067: Kevin's Family Really Are Cultists, Face to Face with the God of the Black Mist!

Those two balls of fire stopped about a meter or two away from Richard.

Then, they began to orbit around him as their center.

The relationship between Richard and them was somewhat like that between the Earth and the Moon.

They existed by attaching themselves to Richard.

Precisely because of this, Richard could see the true essence of the fireballs.

[Stealth] and [Night] naturally harbored no emotions, so they possessed no abnormal colors.

Yet they were not compressed, condensed flames; their cores were genuine spheres, bearing a closer resemblance to the stars in the firmament.

Richard stared intently at the [Stealth] star.

It flickered, as if offering feedback to him, its master.

Immediately afterward, Richard felt a wave of warmth wash over his eyes.

When he opened his eyes to look at the world once more, the colors had vanished, and Freya had returned to her normal, soundly sleeping state.

"Huh?"

At that very moment, Richard noticed something.

Located in the center of the office ceiling was a large crystal chandelier composed of numerous exquisitely crafted small crystals.

One of the small crystals, situated at the very bottom, differed in color from the rest.

"This must be that projection stone enchanted with concealment magic!"

Contained within it were all of Richard's recordings from inside this room.

Destroy it!

Richard felt the urge to do so.

Then, upon second thought, he leaned back down.

Only Freya knew about Richard's affairs, and whether she had evidence or not made no difference if she wanted to deal with him.

Rather than plotting to destroy the evidence, it would be better to study the principles of the projection stone later, find time to take the damn thing down, and see what Freya was up to every day.

"The authority of stealth... This is also a facet of the authority of stealth..."

Under the authority of [Stealth], all concealment would be laid bare.

From now on, anyone attempting to scheme against Richard through petty stealth would undoubtedly pay the price.

At this thought, Richard smiled, closed his eyes, and activated his perception!

Freya regained her color.

He closed his eyes again, attempted to deactivate it, and the color vanished.

As expected, the abnormality in Richard's eyes could at least be modulated through the authority of [Stealth].

An authority, a divine power—its might was undoubtedly far greater than what Richard currently witnessed.

Much like the system, its miraculous nature required Richard, its master, to continuously explore further.

And to level up.

The ritual that morning had left Richard's head spinning for quite a while.

The fundamental reason was his low level and insufficient mana.

Once Richard reached level forty or fifty, and equipped himself with a suitable set of rune-infused gear, sacrificing an entire branch of the Black Mist Church in one go shouldn't be too much of a problem.

He was sleepy.

Time to sleep.

Richard still had over an hour of nap time with his head resting on Freya's lap, which shouldn't be wasted.

...

"After him! Catch that son of a bitch, he stole fruit from my orchard! See if I don't beat him to death today!"

A man dressed as a farmer was chasing a scrawny youth.

The youth was fast on his feet, laughing and eating as he ran.

Unfortunately, happy times are short-lived. By the afternoon of the next day, his father had sent him to the orchard to do farm work.

The boy had already offended the orchard owner for the third time; it would be a miracle if he had an easy life.

Especially upon learning that this job had been traded for his mother's body, a surge of hot blood rushed to the youth's head, and he grabbed a pitchfork and killed that bastard.

The youth became a wanted fugitive, and his name was Cabo.

Cabo joined the Black Mist Church because the divine priest told him there were many pitiful people like him within the church, and the church would help them exact true vengeance.

What had caused such a tragedy for Cabo?

The orchard owner was merely a tiny dot.

The ones in the wrong were definitely not the impoverished common folk.

It was the nobility.

It was the hypocritical Church of the Goddess of Light.

It was the King of the Redwood Empire.

It was this very world!

Acting in accordance with the will of His Great Majesty, the God of Black Mist, they sought to overthrow the corrupt old world and build a new world characterized by absolute fairness, justice, love, and compassion.

As for this, Cabo didn't quite understand...

He hadn't spent two years in books; he only knew that the Black Mist Church had taken him in, and that there were others like him within the church.

Among them was Gina, who had served as a landowner's mistress before the landowner's wife discovered her and nearly beat her to death.

She was even more ruthless than Cabo.

Once her injuries healed, the first thing Gina did was burn the landowner's entire family to death.

The two quickly became friends.

Because they shared a common hobby: killing people.

Through their ruthlessness and loyalty to the Black Mist Church, the two were promoted to Hunters.

The divine priest bestowed upon them a divine gift: the ability to alter their appearances.

Utilizing this capability, they easily evaded the warrants and successfully registered at the Adventurers' Guild.

From then on, outwardly they were upright Tier 2 adventurers, and they even joined a moderately famous adventurer squad.

Secretly, they killed people, plundered treasures, and helped the church recruit fresh blood.

This time, they had returned to Saint Alban City to complete an adventure quest, and their squad had entered a period of rest and reorganization.

Additionally, there was a minor task assigned to them from above: collecting this quarter's donation from Lord Kevin.

"What the hell!"

Richard opened his eyes.

"Earlier, when I scared Susan by saying that if anyone found out about her connection to the Black Mist Church, the entire Kevin family would be finished...

As it turns out, her family was a den of cultists to begin with!"

Just then,

Richard had a dream.

In the dream, he saw the two Black Mist cultists he had sacrificed.

Richard the priest had glimpsed fragments of their past, among which was their mission to return to the city.

Come to think of it, why would Richard have such a dream?

It was undoubtedly related to the sacrificial ritual that morning.

According to sacrificial lore, the target of a sacrifice does not necessarily have to point to a specific deity.

It can also be things with divine symbolic significance, such as the sun and the moon.

Whatever sun god or moon god they were, they were all fabricated by mortals.

At least, that was how things stood on the continent of Loren.

Yet, through tens of thousands of years of shifting eras, people praying to the sun and moon had never ceased to exist.

Thus, they naturally possessed divinity.

As to whether praising the sun would yield any feedback, Richard had no idea.

Theoretically, a sacrificial ritual directed at the Goddess of Light was the most reliable.

Regardless of whether it was righteous or evil, there had yet to be a single recorded case of death during a ritual dedicated to the Goddess.

Regrettably, Richard dared not praise the Goddess.

His [Stealth] authority allowed him to stroll leisurely through the cathedral of the Goddess of Light.

That did not mean he could face the Goddess of Light in person.

No,

not even her true avatar—

being noticed by a genuine deity would mean curtains for a lowly Red Priest in the blink of an eye.

Ruling out the option of sacrificing to the God of Black Mist as well, Richard had decisively chosen the "God of Secrecy" and the "God of Night" as the targets for the morning's ritual.

Richard possessed the authorities of [Stealth] and [Night], so regardless of whether those two deities actually existed, choosing them would surely grant him a share of the dividends.

Reflecting upon it now, what dividends had Richard received?

Experience points plus skill proficiency?

The share seemed a bit too small.

So was this dream also part of those dividends?

Richard thought, "Wait a minute."

He abruptly realized that the place where he woke up was not the third floor of the Maple Leaf Detective Agency.

Opposite him,

in the distance,

a colossal monster covered entirely in black fur, writhing tentacles, and scarlet eyes was gazing directly at Richard.

What the fuck!

"Is this the God of Black Mist?!"