Chapter 1606: Ominous Saint

’Logos, Pathos. What the fuck?’

<=We, uh...we don’t know. =>

’Fuck.’

...

^Now then, young man, I suggest you pull back those violent urges and allow the pilgrims to continue on their path, ^ the robed woman said as she delicately yet forcefully pushed back against Miguel’s arm and forced the young man to dispel the aether surrounding his fist. ^We wouldn’t want to get the temple guard involved, right? ^

After asking this rhetorical question, the robed woman released the fist with the expectation that the offender would stop attempting (and horribly failing) to kill Zhen Liu.

Judging from the fact that the young fellow had more or less pulled himself back like a dog that had been smacked in the face, Miguel more than agreed that attracting the ire of the temple guard was probably a very bad idea.

Shortly after retreating, Preacher "Leandros" moved to the side of his supposed son and began to cluck over the boy’s wellbeing. At this point, though, the two crowds were promptly ignoring each other, especially since the robed woman shooed away the preacher and his congregation in order to privately speak with Cleric Oswin and the foreign tourists he was leading around.

^Cleric Oswin, are you okay?^

^Yes, ma’am! Thank you for getting us out of that hairy situation.^ Cleric Oswin said while bowing in a manner that suggested he actually knew who this robed woman was but was doing his best to hide that fact. ^If you hadn’t intervene, I’m fairly certain things would’ve ended violently.^

"Yeah, for that hypocrite of preacher and his bastard kid," Zhen Liu grumbled in his native tongue to avoid being registered.

"Hmmm?"

Unfortunately, he had been caught.

The robed woman who had defended Zhen Liu proceeded to lean towards him so that her face was a little lower so that she could do that whole "mysterious beauty takes a peek from behind her veil" thing. At least, that’s the impression Zhen Liu got from the mysterious woman.

Well, that and he couldn’t help but to notice that the woman had vibrant red eyes that looked...oddly familiar. He just couldn’t tell from where.

Those crimson eyes stared at Zhen Liu for a few more moments, silence lasting only seconds yet feeling like hours, until she spoke...in a language that only Zhen Liu could understand: English.

"You’re a long way from home, aren’t you?"

"How the—"

"No...this is your home now since neither one of you is complete enough to fully replace the other. How peculiar."

"What does that mean?!"

Alas, he wasn’t going to get a clear answer...at least not yet.

The red-robed woman promptly ignored Zhen Liu after delivering that ominous-as-fuck message, and addressed the group of tourists directly.

^Friends from afar, I do hope this... unpleasant encounter...doesn’t paint our fair city in a bad light in your eyes. Diverse voices, even ones that may sound unpleasant to the ears of most people, is what helps us to refine our ideas and grow spiritually. As is the way of cultivation.^

The crowd of foreigners let out murmurs of agreement to that particular statement.

Conflict and pacifist enlightenment went hand in hand when it came to strengthening a warrior’s formula. Needless to say, focusing on one end or the other led to cultivators developing in rather unusual ways.

Regardless, the foreign tourists and Zhen Liu’s group more or less accepted the red-robed woman’s apology and moved on to finish their tour.

As for the red-robed woman, she had left in the opposite direction.

Zhen Liu stared in her direction for a couple of moments, wondering if he should send a kaijin to tail her. In the end, he decided against.

...Wait, what? Why?...

[Milord, are you sure you don’t want to send at least one of the ghost zakos to spy on her?] Nepherage asked. [They are the stealthiest, even amongst us Kaijin.]

[Wait, if we were to induct one of the spirit zako amongst our ranks, would they be part of one of the existing units or would they be the start of a new one?] Hurricroak asked as an aside. [Because I’m noticing our groups got like...fusion synergy going on.]

[I mean...do the Doll Twins count as a single unit or as separate units,] Screamira wondered aloud.

[We don’t know,] Porcelain Doll and Corpse Doll answered simultaneously. [We think we have to develop a core first.]

[Huh...]

’Nah, it’s fine,’ Zhen Liu answered Nepherage. ’We are probably going to see her later at that whole nighttime service thing...ugh, I haven’t been to a night time mass since I was...huh. Now that’s an interesting thought.’

[Milord?]

’If I were to make the statement, "since I was a kid", would that be referring to the kid that was Zhen Liu or the kid that was Thomas Lee? Or is it both? What an odd thought...’

<=Milord, are you thinking about this since that red-robed lady spooked ya?=>

’Yes.’

<=Hmmm=>

...Cue the time skip...

The third stop of the tour was majestic and somewhat breathtaking, but the violence that had occurred during the second part of the tour left a somewhat bitter tang in the mouth of most of the foreign tourists.

Which is why when Cleric Oswin asked if any of the tourists wanted to go along with him to the nighttime service at the central cathedral, a good chunk of them outright refused.

The only ones who agreed to come along were a handful of tourists who were made of sterner stuff, and Zhen Liu’s group.

Which came as a surprise to Zhen Liu himself, because he honestly figured that none of them would be interested in the slightest, altercation or not.

"Really? You guys wanna come along for this?"

"Like we said before, you’re kind of a magnet for trouble, intrigue, and beautiful women who just seem to fall head over heel over ya" Jinju Ren informed her fiancee. "We’re tagging along to make sure the former two doesn’t kill you, and I’m curious if that third thing will occur while I’m by your side. Well, me and Rianna that is."

"That’s...fair enough."

Since his allies wanted to come along, Zhen Liu didn’t try to stop them. He did, however, made sure that there was at least one kaijin attached to each of them...without them knowing.

Old habits died hard, and there was something about the red-robed woman that bothered him.

’I wonder how big of a gathering this night time service is going to be?’

...Okay, one more time skip...

"Holy crap..."

When Zhen Liu and his friends arrived at the Central Cathedral, they were honestly expecting it to be borderline empty.

Night time religious services, at least in Zhen Liu’s mind, were usually meant for those who couldn’t sleep, those who wanted to avoid the spotlight, or those who were incredibly devout.

Zhen Liu and his friends were none of these, and from what he could see, none of the gathered were like that either.

Surprisingly, there were a lot of young men and women around his age. If this wasn’t taking place inside of a cathedral big enough to make Notre Dame look like a chapel, Zhen Liu would’ve thought he had stumbled on to a midnight feast of some kind.

He was just about to make sure this was the case, when he was interrupted by the sound of a pipe organ rocking through the space and silencing everyone.

Oddly, he noticed, that the eyes of crowd began to light up like they were about to witness the descent of an angel...which wasn’t wrong.

After everyone had gone quiet, a choir that had kept itself hidden started to sing a religious hymn in a language that Zhen Liu recognized as being quite old.

The song of a choir heralded the arrival of a beautiful young woman dressed in an elaborate religious robe and wearing a rather ostentatious crown. A beautiful woman that had the most beautiful crimson eyes, no less.

’Huh...’

Thinking back on that earlier message, Zhen Liu was right to assume that the woman was probably some high-ranking official.

He was not, however, expecting them to be the leader of the whole fucking church.

^Her Holiness, the First Hearth Tender has arrived,^an assisting priest called out to the crowd. ^All rise so that she may began the blessing.^

’Say what?’

...

<=Huh...=>

Logos and Pathos stared at the screen in utter disbelief as they looked at the so-called First Hearth Tender that had spooked their Lord just hours ago.

They had calculated that the chances of their Lord running into the leadership of the Theocracy to be a one in a hundred chance since they were in the capital...they just weren’t expecting it to happen today.

Nor were they expecting the leader of this religion to be of courtship age with their Lord.

Again.

=I...I don’t think that’s going to lead anywhere, that message was clearly generic and meant for literally anyone who can use [Chaos]. I mean, they used the term, "Shaper". Nobody today uses that term.=

<I wouldn’t be entirely sure,> Pathos refuted. <We’re just assuming based on incomplete data.>

=Fair enough...=