Chapter 41: Holy Avenger
In the town, there were many pedestrians.
This desert city is called Hadar, which seems to mean “Watcher in the Desert,” an ancient language of the East that many scholarly wizards may not understand. Walking in here gave Soren a feeling of returning to the medieval West, with a mixed population resembling Jerusalem, where both desert people and Westerners interacted with different accents in their transactions. Eastern merchants are somewhat unwilling to enter the western continent, so many goods change hands in cities at the edge of the desert.
Upon arriving here, Soren realized he had forgotten something very important.
That is to learn the “Comprehend Languages” spell.
d*mn dialects!
While many people here also mastered the common tongue, the mainstream language is still East Asian in nature, with dialectical characteristics of the desert region. Now that he doesn’t have a language translation system, he can only understand bits and pieces, making normal communication quite troublesome. Fortunately, he was just passing through; if worse comes to worst, he could only find merchants who understand the common tongue to communicate.
The buildings in the city are those dome-shaped community structures, the most eye-catching of which should be the Desert Temple.
That is the church of the God of d*ath.
The God of d*ath profession has always been a key area of contention among the gods, so almost every pantheon has deities related to the d*ath Domain. The Desert Temple before him is the church of the Eastern pantheon goddess of wealth and d*ath—Nephthys. On top of the temple, Soren saw a gold bowl floating above it with a symbol of the Ring of Life, representing a chaotic good goddess whose extended divine profession is “Guardian of the Dead,” which protects the dead from disturbances.
Therefore, the followers of this goddess are not difficult to deal with.
The Eastern pantheon is an outsider from the era of ancient empires, with no one certain where exactly they came from, but the ancient empire had once plundered a massive population from other worlds. Thus, the Eastern Desert Pantheon was born. Over long ages, the Eastern Desert Pantheon has rarely intervened in the conflicts of other deities; even during the chaotic times of the Arcane Empire, they were merely observers. The faith of these deities is limited to the desert regions, while the Eastern Kingdom is a blind spot for divine belief.
Due to the influence of monks, the Eastern Kingdom tends to lean toward the belief in “Nature” (Dao), rather than a specific deity.
This Dao is somewhat akin to the so-called “Heavenly Path.”
But it is different from the kinds of Heavenly Path people recognize. It is more inclined toward a spiritual path, with the monk’s pursuit being personal sublimation.
If one had to summarize it in a single term.
Soren thought it should be the so-called—”Unity of Heaven and Man!”
In any case, to this day, he still cannot distinguish the spiritual transcendence pursued by “Natural Druids” and “Monks.” To him, “Heavenly Path” and “Nature” are basically similar; Soren is not overly concerned with the spiritual world.
There is a passage recorded like this.
It is from a book written by a druid wanderer who traveled to the Eastern Kingdom; this druid eventually became a monk and became a powerful legendary figure.
—”Besides daily training, the monk’s practice is mainly spiritual. They have a mysterious connection with the spiritual world, experiencing the mysteries of nature through meditation, thus they do not need priests and gods. During my travels in the East, I saw many powerful monks; they do not understand any spells, but through practice, they master many wondrous abilities. These abilities do not stem from deities, nor any kind of arcana I know; they are more like nature’s gifts to practitioners.
I believe this is another form of the natural way.
Thus, I decided to join them and seek the secrets deep within nature through monk practice.”
……
Soren temporarily found a inn to stay in and prepared to gather some information.
Searching for a certain place in the vast desert is quite difficult; even he only knows the general direction, and if no one has explored it, he might have to dig a hole to get in. Because his next target, the “Anti-Detection Cloak,” is inside underground ruins, buried deep in the desert. Exploring such underground ruins is not like just finding a dungeon or cave to venture into; it is more like an archaeological dig.
Specific operations can refer to European looters digging into the Egyptian pyramids; the first batch of underground ruins they opened were mostly tunnels excavated by adventurers who hired people to dig them.
The geographical conditions of the desert do not allow for entrances to be left for later arrivals over the thousands of years.
Soren wandered around this desert city, where he could see adventurers from the East; every year, monks embark on their paths of training. Visiting the Druid Church on the other side of the continent, exchanging skills with other professionals—these are all part of their daily practice. As he got closer, the number of Eastern monks began to increase; however, most of the monks kept their hair long. Only those who are strictly adhering to the monk’s code or have taken a “Vow of Poverty” would shave their heads.
“Violence.”
“If it is not for justice, then it is meaningless!”
Soren first took a look around, but just as he was about to return to the inn to rest, a sudden commotion occurred ahead. Then a loud, hoarse voice rang from the front, making him involuntarily stop in his tracks. A crowd had gathered, which seems to be a nature of people to enjoy the spectacle; many people were packed in layers. Even the nearby guards were drawn over, but they did not show any intention of stopping, their expressions appearing somewhat bewildered.
Soren quietly walked over.
In front of him appeared a weathered paladin; despite his face seeming young, the heavy air of age made him look at least ten years older. This paladin wore tattered silver armor and had scale mail on his wrists. In front of him stood a desert warrior, dressed as a desert warrior, holding a curved blade, unable to stab or pull it out.
Soren was momentarily stunned by the paladin’s face and then seemed to remember something, causing his expression to slightly change.
—”Judgment of Justice!”
Facing the somewhat panicked desert warrior, the paladin’s palm glowed with white light. He suddenly released his grip, unsheathed the double-handed sword from his waist, and pointed it at his opponent.
A bl**d-red glow emerged.
On the man before the paladin floated a light representing evil.
This bl**d-red light startled everyone; any knowledgeable onlooker instinctively stepped back, for the desert warrior clearly appeared to be a bloody figure.
“He’s a sand thief! He’s one of the skeleton sand thieves!”
A merchant nearby seemed to recall something and then spoke in a voice that blended anger and fear: “They rob passing merchants and never leave any survivors.”
The paladin paid no mind to the others around him.
He locked his gaze on the man before him and said in a deep voice, “A week ago, you attacked a merchant caravan from the City of Wealth, killing twenty-seven innocent people.”
“The crimes you committed must be paid for!”
The paladin gripped the heavy sword with both hands and executed a horizontal slash, the desert warrior managed to awkwardly block with his sword but was sent flying backward.
Bang!
His body crashed against the wall behind him, causing him to spit out a mouthful of bl**d.
“Justice!”
“Either by force or by law.”
The paladin swung his great sword down once more, speaking in a deep voice: “However, the law here seems to shield you, so I can only rely on force to uphold justice!”
A faint ethereal light appeared on the great sword he held. As the paladin swung down again,
Crack!
A crisp breaking sound echoed.
The desert thief was directly severed, instantly dying under the paladin’s sword.
—”Evil Break Slash!”
The paladin glanced at the others, stopping momentarily when his gaze swept over Soren, but quickly averting his eyes.
He did not recognize Soren.
He simply walked over to the corpse of the sand thief, bent down and whispered a few words in a special language beside the body, then glanced at the stiff-faced guards around and single-handedly lifted the corpse as he walked towards the city’s exit.
No one else clearly heard what he just said.
However, when Soren heard that strange language, he couldn’t help but stiffen up because he was quite familiar with that phrase.
It is an ancient language.
Even its origin has become untraceable, but when translated, it roughly means this.
—”In the name of justice, avenge the weak!”
……
In the paladin’s creed, there lies a very important sentence.
—”Be compassionate to the weak, and protect women and children.”
Perhaps even Soren himself didn’t expect that a sentence of his would truly lead the young paladin he met back in the City of Wealth to embark on the path of becoming a “Holy Avenger.”
However, it seems he hasn’t completed his trials yet because the true Holy Avenger is not as Soren now sees him. Yet, from him, Soren has already seen that he has completed many forms of training, for the Holy Avenger also has the trial of “Asceticism.” Truly formed Holy Avengers are nearly at Legend Rank strength; although he had just swung out that powerful sword, there is still a considerable distance from the avenger in Soren’s memory.
Moreover, his weapon is not a replica of the “Holy Avenger,” but an ordinary two-handed great sword.
This signifies that he has not yet obtained the true qualifications!
The paladin left alone.
No one dared to stop him; the city guards merely watched with pale faces as the paladin single-handedly carried the sand thief’s corpse away while their gazes followed him as he left.
Every city has dark corners.
The goods robbed by desert bandits eventually need to be offloaded somewhere.
Soren stared at the figure of the paladin as he departed, his gaze seemed to slightly shift, and then he quietly followed behind.
……(To be continued ~^~)
