Chapter 346

Chapter 346

Johan stood alone in the middle of the chapel, looking up at the massive cross.

A faint red light lingered in his eyes as he gazed at the cross.

At that moment, someone quietly approached him from behind.

“I have something to report, Lord Johan!”

The one wearing a red monk’s robe was Joshua, the Heresy Inquisitor.

Johan looked at Joshua and said,

“Hmm! I would prefer it to be good news if possible, but it seems that is not the case.”

“I apologize.”

“Enough. Report.”

“The situation is not good.”

“What do you mean?”

“All the factions have learned that the Saintess we are searching for is, in truth, a high-grade Healer.”

The corner of Johan’s eye trembled.

It was a situation even he had not expected.

“How?”

“Rumors have spread widely throughout Neo Seoul. Because of that, each district and raid party is now moving to secure the Saintess.”

“Does that make any sense? How could such a rumor spread? Did our believers go around talking?”

“I apologize. We tried to identify the source of the rumor, but gained nothing.”

Joshua lowered his head as though he himself had committed a crime.

Johan asked, his face reddening,

“And the situation?”

“It is not good. One by one, we are losing contact with the believers inside Neo Seoul.”

“So they were taken down.”

“As you know, there is a limit to the influence we can exert inside Neo Seoul. They were believers we had barely managed to secure with great difficulty……”

Joshua could not bring himself to continue.

It took an enormous amount of money and time to recruit even one proper believer in Neo Seoul. That was why the believers recruited with such difficulty were all the more precious.

And contact with those believers was being cut off.

It was obvious they had lost their lives in battles against other Awakened.

For Dongdaemun, it was a painful loss.

There was no telling how long it would take to secure that many people in Neo Seoul again.

Feeling frustrated, Johan looked at the cross.

Joshua silently watched Johan.

After staring at the cross for a long while, Johan opened his mouth again.

“Now that it has come to this, we must secure the Saintess no matter what. If we can recruit the Saintess, we can recover losses like that in no time. Have we still found no clue about her?”

“I apologize.”

“Send in more believers and search more fervently. Ah, have there been any reports from the Dark Saints?”

“There has been no special news yet. Ah, a few have gone missing.”

“Even the Dark Saints were taken down?”

Johan’s expression, which had only just regained calm, twisted again.

The Dark Saints were clergy who protected Dongdaemun from the shadows.

Naturally, it took several times longer to raise them than other forces. The loss of a Dark Saint could not be compared to the loss of other believers.

“Matel, Elixon, and Chensi. These three cannot be contacted. Matel and Elixon lost contact in Guro, and Chensi in Shinchon.”

“Shinchon?”

Johan’s eyes gleamed ominously.

Because there was someone who came to mind first whenever he thought of Shinchon.

“Did Zeon eliminate Chensi?”

“That does not seem to be the case. We have someone watching Zeon twenty-four hours a day, but so far, he has shown no special movement.”

“Are you certain? With that bastard’s ability, deceiving the eyes of a watcher would be nothing.”

“Lord Rubo is personally watching him.”

“Mm!”

Johan let out a groan.

That was because he knew Rubo’s ability better than anyone.

The one with the blasphemous nickname “God’s Eye” was Rubo. But he possessed an ability worthy of that name.

The Skill he had Awakened was Clairvoyance.

It did not let him see a thousand li away as the name suggested, but he could still conduct precise surveillance over several kilometers.

The true value of Clairvoyance was that it could see through any illusion or barrier.

No trickery or false appearance worked against Rubo’s Clairvoyance.

He truly was a surveillance specialist.

Because of that, Dongdaemun mobilized Rubo only when watching important targets, and this time, that target was Zeon.

“Rubo is watching him personally?”

“Yes! He is attached to him twenty-four hours a day.”

“Then it is not Zeon.”

Johan’s expression twisted into something even uglier.

He might have doubted anyone else, but if Rubo was personally watching, he could trust it. No matter how capable Zeon was, he could neither avoid nor deceive Rubo’s eyes.

In that case, Zeon was probably not the culprit.

But he could not shake the oddly unpleasant feeling lingering in his mind.

“Track the movements of the Dark Saints who lost contact, and strengthen surveillance on Zeon even more.”

“You mean assign more people besides Lord Rubo?”

“Reinforce it twofold, threefold. Watch every single one of his movements perfectly.”

“Under……stood.”

“Zeon! He is not the kind of bastard who would sit still, and the fact that he is sitting still makes him even more suspicious. There is something about him.”

Johan considered Zeon his old enemy.

Because Zeon had blocked him several times already and prevented his plans from succeeding.

Zeon was the only one who had handed him repeated failures. That was why he bothered him all the more.

‘Zeon! Zeon!’

Johan repeated Zeon’s name again and again.

---

Chensi, who had been walking through the underground sewer, stopped for a moment and looked around.

There was not a single point of light.

It felt as though she were wandering alone through an endless maze.

It felt as if several days had passed since she entered.

Naturally, contact with the outside had been cut off.

Originally, Dark Saints had to periodically report their location to Dongdaemun. But in the underground sewer, there was no way to make contact.

This place was a world separate from the surface.

For the first time, Chensi learned that such a dark and damp world existed beneath her feet.

A dense darkness where she could not even see her own hand, and a terrible stench that assaulted her nose.

If she had not been an Awakened, she would already have gone mad.

That was how harsh—no, how utterly wretched—this place was.

Even so, the reason she did not return to the surface and continued walking through the underground sewer was because of her noble mission.

‘If the Saintess is here, I will certainly escort her to the surface.’

Beautiful flowers were originally meant to bloom in the filthiest and darkest places. If the Saintess truly had been born here, then escorting her to the surface was Chensi’s mission.

With that sense of mission, Chensi endured the harsh environment and moved forward. How long had she walked like that? Suddenly, a ray of light appeared in her vision.

“Ah!”

The moment Chensi discovered the light, an exclamation escaped her lips without her realizing it.

That single ray of light piercing through pitch-black darkness was like illumination to her.

Chensi hurried toward the place where the light came from.

The place she arrived at was Jetoya’s village.

At the center of the village, a magic power generator was running, and electric lamps were lit here and there. People were moving busily.

Chensi’s face brightened.

On the other hand, the villagers’ faces filled with wariness when they saw the stranger.

“Who are you?”

“She’s from the surface.”

Just by looking at Chensi’s clothes, they realized she was not from this place.

Chensi raised both arms and said to them,

“I am not a bad person. I am a messenger sent by God, who took pity on you.”

“God?”

“Yes! God is always watching over you.”

“Bullshit! Where is there such a thing?”

“If God exists, why are we suffering like this?”

At Chensi’s words, the villagers rebelled.

People born and raised in the underground sewers did not believe in God.

They believed that if God truly existed, He would not have allowed them to be born and raised in such a filthy place.

At the villagers’ unexpected resistance, Chensi could not hide her flustered expression.

Even on the surface, many people looked at Dongdaemun’s believers with prejudice, but almost no one openly rebelled like this.

Because everyone feared Dongdaemun’s power.

But the people here were different.

To them, Dongdaemun was not a particularly frightening existence.

Most of them did not even know Dongdaemun existed.

Since they did not know it existed, naturally, they had no reason to fear it.

Chensi tried to calmly persuade the villagers.

“Everyone! God truly exists. If you believe in me and help me, I will take you to the sanctuary where God dwells. I will also prepare abundant food and places to sleep for you.”

“You’ll give us food and a place to sleep?”

“Yes! I will prepare a place on the surface where you can stay. Wouldn’t the surface be better than such a dirty and damp place?”

“Fuck! Are you mocking us?”

“What?”

“Do you even know how fatal sunlight is to those of us born and raised here? If we receive sunlight, all our skin burns.”

One of the villagers shouted in rage.

Chensi had spoken without knowing, but her words had touched the reverse scale of the people living underground.

Unless they Awakened, it was impossible for them to go up to the surface and live. Chensi had spoken as she pleased without even knowing that fact, and that angered them.

“Get lost! Fuck!”

“You surface things should live aboveground. Don’t crawl all the way down here for no reason.”

Chensi looked flustered for a moment at the people’s fierce rejection, but soon, her gaze turned cold.

Fundamentally, she was not an evangelist.

She was not the type to grab people one by one and force them to believe in God like the other believers. She was the type to execute those who did not believe in God’s teachings.

Chensi realized that persuading them with kind words was impossible.

She asked one final question.

“Is there perhaps a girl here with a special ability? For example, a girl who showed a miracle by curing an incurable illness.”

“T-that’s nonsense.”

“There’s no way something like that exists.”

At the unexpected question, the people raised their voices without realizing it.

Chensi’s gaze grew even colder.

“She exists.”

Just from the people’s fierce reaction, she could tell.

The person she was searching for had been here.

Chensi released a chill as she said,

“Hand her over. She is not someone who belongs in a filthy place like this.”

“Don’t make me laugh.”

“What kind of bullshit is that…….”

Several sturdy men could not hold back any longer and charged at Chensi.

At that moment, a silver flash gleamed from Chensi’s hand.

Slice!

The flash cut down the man charging at the front in an instant.

Thud, splatter!

The man collapsed just as he had been running, his upper and lower body separated.

His organs and blood spilled from the severed surface.

At that horrific sight, the villagers screamed.

“Aaaah!”

“Murder!”

Chensi smiled coldly at their reaction.

“That is why you should have listened while I was still speaking kindly.”

In her hand was silver thread almost invisible to the eye.

It was her own weapon, made by mixing various metals into spiderweb extracted from a spider monster.

It was sharper than a sword, more flexible than a whip, and far longer.

The killing radius of the silver thread she had named God’s Judgment exceeded several dozen meters.

Swish!

“Aaagh!”

When Chensi flicked her finger, the silver thread extended and sliced cleanly through the neck of a nearby man.

The man’s body collapsed, spraying a fountain of blood without its head.

After taking two lives in an instant, Chensi said,

“I am going to ask a few questions from now on. Every time I fail to get the answer I want, one person will die like this.”

“…….”

“First, tell me the name of the girl who showed the miracle.”

“…….”

Everyone hesitated, reading one another’s eyes.

Slice!

“Kgh!”

Chensi’s silver thread took the life of one of the villagers, and the people froze like ice.

“Name?”

“Damn it! Remura. The child’s name is Remura.”

In the end, someone confessed Remura’s name.

The smile at the corners of Chensi’s mouth deepened.

“Isn’t it nice when you speak honestly like this? Let us continue having such sincere conversations from now on. Is she in this village right now?”

“Her mother took her and left.”

“Why did she leave the village?”

“Her mother is extremely greedy. She wanted to use her daughter’s ability as an excuse to place the village under her rule, but when she failed, she left.”

“And?”

Chensi’s questions continued, and the terrified people did not dare even think of lying as they kept answering.