before him lay a disassembled general-purpose armguard—the "Mark Scorching Ray Gun" currently issued to the domain's soldiers. Compared with the first crude experimental model, the mass-produced armguard was more rationally structured inside, its components more standardized and easier to replace. Once its casing and a layer of shielding were opened, one could see the modular rune trigger, the mana capacitor, the mana-conduction slots, and the scorching-ray substrate at the front of the armguard. Besides these, two empty slots were visible at the mana-conduction position—the expandable area designed on Gao Yang's earlier instructions, for later modification and upgrade.
Jenny and Rebecca stood beside the desk; the latter held out a rune substrate. "Here, for you."
Gao Yang took the substrate. Along the edge of the hexagonal metal plate he saw a neat line of stamped text: General-Purpose — Force Shield Module.