“I see,” Phil Gray said, indicating his understanding.
Eli continued, "And some of the people at headquarters look... well... you can't even define them as human. I was scared of them many times when I was a kid."
"What's the meaning?"
"Most of the skills that the God of Death bestows upon his followers are related to the undead. Some of these skills are too bizarre. I have seen followers with two heads, and followers with only an upper body and a ghost-like lower body."
“The people here are definitely more normal.” Phil Gray sighed, realizing he needed to mentally prepare himself before reaching the headquarters of the Church of the Dead.
"Also, you should be able to sense that the higher the level of the God of Death's chosen ones, the more their bodies transform into those of the undead. To be honest, being with those high-level chosen ones is no different from being with the undead."
“That’s true,” Phil Gray agreed.
As they walked, they looked around. For Phil Gray, who was visiting the Church of the Dead for the first time, everything was new and exciting. The local customs and culture made him feel as if he had entered another world.
Like the worshippers of the god of death here, they wore long black robes that dragged on the ground, and their faces were covered with extremely pale masks, which not only concealed their faces but also showed their piety towards death.
The night was still asleep. For convenience, they made a backpack just like the cat bag from their previous life on Earth, which was carried on the back of Eli, the son of the night.
The duo was unremarkable, seemingly blending into the dead city.
"Grab him!"
"Grab him quickly!"
"Damn it, he's as cunning as a rabbit!"
A figure swift as the wind swept past Phil Gray and Eli, followed by a noisy crowd and two undead knights on skeletal horses, brandishing bone swords and chasing after the figure that had just run past them.
"Oh no! What happened to the thing I was holding?!"
"Me too."
Pedestrians walking nearby stopped in their tracks and suddenly cried out in alarm.
"That's the thief from just now! Come with us and chase after him!" someone roared.
"Oh my god, God of Death, why didn't you take care of this guy sooner?"
The crowd has grown even larger.
Phil Gray and Eli exchanged a glance and chased after him together.
Eli had just felt a lightness on his back; he never expected that his cat would be stolen!
A large crowd chased after a fleeing thief, occasionally bumping into the white bone carriages and coffins on the road, which made the lifeless city a little more lively.
But this thief is really something, managing to steal from a Divine Seer while running away!
Phil Gray sighed inwardly, but his pace remained remarkably fast.
The speed of a Divine Prophet's Chosen One should not be underestimated. He and Eli quickly took the lead in the crowd, overtaking the two undead knights and closely following the thief.
As he drew closer to the city gate, the thief slid out of the guards' sights, slipping through the gate like an eel, catching the guards off guard and leaving them no time to react.
Phil Gray and Eli quickened their pace and followed closely behind, their figures flashing past the city gate guards' sight.
Once outside the city gates, one encounters uneven terrain and many withered trees; this is the area between the Church of Death and Eternity.
The thief moved even faster here, as if he were extremely familiar with the area, nimbly weaving among the dead trees, trying to use the terrain to shake off his pursuers.
After a while, they were quite a distance from the city of Catomero. The thief glanced behind him and saw that there was no one left.
He stopped, his face full of smugness, his back ramrod straight. He tore off his mask and put on a gray bodysuit.
"Hehe, praise to the god of thieves, today's harvest is plentiful."
He leaped onto a dead tree and took stock of his harvest.
Along the way, his skill of "stealing what you can get" became more and more refined, and he was able to steal the most valuable thing from someone as soon as he made physical contact with them.
"Oh ho, what's this? High-purity blue crystal, hmm, good knife, should fetch a good price, skull staff, not bad either, oh, this dog shit I got from some unlucky guy, damn it!"
The thief spat and threw a bunch of useless odds and ends on the ground.
"No wonder the predecessors didn't wipe out the Church of the Dead; there's really not much usable stuff among the living! But once I gather a few more cities from different churches, I'll be able to fulfill the prophecy of the great God of Thieves. I'll be just a few days away from founding the Church of the God of Thieves. Hehe, which church should I choose next?"
As the thief was daydreaming and examining his loot, he noticed a black cloth bag with holes in it, from which a faint warmth seemed to emanate.
"What is this? Is it still alive?"
"Aren't the Church of the Dead all dead things?" The thief asked, puzzled. He untied the cloth bag and found a black cat. The cat seemed to have been woken up by him and was staring at him fiercely with its bright green eyes.
"A black cat, another worthless thing." The thief was extremely frustrated. Black cats were the most common living creatures in the Church of the Dead. These things were quite eerie, but they were worthless!
He threw the cat on the ground and thought he would just leave it there.
Unexpectedly, the cat did not fall to the ground; instead, it instantly grew to the size of a tiger and pounced on him.
The thief opened his eyes in disbelief. He was already moving very fast, but the cat still pounced on him and knocked him to the ground.
With a thud, the thief's body crashed to the ground under the black cat's immense weight, creating a large crater.
The dizzy thief crawled out of the pit and used the escape skills bestowed upon him by the god of thievery, but he crashed into a wall as soon as he started running, and a big bump swelled up on his head.
"How could there be a wall in the middle of nowhere?" The thief looked up in frustration, only to have a long sword burning with flames pressed against his throat.
"Why did you stop running?"
The mocking voice chilled the thief to the bone. He saw that the person holding the sword was a young man dressed in a black robe, with a pale face but exceptionally handsome features.
A follower of the god of death?
He immediately understood that he had been caught red-handed stealing someone else's things.
It reminds me of the first chapter of "The Thief's Bible," which says that when caught, one should first try to deny everything.
He looked at the other person with a puzzled expression. "What do you mean? I don't quite understand. I didn't run away. I was just taking a walk in this forest. Withered vines, old trees, and crows at dusk, as a believer of the god of death, don't you feel tempted by such a scene?"
“Oh, my friend, your poetry is good, but I think we should cut to the chase,” Phil Gray said with a smile, his voice gentle, but the flame on his longsword sent a chill down the thief’s spine.
“Yes, the stolen goods are all there. Are you still trying to deny it?” Eli pointed to the items scattered around under the tree by the thieves, with a sleepy-eyed cat nestled in his arms.
The thief was stunned for a moment when he was surprised to see the black cat, which had just been so ferocious, become so docile.
Seeing that his denial tactic had failed, the thief had to think of other ways. He gave an awkward smile and said, "Alright, I admit I did it. Please put your sword away. I think stealing such a small thing shouldn't be a capital offense, right? You two probably don't want someone like me to pollute the sacred abyss, do you?"
As he spoke, he tried to touch the fiery sword with his hand, wanting to move it away a little to avoid accidentally slitting his throat, while seemingly wondering why this chosen one of the gods of death would carry such a gleaming sword.
At that moment, the thief channeled his divine power, and the Blazing Sun Sword instantly changed hands, the hilt now in his grasp.
"Haha, goodbye!"
He tried to slip away quickly, but was blocked by four square walls.
There was nowhere to go.
Like catching a turtle in a jar, the thief was tightly bound by Eli with vines, leaving him no chance to escape.
"Luckily, we had enough stock." Eli clapped his hands; the more these vines struggled, the tighter they would bind.
Night settled back into the cat carrier behind him. He hadn't fully recovered yet, but had temporarily woken up because he sensed the danger in the outside world. Now, with his little brother protecting him, he felt safe and continued to sleep.
"Alright, alright, I won't run away anymore, but what's with these walls?" the thief asked, puzzled. He watched as the young man summoned four walls, but he didn't sense that the man was using the power of death.
"Why should I tell you? Shut your mouth." Phil Gray stuffed a wad of cloth into the man's mouth, preventing him from uttering any more sweet talk.
He wasn't worried about revealing his other skills outside. Many of the followers of the Church of the Dead could turn the corpses of followers from other sects into items, just like his Death Right Hand, so it wasn't surprising that he possessed some skills from other sects.
But there's no need to explain these things to the thief.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com