Chapter 1302 - Popes of the Past

Chapter 1302: Popes of the Past

A strange silence shrouded the Basilica Icon. A fog, which appeared out of nowhere, covered every inch of the floor. There was a twilight-like glimmer in the darkness, but it lacked warmth. Instead, it was full of malice and madness.

Such a glimmer had never appeared during any Tide of Chaos. Calaxus and the others had no idea what it was. But Hao Ren, after having seen the illusion earlier, knew that it was a sign of Lockmarton.

Lockmarton’s breath had seeped into the real world, first appearing as the huge shadows floating over the city of Louen, then the twilight near the Basilica Icon.

There were no survivors, but they also found no bodies or signs of a struggle.

“There’s no one here. No dead bodies,” Hao Ren muttered to himself in a low voice. “This place is supposed to house the church’s most powerful combat force, but everyone has seemingly disappeared into thin air.”

Lily went around to the front of the team. Using her sensitive nose, she sniffed the place. “Mr. Landlord, there’s no smell of blood!” said the husky as she approached Hao Ren.

Calaxus took out a platinum wand from his dimensional bag. The wand glowed with a warm white light in his hand. It began to dispel the malicious energy and air of madness in their surroundings. With a somber face, the senior monk said, “It looks like everyone has disappeared at the same time. Otherwise, they would have left some signs of battle behind. What could have done this? The magic circle in the basilica has not even been triggered. The pope controls the magic circle using his brainwaves; he could activate it with his mind, and the Basilica Icon would enter into panic defense mode. No matter how urgent the situation was, His Holiness should have had enough time to trigger the magic circle.”

Hao Ren remained silent as a thought crossed his mind: perhaps the pope did not want to activate the magic circle.

“Uncle, where’s the gatekeeper?” Lily suddenly asked.

Calaxus pointed at a corridor in front. “Enter that corridor, go through a garden, and there will be a teleportation circle as well as a spiral ladder leading to the top of the twin towers. But I have no idea if the teleportation circle is still usable. So we might have to take the stairs.”

Everyone came to the end of the long corridor in silence. After passing through an arch with elaborate, ornate decorations, a garden appeared before their eyes.

It was a large garden, complete with fountains, ponds, and sculptures, not to mention, a meticulously-maintained landscape. There was a dome above the garden, but it looked dark, revealing that the place was an indoor garden.

Surprisingly, the plants in the garden had not withered, and remained lush. A blanket of gray and dark yellow covered the plants, making the garden looked strangely gloom.

Everyone instinctively raised their guards.

Walking in front, Lily was the first to step into the garden while Hao Ren followed closely behind. Suddenly, as Lily crossed a certain boundary, she started to glow in white light.

The husky maiden was shocked. Hao Ren immediately knew what that glow signified. He quickly drew his gun and spear before he shouted, “Watch out! The minions of Chaos are nearby!”

Lily’s self-glowing body in the realm of Chaos had become a convenient early-warning system.

After spending a long time with the alpha wolf, Calaxus also knew what that glow was—the Light of Order. The senior monk instantly cast a protective spell on the knights and abhuman soldiers. While he held his wand in one hand and a sacred magic ball in the other, Calaxus asked, “Where are the minions?”

Lily finally came to her senses and quickly turned to look at her tail, which had puffed up. The glow on her tail was pointing towards a particular direction.

“Underground!” the husky maiden shouted. “The forces of Chaos are below! What’s there in the ground?”

Calaxus froze for two seconds before he hesitantly said, “It’s the resting place of the sacred souls, a place where the power of the goddess shelters the sacred souls, immortal—”

“Speak in simple terms!” Lily looked back and glared at the senior monk.

Without waiting for Calaxus to reply, Hao Ren interrupted, “It means the grave of the popes!”

As he spoke, he could not help but think of the name that the Shadow of Nightmares mentioned before it dissipated: Benedict III, the Pope of the Sanctum 2,000 years ago.

Holy moly, turns out that the monster was referring to this! Hao Ren could not help but curse in his head.

As he cursed, the entire Basilica Icon started to shake.

A humming sound traveled from the bottom of the garden. A chilly air rushed through the ground and covered the surrounding vegetation in frost while the nearby soil began to roll like ocean waves.

“It’s coming!” Hao Ren shouted as he fired his gun without hesitation.

As a blue light burst, debris flew in all directions from the blast center. Beneath the blast center, a twisted, black, smoky thing rushed out to the surface. But the power of the psionic crystallization was so powerful that the monster had turned into a crystal before it could make a sound.

However, it was only the first one.

More black monsters began to rush out of the earth. The power of Chaos quickly filled their surroundings. These monsters were in different forms, unlike what Hao Ren had anticipated. Some of the monsters grew many tentacles, some had eyes and teeth all over their body, some were in the shape of a standard meatball, while some were in vaguely humanoid forms. The only thing these monsters had in common was that they were all shrouded in the smoke of Chaos, and they were releasing a potent brainwave.

“That’s the church insignia!” Calaxus suddenly exclaimed in shock.

Hao Ren looked in that direction and saw the Shadow of Nightmares among the monsters. It took a humanoid form and was dressed in clothes. The tattered pieces of clothing had a round, light gold emblem.

“The clothes may not have had time to decompose,” Hao Ren said. “It proves that these things are the deceased popes!”

The church soldiers were all in shock. These brave and fearless soldiers could not believe that the body of the popes had been completely infested and turned into monsters. The infestation may have begun a long time ago, or recently. But the fact that these monsters came out from the sacred tomb, the logo of the church was on their clothes, and one of the monsters had uttered the name of a pope from 2,000 years ago had discouraged even the most devout monks and knights.

Nonetheless, the monsters were not about to stop just because the humans were trembling. While the church knights grew reluctant, the monsters formed a black cloud in the garden and began to launch a powerful, rapid attack.

It was the most dangerous and unstoppable force: a psychic attack.

A burst of vertigo and bizarre illusions began to appear. Hao Ren witnessed as the smoke monsters seemed to materialize into a body, a mountain, and a storm, becoming the source of an endless, invincible force from which a mighty voice appeared and reverberated in his mind.

“Surrender! Surrender to this power! Surrender to your fears! Surrender to your exhaustion! Surrender—”

Hao Ren stared back at the illusion, which instantly disappeared. “Surrender to me! My year-end bonus depends on this battle!”

“How did you…”

“Surprise! When Lao Tzu was playing with a demigod in his dream, you guys were still rotting in the grave!”

Hao Ren and Lily, who were unaffected for some strange reason, may have escaped the powerful psychic attack. But the situation did not look good.

They were not merely fighting against these monsters, and they were not the only ones who were being attacked.

More monsters—or rather mutated souls of the past popes had awoken in the underground mausoleum. The number of psychic attacks would soon be overwhelming. The church warriors and abhumans did not possess the mental resistance that Hao Ren had. Their psychological defenses began to crumble, and they could not hold on any longer.

Illusions manifested continuously. At first, they only appeared as phantoms in the spiritual world, but they gradually became shadows in the real world.

The church knights and abhumans with their weak willpower had been paralyzed. Their spiritual world became a springboard for the distorted shadows to enter the real world.

Hao Ren felt his various senses weaken as negative feelings started to crop up out of nowhere. It was not critical, but if things went on this way, it might be a big problem for the people around him.

Hao Ren fired his psionic gun, hitting a twisted soul and turning it into crystal dust. He then turned to look at Calaxus and shouted, “Retreat! I’ll clean this entire mausoleum once and for all!”

However, Calaxus turned his head slowly; his eyes were unfocused as if he did not recognize Hao Ren.

“Damn it. Even the strongest one has fallen.”

Suddenly, a mental connection opened, and the MDT’s voice sounded in Hao Ren’s mind.

“Buddy, we’ve built a Beta 1.0 portal. Do you want me to try and send something?”

Hao Ren was startled for a moment, but he was quickly overjoyed. “Send me something with the combat strength of 20,000! There’s a battle here! Hurry!”