Chapter 293: The Helpless Dilemma

‘The risk seems quite high. But if you want to gain power , how can you not pay a price? Although the Golden Core stage is still far away for me, it is better to finish cultivating the Jade Pillar Golden Body Technique as soon as possible.’ Facing the Three Calamities that would surely come in the future, George had some hidden worries in his heart. At the same time, George believed that the method known as the highest achievement of Daoist body cultivation had a strong effect against supernatural energy.

Besides this, there was another thing that George had always been worried about: the assassin who attacked him before was still missing. Even when Laurel Botfish, the master of the Divination School who had completed his own experiment, personally intervened, he could not get accurate information.

Because so much time had passed, the opponent had enough time to prepare fully to counter Divination Magic. Finally, the information obtained was a bit more than what George’s apprentice who had traveled with him for many years had provided, but it only pointed to a very secretive organization on the Western Continent called the “Blood Oath Veil of Night”. Even if the perpetrator of this assassination was not a member, they must have had close ties with them.

There was no information about the mastermind behind the scenes. The only thing that could be confirmed was that the liaison responsible for contacting the “Blood Oath Veil of Night” had died. Moreover, to prevent magical reverse tracking, the opponent had been extremely thorough in destroying all evidence.

The “Blood Oath Veil of Night” was a secretive sect that had existed on the Western Continent for a long time. On the surface, this organization seemed to be an emerging religion that worshipped blood, obsessed with the symbolism of blood such as fertility, death, and the undead. They believed that blood was the source of life, and the undead were the path to becoming a god.

According to reliable news, the leader of this organization loved to plot various conspiracies. Whether they were true core members or ordinary believers who did not realize they were helping with the conspiracy, they all worshipped the ancient vampire Applegarth, who called herself the Queen of the Dead.

The history of the “Blood Oath Veil of Night” could be traced back to a distant past, even existing during the time of the Old Empire. Clarence Gardner Applegarth was an extremely powerful Necromancer who hoped to revive the ancient Applegarth family by changing their bloodline.

According to existing records, at first, the Applegarth family slowly executed their plans in the Dobuni Islands in the south of what is now the Republic of Tutker, at the palace in Scarlet Castle. In Dobuni, their subordinates controlled the Mercy Convent in the city of Rostorn, which never slept. Other strongholds, temples, and secret altars were spread throughout the Tutker region, and some even penetrated deep into the hinterlands of the neighboring country of Aennor.

It was said that 2200 years ago, Clarence Gardner Applegarth was the luckiest descendant of the Applegarth family, having inherited the bloodline of the Banshee of the Underworld. Although this family had declined over time, the power within their bloodline had also constantly degenerated.

At that time, Applegarth tried to improve her family’s bloodline inheritance by mixing Elf and Dragon bloodlines, using the theory of hybrid advantages. Clarence Gardner Applegarth was the final product of Magic combined with Elf and Green Dragon bloodlines. This was truly an amazing situation, considering that Elves were the number one item on the menu of a Green Dragon.

Clarence grew up in secret protection, and the Applegarth family hoped to use this as an opportunity to find a path for their family bloodline to come back to life. But unfortunately, Clarence’s identity was eventually revealed to the outside world.

In any era, research on human modification belonged to the type that could not be seen in the light. Not to mention the cruel experiments and modifications Clarence Gardner Applegarth had experienced as an infant. Just before that, the huge number of children “consumed” as test subjects for the research was enough to pile up a mass grave for ten thousand people.

The Mercy Convent, which was responsible for providing these test subjects or experimental materials, truly lived up to its name of “Mercy”! Imagine how much blood and light would be seen under the light of Detect Evil by such a family that committed such acts and had never done good deeds in their daily life. In daily life, they relied entirely on Magic Items that resisted detection spells to suppress this.

Of course, the exposure of this inhuman and evil experiment was just the trigger for a series of events that happened later. The root cause was the greed of the surrounding rulers for the Dobuni Islands. Whether it was salt, sea fish, or pearls, they were all very important resources at that time, not to mention the important tax revenue brought by being a transit port and a safe harbor.

If things had gone smoothly, that would have been fine. But once there was a pretext for war, no one would let this big fat piece of meat go. The current pretext for war was perfectly justified. In addition to the noble class fighting for territorial interests, the mercenaries fighting for fame and fortune, and the wild or domesticated Paladins who fought for their ideals in their hearts, they all joined forces at this moment. For their different purposes, they launched a comprehensive extermination of the Applegarth family.

Taking a Lord as an example, the strength accumulated by the Applegarth family over a hundred years was not something to be underestimated. However, the scandal that broke out really made their own people panic, and the strength of the attacking enemy group was even more rare than before.

In the end, the Applegarth family was slaughtered to the last person. The head of the family used her ability to transcend death to ensure the survival of her beloved daughter. Clarence thus became a Vampire, becoming the last memory of the glory of the ancient family. Perhaps the ability to control blood allowed the energy originally hidden in her bloodline to be revealed.

Her haggard face gave people a sense of beauty of a delicate woman, but her pale skin was easily scraped or bruised, like a peach that was overripe. However, her tough muscle fibers and powerful magical power gave her the ability to protect herself and the desire for revenge.

Being clever, she experienced the initial failures and the chase that followed for thousands of miles. After changing her identity and going into hiding, she formed the initial “Blood Oath Veil of Night”. Through underworld methods like the Thieves’ Guild and the psychology of some people fearing death, this organization continued to develop and grow stronger during the Empire’s time.

Clarence Gardner Applegarth’s plan was complex and layered. She used her most loyal believers to collect intelligence on a large scale, infiltrate the high-level government, and observe the signs of the distant bloodline of the Applegarth family still spreading. If it were not for her planning revenge against the Alderton family who occupied the Dobuni Islands, and the Agonison and Caldwell families who participated in the attack along with their vassals, no one would probably know her true identity until now.

In fact, the reason why the Republic of Tutker was able to be established today was closely related to her, both openly and secretly. After the founding of the country, the mutual integration between the two made the whole country become the headquarters of the “Blood Oath Veil of Night”. Many rich merchants who were originally there, due to their fear of death, gave them the opportunity to develop and grow. Of course, the time when they truly began to turn towards a Church was only within the last 300 to 400 years.

Nowadays, the believers deceived by Applegarth include various common races. Her true believers include both the living and intelligent undead. The priests Val trusted the most were usually Vampires, Mummies, and Liches, all of whom were willing to accept her command.

To promote her plans, Applegarth also formed the Carnis Bloodfang Legion as a large-scale violent organization on her periphery. It was unknown how she managed to make most residents of Kowray believe that the Carnis Bloodfang Legion was just an independent underworld organization and had no direct connection with the “Blood Oath Veil of Night”.

Of course, since it was already an alternative Church, the reason why the “Blood Oath Veil of Night” has not been destroyed so far is that Clarence Gardner Applegarth herself has lit her own divine fire during her life span of thousands of years. However, she lacked some aspects of accumulation and did not have a powerful backer, so she had not been able to formally build her own divine office yet.

The long-term hostility and extermination by many righteous people and organizations against the “Blood Oath Veil of Night” over a thousand years had begun to become restrained after Clarence Gardner Applegarth formally transcended the secular world and began to constrain her own organization. After all, among so many enemies, an organization that seemed to show goodwill and was gradually turning neutral would usually not be the first target.

It could be said that even if Bolerum faced them, the latter was a giant. The ratio of strength between the two was not very equal. Besides that Demi-God who served as the highest martial power, the strength of the Republic of Tutker was also not to be underestimated.

If George really was assassinated and killed, many members of the Valiant Continent Knight Parliament, feeling his pain. Perhaps to prevent similar events from happening again, they would organize an expedition of the Knight Order to make that Demi-God lose a few layers of skin even if they did not die.

But after all, the assassination had failed. After weighing the pros and cons, although the Knight Parliament was putting pressure on the “Blood Oath Veil of Night”, they did not take any actual action. The other side, except for responding at the beginning by saying they would give an explanation, had remained silent about this ever since.

Val Knight said this to George about this: ‘It seems that the next matter will be quite difficult to handle. For an organization like the “Blood Oath Veil of Night” that has existed for a thousand years, they would never intentionally provoke the Knight Parliament. So the most likely thing is that it was the private action of a new member who joined recently. So the next matter will probably be the other side giving you some compensation, George. As for the rest, I think the difficulty is great.’

‘The difficulty is so great that they cannot even hand over the person who committed the crime? Are they preparing to handle it internally?’ George said, staring with wide eyes at Val Knight who stood straight in front of him.

Val Knight felt a bit uncomfortable under George’s stare. He explained helplessly with a full face of frustration: ‘If the perpetrator was really in their hands, they would have thrown them out long ago to reduce the pressure. You know, they have written rules internally that absolutely forbid using assassination methods to attack the heir of a Knight family. But since the other side has been silent for so long, it can only mean that the assassin is not under their control, or even they have lost contact with them long ago.’

George showed a face of gritted teeth: ‘Does this mean the clue is broken? Without the protection of a powerful force, how did the other side escape the positioning and investigation of a great Prophet?’

‘Based on the interference situation before, and my experience of studying Divination Magic for so many years. The most likely possibility is that the assassin has gone to the Underdark with the Dark Elves. From this point of view, the other side clearly understood the consequences that this action would bring. Taking advantage of this opportunity, they prepared a way out in advance.’ Master Laurel Botfish put down the teacup in his hand, stood up, and explained to George.

George’s intuition seemed to tell him that the matter behind this was probably not that simple: ‘So does this mean this matter has absolutely nothing to do with the “Blood Oath Veil of Night”? Could it be that the whole thing was planned by them from beginning to end?’

‘To be honest, there is a possibility of this aspect. But the other side’s actions were still quite clean and efficient. From the intelligence we currently have, it is quite difficult to point out that the other side participated in it. George, you should know that unless there is solid evidence, even the Knight Parliament does not want to have a large-scale conflict with such a large organization.’ Knight Val immediately picked up the conversation.

‘The principle of justice only works within the range of cannons’ is a rule that can be applied everywhere. If the other side did not have such powerful strength, just to intimidate those potential challengers, the Knight Parliament would have crushed them long ago to kill the chicken to scare the monkey for others to see. It is not like now, waiting for the other side to soften.

‘Actually, if we could find a master who uses Deep Earth Divination, we might really be able to locate the position of that assassin.’ Master Laurel Botfish pondered for a moment, and then gave an answer that seemed feasible.

But before George’s mood could improve because of this, the other side poured another bucket of cold water: ‘But the difficulty of this is not much less than directly searching for the other side. After all, Deep Earth Prophets are almost all in the Underdark. Even among the Dwarves and Gnomes who fled there before, there were very few. And the distance between those few and the masters is still far away! Even if someone among them could really reach that level, the fastest it would take would be ten or twenty years.’

The so-called Deep Earth Prophets are friends of the earth and the things hidden within it. This group understands the rocks, structures, faults, radiation points, and mineral forms of the Underdark. They use their Earth powers to probe energy flows, especially Earth Nodes, which they can use to replenish and amplify their own Secret Art powers. Some Deep Earth Prophets can even summon Earth Elementals for service.

Most importantly, Deep Earth Prophets can merge their consciousness into the earth to obtain information about nearby scenery, including: terrain, plants, water bodies, residents, distribution of ordinary animals, current state of forests, current state of powerful unnatural creatures, or the general state of the natural environment. At the same time, they can use Divination Magic freely without being interfered by earth vein radiation.

It is often seen that groups of Deep Earth Prophets work together to protect or watch over special or node-rich areas in the Underdark. In other cases, a solitary Deep Earth Prophet might search for a perfect Earth Node alone for their own use. Solitary Deep Earth Prophets often appear self-centered, but not necessarily evil.

However, Deep Earth Prophets do not like to participate in groups that often travel on the Surface. However, some Earth Nodes are close to the Surface, and their height is enough to allow Deep Earth Prophets to occasionally communicate with the earth with their souls.

It is precisely this characteristic that allows them to exert their maximum strength only in specific regions that makes their numbers always small. Since the foundation of the group is not large, the strong people who reach a certain level of strength are even fewer.

Knowing that the matter could not be done, George finally suppressed the anger in his heart and temporarily set aside the handling of this matter. Fortunately, the results of Jinluoke’s actions gave George a certain comfort.

Six pairs of Vampire fangs represented that at least six Vampires had died in their hunt. In fact, George had not thought before that there would be so many dangerous molecules hiding in his territory.

However, according to Jinluoke’s later report: the last few of these guys, when the Dark Elves were about to launch their final crazy counterattack, seemed to be going to support them, which is when they showed their flaws and were killed.

Based on this, George analyzed that these Vampires should have wanted to hide their identities and stay in the territory before. They waited for the Dark Elves to have a smooth battle situation to attack Bolerum Territory from the inside and outside. They did not expect that those Dark Elves would fail so quickly, so they were defeated one by one by experienced hunters.

George, who was relatively satisfied with the performance of this squad, not only fulfilled all the promises he had given them before but also gave them an extra reward of 200 Gold Coins.

Of course, another thing that made people happy was that since the current war had ended, the Knights and their attendants who were originally stationed at Broken Halberd Fortress were able to return to the territory for repairs. At the same time, they brought back a large amount of Loot. The most eye-catching of these was a silk robe.

This light black robe was covered with silver spider web patterns. At the collar buckle was a silver brooch carved in the shape of a spider with a purple eye. It was said to be woven from spider silk spit by Lolth herself. The Wisp Robe was occasionally given as a reward to those Lolth believers who were not worthy of such a heavy reward, to test how quickly her favored priests could get their hands on them.

It can be said that before this, all known Wisp Robes were in the hands of Drow priests. If the user’s alignment is Chaotic Evil, Neutral Evil, or Chaotic Neutral, the Wisp Robe will provide a good point resistance bonus to their full immunity.

If the user establishes a correct Divine Arts connection, the robe will also provide them with a continuous Spider Climb effect. To use the relic power, the user must worship Lolth and either permanently sacrifice a 4th Level Divine Arts slot or have the True Believer ability and have the strength to use at least 4th Level spells. If she sacrifices a 7th Level Divine Arts slot or has the True Believer ability and has at least the strength to use 7th Level spells, she will also gain a continuous Freedom of Movement effect.

This made this Magic Item, although precious, a complete chicken rib – because for Knights, there was actually no use value. As for selling it back to the Dark Elves underground? This kind of aiding the enemy would definitely be condemned by everyone. Otherwise, this high-level Magic Item would not have become the Loot of the Bolerum defenders.

Finally, Val Knight took it into his possession with the equivalent of 4000 Gold Coins. It was unknown if it was really as a collection or if there was a way to change its effect. Of course, the gems equivalent to 600 Gold Coins entered the Vault of the Lord’s Mansion. George was quite satisfied with this.