Life Giver

While Casmir returned to Ellaris, in a small town not too far from the city a storm was brewing.

The town was called Redstone, thanks to its proximity to the Redstone mountain nearby, famed for its bright, sandy, blood-coloured stone.

In this town there was an old religious building, made from that very stone, it was unused and in the middle of undergoing renovations. Surrounded by wooden scaffolds, dr.a.p.ed in long thick pieces of fabric to protect it from the weather and boarded up at of its entrances.

At the moment it was still night time and no could be found nearby, but even in the day, as many people passed by the building, no one would notice anything unusual about this old building.

This anonymity that the building held among the populace was exactly what the Truth Religion's agents required for their work in the region, and thus it became the base for a small Denomination of devote followers.

Their purpose here was not to cause chaos but simply to sow the seeds for their religion to grow and judge whether this area is ready to receive greater attention.

The practice of sowing the seeds was not unusual in the world, but perhaps the Truth Religions extensive planning was.. ambitious to say the least. Especially considering the strength and quality of the Denomination's it has sent out to many nations.

Normally the Redstone Denomination's work was rather boring and menial, focusing on infiltration, information gathering and training.

But a few days ago, they were alerted to an opportunity, a chance to capture a high level ferocious beast. Such a beast would be a valuable contribution to the religion if they could succeed.

And after they had reported this opportunity to their higher ups, they were giving permission to act on this opportunity.

Unfortunately, things did not go to plan and they had returned not just empty-handed but having lost valuable cannon fodder.

At this point, after their failure all of the members of the Redstone Denomination had gathered in the large hall of this old religious building. Most of them still wore their cloaks to cover their identities, only a few of the higher members were willing to reveal their faces.

"Damn the Inquisitors! How could they have failed to notice a Guard camp so close by to the Beast!" Wamu screamed in a high pitched voice at the lowered heads of his subordinates.

Apostle Wamu's usual calm and refined demeanour was completely unmasked at this moment, his handsome yet beautiful face was twitching ferociously as if it wanted to bite at something, while the torn clothes on his torso revealed his unnaturally muscular body.

His face and his body were at natural odds with each other, one was refined, soft and beautiful while the other was barbaric, brutal and beastly.

"P-Please calm yourself Apostle Wamu!" One of his subordinates said anxiously.

It was an old man who had lowered his cloak, from where he stood it was clear that he was second in command but his fear for Apostle Wamu's rage was obvious.

"Calm myself..? CALM MYSELF?!?!" Wamu screamed back at the old man.

"Our entire operation in this region has been exposed! We are responsible for the bringing the Truth to the entire Southern area of the Heldan Republic! If they discover it was us that perpetrated this event, not just our operation but every other operation in this nation will be compromised!"

"The Republic never would have cared about us if we had kept to our main goals, even if they discovered our presence. But now that we've attacked them, we might as well declare war on them! How calm do you think I should be?!?" Wamu continued angrily as he paced back and forth in the room.

After a few minutes of careful thinking, Wamu eventually calmed down. He ripped off his tattered upper clothing that was ruined as he engaged with the Grade 6 Giant Shadow Wolf, oddly enough his body wasn't injured in the slightest as he Iron flesh and Diamond hard skin had protected him.

He then retrieved a new shirt from nearby as he took a deep breath, restoring his calm before he called out to the Old man.

"Bring out the Seeing Eye, we shall report to the Cardinal." Wamu said.

The Old man smiled happily hearing this, quickly rushing over to a certain wall and removing a few stones carefully to reveal a grey orb.

The Old man waved his hands a few times, sending out Qi energy to deactivate a hidden array around the Orb before he retrieved it and brought it over to Wamu.

After Wamu took another deep breath he nodded at the Old man, who transferred all of his Qi energy into the Orb, infusing it with enough energy to function.

"Apostle Wamu for Cardinal Of The South." Wamu said seriously as his sent a wisp of his Qi energy into the Orb to confirm his identity.

Suddenly the Grey Orb shivered as its dull surface cleared to reveal a crystal clear image, inside of which was a truly ugly creature 'sitting' in a dark room.

The Creature looked like a mass of grey flesh with dozens of eyes scattered across its round body, looking in different directions.

As the image cleared on the Orb, one of the creatures eyes focused directly on Wamu as some of its grey flesh parted to create a creepy and sinister mouth that grinned like the devil himself.

"Was the operation a successss?" The Cardinal of the South said in a slow, deep voice as if gargling water as it spoke.

Wamu announced his failure, "No, we fail-" until he was interrupted by the Old Man who held the Orb.

"Yes!" He suddenly said.

Wamu was confused by the Old Man's words for a moment before the Cardinal spoke once more.

"Gooood.." It said still gargling its words, however its voice seemed almost happy as it continued.

"You've done well. No doubt your Granddaughter will serve me well in the future.." It said as its body squirmed in a horrific display of its anticipation.

"Oh.. Yessss.. Apostle Wamuuu.. You shouldn't have angered the White Aaarm.. Hehe.. haha.. oorgg.." The Cardinal gargled as suddenly all of its eyes focused on Wamu.

Each of its eyes squinted slightly forming little smiles across its body as if laughing at Wamu.

Meanwhile, at the mention of the White Arm, Wamu's face turned pale as a ghost as he felt his impending doom. Suddenly his body turned ethereal as he disappeared from the spot, reappearing by the exit of the hall as he rushed away.

The many observing missionarys were completely baffled by the series of events, but when they saw Wamu running away, they too felt an impending crisis and decided to leave.

But it was too late.

The natural flow of Qi energy suddenly halted, signifying the establishment of an array around the entire building. Following which waves of imposing Qi energy suddenly pressed down on everyone in the building as the ceiling of the large hall was broken through.

Along with the falling scarlet stones and dust, a metal object fell down in the hall before stopping midway, hovering in the precise centre of the room. This object, was a suit of armour roughly 3 times the size of an ordinary man, wielding a long sleek sword as remained frozen in the air.

Then suddenly a message was transmitted using Qi energy to everyone in the room, as the armoured man announced himself.

"I am Guardian Ellaris! Surrender for imprisonment or you will be killed without mercy!" A calm but powerful voice announced.

All of the cloaked figures were baffled by the sudden appearance of this armoured man but many of them were just courageous enough or just stupid enough not to know of Guardian Ellaris's name.

From all around the room, missionaries threw projectile weapons and blazing orbs of Qi energy at Guardian Ellaris.

In response, the Guardian.. did nothing.

The projectiles shattered upon contact with the thick armour made of precious metals and the Qi energy attacks thrown at him simply fizzle away when they approached his powerful yet invisible aura.

The smartest missionaries had already fled the room following Apostle Wamu, the rest simply looked dumfoundedly at this Armoured God, gobsmacked by the ineffectiveness of their attacks.

The Armoured God then waved his arm, firing dozens on small metal barbs at all of the cloaked figures which on contact sent bolts of lightning scattering across the room, incapacitating most of the cultivators here.

A few of the more powerful or wise Grade 4 and 3 cultivators managed to escape the lightning, but they were quickly struck by tiny lights released from the Guardians sword.

These lights were known as Sword-lights, a manifestation of the Guardians Will and Qi energy combined. Being part of the Guardians will they contained the slightest amounts of Soul energy, a concept even Grade 5 cultivators would struggle to understand.

Their effectiveness on the weak cultivators here, need not be explained and within moments of his appearance, the hall had fallen silent again.

A few moments later, some small explosion and a few quickly silenced cries were heard from outside the building as those who had tried to escape were incapacitated.

A single Officer then calmly walked into the room to report to the Guardian who was waiting in the room for any further challenge.

"Only 1 Grade 5 cultivator was detected along with a dozen or so Grade 4's, the rest were low level Grade 3 or 2 cultivators."

"There were no breaches of the perimeter, 2 criminals killed themselves to avoid capture and no arrays were activated on their part." The Officer explained.

Guardian Ellaris looked around the room carefully, seeing the Old Man laying dead on the floor with broken pieces of grey crystal surrounding him as one large shard had been pierced into his heart by his own hand.

'Strange.. There must be some kind of conflict going on in their hierarchy.. or perhaps this group was truly Heretical...' The Guardian thought to himself before he corrected the Officer.

"Make that three, one more criminal killed themselves before I could act."

The Guardian then released a large pulse of Qi energy to scan the area fully before he lowered his armoured body to the ground.

The metal that formed this battle armour then expanded slightly with a clunky groaning sound as Guardian Ellaris slipped out of a newly opened hatch on the armours back. Then, with a wave of his hand the armour disappeared into a special object that hung around the Guardians neck, shining brightly as it was used.

"Good work Commander, these are the locations of any dangerous items that need to be confiscated. Try to keep the building intact though, I quite like the design actually..." He said casually as he passed over a newly etched Qi chip, one which he had just carved for the commanders convenience.

"Thank you, Sir!" The commander said, saluting the Guardian as he walked passed.

"I'm going to have a chat with their commander now, Apostle Wamu wasn't it?" He said softly as he continued walking towards the exit.

"Yes sir. He's been captured by Squad Leader Talkas, just outside the main entrance." The Commander explained.

The Guardian waved his hand back at the Commander with his thanks.

"Thank you Commander."

When the Guardian had finally left the large hall, the Commander could finally turn his attention to the incapacitated criminals.

'Its going to be a long night..' He thought, letting out a deep breath before he got to work.