“Heh, let’s see you keep touching things now!”
Watching Little Mist, who was staring with great confusion at the anklet on her right foot, the Goddess of Life nodded in satisfaction.
To prevent Little Mist from constantly hot-swapping the bracelet and bothering her in the future, the Goddess of Life directly moved the Saint’s Bracelet to Little Mist’s ankle, turning it into an anklet.
This way, unless Little Mist used brute force to cut the bracelet or chop off her own foot, she wouldn’t be able to take it off.
As for the bracelet’s inherent blessing, it now required injecting a bit of the Element of Life to activate.
This would satisfy Truth’s small request without bothering the Goddess of Life.
Besides, when wearing a priest robe, it would naturally cover the foot, preventing others from seeing the anklet and thus keeping the little priest in the team from being recognized as the Saintess— a win-win situation!
After all, no one really stares at other people’s feet every day, right?
The Goddess of Life was quite pleased with her little scheme, and only withdrew her divine sense after watching Little Mist safely reach Fog Gate Plaza…
“So when is that Goddess of Life going to leave?”
Near Fog Gate Plaza, Little Mist still walked with some restraint, and the cold, icy sensation of the anklet on her foot made her feel very uncomfortable.
On top of that, she had no idea when the Goddess of Life would stop spying on her, which put immense pressure on her.
She could only move forward cautiously, trying not to reveal any slip-ups, acting just like someone who had narrowly escaped from a Mist Monster.
This was only the first day of acting as a substitute. She hoped there wouldn’t be any more trouble from here on out.
“Ah? Truth?!”
Just then, a voice rang out not far away. Little Mist was startled again and immediately looked up to find a woman she had never seen before.
The woman had a very curvaceous figure, not even a thick priest robe could hide much of it.
On top of that, she had pale golden hair… Little Mist thought that compared to herself, this priest looked more like a Saintess…
“Woo-hoo, freedom!”
At the same time, five kilometers away from the Mist, on the plateau grassland, Truth had turned into an incorporeal Blood Mist, racing wildly with reckless abandon.
This long-lost feeling of being completely unbound, not even noticeable by that lofty goddess, made every drop of her blood sing with joy!
If she hadn’t been suddenly chosen as the Saintess by the Goddess of Life, running around exploring maps like this would have been her daily routine.
But unfortunately, Faith Power was just too tempting. Without the Goddess of Life, Truth’s only source of Faith Power would be her disciple, Tia, who produced one or two points of faith each day…
Moreover, as the fusion of her Authority progressed, the effects of Faith Power became increasingly prominent.
While traveling, Truth activated her new Class Exclusive Equipment Forging Panel and Faith Exchange Shop in front of her with a thought.
The function of the Class Exclusive Equipment Forging Panel was simple: collect specific materials and spend a bit of Faith Power to forge the best equipment for her current rank!
“Hmm, when I have time, I can craft a few priest healing rods or Element-enhancing bracelets and toss them to Tia for fun,” Truth thought.
Unfortunately, the Mistveil Exalted Authority could only forge priest-related equipment, which was no help for an Eleventh-Rank entity like Truth.
But she could make some in the future and drop them into the Mist as rare rewards.
Second-rank priest equipment…
But she couldn’t be too flashy. If the Goddess of Life ever found out that the Mist had a greater attraction for priests than the Eternal Forest, it would be troublesome.
Next was the Faith Exchange Shop. Truth could now use Faith Power to directly exchange for various second-rank consumables or special equipment and blessings, such as the “Follower Sacred Robe of the Mist Hidden Venerable.”
Unlike the Saintess Robe of the Goddess of Life, which was adorned with gold and green, the Follower Sacred Robe of the Mist Hidden Venerable was pure white and gray, looking very simple and cold.
The blessings available for exchange were various convenient functions for interacting with disciples.
For example, “Divine Gift,” which cost two thousand Faith Points to unlock.
Divine Gift allowed her to grant items from the Mist to her disciples at any time, increasing their favorability.
However, Truth’s only disciple at the moment was Tia, and most of the things she could grant were second-rank, which Tia would certainly look down on.
So for now, this function would mostly be used by Truth herself:
“Can’t I just put important things in the Core Region and then use Divine Gift to send them to myself when needed?”
Truth directly treated the Mist as an oversized space ring.
Then, there were a few functional blessings in the exchange shop. Truth unlocked all of them in one go.
After all, at this stage, she had more Faith Power than she could use.
There was a nurturing blessing that could continuously consume Faith Points to increase the experience gain of her disciples, a Friend of Monsters blessing that allowed the Mist monsters to temporarily provide aid, and so on…
After checking her current stat bonuses, Truth continued heading south. She wanted to reach the nearest player settlement by tonight and take a look.
Before Truth’s transmigration, there was a large main city in the Southern Marshes for players between levels 20 and 40, called Thousand Lake City.
Unfortunately, after Truth transmigrated, she never heard of Thousand Lake City again.
Five hundred years had passed. Perhaps the place was already abandoned or taken over by new forces.
But the ruins of Thousand Lake City must still hold many traces left by players!
So Truth’s goal this time was to excavate and uncover some useful clues.
Then, she would head to the so-called Demon Arena to check it out. She should be able to finish all this by dawn…
But going out on adventures always came with unexpected events. For Truth, as long as she had enough time, she would take care of those along the way.
Right now, for example, after about ten minutes of rapid flight, several sneaky squads entered Truth’s perception range.
They were all wearing stealth cloaks that blended into the surrounding environment, and the various lethal items hanging on their bodies indicated they were no good guys.
“Blasphemers?”
Based on the composition of these squads, Truth immediately guessed their identities.
No wonder the western garrison had trouble finding traces of the Blasphemers— by the time they were discovered, the Blasphemers had already caused trouble in Deya City.
So these guys had been sneaking across from the southern border.
After studying their route a bit more, Truth was certain their destination was Deya City:
“Going to Deya City and the Mist to set off explosions again? Fine. Since we’ve met so fatefully here, I might as well send you on your way.”
With that, Truth, now in the form of Blood Mist, stuck close to the ground to avoid the moonlight and surged toward the Blasphemers like a tide of blood!
Truth didn’t want these pests ruining the development of her Mist…
Under the moonlight, after a full day of long-distance travel and dodging the Border Garrison of Sylvia, the seven-member squad led by Fifth-Rank Magic Swordsman Domeinike had finally entered Sylvia’s territory and advanced about fifty kilometers before they could take a temporary rest.
At this time and place, no one was going to check on them. So they put down their equipment, gathered around a small hill that blocked the wind, and started eating their dry rations.
Although they were sure it was safe, none of them dared to light a bonfire to warm up or cook some hot food. They could only rely on moonlight for illumination.
“We’re still a day’s journey from Deya City. Let’s rest for about four hours, then continue. By dawn, there will be many adventurers in Deya City, and we can blend in easily,” Domeinike said to his men.
The men were also very excited—having heard stories of resisting the gods since childhood, it was finally their turn to put them into practice.
“I’m going to shove this thing under the goddess statue at the Church of the Goddess of Life!” one of the men said with a sinister grin, continuously wiping a long tube-shaped object in his hand.
That was a Magic Explosive Bomb powerful enough to blow up half a church. And they had three more bombs like it in their squad.
“And we should try to capture the Ninth Saintess while the Saint’s Shadow Guard isn’t around! I heard the Ninth Saintess is very beautiful,” another man shouted.
Domeinike let out a disdainful laugh:
“Heh, if capturing the Saintess were that easy, then the advance team before me would have already succeeded. But have you heard any news from them after all this time?
At least they completed half their mission—they blew up that old bell tower. They’re probably hiding somewhere in the city right now, waiting for us to rescue them…”
“Whoosh—Boom!”
Suddenly, a red flare shot into the sky about a kilometer away, interrupting Domeinike and the others’ rest.
The crimson light instantly stained the surrounding grass with an unsettling color.
“It’s Li Ande’s squad! They’re in trouble!”
The quickest to react, Domeinike immediately grabbed his sword and stood up, channeling magic into his eyes to use his observation skills toward the direction of the flare.
The others quickly grabbed their weapons as well.
A red flare meant an attack, but Domeinike observed for a while and couldn’t see any signs of fighting.
He could only vaguely make out Li Ande and the others lying quietly on the grass, not knowing if they were dead or alive. This left him very confused.
In reality, Li Ande and his team had already been killed, their neck blood soaking the surrounding grass.
But under the red flare’s glow, the blood was hard to see.
On top of that, Domeinike was a kilometer away in the dark, making it impossible to determine their condition…
“Whoosh—Boom!”
Then, seconds later, another identical red flare shot up, this time from a hill two kilometers away from Domeinike.
What was happening now?!
Since two kilometers exceeded the limit of Domeinike’s observation skills, he immediately gave orders to the whole squad:
“Pack everything up and go into full stealth immediately!”
Before figuring out what was going on, Domeinike’s first priority was to hide in the shadows…
But unfortunately, they had already been locked onto for a long time.
“Captain, look up in the sky!” one of the men pointed at the red flare in the air, urging anxiously.
Domeinike looked up as well and noticed something unusual about the flare.
Two kilometers away, under the red light, a mass of even redder, more eerie fog was arcing toward them at incredible speed!
Just before it hit the ground, the eerie fog turned into a tide of blood that surged toward them!
As the blood tide swept past everyone present, they only felt a chill at their throats.
Before they could even lift their weapons to block, hot blood gushed from their necks!
Domeinike blinked in terror and saw all his teammates go limp, collapsing to the ground, blood still spewing from their necks like small springs.
There were no screams, no fierce fighting—only the faint whistle of something cutting through the air and the heavy thud of bodies hitting the ground…
Despite years of combat experience, after witnessing this nightmare firsthand, Domeinike’s face turned pale.
His right hand instinctively reached for the emergency flare at his waist.
He could sense that this eerie black tide wasn’t something he could handle alone.
He could only pin his hopes on reinforcements arriving later. But could he hold out until then? Would he be instantly wiped out like the other squads the moment he lit the flare?
Just as Domeinike was frantically thinking, his peripheral vision caught sight of the black tide floating silently behind him, as if waiting for something…
Forget it! Driven by a strong will to survive, Domeinike refused to give up any chance of hope. He ignited the flare in his hand.
Two seconds later, the third red flare lit up half the sky. Domeinike finally mustered some fighting spirit.
But just as he turned to face the eerie black tide, a flash of red streaked before his eyes!
The next second, Domeinike’s head was separated from his body, hitting the ground before his torso…
He had been decapitated instantly.
“Tch, taking that long just to fire a signal flare. No intact corpse for you!”
Truth said disdainfully, then immediately rushed toward the last Blasphemer squad’s location.
Her movements were clean and efficient, possessed of an inhuman, machine-like precision.
That night, after four signal flares lit up in succession, all four Blasphemer squads were annihilated in under a minute.
Truth had deliberately let them fire the flares. That way, the Border Garrison would notice and collect the bodies, while also being alerted to guard the southern border.
At the same time, it served as a warning to the Radical Faction in Wangsheng City, letting them know that besides the Church of the Goddess of Life, there were others in the Dea Plateau who didn’t welcome them…
The four flares indeed caused a huge commotion. Just as Truth was about to leave and continue south, the first entity attracted by the flares appeared, making Truth frown slightly:
“Chaos Abyss?”
An extremely subtle, cold, and slippery aura—like the thickest mud from the depths of the Abyss—entered Truth’s perception range.
If not for her Eleventh-Rank scouting skills, she wouldn’t have noticed it at all.
Without disturbing this aura, Truth quietly slipped away from the scene, letting the Chaos Abyss’s presence sweep over the area freely.
After a long while, Chaos Demon Soros looked at the dead Blasphemers through his clairvoyance and muttered in confusion:
“It looks like a Blood Demon’s handiwork… Is it the one from before?”
After secretly monitoring the entire Dea Plateau for some time, Soros had finally found traces of the Blood Demon that had once cursed at the Heavenly Fire!
He immediately released a friendly signal, trying to establish contact with this mysterious Blood Demon.
But unfortunately, the being completely ignored him. Soros had no choice but to give up and intensify his detection of the area…
Some time later, the Border Garrison from Watchfort finally arrived, drawn by the flares.
At the same time, the spies from Wangsheng City were utterly bewildered:
“Aren’t those our distress flares? What happened to the second wave?!”