Chapter 397: 397

Chapter 397: Vol5 Ch67: Attack

A group of men were standing just a bit further away from the Sun Shadow church group’s location. The one leading them was a man with a missing right arm with clothes that didn’t quite fit his body. Holding an old and tattered smoking pipe in his mouth, he took a deep breath, then gazed towards the group in the distance with slightly glowing green eyes.

Sarmyte exhaled a puff of smoke, turned to the men standing behind him, then back at the Sun Shadow church’s group of people.

In the past, he was only a normal young man of Lohr with a happy family and a girl he admired, but when he accidentally came into contact with a bit of leaked Source Energy, his [Origin] was slowly released, granting him supernatural power.

However, this wasn’t necessarily a good thing in the town of Lohr. During a certain Spirit Cleansing Day, he wasn’t able to suppress the abnormalities of his soul and was discovered to have achieved the first stage of release.

From that point on, his life was completely destroyed. All of his family members were either captured or killed, his lover who had almost gotten married to him got married with someone else later on.

If his ability wasn’t unique, he wouldn’t have been able to escape the Sun Shadow church’s pursuit; and even then, he still lost his right arm for it. Even now, he still clearly recalled the sensation of having that scorching blade slicing through his body.

“Boss… are we really going to?” one of the men by Sarmyte’s side shrunk a bit and asked. They had all been pursued by the Churches one way or another, so they understood clearly just how terrifying the Churches were. Not only did the Churches have over a thousand times their number, but there were also those who were considerably stronger than they were; there might even be a God among them.

While these Awakened Wicked Souls had been pursued to be killed by the Churches, the reverence of Gods that they were taught from birth couldn’t be erased that easily. Even if they had escaped from the Churches due to their will to survive, the fear and guilt they felt towards Gods had never ceased.

Which was why it scared them to even think about attacking a group of men from one of the Churches like this.

“What are you afraid of? Once we succeed, we’ll also become members of a Church under a God. Haven’t you endured this damned life long enough?” Sarmyte scoffed and answered him. Only people who lived around the Unrepenting Abyss would truly understand just how terrible its conditions were.

As the clash between the Churches became intense, the Half Life Church declared that they wanted to induct their group, the conditions to join being to ambush the Sun Shadow church’s ritual group.

“The problem is…”

As the man tried saying something else, Sarmyte cut him off: “I know what you mean. All of them are nothing but fodder, and in this level of struggle, not even we have that high of a chance to survive”

“But think about it, would we be able to survive for very long by continuing like this?”

In the vicinity of the Unrepenting Abyss, never mind food, there weren’t even any living creatures aside from them. Everything they required needed to be transported in from outside, and aside from having to deal with the occasional dead soul that appeared, they also needed to make sure that they weren’t detected by the Churches whenever they came out for food.

“If you want to survive, you need to take risks. Do I really have to teach you that lesson? As for grudges or whatever, isn’t it already enough for a man to survive?” after saying that, Sarmyte slowly raised the only arm he had left and gestured forward: “If you don’t want to continue living this pathetic life, follow me”

The majority of the Awakened Wicked Souls followed him forward. Sarmyte’s [Origin] ability was [Eyesight Division], capable of controlling what other people could see and made it so that they could only see a portion of something.

After achieving the second stage of release, his [Origin] ability evolved into [Five Senses Division], causing the five senses of all life forms around him to be under his influence. Of course, there was also a weakness with this ability, which was it influenced his own senses as well. Everything within his perception was cut-off in one way or another, regardless of whether or not he used his ability.

After achieving the third stage of release, Sarmyte’s [Origin] ability became [Information Division]. An individual’s perception of reality, at its core, was merely the reception of information around them; and Sarmyte had the ability to take control of the information in his surroundings, cutting a part of it off to make sure that no one would perceive it.

Unfortunately, this was the extent of Sarmyte’s talents. While he had managed to achieve the third stage of release, he had no way of taking the final step to obtain the Seed of Truth. His annually malnourished body and his barren knowledge had made it so that it couldn’t possibly endure the surge of information from the Seed of Truth, causing him to stop right here. Of course, even if that was the case, he was still the one and truly strongest person here.

Earlier, it was also his control that made it so that the people of the Sun Shadow church could only detect the malice they gave off, but not their figures that were already standing a short distance away.

In the Sun Shadow church’s group, Green suddenly couldn’t sense the hostility that was focused on them earlier anymore, but he only felt tenser instead of relieved. The disappearance of hostility didn’t mean that the other party had left, but rather that they were beginning to act.

Obviously, not everyone was quite as sharp as Green, since many people sighed in relief as soon as they felt the hostility disappear. This was how humans were, always the most relaxed as soon as the thing they had been cautious about suddenly disappeared.

This was also why in horror movies, there would be moments when both the atmosphere and scene looked terrifying, but the ghost would not appear no matter what. It would only be after the scene had lit up again as if everything was over that the ghost would suddenly pop up on screen for a jump scare.

And this was the exact same thing that was happening to the Sun Shadow church’s group. When the hostility that they were cautious about disappeared, everyone felt relieved, then the other party’s ambush immediately began. One of the knights on the outermost side suddenly lost his head and spurted out a large amount of blood. This blood suddenly became animated like it was alive, forming into the shape of a giant red hand that grabbed the knight immediately next to him, from the outside it looked as if the knight’s head had turned into a bloody red hand.

This abrupt ambush after feeling relieved caused the entire group to feel a bit panicked, but this panic was swiftly dealt with.

A warm light soothed everyone’s panic, the glow of various divine techniques appeared one after another, and the knights began to glow in scorching hot flames of light, giving them the appearance of warriors who stepped out of fire.

The Gods’ Offering Day that occurred once every 100 years was the most crucial event for every Church. Even if the headquarters of the Church was destroyed and taken over, they would still not be punished quite as severely as when Gods’ Offering Day was ruined.

This was because the Seven Gods didn’t care about the Churches. It was more than enough for a Church to help spread their God’s faith to collect more believers’ souls after they died, but Gods’ Offering Day had a completely different meaning, so any failures would eventually lead to divine punishment from the Gods themselves, as recorded within the history of any Church.

For that reason, every Gods’ Offering Day’s ritual group consisted of only the elites among elites. The fact that the other party managed to cause casualties on the Church’s side so quickly simply meant that they were considerable opponents.

If they couldn’t see the enemy, they would simply widen the range of their attacks. Two priests swiftly joined hands and combined their soul powers to sense the existence of God, asking God to bestow them a divine technique. Countless rays of sunlight akin to arrows began to descend from the sky and ravaged their surroundings.

The other priests and knights also used various divine techniques to cause the enemy to appear while still remaining cautious of their surroundings. Awakened Wicked Souls were known for their strange and unorthodox abilities, but as long as one understood how they operated, it wasn’t difficult to win most of the time.