Chapter 67: Saintess In-Training

Meanwhile, Xi Wei was watching the show with a tub of popcorn.

In comparison with the Rotten Bones Church, he was actually not so worried about the larger scaled Society of the Secret Eye.

The reason for this was simple—The Rotten Bones Church believed in a deity, with the support of the Rotten Bones God behind them.

This meant that the main locations of the Rotten Bones Church were enveloped in the Rotten Bones God’s divine energy, and unless Xi Wei was a couple stages higher than him, he wouldn’t be able to see through the divine energy to perceive what the enemy was doing.

But it was completely different with the Society of the Secret Eye.

It was a smuggling organization with members from all around the continent, true, but that also meant that most of them believed in vastly different deities. This made it impossible for enough concentrated divine energy to prevent Xi Wei’s observations.

In short, no matter how secretive and how well-guarded against spies they were, it would be completely useless in the eyes of Xi Wei. As long as it were a place that Xi Wei’s believers conquered, then Xi Wei would be able to see every detail clearly!

To Xi Wei, this organization was a piece of cake.

This time too, he gave the players at the frogman village a quest to forewarn them about the attack, upon seeing that the enemies had left their base and were heading towards the frogman village.

As for what happened later, he wasn’t all that concerned about it. After all, the players would just revive at the unnamed town if they failed.

With the Underground Hideout of Lancaster as a backup, the current starter village would be able to defend against the Society of the Secret Eye with no problems. Even if it were on the event that they lost terribly, Xi Wei would be able to descend to the mortal plane and wipe them out in one fell swoop. Again, it wasn’t an organization with the support of a single deity, so no deity would come to him for retribution.

In fact, after he updated the system and created the dungeon, he didn’t give a lot of attention to the players on the mortal realm.

Because other than that, he had much more pressing matters to attend to.

The connections between deities of the same pantheon were closer than what Xi Wei had first thought. Even though the Rotten Bones God’s deific properties haven’t been completely destroyed, so the Undead Pantheon hadn’t realized that their lackey had been killed by Xi Wei, but it was only a matter of time.

Xi Wei was looking for a way to cut the connection between the Rotten Bones God and the Undead Pantheon, or at least prepare enough to be able to deal with what’s to come if any deities from the pantheon wanted to look for trouble. The deity that came this time wouldn’t be as easy to deal with as the Rotten Bones God, after all.

Therefore, he needed a way to harvest more leeks…Peh, divine power.

In conclusion, it was already stretching his limits to check in on the players from time to time, and he wouldn’t waste his divine energy to help beat up little kids on the mortal realm.

☆

Frogmen Village, visitor’s suite (a conch house).

The attack from the Society of the Secret Eye came a little slower than the party had expected, the scene still quite peaceful even after the party re-obtained their weapons from the frogmen.

Did the system make a mistake? Or did it stop its bad habit of bullying them? Even Edward was doubting himself after such a long time.

Thankfully, they were all firm in their belief of the God of Games, most of them already reaching the level of devout believers and were on the cusp of becoming zealots. This was the reason why they quickly dispelled their own wavering hearts and strengthened their resolve, making them continue to lie in wait for the impending attack.

“I just thought of a problem…” Gou Dan dragged Joe who had almost been drowned to death onto a large, oval stone that the frogmen used as beds.

As he tried to dry Joe, Gou Dan continued in a low tone towards the others, “If the Society of the Secret Eye wanted to attack the frogman village, how would they do it?”

“How would they do it? Well, just rush into the village and burn, and pillage…” Upon saying this, Vela trailed off too.

She realized that they all seemed to have gotten the wrong idea, which was that when they knew the Society of the Secret Eye was about to attack the frogmen village, they unconsciously equated them to regular bandits.

Honestly, if it were a regular group of bandits, even if there were seventy to eighty of them, they wouldn’t be a match for the six players in the party. After all, other than Vela, the other five in the party were the most experienced and strongest players of all.

But, for an enemy to issue a quest, it would mean that the enemy obviously weren’t regular bandits!

This meant that any experience they had dealing with enemies of the sort had to be thrown out of the window.

“Which reminds me…” As one of the three people that had been in the Society of the Secret Eye’s hideout, Edward’s expression darkened to a frown. “I think there are magicians in the Society of the Secret Eye…”

The magicians that had strong, destructive long-ranged spells were definitely the most suited to siege an unsuspecting village.

As if to prove his words correct, the ground started to rumble as if there were an earthquake, and even the seawater that was slightly shallower than outside ripples from the shock.

The players all rushed out immediately.

Perhaps it was for the sake of privacy, the frogmen built their village in a secluded corner of the tidal flats. The village faced the sea while the other side was up against steep cliffs, and on the other side of the cliffs was an endless expanse of land.

Now, what Edward and party saw was a mudflow that rushed down the cliffs at a terrifyingly fast pace!

The momentum and sheer magnitude of the mudflow was so large that most of the frogmen were petrified upon seeing it, their minds blank from shock.

“What the… Edward, you didn’t tell us that the magicians from the Society of the Secret Eye were so powerful!” Gou Dan looked at the scary mudflow, his mind drawing a blank.

“No, that’s not possible, I’ve never met a magician of that level when I was there…It was probably cast together by a group of magicians!”

Edward immediately rebutted the notion that there was such a strong magicians in the Society of the Secret Eye.

After all, back when he snuck into the Society of the Secret Eye, other than a few outstanding ones, the others weren’t strong at all.

“Shouldn’t we run first?!” Vela shouted, already breaking out in a cold sweat.

Even though they had become players that were virtually impossible to kill, and could even sacrifice their lives to create a chance for their allies against a strong enemy, their common sense and instincts still dictated that their first reaction was to flee upon being met with a natural disaster.

“We can’t run from this, it’s way faster than our speed on foot!”

Edward was dismayed by this turn of events.

If he were max leveled (Level 45) and had learned the strongest skills in their skill tree, perhaps he would be able to help, but even though he had the highest level within the players, he was only Level 28. When he was faced with an attack of this magnitude, it was still too powerless.

“Here, help me carry this for a while.”

At this point, Eleena who had been silently eating a lollipop sealed her candy packet, and stuffed it into Vela’s hands.

“Huh?” Vela looked at the silver-haired girl with a dubious expression, thinking that her way of thinking was a little odd—They were going to be buried by a mudflow, wasn’t it a bad time to care about candy?

Eleena didn’t know what Vela was thinking about, and took out her own weapon.

As a higher-leveled player of the cleric class, Eleena who was a saintess in-training should have a weapon that clerics regularly used—Hammers, shields, maces, or even a cross.

Because Eleena had only been focused on healing or casting a Spear of Victory occasionally, she had never held a weapon in her hands before. Hence, Vela guessed that the girl hadn’t found a weapon that was suited for her yet.

But in actuality, Eleena had her own weapon.

It was a hardcover book that had been attached at her hip using a silver chain that seemed like an accessory of a priest’s robe, and was locked tight with a metal lock. This book was named the ‘Game Bible’, and white metal was attached onto its corners, and was basically a rectangular mace that had eight spikes…

Even though it seemed to be able to deal a lot of damage in battle, it didn’t look like it could help with the current situation…

“Sacred Barrier!”

The girl dragged the chain and used it to swing the large book, before using the momentum to swing it into the distance.

The next moment, a large, pale blue barrier erected from where the book dropped onto the ground!

At the center of the barrier was a white cross, and in the four partitions that it separated were pictures resembling a sword, a mage’s staff, a bow and arrow, and finally the picture of a holy book. At the center of the cross was the emblem of the God of Games.

This barrier was so large that it covered the entire frogmen village and even far beyond, and it was so tall it reached the heavens. The mudflow that had been flowing down the cliff with such force struck the barrier and was cut off immediately, not even making a ripple in the barrier!

“A-Are you kidding me…” Vela was in complete shock.

She knew of the skill Sacred Barrier because it was a defensive skill that clerics could learn at Level 15, which could summon a barrier of light. The barriers that regular clerics could summon were the height of a single person and were around two meters in length, which was why the light barrier in front of her shocked her so much!

It was at this point that she remembered what Edward said earlier—”Don’t judge a book by its cover, Miss Vela. If it were just in terms of battle power, she’s probably the strongest of us all.”

She had thought it was a joke back then, but they weren’t joking in the least?!!

Vela wasn’t the only one that was shaken by the large barrier of light. Upon seeing the twin-tailed silver-haired girl block the attack that they had resigned themselves to dying to, they all knelt down on the ground and started muttering in frogmen language that the players couldn’t understand, before prostrating themselves and hitting their heads towards the ground, as if they had misunderstood the young girl as some strange existence…