Chapter 526: To embrace Cai’er (I)

Chapter 526: To embrace Cai’er (I)

Just like the Divine Knights from the Knight Temple, these eleven powerhouses from the Assassin Temple were of heroic grade, having reached the ninth step. They were the real core of the Assassin Temple’s strength.

“The Knight Temple’s Provisional Saint Knight Head, the twelfth golden knight greets you, elders. Because of some special reasons, I am not allowed to reveal my name.” Long Haochen gave the elders a knight salute.

Including Sheng Yue, the seven elders returned the salute simultaneously, giving an assassin salute with the highest degree of respect.

Sheng Yue gave a sincere response, “Welcome to you, powerful Saint Knight Head. The Assassin Temple will never forget everything you did for the Exorcist Mountain Pass. May the friendship between our two great Temples last forever. If there is any help you may need, the Assassin Temple under my wing will not spare any cost for you.”

Sheng Yue’s speech was sincere, to the extent that even Yang Haohan had never obtained such a commitment from him. What he meant by these words is simple: from today on, as long as Long Haochen needs anything, the Assassin Temple will do its utmost to assist him.

He received such an approval right because Long Haochen’s Rain of Light couldn’t come at a better time.

In the Exorcist Mountain Pass were a lot of wounded, who not only suffered physically, but also mentally. And what’s more, the continuous attack of the demon armies had made the faces of the soldiers assigned to the Exorcist Mountain Pass lose all color.

The descent of Rain of Light relieved the soldiers from their exhaustion, and refilled them with self-confidence. And the healing of so many wounded gave the Exorcist Mountain Pass a whole new life. One could say that this powerful forbidden spell completely turned around their disadvantageous situation. If Sheng Yue originally believed that the Exorcist Mountain Pass could last at least one more month, he was now confident that they were able to fight the demons to death for one year. In Sheng Yue’s eyes, the most important point in Rain of Light wasn’t its healing properties, but its cure of the people’s hearts, sweeping away all the haze in the soldiers’ hearts.

That was the reason why Sheng Yue gave such a heavy promise. With this promise, the Assassin Temple will at least unconditionally assist Long Haochen in one matter, and that was no less than a sixth of the Temple Alliance’s force.

Long Haochen had a blank look on his face, but didn’t reject, only paying another knight salute to him.

He didn’t reject for complex reasons. Simply said, it was because of the Temple Alliance’s internal structure.

Anyone could tell that if the Six Great Temple’s six vocations could be perfectly combined together, and the six vocations could be evenly distributed in each defensive fort, the defense against the demons would be even greater.

But why is it that they never did so?

In the Temple Alliance’s history, who knows how many elders attempted to make such changes. But it always failed, and that’s because of the Six Great Temples’ self-protectionism.

This was a helpless matter. If the Six Great Temples could harmonize with each other, what would be done about the many resources they had accumulated over so many years? Manpower and resources would need to be distributed. Although the Six Great Temples didn’t really form six countries in the Temple Alliance, in actual fact every Temple had a large autonomy.

The Demon Hunt Squads attempted long ago to tell the Six Great Temples about the benefits of collaborating. But until this day, each of the Six Great Temples wanted to do things in their way. Each had their own territory and each had their own stronghold.

Regarding this matter, Long Tianying talked about all this to Long Haochen for half a day. The Priest Temple was, among them, the most in favor of the fusion of the six. But aside from the Priest temple, the other five were almost all rather in disfavor, although the Knight Temple’s disfavor could be regarded as rather low. In contrast, the most violently against the idea were the Assassin Temple, the Mage Temple and the Spiritual Temple.

Although, since the beginning of the Holy War, the Alliance had tried its utmost to combine the six vocations, in practice, each of the Six Great Temples used their own power as their foundation to resist demons.

Long Tianying specifically told Long Haochen that at least for now, this issue was unresolvable. But this didn’t mean it will be the case forever. To have the Six Great Temples unite for real, only one solution existed, and that was to reform a human country, a powerful empire with a centralized power in authority. Only this way could the six of them unite and form a whole.

Of course, creating this country would clearly be an immensely difficult task. The idea of uniting the six Temples as one was almost unthinkable.

Long Tianying finally expressed to Long Haochen his serious and earnest wishes. That if one day, he could attain a sufficient level of power and build enough influence in the whole Alliance, he may attempt to accomplish this magnificent feat. This was also the hope of the Knight Temple, and the reason why Long Tianying decided to have him travel through each of the Temples. This was not about obtaining the support of these Temples immediately, but for him to understand the Six Great Temples.

Long Haochen didn’t entertain the idea of becoming an emperor, but he knew about the importance the fusion of the Six Great Temples’ powers held to humanity. This Holy War had already damaged the Alliance severely, and although the demons’ damage was also great, their rule was under the Demon God Emperor alone, and their reproducing speed was really terrifying as well. If things kept going this way, humans could only keep being suppressed by the demons, and at best yield some of their territory.

Therefore, Long Haochen didn’t reject Sheng Yue’s proposition. Perhaps, this commitment could become of utter importance in some case of extreme need.

Long Tianying made a deep analysis of the present situation of the Six Great Temples for Long Haochen. The Knight Temple was undoubtedly the most powerful, and the closest to it was the Assassin Temple. The Mage Temple and Warrior Temple had even better relationships. In contrast, the Priest Temple and Spiritual Temple were rather independent in comparison.

So if one wants to unify the Alliance under a single centralized power in the future, the priority is to gain good allies, which means gaining the Assassin Temple’s backup. After that would come the idea of influencing the other four Temples.

Now was still a bit early to speak of this, but to Long Tianying that this couldn’t be overlooked, not because of some plot they could have in mind, but for humans to finally become able to defeat demons.

An individual’s strength is always insignificant, and even if Long Haochen manages to obtain the approval of the Divine Throne of Eternity and Creation, can he resist the whole of demonkind on his own? The answer is no. To do that, he would need the support of the whole Alliance, and would only have the possibility of launching a counterattack by holding authority over the whole Alliance.

This feat was impossible to realize for the current head of the Temple Alliance Yang Haohan, and Long Tianying couldn’t either, but Long Haochen had this possibility. With an identity as Scion of Light and a god’s chosen one, he already had sufficient power to gain support. Moreover, the Priest Temple was already in favor of the fusion of the Temples.

As Long Haochen returned Sheng Yue’s politeness, he recalled his grandfather’s sincere wishes. Suddenly came a figure that pressed through the crowd of people, and wasn’t stopped by the other heroic assassins.

This figure immediately threw itself into Long Haochen’s arms, giving him a deep hug.

Seeing this, the looks on all of the present heroic assassins’ faces became blank. Sheng Yue was totally shocked at first, but then had a grotesque look, finally realizing the identity of this Saint Knight Head that brought miracles. He understood his great-granddaughter just too well: aside from this kid, who else could she be so excited to see, to the extent of taking the initiative to throw herself at him? Even after losing her memories, his treasured great-granddaughter couldn’t possibly have such a change of heart.

But after realizing the identity of this Golden Foundation Knight, Sheng Yue’s shock became even more intense.

Over this one year and a half, he had been giving his all in teaching Cai’er, who didn’t betray his expectations at all, and grew at a frightening speed. Her cultivation already reached the sixth rank of the seventh step, and in Sheng Yue’s eyes, this cultivation speed should have overtaken that boy’s, which gave him a lot of pride.

However, the reality was just that cruel. When this guy reappeared, he turned out to have already become a knight of the eighth step, and also obtained a Golden Foundation Armor of epic tier. Could this be a token of favoritism from the Knight Temple? Sheng Yue was already over a hundred years old, but wasn’t senile yet. Was there a need for favoritism? His previous spell was already enough of a proof. Even if that forbidden spell was sneakily launched through a scroll, it couldn’t show its might without sufficient strength from the user. Moreover, he had personally heard the process of Long Haochen’s chanting.

Couldn’t this little guy have already attained the ninth step? This was Sheng Yue’s greatest doubt. And this only made his shock even greater.

The previous promise was something he couldn’t help but give. But in his heart, he had actually been unwilling to owe such a great favor to the Knight Temple. But now wasn’t the same. The Assassin Temple owed such a favor to their own great-grandson-in-law, one of their own people.

However, the other heroic assassins didn’t know what was happening. They obviously all knew about Cai’er’s identity; the Saint Daughter of Samsara and a genius like none other that had appeared for over a thousand years. As the unconditional future successor of the Assassin Temple and greatest powerhouse, Cai’er’s survival in a battle against a demon god’s while still at the seventh step was once again a proof of strength in the eyes of these assassins. Furthermore, in their eyes, Cai’er was a junior, but her coldness made her unapproachable by anyone else. Once again, this was an essential quality for an assassin to have.