Chapter 378: Waging a war
Eren could feel the Cardinal’s strong hostility towards him. Amidst that strong hostility, there was also a faint trace of killing intent, as if the Cardinal couldn’t wait to tear him apart.
This was the same Cardinal who had earlier mocked the Great Demon Sect for having
weak Great Elders when Eren had first
arrived in the Holy City.
Observing the Cardinal’s reaction, Eren wondered if he should have really selected the option about killing a Cardinal. They were practically handing him an excuse, after all.
Before Eren had crossed level 40, a Cardinal could have been compared to him
in raw stats. But now, he was much
stronger. After crossing the fourth great wall, his stats had increased a lot.
Still, this was the domain of the Holy Church, where they were strong and everyone else was weak.
He could negate the effects of the Holy Domain, but only by utilizing the Sword Emperor’s Aura, which was another
problem in itself. If he were to fight, he wanted to do so when he could eliminate them all.
“You!” The Cardinal’s expression darkened further. He took a step forward, only to stop as he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Is the Cardinal trying to harm my brother?” A voice came from behind. The Cardinal looked back, finding the Holy Emperor’s younger brother standing there.
For some reason, he felt immense pressure on his shoulder. Even with his considerable strength, he couldn’t easily free himself. The man behind him was surprisingly powerful.
The Holy Emperor’s younger brother, Uriel, was quite famous throughout the Holy City. It was said that he was born with a blessed bloodline. When he entered the world, many strange and auspicious phenomena were witnessed in the sky.
Even as he grew up, Uriel displayed greater talents than the current Holy Emperor
Damien. Not only was his bloodline considered purer than Damien’s, but his abilities were equally impressive.
At the mere age of ten, Uriel had already defeated his sword instructor. By the time he reached fifteen, he had defeated an Archbishop in a training battle.
Many believed that Uriel was destined to
become the next Holy Emperor. After all, despite being the younger son, his talents surpassed those of his older sibling. It was
assumed that the Royal Family would regain their former glory under Uriel’s leadership.
Unfortunately, the previous Holy Emperor passed away before Uriel could even turn eighteen. Since Uriel was still a minor, the elder son Damien ascended the throne.
No one knew how the previous Holy Emperor died so suddenly. At that time, there were even some rumors that the Holy Church was behind it.
As they didn’t want Uriel to take the
throne, they killed the previous Holy Emperor so that Damien could ascend who could be controlled more easily by them.
The rumors were very damaging to the reputation of the Holy Church. Because of those rumors, the Holy Church also grew quite weak at that time.
Unfortunately, the rumors didn’t last long. Most of the people who were spreading the rumors started disappearing until the rumor simply stopped as well.
With time, the Holy Church also recovered their previous influence if not more. Now, barely anyone even remembered those rumors. Even if someone heard those
rumors, they only considered them to be
lies.
Even though Uriel knew that his brother
wasn’t involved in the death of their father, he still couldn’t watch the Royal Authority being abused by the Holy Church through Damien who had simply become a pawn.
The only solution was to kill his brother and take the throne back, but Uriel also didn’t want to hurt his own brother.
Even though he didn’t like the cowardice of
his brother, it was still his own blood. It
was still the same brother who had cared for him when he was little.
Uriel couldn’t watch Damien work with the
Holy Church but he also couldn’t stop him. In the end, he moved out of the Royal Palace and started living separately, only
rarely meeting his brother at special occasions.
After a long time, he felt proud of his
brother when he watched him stand up to the Holy Church. In his brother, he saw a glimpse of their father. After a long time, he felt his blood, that had frozen, boil.
“You!”
The Cardinal felt frustrated that Uriel was
trying to stop him. Just what did these
brothers treat the Holy Church as? Did they forget their place? Just because they had the Royal Bloodline, did they think they were really special?
“That’s enough.” Cardinal Treniel intervened, stopping the Cardinal who was about to go overboard. “We are here to attend a Banquet, and not to fight.”
“Lord Uriel, I believe you should also calm
down.” He turned to Uriel, taking control of the situation. “I believe it is just a misunderstanding. There is no reason for us to have killing intent towards His
Majesty. We are the protector of this Empire, not the enemies.”
“Hmph. As sly as always.” Uriel took his hands off the Cardinal. He stepped forward, for the first time standing next to
his brother.
The Guards in the hall couldn’t remember
the last time they had seen the two brothers standing together. Was it truly an unexpected reunion? They wondered. In any case, this was an interesting sight.
The Royal Family was consolidating their strength. Now that they thought about it, they wondered if the Holy Emperor’s previous actions were also for this reason?
The ones he killed in the Royal Army… Were they all traitors of the Necromancer
Tower? That looked a little exaggerated. A few insightful guests had already understood the intentions of the Holy
Emperor.
The people that were killed by the Holy
Emperor were traitors to him, but they were not traitors who had sided with the Necromancer Tower.
Even though Eren didn’t outright say it, almost everyone in the hall understood it. It became evident that it were the people who sided with the Holy Church, which was why the Church appeared so upset. Was the Holy Emperor waging a war on the
Holy Church? Wasn’t it foolish? The Holy Priestess was an Overlord after all. Even if
the entire continent went against her, they couldn’t defeat her. They wondered what gave the Holy Emperor the confidence?
At this point, many guests kept taking subtle glances at the Great Elders of the Demon Sect..
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