Leon's mind raced as he thought of many possibilities. However, with so little information, he couldn't come to a definitive conclusion.
He looked at Martin and said, “Tell me everything else you know about the Black and White Hand.”
After a while, he learned quite a bit of information about the Black and White Hand from Martin.
Unfortunately, the Black and White Hand truly operated like a cult. Even though Martin was already at the bishop level within the church, the higher-ups of the Black and White Hand had not shared much information with him.
Only after Martin completed each mission would a higher-ranking member of the Black and White Hand meet him and lead him back to the Holy See of the Black and White Hand.
As for the journey to the Holy See, Martin was completely in the dark.
Before traveling there, he had to ingest a special knockout potion, after which he would be secretly transported to the Holy See.
“Those rats in the gutter sure do keep their secrets well!” Viscount Finn spat.
“If they weren't good at keeping secrets, the warriors of the Sword of Hammond would have dragged them out and hacked them all to pieces long ago.” Leon shook his head, not at all surprised.
The Sword of Hammond was a special investigative department of the Heron Empire, tasked with maintaining order within the empire's borders and dedicated to hunting down cultists and enemies of the state.
This department had been locked in a struggle with the Black and White Hand for a long time, yet they had never managed to find the latter's stronghold. This was proof enough that the Black and White Hand's methods of secrecy were truly extraordinary.
Seeing that Martin had no more information to give, Leon waved his hand, and the Radiance Longbow unleashed another Hammer of Sacred Light, smashing down toward Martin.
It had to be said that the vitality of an elemental body was incredibly resilient.
Without casting the Wishing Art, it took a full five Hammers of Sacred Light to suppress Martin's elemental regeneration.
Fortunately, Thunder Vibration kicked in, shocking Martin until his scalp went numb amidst his incoherent screams of pain.
In the end, even his last remaining fire elemental power was suppressed by the force of Thunder Vibration, and Martin was thoroughly slain.
“Bishop Miles, Viscount Finn, I'll leave the cleanup to you two,” Leon said, looking at them.
“Leave it to us!” Viscount Finn nodded.
Miles also said, “You've just been through a battle, so your energy must be heavily depleted. Go back and rest; we'll handle things from here.”
Heavily depleted?
Leon looked inward at his Sea of Mental Power... Indeed, the consumption of the Diamond-rank Divine Art, Power of the Three Saints, was truly massive.
Even after interrogating Martin and chatting with Viscount Finn and Miles for a while, his mental power still hadn't fully recovered to its peak state—
—specifically, the state where his maximum mental power was boosted to 150% by the 【Linkage】 trait of 【I Name This the Mental Power Boost Divine Art】.
Bidding farewell to Viscount Finn and Miles, Leon returned to the manor he had purchased in Stormveil City.
Although Leon rarely stayed at this manor, a dedicated staff cleaned it daily to keep it pristine. He could move right in whenever he returned to Stormveil City without needing to tidy up.
Upon returning to the manor, Alicia emerged from Leon's shadow with a soft plop.
“Thank you for your hard work.”
Leon pulled two lollipops out of his pocket, popping one into his own mouth and slipping the other into Alicia's.
“Not hard at all, Priest Leon!” Eating the sweet lollipop, Alicia's eyes instantly crinkled into happy crescents.
As she enjoyed her lollipop, she asked him, “Priest Leon, what does N-T-R mean?”
“Cough, cough, cough!” Leon instantly choked on his sweet, lollipop-flavored saliva.
“Cough, cough! Who... who told you that word?!”
Alicia looked at Leon and said, “You did. Just now, when you were fighting the cultist.”
What the hell?
Had he spoken his inner thoughts aloud just now?
Leon pinched the bridge of his nose. There was one downside to merging armor with Alicia: she could sometimes hear his inner thoughts.
When stray thoughts flashed through Leon's mind, he would occasionally voice them in his head, which Alicia could pick up through their telepathic connection.
Fortunately, Alicia was a bit of a dummy, so even if she heard them, there was usually nothing to worry about.
It was just that... Leon's mind often wandered, occasionally popping out some rather mature vocabulary...
“It's nothing. Don't worry about it, I was just talking nonsense,” Leon coughed a few more times, quickly sending Alicia off to rest.
Left alone in the room, Leon was finally by himself.
He opened his Divine Art panel, his eyes gleaming with anticipation. “Let's see what Divine Arts have leveled up!”
【Divine Art Casting Grade: Excellent】
【Light Dust Flicker EXP +24】
【Light Dust Flicker Lv1 (89/100) → Light Dust Flicker Lv2 (13/300)】
【Hand of Divine Art EXP +24】
【Hand of Divine Art Lv2 (298/300) → Hand of Divine Art Lv3 (22/1000)】
Watching the streams of light flash across the panel, the smile on Leon's face suddenly stiffened. “Wait, that's not right, panel! Didn't I just wipe out several cultist strongholds?”
“Why didn't killing those cultists give me any EXP? Why did it only calculate the EXP for killing the bishop of the Black and White Hand at the end?”
Leon felt there was a bug with the EXP. He wanted to audit the results!
Back during the priest assessment in the imperial capital, he had fought three priests in a row, and every single match had rewarded him with EXP.
But now, why did the panel only calculate the EXP for his final battle against that bishop?!
What about the other strongholds? What about the other cultists?
If the panel didn't grant EXP, didn't those cultists die in vain?!
However, in the face of Leon's accusations, the panel continued to operate like a rigid, pre-programmed system, completely ignoring his complaints.
Seeing that the panel remained silent whether faced with hard questions or easy ones, Leon sighed.
“Whatever, forget it...”
He continued to examine the glowing text on the panel.
【You have leveled up Light Dust Flicker. You may choose one of the following three traits for enhancement:】
【Curtain: When casting Light Dust Flicker, multiple curtains of Sacred Light are generated in the surroundings to obscure the enemy's vision, making it difficult for them to track your location after flickering.】
【Shatter Space: Light Dust Flicker can break through spatial limitations, allowing you to flicker into completely sealed areas. The further the flicker distance, the greater the mental power consumption.】
【Linkage: Linked with the Divine Art ‘Grating Binding’. Whenever you cast Light Dust Flicker, a ‘Grating Trap’ will be generated along the path before and after you flicker. Any enemy that touches the ‘Grating Trap’ will be bound by the grating.】
“【Curtain】, 【Shatter Space】, and 【Linkage】...”
Leon pondered for a couple of seconds before deciding, “I choose 【Shatter Space】.”
Compared to the other two traits,
【Curtain】 was just a useless optical illusion, and the 【Linkage】 trait this time was rather underwhelming.
Grating Binding had always been a Divine Art Leon rarely used. He had only learned it because he lacked crowd-control spells at the time, thinking it would be a waste not to take it when he grabbed Grating Binding from the Royal Library.
But now... Leon had no shortage of Divine Arts to restrict enemy movement.
The Radiance Longbow with multiple Linkages was more than enough to overpower any defense. His enemies couldn't even detect his invisible Hammers of Sacred Light, so there was no need to restrict their movement before attacking.
Therefore, linking with Grating Binding was completely unnecessary.
On the other hand, the 【Shatter Space】 trait... was essentially a short-range teleportation!
Previously, 【Light Dust Flicker】 was, simply put, just a basic movement skill.
Its movement range was short, and it couldn't even pass through walls. It was practically as underwhelming as a pre-rework MOBA hero.
But with the 【Shatter Space】 trait, not only could he freely control the movement distance, but he could also use spatial traversal to phase through solid walls!
One had to realize that spatial piercing was an incredibly powerful ability!
Ordinary magic shields didn't feature spatial lock capabilities at all. With the 【Shatter Space】 trait, Leon could physically bypass magic shields entirely, teleporting straight inside to kill his enemies.
Granted, with his current strength, breaking a magic shield was just a matter of a single hammer strike or a single arrow.
But this was like the difference between a nuclear-armed nation and a non-nuclear one.
I might not need to use it, but I absolutely must have it!
Rate on N.U.
