Chapter 325 03-25 - 322: The Pitiable Thief Guild
Chapter 325: Chapter 322: The Pitiable Thief Guild
By the Flowing Gold River, Qin Feng searched for a long time along the riverbanks that the Nine-Headed Snake had once ravaged. He sent his Divine Sense into the depths of the river, searching back and forth for hundreds of miles but found no trace of the Nine-Headed Snake.
He still wasn’t ready to give up and then cast the Beast Taming Sect’s inherited spell to seek out Spiritual Beasts, trying to locate the formidable Demon Beast by tracking the remnants of its aura.
However, nearly a month had passed, and since the Nine-Headed Snake had never come ashore, even if some faint aura remained on the riverbed, it was mostly washed away by the swift currents. Consequently, he couldn’t find any trail of the Nine-Headed Snake and didn’t know whether the beast had gone upstream or had followed the river out to sea.
Qin Feng wasn’t discouraged by his failure to find the Nine-Headed Snake.
After all, there wasn’t just one Nine-Headed Snake in this world; he could always search for another one later.
Without searching any further, Qin Feng left the Flowing Gold River and flew towards Algu Mountain.
…
Iron Wall City was the mightiest of the Radiant Empire’s strongholds and the most formidable bulwark against the nations worshipping the Natural Gods.
The city had stood for fifteen hundred years now, built over several decades following the conquest of the regions around Algu Mountain by the founding emperor of the Radiant Empire, with the support of the Church Court.
Over the subsequent years, numerous castles were built one after the other in significant locations nearby to aid in defense.
Thus, the current Iron Wall City is actually a giant cluster of war fortifications.
Iron Wall City lies to the west of Algu Mountain, built against the mountain’s flank. Its walls were high and robust, perpetually garrisoning three hundred thousand of the Radiant Empire’s most powerful soldiers—the Radiant Army.
Additionally, there were a great many priests and knights from the Church Court. Should war break out, these priests would take on the role of medics, while the knights would also join the Radiant Army in battle.
Because they often faced intense pressure from attacks by various countries, the conflict between the legions and the Church here was minimal. This was considered one of the few places in the nations following the Light God Church where the power struggles between royalty and the clergy were least pronounced.
Source: Webnovel.com, updated on ɴονǤᴑ.с0
Despite the wars, Iron Wall City wasn’t left desolate; merchants devoted to the Wealth Goddess were less concerned about the strife between nations. On the contrary, due to the trade embargoes imposed by the Light God Church and churches of the Nature God System, the profits for merchants doing business between both sides became even more lucrative.
After all, nothing yields quicker profit than war.
The international merchants pursuing profits never lessened their dealings because of war. In peacetime, they traded various goods to earn the price differences between countries. In wartime, they even dared to trade food, weapons, armor, warhorses, and all sorts of large-scale siege and defense equipment, including precious magic weapons.
Thus, Iron Wall City and the opposing Unfallen City became a critical hub connecting the eastern and western factions.
Of course, the states of the Nature God System and the nations of the Light God Church camp had more than this one connection point along their borders. It’s just that this area was the flattest and easiest to traverse, and the countries on either side of the confrontation were both powerful and wealthy empires. That’s why the commercial atmosphere here was better than elsewhere.
Worried about enemy spies infiltrating, soldiers meticulously questioned everyone entering or leaving the city.
However, it wasn’t such a hassle for the caravans that frequently came this way; they would have already paved the way through relationships with the major nobles, or otherwise, they would not dare to enter enemy territories so freely.
Thanks to the priest robe he wore and an intermediate-level priest badge pinned on his chest—a badge he’d picked up from who knows where—Qin Feng not only avoided any hassle, but he was also treated with respect by the soldiers at the city gate. He was allowed to enter straightforwardly without even having to queue up.
Once inside the city, Qin Feng went straight to a church to gather information from the priests inside.
Now that he had returned to his original form and appearance, no longer the youthful visage of before but rather a tall and handsome young man. With some minor disguise techniques, he concealed the Saint Heir’s mark on his forehead.
With this, even those who had seen him on Holy Mountain would not associate the current him with the Holy Son of Light.
Under the guise of spreading faith as a wandering priest, he infiltrated the church and gleaned the current intelligence on the Light Church Court.
Then he learned of the state of the Church Court.
The Court was in utter chaos.
Not only had someone infiltrated Holy Mountain and stolen two Divine Artifacts, but even the Holy Son of Light had been abducted, which was a colossal shame for the Church Court.
The Shadow Thief Saint, viewed as a suspect, was immediately marked for death by the Church Court, dragging the entire Thief Guild into the fray.
The Church Court first sent out commands via magic to all the churches, and within a few short days, forces from all sides were mobilized to root out all the Thief Guilds in the Light Camp countries.
All thieves who were caught were burned to death with Holy Fire.
The agents of the Heresy Court were also aggressively deployed. Those people were cunning and unscrupulous, capturing many thieves who had eluded the Church’s encirclement. They tortured them severely, demanding the whereabouts of the Shadow Thief Saint.
However, they hadn’t managed to extract the Shadow Thief Saint’s location; they only angered all the thieves of the Thief Guild.
The leaders of the Thief Guild felt aggrieved. “Your Divine Artifacts were stolen, so go after the thief who stole them. What does that have to do with us, and why kill so many of us for it?
Could it be they think if one of their priests offended us, we might as well kill all the priests?”
As for the Holy Son of Light, come on, who would take him hostage for no reason?
These thieves also have their principles, they steal things, not people!
And what’s more, it’s a man!
Thus, while they searched for the whereabouts of the Shadow Thief Saint, under the leadership of the heads of the various Thief Guilds, they prepared for retaliation.
Just when the Church Court was zealously hunting down thieves, and the bastards of the Heresy Court were wantonly slaughtering thieves everywhere, they also faced the thieves’ counterattack.
Using various means of concealment and assassination, in a short span of time, many commanders of the Church’s armies were assassinated, many bishops were also killed, some even hanged directly inside their own churches.
Additionally, many thieves of average strength who couldn’t take down those powerful commanders and bishops, also managed to kill many low-level priests and ordinary knights by means of assassination and poisoning. For a time, priests and knights in churches everywhere were in a state of panic.
Upon receiving the news, the upper echelons of the Church were furious.
A mere Thief Guild not only sneaked onto the Holy Mountain to steal the Divine Artifact and abducted the Holy Son of Light, but now they even dared to strike back at their people?
So the Church joined forces with the royal families and nobles of the countries from the Light Camp to eradicate the thieves.
The royal families and nobles of various countries also held no good feelings toward thieves.
Those who worshiped the god of thieves would slip into their treasure vaults with just a moment’s negligence and steal their treasures.
What long-standing noble family hadn’t been visited by thieves?
However, the nobility of various countries were disunited on normal days, totally unable to join forces against the thieves. If a single family exerted effort, they would be retaliated against by the thieves, so they had been helpless against the thieves for many years. Even if a treasure was lost, they could only reluctantly accept their losses in the end.
But now, led by the Light Church, royal families and nobles immediately took action together, deploying troops and private armies to hunt down thieves everywhere.
As a result, the weakest and sometimes shadiest thieves immediately couldn’t withstand the pressure. Almost all thieves who revealed their whereabouts could hardly escape.
Of course, there were still some highly skilled thieves with many means of concealment who had not been exposed. These cunning and seasoned thieves even left their respective countries and hid in other places.
In fact, only a portion of the destroyed Thief Guilds were known; many hidden Thief Guilds scattered everywhere remained concealed, and there was also a large number of thieves existing in the countries of the Nature God System.
Although they usually operated independently, at this time, they inevitably developed a sense of shared enmity and began to collectively view the Light Church with hostility, with lots of small actions continuing endlessly.
In terms of strength, thieves were naturally no match for the Church, but when it came to underhanded tactics, only the Heresy Court of the Church could compete with them.
So the Church would probably have to expend a significant effort to suppress the momentum of the Thief Guild.
Indeed, not only was the Church and the Thief Guild locked in a fierce struggle, but Druidism was also secretly dispatching people to find their most loyal Little Landi.
This young druid had an unbreakable faith in the Forest Goddess and loyalty to Druidism as clear as day and night. In order to ensure the safe return of the Jade Heart to Druidism, he risked his life. Despite knowing the grave dangers, he used his identity to buy time for his comrades and ultimately fell on the Holy Mountain, unable to escape.
Although the Light Church declared to the outside world that the Holy Son had been abducted by the Thief Guild, the Druids saw this merely as a veil to cover the shame of the few high-ranking officials including the Pope.
Otherwise, if the followers of the Light God knew that their Holy Son of Light was actually a Druid, it would be a tremendous blow to them.
If even a Druid could become the Holy Son of Light after infiltrating the Holy Mountain, how blind must the all-knowing and omnipotent Light God be?
Certainly, the Light Church could not tolerate such a huge stain on the Light God.
Therefore, the High Priest of Druidism and the Great Druid Elders all believed that the Church was using the Thief Guild as a scapegoat to vent their anger, to divert people’s attention so that they would no longer focus on the identity of the Saint Heir.
They felt that the faithful Little Landi must now be suffering in the Light Church.
For this reason, they spared no effort to use several agents who had been concealed within the Church for many years, hoping to rescue the pitiful Little Landi.
After all, when they sent people to infiltrate the Church, it was only to seize the Jade Heart.
Now that the Divine Artifact had safely returned, the usefulness of those undercover agents was greatly diminished, so of course they had to be used to rescue the great contributor Landi who had reclaimed the artifact.
Unfortunately, no matter how their people on the Holy Mountain continued to investigate, they found no information about the Holy Son of Light. They guessed he might have been taken to the Heresy Court, a place they couldn’t infiltrate, so they could only lament in vain.
Little did anyone know that the much-sought after Holy Son of Light was comfortably enjoying a sumptuous lunch in the Light Church of Iron Wall City at that very moment.
PS: There’s one more chapter!