He was a 30-year-old middle-aged man with a typical priest's hypocritical smile. He had above average levels of spiritual energy and wore a few crosses. After observing him closely, Benjamin found that he had a total of three life-saving crosses.
Benjamin hid behind the street vendors on the side of the street and thoughtfully nodded his head.
Ordinary priests only had one cross, whereas the leader of the priests had three crosses. The church had a hierarchical ranking system and often separated each class very clearly. If anyone wanted to move to a higher rank, they would need to rely on their own talent and strength.
Benjamin could not help but sigh.
There had to be someone very experienced managing such a huge and distinctive ranking system for the divine arts users. However, in the Kingdom of Helius, the church had kept the ranking system completely secret, therefore, Benjamin did not know much about it.
He took a good look at himself. Although he had a few subordinates under his command, it was by dumb luck and a bit of fate that he had been able to nurture them – it wasn’t like he had any previous experience in these things.
In the future, he would have to pay more attention to his subordinate’s requests.
While thinking about this, Benjamin kept his eyes on the priest. The priest seemed to be preaching to one of the vendors in the chaotic market; his passionate preaching was in stark contrast to the vendor’s annoyed look.
"Hey... you have already said so. Now, are you going to buy my fish?"
The priest shook his head, "I’m not buying anything."
The vendor suddenly got angry, "You... if you’re not buying anything, what are you doing here? You’re wasting my time that I could have used on other potential customers. Go away! Stop causing me trouble, spread your nonsense somewhere else! "
Benjamin shook his head.
This priest was not persuasive at all! No wonder he was only in charge of such a small town; he would not stand a chance trying to persuade city-folk.
After preaching for about fifteen minutes, the priest left disappointedly. Benjamin secretly followed him as he left quietly.
Because of his demotivation at the hands of the street vendor, the priest had lost the will to preach. After leaving the market, the priest walked straight home without stopping to preach to any potential targets.
Five minutes later, he arrived at a three-story house.
After Benjamin followed him here, he used the water element sensing technique to scan the surroundings of the house, then secretly nodded his head.
This should be their home.
Unlike in Rayleigh City, the priests in this town all lived together. This made it more troublesome for Benjamin to make a move. At the moment, there were three other priests in the house other than the leader. The three priests were sitting in the same room, whereas the priest leader tiredly dragged his feet to another room upstairs.
After thinking about for a while, Benjamin emerged from the shadows and walked up to the door.
He knocked on the door.
Soon, a priest came to open the door. He looked at Benjamin skeptically.
"Who are you?"
Benjamin looked frightened as he stammered, "The… the priest that just went in, is he still here?"
The priest frowned, but quickly hid his impatient expression as he remembered his training by the church. He soon replaced it with a wide grin.
"We are very busy going around trying to fulfill God’s will, unfortunately, we are not able to attend to every believer personally. Please forgive us."
In other words, "He’s here but he’s not free to attend to you."
Benjamin put on a disappointed expression and hesitantly said, "But... but I was there just now, I heard everything the priest said, and it made me feel like a whole new person! I... I have a lot of questions that I want to ask the priest! "
Hearing this, the p
riest’s eyes lit up.
"Oh? You felt God’s calling and decided to accept God into your life?" He suddenly held Benjamin's hand excitedly and said, "What questions do you have? Ask away and I will answer all of them. "
However, Benjamin looked surprised and started shaking his head, "No... you are not the priest just now. Only the priest just now could make me feel the glory of God. Who are you? I do not wish to speak to you."
The smile on the priest’s face got a little stiff.
However, he managed to control himself and still squeezed out a smile, "Well, in that case, the priest from just now is in his room. I would take you there."
Benjamin nodded his head excitedly. He had successfully infiltrated the house.
He followed the priest up to the second floor and arrived at the room of the priest leader. After knocking on the door, the priest explained the situation to his boss. The priest leader threw open the door and smiled at Benjamin with a sense of accomplishment.
"What questions do you have? Come, let’s talk inside."
Benjamin looked flattered and said, "Thank, thank you, priest! You are amazing!"
Seeing this, the priest who opened the door nodded his head, made a quick prayer and went back into his room. Benjamin rambled on and on about his respect for the priest as he followed him in.
He intentionally closed the door as he entered the room.
"What questions do you have? Feel free to ask. We are servants of God whose purpose is to answer all your inquiries." The priest rubbed his hands together and said sincerely.
Benjamin turned around and revealed a mocking smile.
His talking speed suddenly slowed down as his voice became calm and smooth. He spoke confidently and with a tone of superiority.
"My question is, do you really believe in the existence of God?"
The priest was surprised.
Although his reactions were slow, the cross that he was wearing was not.
Suddenly, a huge water ball suddenly appeared in the room and enveloped the priest. The priest was caught off guard - if not for the life-saving cross which had made an airtight bubble around him, he would have drowned.
"You... you’re a mage?"
While being trapped in the water ball, the priest stared at him as if unable to believe what he was seeing. However, all Benjamin could see was the priest silently moving his mouth in the water ball.
There were other people in the house, how could he let his voice be heard?
To avoid alerting others, Benjamin did not hesitate with his attack. The water ball compressed slightly before it began to rotate rapidly. His ability to control his power had grown greatly; by now, he could even create water blades inside the water ball. As the blades hit the shield, it would cause greater impact and trauma to the poor subject trapped inside.
Benjamin did not have that much time and needed to finish this as fast as possible.
Therefore, in just a few seconds, all three life-saving crosses were broken. The priest was now totally exposed to the surging water.
However, Benjamin did not intend to end his life in this way.
After using the water ball prison to destroy the crosses, he summoned an ice blade and deactivated the water prison. The priest could not help but feel a glimmer of hope as he landed on the floor with a heavy thud.
However, all that hope disappeared as Benjamin slit his throat.
Thump!
The priest’s body dropped to the ground as blood poured from his neck like a fountain.
Benjamin looked at the priest emotionlessly. Around him, clouds of water vapors formed a gas shield which had prevented sound from exiting the room.
After the blood flow had slowed to a trickle, Benjamin went over to the body.
"Your God did not save you." He said gently as he looked down at the priest’s twitching body.
The priest did not react to what he said, he merely wore a pained expression as he twitched and slowly bled out. Who knows if he had heard what Benjamin had said or not.
Seeing this, Benjamin shook his head and picked up the ice blade again.
He leaned over and used the ice blade to carve a palm-sized triangle on the wooden floor. It looked defined, but there was a gap at the corner, like the triangle – the musical instrument that is.
After this, he looked at the priest again.
The priest’s blood had almost completely stopped flowing, there was only a little pulsating from the wound. His eyes had become dull and he even stopped moaning.
Seeing this, Benjamin nodded. His first mission was complete.
He deactivated his magic, turned around, opened the door and walked out of the room. He went downstairs and met with the priest who had initially opened the door for him. He had a glowing expression as he chatted excitedly with the priest. After a few minutes, he waved goodbye and left the house with the priest’s blessing.