Chapter 349: Old One
Arman is feeling extremely ecstatic, but he doesn't know that just because he was chosen to be the temporary in-charge, doesn't mean he would have any real authority.
The main reason being, the network is pretty much self-sustaining and there wouldn't be any problems in the short term even if there are no leaders present.
They are just letting him in that position for the namesake.
In fact, he wasn't appointed or anything, all they did was tell him to look over things, that's it, nothing more and nothing less.
Meanwhile, in the meeting place on the Central Continent, the formation got ready and everyone was ready to do the testing.
Not all of them are present though, the people kept on coming.
The first one to go through the Inspection is the people from the Empires. To be precise, it is Arc's people and Ye Ting's people, they are the weakest group and the group with the weakest connections that are present, that is why it was easy to clear them.
After dealing with them, the next set of people are the people from the Minor powers and the Minor Professional associations.
Although the tests are going on, not all people are present. The six heads noticed that some people who are supposed to be here and some who even came yesterday in order to help with the preparations are not present right now.
They are silently noting down the names and remembering them. But for now, they didn't do or say anything.
As the Minor powers are going through the interrogation or the inspection, their Islands are left bare for the church to attack.
On an island belonging to a minor power, at the beach, there is a small glow coming out of the waters on the shore and soon a bunch of people in white robes surfaced from the water and they started swimming towards shore.
Soon, the whole island's beach was filled with numerous white-robed people, led by two people who are wearing white masks.
Since the minor powers took most of their Pre-transcendent stage cultivators and the Transcendent cultivators to the meeting, this is the perfect chance to deal with them.
The two Pre-transcendent stage Priests stayed at the beach without moving, but the remaining white-robed people already started running towards the center of the island frantically.
Although it is called an Island, it is as big as a small nation and there are many cities divided within by the minor power.
A minor power will have multiple transcendent stage cultivators and there are many Pre-transcendent stage cultivators, both will be of a greater number than any empire.
Even though all of them have to be inspected, they are not going to take them away all at once. That would be leaving the minor powers to die in the hands of the church.
So, the six heads gave leeway to the minor powers to leave some people stationed and they will exchange positions when the first batch of the candidates are inspected.
But what they don't know is the invasion already begins. Similar scenes are people appearing at the beaches of all ten minor powers are happening and everyone beach is led by two Pre-transcendent stage cultivators followed by around one-hundred thousand people who are normal followers.
The minor powers are all being surrounded and the cities are being attacked by the followers.
There are already warnings given and the soldiers are stationed, so they didn't panic entirely, but they are still anxious.
They locked all their space gates, except for the one that leads to the Central continent's meeting spot.
They even searched all the corners of the island for the signs of any possible gates being constructed or for any of the already constructed space gates in secret.
But they didn't find any and the space gate is where they least expected it to be present.
In the shallow waters.
The news of the start of the war came to the central continent, through the representatives of the minor powers.
The heads of the minor powers are in tenterhooks.
Almost all of the current candidates of the minor powers for inspection are already done and only a few of them are left.
When the heads of the ten minor powers consulted the Six heads for a solution, there is only a basic reply.
Drag the war out.
They wanted them to have a long-lasting battle, but they are not going to let them off from the inspection.
Some of them even asked.
"We are clearly not their allies, that is why they are attacking us, if we don't defend them all the way, what would happen to our territory?"
But the reply is even more straightforward.
"What if it is a ploy for us to make believe that the minor powers are not the moles, but in fact they turned out to be the true moles, we cannot risk it."
After some persuasion, the ten minor powers are given some leeway.
The heads and the major decision-makers and other core members can go back along with the people who have completed their inspections.
But they still have to send the remaining people and there needs to be one decision-maker present to handle the situation.
Then only the heads of the minor powers felt a bit relieved.
From the information, they have got every minor power is being led by twelve Priests.
Two on each front and they are invading a single island from six sides.
From the info the six major powers gave them, the six priests cannot be taken as normal Pre-transcendent stage cultivators.
They can become transcendent cultivators and even more just by absorbing their soldiers. So, they are extremely cautious and they wanted to play a battle of attrition because they decided to eliminate the number of followers slowly but steadily before the Church could realize.
They don't want to attack the Priests directly and make them absorb their followers immediately.
And just like that, a greasy war has begun.
As for the people who are at the meeting spot, the inspection went on.
And all of a sudden, a person was caught in the inspection and he turned out to be from a Minor professional association. The Space gate association.
The Head of the Lightning Spear Sect completely took control of the investigation of this person personally to get as much information as they can get.
Since he is from the Space gate organization, then the info is also valuable to them.
The Space gate organization head is on pins and needles.
In fact, this organization is made to suppress the people with the Space element, and the true boss behind this organization is all the six heads.
They will send all the Space elemental users to this place on the very beginning days of their awakening and they will be trained in using their space element to create Space gates and other transportation techniques.
All except for any form of battle techniques.
The Inspection sped up after catching one of them as they finally have hope in finding the moles.
They soon started finding one mole after another and some of them happened to caught in the formation and some of them are caught due to overreacting. Anyway, they caught moles from the Space gate association and the Seer tower.
As they are half-way through it.
The Thundergod temple head suddenly noticed something and whispered something to the rest of the five heads before walking out of the meeting spot.
He started walking towards a direction in an extremely discreet way before he halted his tracks in a place.
A person appeared behind him and looked at the temple-head with a frown.
"What are you doing here? Old one?"
"I can ask you the same question. Why are you here?"
"I am here to catch you."
"Catch me? What for? I didn't do anything wrong. I just came for some scouting."
"Why didn't you inform anyone that you came for scouting?"
"I am also a Consummate realm expert and a person who is in charge of the Major professional organization, did you forget? I am the head of the Pharmaceutical tower. why would I need to ask permission from you guys?"
"Permission? That is indeed a big word. Anyway, since you came for the scouting, lets just go back. Since all the other space gates are sealed temporarily except for the minor powers, the inspection of their remaining people who exchanged posts is also done.
Now, only the major powers are remaining. Let us go and finish our inspections before we deal with the people who are not present here.
We have to complete the tests and undo the seal on the Space gates, otherwise, we have to keep worrying about our organizations"
Old one didn't say anything about going and showed no signs of it, instead, he asked something else in astonishment.
"the Space-gates sealed?"
He asked in astonishment.
"Why would they not be? There are many suspicious people within our group of people, this massive group cannot possibly be controlled by any person who has less power than a Consummate realm.
So, for us, the inspections are obviously strict.
Out of all people, we are the most suspicious.
Anyway, you are there when we sealed right? Why are you surprised?"
"I am not actually surprised; I am shocked because of how I missed such a silly fact. I seem to have been on edge and came to scout to be safe. Since the Space gates are sealed, there should be no one entering the premises, I am such a stupid to forget about this.
Both of them exchanged glances and started walking towards the meeting area.