The City Lord’s Mansion of Fearless City occupied an extremely large area. Although Ye Chui had already pointed out the general direction to Debbie, Green, and the others, finding Alba quickly was still not easy.
Debbie hijacked a servant and learned from him where Alba’s courtyard was located. The Fearless City Lord had five children. Alba, as an illegitimate daughter, had only recently moved into the mansion. Her residence was quite remote. After much difficulty, Debbie and the others finally found that courtyard, but Alba was not inside. From a maid in the courtyard, they learned that she had gone to visit one of her siblings. The maid did not know exactly where. So the group wandered around the mansion for a while and finally decided to split up to search.
Just as Ye Chui obtained the Tomb Guardian decree from the Fearless City Lord, Debbie and Gunnie finally spotted Alba’s figure in a garden.
Alba was a girl of about sixteen or seventeen. Her appearance could not really be called beautiful, and her skin was somewhat rough, suggesting she had lived a very poor life before. Now she wore luxurious clothes and skirts, but paired with her somewhat dull demeanour, it looked rather out of place. She was trembling and hiding behind a large tree with one of her older sisters.
The disturbance in the City Lord’s Mansion had terrified them. When they saw Debbie and Gunnie, who looked like fierce villains, rush into the garden, a servant waved his long sword to attack the two. Gunnie directly swung her giant sword, which was bigger than a person, and sent him flying. The sister standing with Alba let out a sharp “ah” scream and fainted on the spot.
Debbie curiously walked toward the tree and asked, “Excuse me, are you Miss Alba?”
“Yes, it is me. Who are you people? This is the City Lord’s Mansion! Are you, are you here to rob us?” the girl replied. She was indeed Alba, and her body was still shaking nonstop.
“Do not worry, we are not bad people. Have you heard of the Seven Deadly Sins Thieves group? We are actually good people…” Debbie quickly tried to reassure her.
But upon hearing this, Alba seemed even more frightened. In the eyes of the poor, the Seven Deadly Sins Thieves group were great heroes. In the eyes of the rich and powerful, however, they were genuine arch-villains. In recent days, Alba had obviously heard plenty of rumours portraying the Thieves group as utterly heinous.
“Do not be afraid. We absolutely will not hurt you. In fact, we are here to help you,” Debbie said, trying hard to show her friendliness. She slowly approached Alba. “We are here to help you reunite with Stu.”
“Stu?” Alba was stunned.
At that moment, Green’s brick arrived unexpectedly. With a bang, it struck Alba right on the forehead. Alba’s eyes rolled back, and her body collapsed to the ground with a thud.
Debbie: “…”
Boom. A wall on one side of the garden was blasted open. Salome and Green emerged from inside. Green even said proudly, “Finally found her. Quick, carry her and let’s regroup with the guild leader!”
Debbie hurriedly checked Alba’s condition. She discovered that Green had held back appropriately. Alba had only fainted. Debbie stood up, somewhat annoyed, and said, “Who told you to knock her out!”
“Didn’t the guild leader say so?” Green still had Stu on his shoulder. He weighed the situation and felt it would be difficult to keep carrying both, so he said to Salome, “You carry her. Let us hurry and meet up with the guild leader.”
Salome’s mouth was stuffed full. She had somehow found a pile of pastries somewhere. Hearing Green’s words, she mumbled in agreement, walked over, and hoisted Alba onto her shoulder.
Watching the girl’s practised movements, Debbie suddenly felt a deep wave of self-doubt: Why do I feel like we really are bandits now?
After finding Alba, Debbie, Green, Gunnie, and Salome quickly reunited with Lisa and Silas.
In the随意名字 Magic Guild, Ye Chui and Debbie had very casual personalities, which formed the core spirit of the guild. Green loved gambling and had recently become obsessed with fitness. Gunnie and Salome were foodies. Lisa and Silas, on the other hand, were more like typical noble young ladies. They usually loved shopping, fancying all kinds of beautiful clothes and luxury goods. When Debbie found them, the two had just come out of the City Lord’s wife’s chambers, each hugging a pile of exquisite cosmetics. Several maids lay unconscious on the floor in that room…
Seeing how delighted the two looked, Debbie immediately felt an even stronger sense of self-doubt: Oh no, the bandit vibes are getting way too real…
Then, when they found Ye Chui, they saw him happily holding a stack of gold coin cards and saying to them, “I never expected this. That Fearless City Lord is such a coward. I did not even plan to rob him this time, but he got so scared that he obediently handed over a bunch of gold coin cards himself. There are more than two hundred thousand gold coins here. Looks like he has been raking in quite a lot of dirty money over the years. We have struck it rich this time.”
Ye Chui had made the Fearless City Lord sign the Tomb Guardian decree and was already preparing to leave. But as a gesture of thanks, he had merely patted the City Lord on the shoulder. The City Lord immediately knelt down and voluntarily offered a pile of gold coin cards to beg for mercy. Seeing his pathetic state, Ye Chui felt it would be unkind not to accept them.
Looking at the gold coin cards in Ye Chui’s hand, Debbie finally confirmed beyond doubt: Yes, we really are bandits…
At this moment, the Eye of Lightning still hovered above Ye Chui’s head, scanning the surroundings. They had been inside the City Lord’s Mansion for half an hour now. Although the outside was still shrouded in a layer of mist, quite a few city guards had already rushed over and surrounded the area. Ye Chui could even sense many believers among them. Fearless City was a city firmly controlled by the Church. The bishop in charge of the Church’s power here held even greater status and influence than the City Lord.
Right now, that bishop had already arrived outside the mansion. Ye Chui’s mist could not stop him from entering. Through the Eye of Lightning, Ye Chui also noticed that the bishop seemed somewhat unusual. His aura felt strange.
“Looks like we need to leave quickly…” Debbie said after hearing Ye Chui describe the situation around them. She had already lifted her head to look at the sky.
In the sky, the flying demon vehicle was rapidly descending under Ye Chui’s summons.
Ten minutes later, the mist walls enveloping the City Lord’s Mansion dissipated. Large groups of city guards and believers surged into the mansion, but Ye Chui and the others had long since vanished without a trace.
“Bishop Lakin, you must help me this time. It is the Thieves group! They are utterly lawless. They directly robbed the City Lord’s Mansion, killed Beane, abducted my daughter, and, and stole more than two hundred thousand gold coins from me!” The short, fat Fearless City Lord rushed in panic toward a tall man dressed in a black believer’s robe and wailed.
That tall man was thin and lanky. Even his face was elongated. He had a pair of cold, narrowed eyes like slits. His hair was somewhat messy. From the outside, his exact age was hard to tell. He looked like a man in his forties or fifties, yet also gave the feeling of a twenty-year-old youth.
Fearless City bordered the Sacred Heart Kingdom. The person in charge of Church affairs in such a city should at minimum be an archbishop, or even a cardinal archbishop was very possible. Yet the head of the Church here was only a bishop. This was a very strange situation. The main reason was Lakin’s uniqueness.
Lakin looked down coldly at the Fearless City Lord. A holy bible floated beside him like a spellbook.
Unlike ordinary spellbooks, believers normally needed to hold the bible in their hands to use the power of faith. But Lakin was completely different. He could use the bible exactly like a spellbook!
Lakin was originally an extremely outstanding magister. But more than ten years ago, during a duel, his spellbook was destroyed. From then on, he embarked on a different path.
Apart from Ye Chui’s special case, very few people could fuse the powers of a believer and a magister. But Lakin succeeded. He integrated the bible into his own body. The scriptures became his spells. He used the power of faith as his mana. In short, he treated holy words as spells.
Therefore, although he was only a bishop, his power had already approached the level of a cardinal archbishop, nearly reaching the realm of “words becoming reality.”
However, dual cultivation of faith and magic was extremely difficult. Even with Lakin’s exceptional talent, further progress had become nearly impossible.
“The Seven Deadly Sins Thieves group?” Lakin sneered coldly upon hearing the Fearless City Lord’s words. “No, they are not some Thieves group. A suddenly emerging chivalrous thieves group could not possibly have this kind of ability. They are the随意名字 Magic Guild!”
Pope Boris knew that Ye Chui and the others planned to head to the haunted mine at the foot of the Doomsday Mountains. Although the Pope’s original intention was to have Ye Chui enter the haunted mine, for certain interesting purposes, he had quietly issued divine oracles to the Church leaders in several cities. Therefore, as soon as the Seven Deadly Sins Thieves group appeared, the Church leaders had already identified their true identities.
“Alba is a ‘faith seed’ I went to great lengths to find. Anyone who dares rob my woman, I will never forgive!” Lakin said coldly. “They will not escape!”
Powerful believers would cultivate personal nuns by their side. Lakin had a strong interest in this. The main reason was that dual faith-magic cultivation required a ‘faith seed’ to solidify one’s belief. Alba was exactly the faith seed Lakin had chosen.
…
At the foot of the Doomsday Mountains, in a forest, the flying demon vehicle landed.
The elf baby happily pounced into Ye Chui’s arms. Having been stuck inside the flying demon vehicle these past few days had made the little elf extremely bored. Ye Chui rubbed the baby’s green hair while looking at Stu and Alba lying on the ground. He said to his companions, “Wake them up. Give them some money and let them flee far away.”
As he spoke, Ye Chui waved his hand and stored away the flying demon vehicle. They had obtained the Tomb Guardian decree. The Thieves group could now disband. But at the final moment, they still needed to put on one last big act.
Stu, whose body was pitch-black from the lightning strike, and Alba, who felt dizzy and dazed, soon woke up.
After standing up, Stu nervously scanned the surroundings. His gaze finally landed on Alba. “Alba!? Where is this place? What just happened?”
“You really forgot again. Do you not remember? After you were struck by Beane’s lightning, you awakened the Thunder God’s power once more!” Ye Chui put down the elf baby and said with a grateful expression.
Debbie chimed in, “You truly live up to being the Thunder God’s successor. So powerful. You instantly killed Beane and led us straight into the City Lord’s Mansion!”
Stu stared at his own hands in shock, his eyes wide open in disbelief.
Green continued, “None of the city guards in the mansion were your match. You knocked them all down. Our Thieves group has never met anyone as strong as you! You are simply amazing!”
“Thunder God successor Stu. By now, your name must have spread throughout all of Fearless City!”
“Following your instructions, we also brought Miss Alba out with us.”
“You led us to escape dozens of miles in one go just now!”
Lisa, Silas, and the others also chimed in with praise.
Finally, Ye Chui took out several gold coin cards and placed them in Stu’s hand. “Here are two thousand gold coins. Although the power of the Thunder God is strong, I have heard that demigod bloodlines should not be activated too often. So in the future, you had better not deliberately get struck by lightning. The Church will never allow descendants of the gods to exist. If you use your power again, you will definitely be hunted by the Church. This money is our gratitude for saving our lives. You have now achieved your wish of taking Miss Alba away. Use this money to live in another country.”
“Without realising it, I actually did something so amazing…” Stu took the few gold coin cards in a dazed state. No matter whether he would figure it out later, at this moment, he was completely convinced that he was indeed the Thunder God’s successor!
He looked toward Alba. “Miss Alba…”
“So everything was your doing!” When Alba first woke up, her face was full of terror. But after hearing Ye Chui and the others’ rambling words, she understood the “truth” of the matter. Her face filled with anger. “Who gave you the right to take me out of the City Lord’s Mansion!”
Ye Chui and the others: “Huh!?”
“Miss Alba, I have always adored you…” Stu hurriedly tried to explain.
“But I do not like you at all! I was about to become the bishop’s personal nun. This is a blessed fate I cultivated over many lifetimes. Yet you kept pestering me. And now you have even done something so terrifying!”
“Miss Alba, please do not be angry. I will definitely treat you well from now on…”
“I have long since given myself to the Church, to the gods. Who do you think you are?” Alba put her hands on her hips, looking arrogant and triumphant. “Do you know that serving Bishop Lakin personally is something I would laugh about even in my dreams? Why do you keep pestering me? You even colluded with those Thieves group. I am truly disappointed in you. Hurry and send me back to Fearless City. Better yet, capture those Thieves group too. If you do that, perhaps I can ask my father to spare your life!”
Listening to the conversation between Stu and Alba, Ye Chui and the others were now completely dumbfounded: “…”
What the hell? This plot is all wrong!
So all this time, Stu had been the one with unrequited love?
And this Alba turned out to be a severe case of Church brainwashing!?
