Chapter 479: The Temple of Light shall grant you salvation

"Try to catch up... Hmph, easier said than done." Valdel who sounded a bit irritated was now smiling. Those words that Ren said, resounded in his heart. If he just said it in the spur of the moment those words would only serve to hurt Valdel even more, yet Ren said each word with conviction. Valdel could feel his very soul-stirring. 

'Now that I think about it, Ren has always been telling us to catch up to him. Still, he never slows down and always goes full speed ahead. So the only way to catch up is if we could surpass his rate of improvement... You really think so much of us, don't you... Fine, I will do it, even if it burns my body asunder, I will catch up and reach that stage of yours!' 

"Valdel what are we going to do?" Kor asked still in a state of confusion by what happened. 

"What else can we do, of course, we should follow him! We can only bring the strongest among us. So that would be the group we had when we charged inside the Temple of Light. In Ren's current state he might not need any backup, but you never know. Even someone as powerful as him trips every now and then, especially in his current state. Seeing as Ren is currently intoxicated, he might make more mistakes than usual." 

"Intoxicated?" Mir asked. 

"Yeah, he's currently intoxicated with his newfound power. I want to use, I want to see my very limits, I want to unleash it all. These might be the thoughts going around Ren's mind at the moment. Ren has always been strong, incredibly so, the opponents at his level are few and are pretty much hard to find. So now that he has found an opponent who is above him, his next course of action would be to use everything he has to crush that opponent. No tricks, no clever tactics, just a simple head-on collision. At this state Ren wouldn't be thinking of ways to survive, he would be focused solely on unleash everything he has until he wins. So we need to be there to support him just in case. I'll wake up Lara, you two get ready." 

...

As Valdel and the others were getting ready to chase Ren, the person himself was already at the front gates of the Divine City. Above him were several hundreds of wyverns and dozens of those so called airships. 

Ren had spread his entire mana sense to surround the entire city. He immediately figured out the exact location of all the soldiers. He also noticed the disappearance of the citizens, well everyone from the middle to the upper district, those of the lower district were still present and it would seem a powerful person was fighting multiple assailants while protecting the people of the lower district. 

'Oh, the hero found out the truth. Still, now that he defected to the other side, why does he still have his powers? Why isn't the Goddess of Light taking them back? Could it be that once given it cannot be taken back... Now that I think about it those other heroes also...' 

While Ren was coming to a sudden realization someone's voice echoed throughout the city. It was the voice of that crazed head priest. 

"So as our Goddess has predicted you have come back, O' Strongest Mortal Soul! Yes, I heard it from our Goddess the one who has earned the title of the Strongest Mortal Soul is you. The person who stands above all the mortal beings in this realm. One whose predecessors made even the Gods above fear their names. Yet the most important title that you seem to have discarded, that the first incarnation had, have you not discarded the title of the first hero? Where you, not a hero that saves all, was that not your original purpose? Then why have you come here to take from us?" 

"That's a funny thing to hear coming from you guys, have you not taken so much from others yourself. Have you not taken the freedom of the beastkin, the dwarves, the half-demons, and the half-dragons? The current me cannot claim to be a hero nor could I claim to be a good person, but even then I have standards. In my eyes, you guys are nothing but trash." 

A man then descended from one of the airships, it was the crazed Head Priest Baldur. 

"Have you misunderstood something O' Strongest Mortal Soul? I might see the worthless demi-humans as nothing, but our master our beloved Goddess shines her light on everyone. We did not take from them, instead, we brought them salvation. We showed them the ugliness of their beings and once they see it, once they understand the truth of their worthless demi-human selves they die and will be reborn as true humans in their next lives." 

"That kind of salvation is not any salvation that I would want." 

"Why say that O' Strongest Mortal Soul? Even after our Goddess so kindly spared you and your friends to see the Light, you still refuse to see our ways." 

"I've been spared? Your Goddess failed to kill us because she was incompetent."

The moment Ren said those words a massive amount of bloodlust flooded towards him. It wasn't just coming from one person it was coming from several thousands of people. Ren couldn't help but smile that vicious smile of his as he felt this spine-tingling bloodlust. Ren then saw Baldur was now crying, his tears overflowing.

"In the end, you fail to understand anything. I wanted to save you, I truly did, I wanted you to see the shining Light of our Goddess. Yet you have failed to see beyond that darkness of yours. I heard that the Strongest Mortal Soul retains his sense of self, even after reincarnation. That would mean unlike everyone else your soul cannot be cleansed even after death. I feel nothing but pity for you. The one being in all the worlds that have been stained to the point that he can no longer be saved."

Baldur's tears suddenly turned into tears of blood. 

"Yet despite that allow me to bring you a bit of salvation. If you accept, the guiding light of our Goddess then surely even you could be saved. The Temple of Light shall grant you salvation." 

"I refuse." 

"I see, then you have chosen damnation."