Chapter 36
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Chapter 36: The Sacrifice Begins
The pleasant, hard, and painful day finally passed, and the shining silver moon ruled the sky once more.
Leo followed behind Skuld, heading to the Joyful Altar.
Of course, Skuld had taken on the form of Reni.
With the four attribute points he had just gained, Leo, as planned, added three points to Spiritual Vision and three points to Physical Strength.
As a result, his attributes became:
[Strength: 2]
[Agility: 3]
[Physical Strength: 10]
[Charm: 7]
[Intelligence: 6]
[Spiritual Vision: 20]
At the same time, the system reminded him that the number of attribute points he would gain during his joyful times with Tina and Ashley would drop significantly.
His strength had reached a peak, and to break through this peak, he needed to consume new bad women.
To this end, Skuld suggested secretly eating some good-looking human sacrifices and then combining with them to increase Leo’s power, but he refused.
Let’s not even talk about whether combining with those innocent people with no abilities would yield skill points.
Even if it did, he didn’t want to make Miss Mucus eat those poor, tortured innocents just to get stronger quickly.
Thinking about it this way, Leo felt he had some principles after all.
It is just that the bottom line is quite flexible.
After all, if he were to eliminate the blood-stained evil believers within Joyful Church, like that grand bishop disguised as a maid, he would bear no psychological burden.
Unfortunately, there is an unknown number of levels of difference between the grand bishop and Skuld’s strongest form, Reni; it seems that accomplishing this right now is unlikely.
"By the way, Sister Reni…" In a crowd where many eyes were watching, Leo did not call her by her new name, Miss Mucus, "You told me before that the gap between you and the grand bishop is huge, but I never specifically asked how the Church’s tiers of power are divided?"
"Hmm…" Skuld glanced around and quietly said, "Leo, the humans on this continent, as long as they have sworn loyalty to a deity and received the priest’s baptism to gain divine power, are generally at about the same level of strength, divided into a total of 9 tiers."
"The first three tiers still belong to humanity, these are the low-tier, mid-tier, and high-tier believers. The middle three tiers have received some power from the deity and are collectively known as the Favored One."
"Favored One?" Leo thought about the information he had received using True Vision Eye.
Whether it was Saintess Fleur of the Order Sect or the grand bishop Kakaris of Joyful Church, their races were not human but rather Favored Ones.
"That’s right, but Favored One is just a general term; there are many subdivisions within it. An advanced believer must choose their own path if they wish to continue rising, such as knight, warlock, pastor, mechanic, and so on.
"Take Paladin, who injured Reni, as an example. He is a fourth-tier Favored One, above him are the fifth-tier Punisher Knights and the sixth-tier God-blessed Knights."
"Basically, all direct divisions are …"
After listening to Skuld’s explanation, Leo nodded, gaining a deeper understanding of the strength levels of the third-tier believers.
Simply put, no matter the job tier, the fourth-tier is prefixed with ‘Holy’, the fifth-tier with ‘Punisher’, and the sixth-tier with ‘God-blessed’.
The saintess of the Order Sect is "Holy Pastor," which is fourth-tier, and the grand bishop of the Joyful Church, Kakaris, is a "God-blessed Warlock," which is sixth-tier.
"Hmm, Leo, you understand quickly," Skuld nodded. "In all major sects, whether they are holy or evil, bishops, grand bishops, and saintesses are all strong individuals of the third tier."
"Well, that seems a bit odd," Leo frowned. "When capturing a saintess, you’re not just dealing with one Paladin, but also the saintess, this Holy Pastor…"
"Oh, you mean this," Skuld chuckled softly. "The sect prepared a relic for us in advance, called ‘Witch Hunter.’ It is said to be a trophy the Order Sect obtained during their holy war with dark races at the border. It is a binding device for the saintess, which we seized seven years ago, and now it is tied around her. So at that time, the saintess could not take action; we only had to deal with one Paladin."
"I see, but what about the other three tiers?" Leo frowned again, still feeling something was off.
"There are too few people in the third tier," Skuld smiled. "From the center of the Castella Continent, a thousand years ago, the Emperor and Pontiff of the Dawn Empire, Riley Insigne, unified it, and now, there may be only a few dozen believers in the third tier."
"Each of them has seen the divine, and because of their different beliefs, they have different names. For example, the Emperor of the Dawn Empire, who believes in the God of Flames, is called the Flame Knight. He is also the first knight of the third tier recorded in Castella’s history."
"As for which tier he truly belongs to, I do not have that knowledge in my memory," Skuld said with an apologetic smile to Leo.
"It’s alright, this is enough. The matters of the third tier are not something I should be thinking about right now," Leo shook his head. His Spiritual Vision attribute has only reached the level of an advanced believer, and all his strengths together may not even match that of a mid-tier believer…
Thinking about such distant matters now seems a bit foolish.
As the two spoke and chatted, they followed the main group to the Joyful Altar.
Upon returning to this familiar place, Leo couldn’t help but feel a shiver.
After all, this was where he first saw a wild party and witnessed someone’s heart being ripped out, leaving a lasting shock in his young mind.
"Follow me," Skuld nodded to Leo and led him through the crowd toward the center of the altar.
She, who was originally only a branch warden, did not have the right to stand at the front of the crowd during the sacrifice of the saintess.
However, because this saintess was captured by her, she received this honor.
Amidst the throng of people, the two arrived at the center of the priest’s area, where a stone altar, carved with a DNA spiral pattern and connected by intertwining "Ω" symbols, stood surrounded by hundreds of knights in heavy armor.
They were the true backbone of the Joyful Church, and more than half of the church’s army had come here.
Leo, using his True Vision Eye, scanned the heavily armored knights and found that a quarter of them were powerful beings of Paladin rank or higher, while the rest were advanced believers.
Beneath the stone tablet, the Order Sect saintess was bound by chains on the altar, surrounded by seven or eight braziers.
Silver hair covered her crimson eyes, and beneath her pure white holy robe, which outlined her graceful curves, her hands were raised, and her feet were suspended, making her look like a cross.
Beneath her soft and powerless feet stood sharp spikes, glowing red from being heated by a branding iron.
If the saintess’s chains were released, this young saintess would fall in the blink of an eye, pierced by these spikes.
The pure white robe would, in that moment, be soaked with bright red.
Perhaps, this is the effect that Joyful Church desires.
"Tap, tap, tap."
"Cough, cough."
The sound of footsteps and coughing echoed at the same time as Grand Bishop Kakaris, dressed in a priest’s robe, leaned on his cane and walked up to the altar…