Chapter 182.
Let’s ask the question of where and how the divine power used in divine magic is created. The answer to that question is that it comes from faith. Divine power is made by a combination of mana and faith.
Faith, when mixed with mana, takes on healing properties and amplifies mana. Therefore, more divine power was evidence of you having greater faith. And so, the more divine power you had, the higher your position. Of course, this is only a magic academic point of view—priests who use divine power regard it as a God-given force.
"Take this! Goddess’s wrath!"
In other words, it meant that the goddess statue was the best weapon against priests who used divine power.
"You shameless person! How dare you!" When I wielded the goddess statue as a weapon, the angry priest fired a magic bullet ‘made of divine power’ at me.
"Ahahaha! Home run!" I strengthened the plaster on the statue with magic so it wouldn’t fall off and hit the magic bullet with the goddess statue.
"Huuk!" When the magic bullet hit the goddess statue, the priest who shot it fell to his knees in shock and wept.
"I...! What did I just do?!" The priest who shot the magic bullet at the goddess statue instantly started shedding tears and prayed for repentance.
However, perhaps due to the guilt of hitting the goddess statue, the scent of divine power from the priest quickly weakened. This was the weakness of divine power. Faith amplifying mana meant that if your faith weakened or if you made God feel guilty, your divine power rapidly weakened.
Of course, humans were forgetful creatures, so they recovered over time, but it was perfect for weakening them at that moment. When you suppress a religion, you don’t make them trample over their religion’s symbol for no reason.
"Come on! Who dares to confront Goddess-nim?" It was even more effective if I said things like this from time to time to instill guilt.
"That wicked heretic!"
The priests who entered the archbishop’s room faltered and backed away. Come to think of it, although I didn’t know at the time, this was the reason why I was able to easily escape without having to wreck the great temple when I visited last year.
"The Goddess is on my side!"
"Such impertinence!"
When I drew the sign of the cross, the priests foamed at the mouth in anger, but they couldn’t recklessly rush at me.
"Wow, so evil."
"He really is."
Hillis and Lisbon looked at me as if they were looking at the devil, but I couldn’t help it. I want you to know that wielding the goddess statue like this is painful for me too.
"Ahahahaha! Come at me!" The priests slowly began to retreat out of the room, terrified by my shouting and swinging of the goddess statue.
"Wow, he doesn’t even have blood nor tears."
"You’re right about that."
I’m taking one for the team so that we can leave here safely, but instead of cheering, they keep saying some very rude things.
"Ahahahaha! This is also an ordeal! Humbly receive the wrath of the Goddess!"
"Argh!"
Multiple priests were knocked out by the goddess statue I wielded. The priests didn’t even try to defend against the goddess statue in case it got damaged, so they opted not to resist and be knocked unconscious instead. If it were me, I would run away, but perhaps because of pride or faith, the priests didn’t run away.
As I was slowly thinking about the timing to run away, I heard a voice overflowing with dignity from behind the priests. "Withdraw!"
Hearing the command from behind them, the priests split in half to open a path. Walking in between the priests was the archbishop with a good impression.
"What is a wicked sinner doing here?!" The archbishop pointed at me and shouted like an exorcist trying to drive away an evil spirit.
I smiled and pointed to the bookcase. "Sinner? Who is the sinner here?"
When the archbishop saw that I wasn’t just pointing at the bookcase, but the secret space behind the bookcase, he flashed with embarrassment and anger, but he pretended to be calm and shouted, "Who is the sinner? It is, of course, the thieves who dare crawl into the archbishop’s room!"
I laughed at the archbishop’s shout, "Puhahaha! The archbishop is full of crap. That place is...!”
The archbishop shot a magic bullet and blocked what I was trying to say. I lightly deflected the archbishop’s magic bullet with the goddess statue. The archbishop’s blow was so powerful that the plaster on the outside of the goddess statue showed a fine crack.
"Shut your mouth! Do you think we’ll be misled by anything you say, you wench?!"
Indeed, as expected of a fallen archbishop, even though the goddess statue was cracked, his divine power didn’t show any change and remained strong. In other words, even if the goddess statue were smashed, he wouldn’t feel guilty at all.
But wench? Oh, right, I was wearing a wig and a woman’s outfit. I had gotten used to the wind blowing underneath the skirt, so I forgot.
"Ohohoho! You’re making this wench feel bad by calling me a wench! It seems you want a taste of the Goddess’s wrath?” I had a husky voice due to puberty, but I raised the pitch of my voice as much as possible in falsetto and lifted the goddess statue.
"Don’t make me laugh, you heretic! Now that it has become a weapon of a heretic, it is now Satan wearing the shell of the Goddess!"
Um, actually, inside the shell is an authentic made-in-the-great-temple golden goddess statue. Satan? He’s saying things that would make the cardinal foam at the mouth as if it was nothing.
"Ye, yeah! That goddess statue is just Satan’s shell to trick us!"
“That, that’s right!"
As expected, human beings were animals equipped with basic skills in self-justification, and the priests quickly transformed the goddess statue into a satanic statue as soon as an excuse was presented. Just as I thought, I keenly felt that incitement and fabrication were weapons of those in high positions.
I looked at the archbishop and laughed quietly, "Woohuhu."
At my laughter, the archbishop and other priests looked at me strangely.
"Uahahahahaha!"
As I burst into laughter, the strange looks became vigilant. I aimed for when the archbishop’s aura faltered as he grew wary. I turned around, grabbed Hillis, and yelled, "Let’s run! K*d!"
"What?"
"Huh? ... Okay!"
Wajangchang-!
I broke the window and jumped out of it. Lisbon seemed a little panicked, but he quickly jumped out behind me.
"Kyaaaak-!" Hillis, lying in my arms, screamed at the sudden fall. To start screaming when it was only four stories high...
"Float." Just before landing, both Lisbon and I lightly floated up and landed stably.
"If you’re going to jump, tell me first!"
Hillis told me off, and I smiled playfully. "They’ll be forewarned if I say it first.”
Hillis still had an angry face. "You!"
Then, the archbishop flew in the sky from behind and poured magic on us, yelling, "Chase them!"
At the archbishop’s cry, the priests all cast floating magic on themselves and jumped out of the window.
“Don’t let the heretic get away!”
“God’s iron mace!”
When I saw the priests full of killing intent, I let go of Hillis and said, "Let’s split up and run away."
"What? But-"
Hillis and Lisbon protested, but I shouted with a glare, "At this rate, we’ll all be caught together. Is that what you want?”
I looked at the two flinching people and said, "If we scatter, even if we get caught, it’ll be fine as long as one person can escape. Then you can call N*tty’s guardian, and we’ll all be released."
Lisbon didn’t understand what I was saying, but Hillis nodded. "I’m sorry, this happened because of me."
Hillis looked genuinely remorseful. I disheveled Hillis’s hair and smiled. "It’s okay. It’s been a while since I’ve had such an enjoyable, thrilling time.”
Thanks to you, my pocket became full, so you don’t have to be sorry. Pushover wouldn’t have any complaints since he only got involved for the Angel’s House. In addition, this wasn’t even close to being a crisis.
“All right! Let’s meet at the place where we had lunch yesterday!"
After choosing the Angel’s House as the gathering place, Hillis and Lisbon fled. I pretended to run away before blocking the archbishop and priests. I used the location tracking function among my glasses’ various abilities to determine Hillis and Lisbon’s location.
Fortunately, they were running away, as I said. Thanks to that, I’ll be able to run wild. I lightly flew up to the sky, turning off the tracking function.
"Did you stay behind to buy time?! Hahaha! That’s funny, heretic wench!"
Calling me a wench when I’m a man, that’s too much.
"Everyone, chase after the heretics who ran away!" Upon the archbishop’s orders, the priests tried to chase after Hillis and Lisbon.
"Where do you think you’re going!"
I shot magic bullets and interrupted the priests from chasing. At the same time, I took out a piece of paper and said, "Archbishop! Here’s the document you’re worried about!"
The document I brought out was physical evidence that the archbishop was in league with an organization that revered the demon king. The archbishop’s eyes turned red when he saw the document I was holding. At the archbishop’s level, other corruption could be handled by cutting off the tail, but with this document, he would never be able to avoid a religious trial.
"You, you wench!" The archbishop shouted with glistening eyes.
He must not have expected me to find this in that bunch of papers.
"You must have hit it off really well with the person called Libra!"
"I won’t let you go! Everyone! That heretic is the main culprit! Get that heretic first- No, kill him!"
Nearly all the priests stopped and hesitated at the kill order from the archbishop. Most of them lived a life in the peaceful capital far from any fighting. There were only a few people who could cast magic with a serious intent to kill, even if they were suddenly told to kill a heretic. However, the priests who seemed to be the archbishop’s underlings started firing magic at me.
"Jeez, this guy. The archbishop has so much killing intent. I won’t be able to pray to God when I’m fearful like this," I sarcastically replied while hitting aside the magic flying at me, using the goddess statue wrapped in sword aura.
The archbishop snarled, biting his lips, "That’s enough. Don’t talk any more nonsense. You wench will die here."
"Why don’t you try it?”
The archbishop and I each emitted mana as we began an aerial battle. A common misconception was that a battle of minds was the most important factor in a one-on-one magic battle. On the contrary, brute force in a magic battle was much more vital than it was even for knights.
In a magician’s battle, it was about how one could dominate the mana around them. If one couldn’t take control of the space, you couldn’t even have a battle of minds. My mana and the archbishop’s divine power collided and caused a spark in the air.
"Ugh!" The archbishop groaned with cold sweat. My mana dispersed the archbishop’s divine power and took control of the space.
The archbishop’s divine power was far higher than that of the priests on the ground, but it was not enough compared to a madosa’s level. Naturally, my mana exerted overwhelming strength compared to the archbishop’s divine power.
Then, a familiar voice came from behind me. "You! Just like I thought, you stayed behind alone to block them!"
Initially, I thought that Hillis had run away, but instead, she came back. Hillis seemed to have had similar thoughts as I did.
“Hey! I told you to run!”
“Punish that heretic!”
The archbishop and I shouted at the same time. The priests attacked Hillis together under the archbishop’s command.
"Hahaha! You failed to send your colleague away! You fool!” The archbishop’s mood improved as he chuckled.
The archbishop seemed to be mistaken. The reason I sent Hillis away was so I could run wild to my heart’s content, not because I was afraid of her getting hurt.
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