Ethereal Ascendance: A Journey of Transformation (Volume 6)

Vol 6/ Chapter 48: The Envoys

"She's hiding outside the building again?"

Wait, why did I say 'again'? But true enough, after we found where Cyrae was, we discovered she wasn't properly inside the palace. Instead, like us before, she was hiding outside the roof skylight, trying to listen to what was happening inside the building.

"What's going on here?"

Adrian was also confused seeing this. Reider had already lost, so why was she still sneaking around like this? Cyrae's actions were really puzzling.

"You're back!"

Cyrae didn't seem surprised by our appearance. She waved at us while gesturing for us to land beside her.

"What's happening? There are soldiers almost everywhere - aren't you afraid of being discovered?"

As soon as I landed, I quickly folded my wings and warned her. The current situation was very different from our first time here. Back then, Reider was extremely short on manpower and this palace was just for show, there weren't any light magicians nearby who could sense our presence. But things were different now that the rebels had taken the city. Although their mages were still only at the lowest level with weak element sensing abilities, there was still a chance of being discovered. If that happened, we probably couldn't talk our way out.

"You'll understand when you see for yourself! Not long after the city fell, some strange people appeared from the adventurer guild's transfer formation in the imperial capital. They said they were envoys from the True Church, coming to visit the rebel s. But I felt something wasn't quite right, so I followed them here."

Sure enough, Cyrae hadn't done this without reason. She pointed downward, and following her direction, we could see several figures standing inside the palace below.

This great hall in the center of the Kyndrill imperial palace had several transparent skylights in the roof for lighting, so it was easy to see what was happening inside just by looking down from the roof.

"Isn't it just them having a meeting to celebrate their victory?"

I didn't pay much attention at first. Though almost all the rebel leaders were gathered inside, seemingly discussing something important with the visitors, I suddenly noticed something strange about one of the bald envoys' clothes.

No! More accurately, they looked oddly familiar, because this guy looked exactly like a Buddhist monk!

"No way? Does this world really have Amitabha Buddhism?"

I asked in surprise. After all, there had never been any concept of Amitabha Buddhism spreading on the Eldoria Continent. Even in the easternmost countries of the continent that shared similar culture with Earth, nothing like this had ever existed!

Of course, the root cause of this situation had to be traced back to the True Church. Perhaps similar religions existed hundreds or thousands of years ago, but ever since the True Church's previous Pope Cysper forcefully unified all religious beliefs on the continent, other religions had barely any room to survive.

Come to think of it, the True Church's way of doing things had always been quite strange. Although they never forced humans to follow their god, they never held back in suppressing other religions. Especially those with similar light element worship - they were all considered cults and would be mercilessly eliminated as soon as they showed up!

Because of this, when I saw someone wearing a kasaya and holding a vajra appear before my eyes, you can imagine how strange it felt, especially since they claimed to be True Church envoys, which made even less sense.