Chapter 63: Chapter 63: Misunderstanding and Overthinking, The Terror of a Fanatic
"No... Your esteed Majesty, I was discourteous."
"Just now, I sensed the aura of my Lord’s Truth upon you, so I was overco with emotion and misunderstood who you are. Please, forgive !"
"I, Oleg, the Resident Missionary in the Swamp Territory, offer you my highest praise, great and esteed Majesty."
Oleg knew he had misspoken. Believing he had already sorted out the entire sequence of events, he imdiately changed his tune and spoke with sincerity to the Giant Dragon in the sky.
Lince snapped back to reality.
He stared, sowhat stunned, at the Believer in Truth below him.
’So, this really is so kind of misunderstanding?’
Lince grew thoughtful and, for a mont, almost laughed aloud at the absurdity of it all.
’So many misunderstandings.’
He did not answer, but he suddenly withdrew the Dragon Might he had been exerting on Resident Priest Oleg and the Lionheart Knight.
The mont the Dragon Might was gone, Oleg and the Lionheart Knight felt the imnse, formless pressure on their bodies abruptly lift.
Oleg imdiately scrambled to his feet. Placing his right hand over his chest, he perford a clerical salute toward the Giant Dragon as it slowly descended from the sky.
The Lionheart Knight, for his part, was already shaken beyond words.
He imdiately followed suit, sinking to one knee in a knight’s salute and hurriedly calling out:
"Great and esteed Majesty, Kael Davis, Deputy Commander of the Lionheart Knight’s Third Legion, offers you his utmost respect!"
"Please forgive my disrespect and presumption!"
The Lionheart Knight, Kael, was suffering a hardship he could not put into words.
He had rely followed Knight Commander Rayleigh’s orders, arriving in the Swamp Territory just a month ago to assist Resident Priest Oleg in investigating potential irregularities.
And what happens? He runs into a situation this massive?
First a Giant Dragon, and now the mortal agent of a Deity.
He’d nearly been scared witless from the start, to say nothing of being caught red-handed by an unknown Deity.
Seeing Resident Priest Oleg’s sudden change in attitude, he was more than just confused; he desperately wanted to curse that wretched old man and his entire family.
The Giant Dragon slowly descended from the sky.
The Magic Wind it carried with it gradually dissipated.
anwhile, York seized the first opportunity to lead the stunned Knight’s Squires behind him, addressing Lince in an fervent and resounding voice:
"Your Majesty, Knight York leads his Squires, having co in answer to the divine summons!"
"We pray that all is well with Your Majesty in the Divine Kingdom."
"Kelder, Knight’s Squire of the Swamp Territory, greets the great and esteed Majesty."
"Paul, Knight’s Squire of the Swamp Territory..."
Following York’s lead, all the Knight’s Squires knelt on one knee before the Giant Dragon, performing a knight’s salute in unison.
The Giant Dragon’s gaze was full of approval as it looked at York and the other Knights, and it nodded in acknowledgent.
It then turned its gaze back to Resident Priest Oleg and the Lionheart Knight, who were inside the steel cage off to one side.
York was very sharp; he knew this was not the ti for the Deity to grant him a formal audience.
Thus, he imdiately had the group of Knight’s Squires behind him move aside, clearing a space beside the Giant Dragon.
anwhile, with a re thought from Lince...
...the steel cage began to lt away, quickly turning into dirt that collapsed to the ground.
Only then did Lince speak to Oleg, his tone indifferent, while completely ignoring the Lionheart Knight.
"It seems you, a mortal, are a devout Believer in Truth, and not one of those thoroughly corrupted by worldly affairs," Lince said, probing.
The mont these words were spoken, they seed to confirm Oleg’s own suspicions.
His eyes imdiately brightened, and his expression grew even more solemn and devout as he faced the towering, majestic Giant Dragon.
"Esteed Majesty, to receive your approval is akin to a direct blessing of Divine Grace."
"I, Oleg, desire nothing else. My sole pursuit in this life is to forever bathe in the ocean of knowledge that is my Lord’s Truth. I pray Your Majesty sees this clearly."
With a solemn look in his eyes, Oleg suddenly felt he understood everything.
Why hadn’t he been able to sense the aura of the God of Truth on this deity’s mortal agent at first?
It was because he hadn’t identified himself as a Believer in Truth from the very beginning.
That was why, after he had declared himself a Believer in Truth, His Majesty had directly used the Main God’s Holy Pages to judge his devotion.
Thankfully.
He truly could see the holy object and sense the Main God’s aura, and thus, he had passed the test of faith.
And that was how he had earned his forgiveness.
Surely, this was all part of fate’s grand design, and everything was proceeding as Truth had foreseen.
He thought about the first half of his life as the Royal Capital Bishop, and then the second half, ending up as a re Resident Priest in the Swamp Territory.
In that mont, Oleg felt as if fate had played a cruel joke on him.
But at the sa ti, a sliver of hope was rekindled within him!
’So all of this was a test from the God of Truth.’
’For over thirty years of disgrace, ridicule, and being shunned by other mbers of the Church, I never abandoned my faith. That is why I was guided by a Deity to the Swamp Territory.’
’And that is what led to this opportunity to et the esteed Majesty before
now.’
’It was all a test from the God of Truth—the trial of my life.’
Suddenly, Oleg was so moved that he felt tears welling up in his old eyes, and his vision blurred.
But in the midst of being so moved by his own story, a cold glint flashed through the devout believer’s eyes.
’The ti has co to purge the blasphers!’
Because the Lord had known everything all along. Even the Lord’s ’friend’—this great, unknown Deity—was now aware of the filth and depravity of the modern Truth Church.
Otherwise, He would never have said what He just did.
Today, among the various kingdoms of the Human Race, the Truth Church in the Eagle Kingdom appeared fanatically devout, to the point where it seed willing to recklessly declare war on the crown for the sake of its faith in the Deities.
But what was the reality?
As a forr Bishop from the Royal Capital, Oleg had long since seen the truth.
The Truth Church was rely using the na of the Deities as a pretext to vie with the Royal Family for its own supre, untouchable power.
Things within the Church had changed a long, long ti ago.
From the low-ranking Resident Missionaries to the noble Bishops, and even the supre Pope himself—they had all long ago beco slaves to worldly money and power.
Oleg recalled his own life.
He had been reckless in his youth and arrogant in his middle age, believing with all his heart that he was a Shepherd for the great God of Truth. He had wanted only to defend and spread the glory of the Deities and to uphold fairness and justice in the world.
And yet, what was the price for refusing to wallow in the filth with them? No matter how high his aptitude for spellcasting, no matter how deeply he studied the holy texts, it was no match for a single, clumsy accusation of blasphemy.
His title of Bishop was stripped away, the Power of his Bloodline was nullified, and in the end, he was reduced to a bottom-rung mber of the Church.
It was only then that Oleg discovered just how vividly the darkness of the human heart could be displayed, even within the Church.
But Oleg never regretted his choices.
For the rest of his life, he walked his own path. Even when people looked down on him, even when he truly beca an obscure old missionary, he always maintained his devotion to Truth.
Of course, devotion to Truth did not an loyalty to the Church.
And so, all of that led to this mont of Divine Favor.
The Deities had been watching him all along; they knew of his devotion.
Thus, in this mont, he was moved by his own tale beyond all asure.
As for Lince, who was standing opposite this old man, he could only watch as the man trembled, tears welling in his eyes.
Lince was genuinely afraid the man might just drop dead on the spot!
’Is he filling in the blanks with so epic backstory?’
’I just threw out one probing sentence, and this old bastard can spin a whole tale in his head and get this fucking emotional?!’
Lince was both baffled and impressed, to the point of being speechless.
But on second thought, it wasn’t a bad thing. This was, at least, the result Lince had wanted. He just hadn’t expected the old man to be such a zealot.
Looking at this display of fanaticism, Lince felt that if the God of Truth himself were to appear and tell the old man that dung was gold, he would probably believe it without question.
After all, it seed these fanatics had their own complete set of internal logic and theories. In short, whatever the Deities said was, by definition, correct.
Lince now had firsthand experience of just how terrifying a zealot could be.
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