Carterburg, Western District, ancient underground sewer.
Falm Feller, chief preacher at the House of Bliss.
As an ancient sewer from the last era, it had long been abandoned. Nowadays, it was being used as an underground base by the Chaos Cult: House of Bliss. They had established a secret exit atop the ruins of the Western District on the surface.
This had originally been an excellent idea. Those foolish false deity believers didn’t pay much attention to the Western District, so the House of Bliss had always been operating this base with caution. After all, this was the only large base of the emerging Chaos Cult—their previous stronghold at the abandoned fortress had been thoroughly razed, the former Primate had met with an untimely death, and it was thanks to a member who stepped forward to get the cult operating again that Falm held in high esteem.
The House of Bliss worshipped the merciful Mother, a true Deity who could resurrect the dead. Falm had witnessed the resurrection of the deceased with his own eyes.
Within the cult, the believers were as close as a family. These could have been very beautiful days, but recently, the new sanctuary for private liquor designated by the cult’s new leader was siezed, greatly reducing the cult’s income. Before the cult could get the private liquor operation back up and running, that damned Gaiate brat managed to obtain a liquor license and established a large distillery. Now almost all the riffraff in the Western District got their alcohol from this distillery—the liquor it produced was usually given as a reward to people working in food processing plants, and they could also subscribe to it monthly at a very low price.
It was much cheaper than getting it from the cult’s private liquor operation, and within a week, the cult’s financial inflows had halved. What was even worse was that as more and more of the Western District’s riffraff joined those factories, even the ladies who had taken refuge with the organization controlled by the cult were beginning to pull out. It was simply not possible for the cult to control them through mind manipulation—those controlled in such a way were like walking corpses, and if the false Church discovered it, it would be an irrevocable doom.
Perhaps it was time, as His Excellency the Primate had said, to relocate the entire cult to the eastern provinces while the cult’s funds had not yet dried up. The cities there were larger, the population more numerous, and the chaotic urban areas were more suitable for the cult to hide.
Just as he thought of this, Falm heard footsteps. He turned his head and saw Finis Hallem, who served as a sentinel, running over: "Chief Preacher, sir! I have just observed something unusual, and we may have been discovered!"
What is the situation!
Falm followed Finis up to the observation post, where he could see signs of a large number of people moving around near the city wall in the district, apparently building street forts: "What’s going on!"
"I just saw an apprentice from the false Church being chased. A little rascal ran into the alley, and the one who ordered the chase went to that camp," Finis said, pointing to another camp. "Before I came down to find you, I saw signal flares rising from the north, the red flares of the false Church."
Falm looked towards the other side and frowned when he saw the camp—that camp was set up half a month ago, supposedly built out of compassion by some noble brat who was feeling too full and decided to be charitable, providing a temporary camp for refugees using some unused and dangerous old buildings. Apparently, even the city hall had given a little reward for the effort.
"Do you think it’s them causing troubles?"
"I can’t be certain."
Upon hearing Finis’s response, Falm was silent for a moment—indeed, just as Finis had said, troubles always seemed to come uninvited. Looking at the current situation, there was bound to be a fight between the camp and Carterburg. If they hadn’t discovered this stronghold, all would be well, but if they had, it was to be feared that the entire cult would be doomed.
With that thought, Falm saw another signal flare rising.
"The second signal flare, still red," Finis pointed towards the north, "Sir, the riffraff are clearly building a street fort. That Church runt has already gone to send a message. What should we do?"
"Don’t rush to close the entrance just yet," Falm said as the chief preacher, it was necessary for him to stand in the most dangerous place. "I’ll stay here to observe, and you go inform His Excellency the Primate. I will close the entrance when the time is right."
Because they were the House of Bliss, everyone was family to each other.
"Please be very careful, Your Excellency," Phineas said, crawling into the entrance.
Falm carefully clung to the side of the window, first observing the camp below. There were indeed people moving about, and it seemed they had noticed the situation on the other side and were organizing people. However, Falm wasn’t sure how many men these folks could muster—if it were the House of Bliss, they might only be able to rouse about seventy people at this point, which was already quite a remarkable number. Had it not been for the disastrous losses in the deserted fort’s operation, Falm was certain he could summon at least a five-hundred-strong force.
Although they were few in number, there were Transcendent beings among them. Though they could not compare to the quality of the false god’s Church followers, in terms of quantity alone, any individual false god’s Church wouldn’t be able to match their numbers.
But now, he had to watch the camp’s movements cautiously, hoping they wouldn’t notice him.
After a while, Falm noticed a figure in a cloak appearing in the camp, talking to someone.
Wait a minute, that person speaking with him, did he look like a Noble? Though it was hard to make out his face from a distance, the clothes on his body were definitely made of silk.
With such doubts, Falm heard a roar coming from the camp, and then, like madmen, those camp dwellers suddenly shouted and charged out. They grouped together and rushed towards the eastern city wall—were they attempting a surprise attack to capture the city gate?
Falm quickly clung to the opposite windowsill, and he saw the haphazard barricade on that street coming together—those commoners weren’t completely useless after all.
The two sides began to exchange fire, the commoners had firearms, but the camp dwellers still broke into the street barricade. Hand-to-hand combat ensued, and with a numerical advantage, the camp dwellers had already forced their way in.
A shameful numbers game it was, the two sides with no Transcendent capabilities were like wild dogs fighting over food, killing each other.
Falm snorted softly, and just as he was about to crawl through the entrance and close it, he saw a crimson Fireball smash into the crowd of refugees.
Watching bodies and body parts blown away, Falm’s eye twitched—at the level of his Transcendent Sequence ’Courier’, that Fireball must have been at least an enhanced fifth-ring Spell Formation for maximum effect.
Then he saw a small figure charging out of the alley, and looking at the axe in his hand, Falm’s eyes bulged—wait a minute, wasn’t that Malin Gaiate, the Apprentice of the false god’s Church Goddess of Harvest?
This damned brat! They were still figuring out how to retaliate for the destruction of the Church’s illegal liquor camp!
Instead of choosing the open road to heaven, you’ve come knocking on the gates of hell!
You little punk! You’re dead meat!