Chapter 114 - Church II

"Hello, there sir. My name is Olivia of- I mean, my name is Olivia Raven, a servant of Pandora and her family" She curtsied

"You mean you are only a servant under Pandora, not the entire family. Or am I wrong?" The bald man narrowed his eyes.

"Uh, Uhm... Yeah," She bowed her head a little while glancing at me behind her bangs which were covering her eyes from the bald man.

'Are you stupid?' I asked while holding my forehead on my palm.

'What? What did I do wrong!?' She exclaimed

'He can see your eyes even if you block them with our bangs. His eyes seem to be special, a bit like mine but far far too weak to be put on the same level as mine.

After hearing his chuckle, I shifted my focus back to him, even though my eyes never left him in the first place. After chuckling, he finally opened his eyes to show silvery eyes with a white halo shining within them. They even had a trace of Divine energy within them, but it was nothing like my own eyes, which were basically destroyed and reconstructed my Divine mana, Divine soul energy, and 5 different elemental particles.

"So why did you guys come here?" He asked before clasping both his hands together with a clap "Oh, of course, you are here to pray! As you know, we have almost 20 floors of prayer rooms. Floor 2-17 plus 19 and 28 are filled right now. You can use any other room though. Of course, I am willing to allow you to pray here in the presence of my own personal alter" He waved towards the statue of a floating man spreading his arms out slightly under his waist while keeping his head up and looking down with his eyes.

The figure had a strange jacket that he left open, showing his abs as he was not wearing a T-shirt under the jacket. There was a strange black circle in the middle of the man's chest, created with extremely small runes that shaped the line of the circle. In the middle of the circle was a symbol that looked like a three-striped swastika, instead of the normal four that connected to each third of the circle.

'Seems more like a cult than a church' I mused

"Actually, before that, can you tell me what the church of pride is?" I asked with a pleasant smile that would fool anyone, but apparently not this man.

"Why do you ask?" He asked back with a similar smile, but this time it felt like there was some malice behind it.

"I recently got attacked by an idiot from the church of pride. He is of course, dead, but I have to say, he was quite strong" My expression did not change, however, my pupils did divide into a shield of David, making him stagger back. This was all happening in front of the eyes of the Major General, but apparently, he did not see any of this actually happening.

"You seem quite intelligent for your age, I must say. Alright, I'll tell you what the Church of Pride is. It is a cult, to be specific. It is filled with people who worship the sin of pride, and in return, they are given an affinity towards the sin of pride. It is common knowledge that every single sin has its own group, whether that would be the gluttony sect or the church of pride. Anyway, the church of pride had been terrorizing the empire, continuously demanding things from the empire while threatening to kill and destroy hundreds of thousands of lives. I heard they had even tried to assassinate some of the children trying to enter the academies. Truly disgusting of them." The old bald man preached as if he was some kind of saint.

"And what exactly are they preaching for? What are they demanding and why can't the empire give into their demands to save the hundreds of thousands of lives that they clearly 'care' about?" I replied mockingly with my own answer

Even though he knew I was mocking him, he did not react and answered nonchalantly but a little coldly this time "what you are asking for is classified information. You cannot know the answer to the first question, but to you second question, if we give in to terrorists, how does that make us any better?"

"Sorry, I don't follow. You didn't answer my question but replied with a pointless rhetorical question" I snapped back

"Haha. You are so young dear and so inexperienced in the ways of life." He snarked back before continuing "They are terrorists. When we give in, they will ask for more and demand more. The best thing is to show that we do not fall for their little pathetic tricks, but instead, we can fight back and will fight back if we have to."

However, before I could say something again, he cut me off by changing his tone to a much more friendly one and asking "That aside though, want to pray with me here dear?".

Looking back I could see that the Major General was already on the floor praying to one of the statues on the side, that one looking more like an angel rather than the figure at the middle back.

'They pray to angels?' I asked weirded out by what I was seeing.

"Come on dear. You can sit on my lap if you want" He snapped me out of my daze, before looking at Olivia and asking "Do you want to come to?".

She did not answer immediately but simply looked at me as if asking me if she could.

'Sure. If you want of course.' I replied with the mind link

She did not take another second to move forwards and sit down in front of one of the statues on the side, but when I was about to follow her, the man grabbed me and state, "you will have the chance to pray to the altar of the Arch Angel of all waters, said to be able to wipe out an entire district with a single spell." the priest boasted

However, even though he expected me to reply with something, whether that would be a snarky remark about how that was inconceivable or a remark of awe at the power of an archangel, I did not say anything. At the same time, he looked at me weirdly before asking "what is the matter little one?"

However, I did not reply. In fact, I did not do anything. I did not intentionally move a single muscle, nor did my focus falter for a single second. Cold sweat covered my back, forehead, and armpits. The hairs at the back of my neck had stood up completely while goosebumps went through my entire body like a lighting shock. My whole body started to involuntarily shiver, while my soul flame felt a little pressured. I could feel millions of imaginary ants crawling under my skin, slowly shedding away everything, leaving me as nothing but a hollow shell. My eyes kept stammering and shaking like crazy, yet all this happened while I kept looking at the ground.

The eirie silence caused both Jack and Olivia to look up with questioning eyes. However, when Olivia looked at me, her eyes flickered golden once again, before she had the exact same reaction as me as if there was a presence that would eradicate our existence with a single sneeze of its.

[Hypnosis has been neutralized]

Summoning all my willpower I forced my sh*t scared body to look back. I slowly turned my head around even though my whole body was telling me not to. It told me that a single movement would mean the end of me, yet I did not listen to it.

Finally forcing my body to look back a little more, I finally saw it. The ferocious existence that was making me freeze up like this. Existence is so strong that a single gaze would prove dangerous. A feeling that I had felt twice in all my lives. In front of the purple flame that swallowed my soul when I died 6 years ago, and the black...

"Hello human. To think you are able to feel my presence even with my powerful hypnosis. Quite impressive, however, for someone who had gained divine energy, all on their own after barely 6 years of life... I have to say, I am slightly disappointed..." A black cat spoke, making the fiber of my very being shake and shiver in front of the is being.. A being that made my own very existence feel like that of a grain of sand in the vast Sahara.