Chapter 307 Divine Commandment Brand
Rocky got off the carriage and looked at the dark and dilapidated village in front of him, his eyes full of gloom.
"What the hell is this place?" Rocky cursed. "What does the Land of Contract mean? I came here for a meeting, but I haven't seen any of their people yet. They just hang around in the carriage every day. These guys deserve to die."
The young priest following Rocky knew that the bishop was very angry. He originally thought that he was just coming to the contract place to hold a meeting and post a wanted order, and that he would be able to get it done quickly and return home.
But the fact is that they have not seen anyone from the contract land until now, and have been circling in a certain area. This naturally makes Rocky, who has always been second to none, very unhappy.
"Uh, Bishop, according to what they said at the Contract Land, they haven't finished preparing for the gathering yet." The little priest stammered as he wiped the sweat off his forehead. "Yes, or should I go and urge them again? At least ask them to give an exact location... Sorry, I said too much."
Before he could finish his words, the little priest was glared back at by Rocky with a murderous look, and he immediately shut up.
In fact, Rocky was just complaining and didn't dare to cause trouble for the Land of Contract because he also knew why the Land of Contract did this.
The Land of Contract is both a place and an organization. It is located in the largest uninhabited area in the world, but no one knows where it is exactly. Although the eight major churches send a group of "guardians" to the Land of Contract every 20 years, these guards are not allowed to return and must die there.
Over the past thousand years, there have been only very rare cases where the guardians turned back, such as the Holy Sound Disaster a few months ago. However, the Holy Sound players who turned back were also planted with a contract, and even in death they were not allowed to reveal the location of the contracted land. This iron rule even overrides the dogmas of the major churches.
This gathering of the eight major churches (actually six major churches) was unprecedented for the Land of Contract, and they obviously had no intention of sending the delegations of the major churches directly into the Land of Contract. After all, they had no way of planting the God's Contract on every member of the delegation, but they could not allow so many outsiders to know their location. So they planned to build a new gathering place in this no-man's land.
However, the location of this gathering is also top secret. Even Rocky, the bishop, does not know it and can only wait here.
"I really don't know what's sealed in there." Rocky cursed, "It's been kept so tightly for thousands of years, but it doesn't even have a good attitude. It's obviously being supported by us, but it can be rude to us. It's fucking stupid."
Seeing Rocky constantly spitting out foul language, the little priest following him lowered his head and dared not speak.
As the archbishop's personal priest, his relationship with Rocky can be described as negative distance, so he naturally knew why Rocky had such a great resentment towards the offerings.
As mentioned before, the Land of Contract does not care about worldly affairs and has always been supported by the eight major churches. For thousands of years, the eight major churches have been providing money, manpower and materials to the Land of Contract, maintaining a sufficiently stable balance.
But this balance has been broken in the past six months.
During the past six months, Tianqin was half-destroyed, Shengyin existed in name only, and Senluo (Wildfire) didn't even have a name anymore.
The original eight supplies for one were suddenly reduced to six supplies for one, and the pressure was naturally about to explode. For Rocky, as a bishop, every time he saw the unspeakable expenditure getting bigger and bigger, he wanted to roar to the sky, "My money!", and then overturn it and not spend a penny.
But unfortunately, the contract with God overrides all other rules, and no matter how dissatisfied he is, he can only grit his teeth and give it.
"Your Excellency the Bishop." Just as Rocky was furious, the accompanying knight hurried out of the village, came to him, and whispered, "There is another church delegation in the village."
A representative from another church?
Hearing this, Rocky immediately suppressed his negative emotions and became solemn.
He still has to maintain his image in front of other churches. After all, he is the next Pope of the Rhine.
"Oh?" He asked calmly, "Which church? Lyra or Star Relic?"
"Eternal Nightmare."
Rocky's brows immediately frowned.
Eternal Nightmare, one of the four major secret sects. Rocky didn't know much about them. He only knew that they were a group of extremists who advocated abandoning reality and falling into dreams forever.
I actually encountered this group of secret believers first.
To be honest, Rocky didn't really want to bother with them. After all, in name, the Orthodox Church and the Esoteric Church were still in opposition. If he wasn't here, he should have led his team in and strangled these guys.
but……
"Your Excellency the Bishop," said the previous Rhine Knight, "They seem to have something they want to discuss with you."
Have something to discuss with me?
Rocky's frown deepened.
Rhine and Eternal Nightmare do not border each other and have no relationship with each other. What could these cultists want to discuss with him?
But since the other party has already extended an invitation, Rocky cannot refuse, otherwise it would seem like he is afraid of them. He is the next Pope of Rhine!
Thinking of this, Rocky cleared his throat and asked the knight to lead the way. The knight immediately took the lead and led Rocky to the house in the center of the village.
During this time, Rocky was also observing the deserted village.
As mentioned before, the place where they are now is an uninhabited area of the continent. The reason why it is an uninhabited area is naturally to cover up the existence of the contracted land, so the major churches do not allow their believers to run here. Of course, it is useless to just ban it, so a thousand years ago, the eight major churches also made certain modifications to this area, such as injecting certain toxins into the air, so that if there is no antidote, you cannot stay here for a long time.
The antidote is naturally in the hands of the Land of Contract.
But Rocky also knew that the no-man's land was not completely uninhabited. Under the operation of the Contract Land, there were more than a hundred villages of various sizes in the no-man's land like the current ones. They were to provide cover for the real Contract Land and to provide supplies to the Contract Land to a certain extent.
In order to hold this gathering, the Land of Contract is selecting a venue outside. In order to maintain confidentiality, all people in the selected venue in the no-man's land must also be cleared out.
So the people in this village must have been cleared out in this way.
Rocky smelled a faint smell of blood in the air, which made him involuntarily let out a "tsk".
At this time, the knight had already brought him to a house: "They are inside, Your Excellency the Bishop."
Rocky nodded, and the knight pushed open the door.
A foul odor hit me in the face, instantly suppressing the previous smell of blood.
Rocky's brows furrowed even deeper, but before he could speak, a deep male voice came from the inner room: "Ah... Bishop Rocky, welcome."
Rocky let out another soft "tsk" and then stepped in. He then saw the "Eternal Nightmare" delegation in the room.
This group of men, dressed in tattered clothes, pale and thin, did not look like church representatives at first glance, but rather like the beggars that could be seen everywhere on the Rhine streets. However, unlike the beggars who looked weak and tired, their eyes seemed to be glowing with a certain light, and they looked very energetic.
This gives people a huge contrast, as if the body is so tired that it can't move, but the brain is as active as if it just woke up.
"Oh, Bishop Loki." One of the leaders extended his hand to Loki and grinned, "My name is Fenris, and I am the representative of Evernight."
The representative of Eternal Nightmare. Judging from his position, his status in Eternal Nightmare should be similar to his own, but Rocky really didn't want to be compared with this beggar.
But there was no way, they were all partners now, so he reluctantly stretched out his hand and shook hands with Fenris.
The feeling when he touched it... was like dried booger, giving Rocky goose bumps all over his body and making him want to vomit.
You know, the Rhine people are mysophobic!
"Okay, Fenris." Rocky pulled his hand back and resisted the urge to wash his hands immediately. "What do you want from me?"
"Haha, it's not a big deal." Fenris said with a smile, "It's just the same as your purpose."
"The same as our purpose?" Rocky said, "You might as well make it clearer."
"I mean, it's the same purpose as your church's convening of this meeting." Fenris said leisurely, "We also have a troublesome guy who ran away, but we are not sure whether this will attract the attention of the Land of Contract."
After a brief moment of stunned silence, Loki finally understood what Fenris meant.
There was actually a person like Ulu among them.
"You guys also have an 'Uru'?" Rocky's pretended calmness was instantly broken, and he was horrified. "How many body parts does he have in his hand? Five too?!"
"Oh, no, no, no." Fenris shook his head slowly, "There are no body parts on this person, not even a single one."
Hearing this, Rocky's heart suddenly relaxed, but soon turned into anger: "Why are you yelling here when there is not even a body part? Are you going to let the Contract Land avenge you?"
"Haha, of course not." Fenris said with a smile, "There are indeed no body parts on his body, but that doesn't mean he is not dangerous. In fact, from our perspective, his risk factor is even higher than the guy you mentioned who has five body parts."
Rocky's frown deepened.
He had already begun to regret coming to meet this group of cultists. These idiots' mouths were as eloquent as a horse carriage.
A person with no body parts is more dangerous than a person with five body parts.
What? Is Visas himself back?
"Haha, I know you don't believe it." Fenris obviously guessed what Loki was thinking and said slowly, "But it is true, because this person is a scholar there."
"A crazy scholar." Another Eternal Nightmare cultist added.
"Interesting, there are people that you cultists would consider crazy."
There was undisguised sarcasm in Loki's words. If it was directed at other churches, his words would have likely led to a fight between the two sides, but Eternal Nightmare was obviously not one of them. Fenris just waved his hand and said with a smile: "Bishop Loki, I don't want to argue with you about your church's definition of cultists. I'm just stating the facts. If you knew what he was researching, you would understand why we are so worried."
"Oh, then tell me what he is researching."
"Visas."
Rocky was not surprised and sneered twice: "Should I express shock now? Who in this world is not studying Visas?"
"But he is different. He is not studying Visas' body parts or power."
"What is that?"
"The Birth of Visas."
Rocky's contemptuous expression paused for a moment: "What?"
"The birth of Visas." Fenris repeated it again, and then said softly, "He has always wanted to know where Visas came from. In fact, until today we still don't know what Visas is. He appeared in the age of gods, but he is neither a god nor a mortal, and he has no peers. So what is he and why was he born?"
Although Rocky still wanted to pretend to be disdainful, he also realized that this question... seemed a bit scary.
"It seems that you understand the seriousness of this problem." Fenris said with a smile, "After all, one Visas ended the era of gods, and the remains of his body after his annihilation still make us fear him to this day. So what if another Visas comes? What will this world become?"
...Another Visas?
This really frightened Rocky. He wanted to say that Fenris was talking nonsense, but since it had come to this, he held back and asked, "So what did he research?"
"have no idea."
"... Don't know?!" Rocky's eyes widened, "Are you kidding me?"
"Please be patient, Bishop Loki." Fenris said calmly, "Do you know the mark of divine commandment?"
"What is that?"
Fenris tapped his temple. "The gods have carved a mark in the minds of their followers. The purpose of this mark is to prevent us from getting involved in a certain area of research. Haha, maybe you've figured it out. It's that guy's research. Everyone knows how powerful Visas is, but for thousands of years no one has explored why Visas was born. It's because of the mark of divine commandments. Once someone touches this taboo, the gods will personally punish them."
God's commandment brand...
Rocky did have some impressions in this regard, and then he asked: "In that case, what about that guy? Wasn't he punished by your God?"
"This is the point I want to make. He hid all his research in his dreams to avoid the mark of God's commandments."
"…But he was eventually exposed, and you discovered his research?"
"No, it's not that we discovered his research, but...his research has already produced results, and even dreams can't cover it up."
Rocky's eyes widened little by little: "You mean..."
"Yes, we have evidence that he knows everything and is even very likely trying to become the new Visas." Fenris said softly, "Because our Lord... personally issued a wanted order."
As I was writing this, I suddenly realized that the structure of this volume is indeed a bit large... Well, I tried my best not to make it messy.
(End of this chapter)
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