Watching Luo En, from whom pale green and golden lights continued to flicker—with even pink light bursting out in between—Astraea and the Sacred Guard elf exchanged bewildered looks.
“Ahem, look, he’s been acknowledged by the Goddess, so he’s actually one of us, right?” Astraea pointed at Luo En, explaining with some awkwardness.
She hadn’t expected that the Goddess, who loved wearing alternate identities, would be so unreliable as to let golden light burst out from Luo En’s body.
This wasn’t the Human Kingdom, after all!
Miss Astraea, a believer who had never taken the Elven Goddess seriously, prayed for the first time today for the Goddess to come through.
Watching the golden light on Luo En blaze ever brighter while the pale green light was squeezed into a tiny corner, Astraea fell into a daze.
They were both racial gods—how could the gap be this huge?
Indeed, why? At this moment, the Elven Goddess herself was seriously pondering this very question.
Hugging a blanket woven from divine power, she shrank silently into a corner and watched the little golden figure that had taken Luo En, her expression humiliated.
How could the gap between gods be this large?
After hearing the All-Father’s appraisal of how he intended to use her own Divine Chosen, she truly had been blinded by rage.
When her own Divine Chosen had been poached by someone else, how could she not be furious?
If she didn’t get angry, she wouldn’t have the face to call herself a prominent god!
So the Elven Goddess charged forward. And so she was beaten to her knees by the All-Father.
Without drawing on her divine power of love and beauty, the Elven Goddess—who received faith from only a few hundred thousand elves—was no match for the All-Father whatsoever.
Just kidding. Even if she did use her divine power of love and beauty, she still might not necessarily be a match for the All-Father.
As the Elven Goddess, she couldn’t abandon her racial essence. Wearing alternate identities came at a price… which only made things more miserable. Otherwise, all the elves would have to be subjected to the same cap.
As the racial god of elves, the Elven Goddess couldn’t sit by and watch her children fall into such a situation.
“This matter is a secret between the two of us. You’d better not tell anyone about it. If you do, you’d better watch out. I know where your divine kingdom is, and I know where your temple is. You’d better remember that well, got it?”
The All-Father withdrew his fist and, satisfied, grabbed the transparent Luo En before crawling back out through the crack in the ground from before.
Don’t misunderstand—he hadn’t done anything to that elf lady. He’d merely given her a beating.
As the foreign deity left, the shattered space was repaired in an instant. The Elven Goddess, who had just been wearing an expression of humiliation, now felt her teeth itch with fury.
“Robber! Villain!”
The fuming Elven Goddess cursed, then her face flushed crimson as she spat out the most scathing words, “Pervert!”
After cursing for quite a while, the Elven Goddess shrank her head and stayed at full alert, warily scanning her surroundings. Only after confirming that the All-Father’s presence hadn’t reappeared did she relax.
It wasn’t that she was a coward…
Fine, she was a coward. If she weren’t, how could she have survived to become the elves’ one and only great god?
All in all, this was but a slight frost—she could endure it!
“So this is how you see me?”
In Luo En’s eyes, that golden-glowing yellow weasel looked at him with some amusement.
“My apologies, Your Excellency.” Luo En lowered his head in shame.
As the saying goes, a thousand people see a thousand faces. At this moment, in Luo En’s eyes, the All-Father truly was a yellow weasel.
Perhaps it had something to do with how his father used to curse in front of him when he was a child, saying the All-Father wasn’t a good thing. Still, now that he was a proper knight, Luo En felt he ought to be a bit more proper.
“Heh, listen here, little one. What I look like in your eyes doesn’t matter.” The All-Father examined Luo En’s soul in his hand for a moment, then continued, “All you need to do is be able to bear my power.”
“Alright, remember to say hello to that little elf for me, and tell her that if she encounters corruption, she should try blowing the whistle.” Before Luo En could react, the yellow weasel transformed into golden light, and that light engulfed him directly.
Blinded by the light and unable to open his eyes, Luo En instinctively reached up to rub them.
Then he heard Astraea’s voice.
“Thank goodness, Luo En, you’re finally awake!”
Opening his eyes, a huge pair of snow-white mounds filled his vision. Their size seemed no different from the Elven Goddess’s.
A thought that was utterly blasphemous to elves popped into Luo En’s mind.
“What’s going on?”
Luo En asked. His voice was a little hoarse, and his body seemed to ache somewhat.
Seeing Luo En now, Astraea looked as if she’d found a lifesaver.
She shoved Luo En’s longsword into his hand and said rapidly, “The top priority now is to get up and fight. Are you holding up okay?”
“Of course. Though it hurts a bit, my stamina’s quite full.”
Luo En stood up. He heard his armor creaking. The breastplate that had once fit snugly now squeezed him uncomfortably, and then he realized something was off.
His field of vision had risen. The longsword in his hand also seemed much shorter. And the already petite Astraea’s head now only reached just above his chest.
‘So small.’
Luo En now felt that the little elf could participate in a sporting event called the “Fiji Cup” right in front of him. Well, honestly, she could have before too.
Such scattered thoughts flashed through Luo En’s mind. Though they seemed like many, to his laptop-grade brain processing power, it was but an instant. The next moment, he noticed the elven spearman who had stood up and was holding his spear aloft, at a loss.
So this was the battle Astraea meant. But why were there elves here? Weren’t they in the Royal Capital Sewers before?
Luo En’s scatterbrained brain finally recovered from the overload of gazing directly at a deity, and he immediately took in his surroundings.
Thanks to the Forest Holy Liquid Astraea had mixed with her blood, Luo En could even feel the forest’s acceptance of him now.
If he wanted, he could even have the forest help him mobilize the free-floating elemental particles in the air.
At that point, the Lighting Spell he cast could blind everyone’s eyes.
Of course, besides that trick, the forest had also greatly sharpened his senses.
It was as if someone was calling out positions directly in his brain. Within a hundred meters in every direction, if he wanted to know where anyone was, the forest would directly display the location in his mind.
Now he could even tell how many strands of hair were on that elf’s head across from him.
Holding the original longsword, Luo En casually twirled it in a flourish.
The sight made the elf across from him twitch at the corners of his eyes.
He had decades of martial skill, sure, but what the hell was this stat monster who wielded a two-handed longsword like a straight sword?
By the Elven Goddess above, he’d rather face the Dwarves’ elite army! At least when the Dwarves ganged up on someone, it only made their knees hurt.
But he was a member of the Sacred Guard. When he’d enlisted, he’d sworn to defend the Holy Land with his life. How could he retreat now?
“Human, get out of the Holy Land!”
With a furious roar, the elven spearman charged at Luo En, spear thrust forward.
Luo En paid no mind to the ill-fitting breastplate. He swung his sword at the charging elf.
The longsword turned into an afterimage in Astraea’s eyes. Before she could react, one swing had already chopped through the wooden spear shaft.
The elf on the other side grabbed the remaining stick with both hands and, without hesitation, swung the rod forward again.
Unlike when he’d whipped Astraea earlier, this time the rod was far more agile, like a long serpent constantly slithering.
Had it been the little elf, she wouldn’t have lasted a minute under such an assault!
But Luo En was different. Under his powerful vision and perception, the elf across seemed to be moving in slow motion. The wooden rod was clearly visible to him, and he could even count how many degrees each bend differed.
Under such circumstances, Luo En dodged again and again through the shadows of the rod at a speed completely at odds with his tall, burly frame.
Astraea was already dizzy from watching.
“You bastard!”
The elf gnashed his teeth. Earlier, Luo En’s body had indeed emanated the Elven Goddess’s aura and radiance, but in the blink of an eye, they’d been covered by that detestable aura that made every elf’s hair stand on end.
Feeling deeply that he’d been toyed with, and now seeing Luo En in such a state, his rage burned straight to his heart.
By normal plot logic, if he wasn’t glowing pale green right now, he should at least be glowing red.
Too bad he ran into Luo En.
The gods’ gazes were firmly locked on Luo En, occasionally flicking to the dizzy little Astraea off to the side. Not a single one spared a look at the elf madly waving his spear shaft.
This was a battle without any suspense. After fully adapting to his somewhat-changed body, Luo En finally knocked the poor elf unconscious with a single smack from the flat of his blade.
“Th-that’s it? It’s over just like that?”
With her little head spinning, Astraea watched Luo En take off the ill-fitting armor, somewhat dumbfounded.
An opponent she’d only managed to knock out by sneaking up on him—Luo En had taken care of him as if it were a game.
‘Is this right?’
Seeing that the fellow elf she’d elbowed to the ground earlier was at risk of waking up, Astraea stepped over and delivered another elbow, sending him into a quality sleep.
Earlier, she could still bully Luo En a little with magic, but this time, it seemed she’d never be able to hold her head high again.
Thinking of that, and looking at Luo En’s height, which had suddenly shot up, Astraea felt her teeth itch.
“Teacher Astraea, where are we?”
Having completely shed his armor and feeling at ease in both body and mind, Luo En turned around to ask the little elf.
Although the little elf seemed to be a bit angry, not knowing why, he decided it was best to first figure out where they were.
Astraea wasn’t one to pamper Luo En. She trotted up close to him, and under his bewildered gaze, grabbed his arm and bit down!
“Awoo!”
The little elf’s delicate teeth naturally couldn’t do any damage to the thick-skinned knight, and she wasn’t willing to use real force anyway.
She was just venting right now, though to Luo En, it looked more like she was acting cute.
Luo En’s other hand reached up to stroke Astraea’s head. Without letting go, the little elf squinted her eyes in contentment.
‘It’s not so bad, I guess.’
Astraea’s displeasure with Luo En vanished like smoke in an instant.
After all, Luo En was her guardian knight. If Luo En was strong, wasn’t that the same as her being strong?