Your Majesty's money, why don't you engrave my name on it?

The dark cave was illuminated by light after a long absence. This light was not the light of arcane, not the light of fire, nor the light of the sun and moon, but it was more dazzling than all of the above. Moreover, this brilliance was not silent, but was accompanied by rumbling thunder, and together with the scorching sword blade, it enveloped Leslauf.

However, when the light faded, the man unexpectedly discovered that the evil demon was not completely wiped out in the light. Instead, it resisted with its sword and took the Holy Slash.

"...Oh my god." Daisy and the others watched the scene in amazement. When the seemingly unstoppable force came crashing down, no one had thought that the mercenary could survive the Holy Slash and even remain unscathed...?

A stream of bright red warm liquid slowly overflowed from Reslaufer's nostrils, and his pupils lost focus during the brief clash of weapons. He did not fully withstand the power of the Holy Slash, but he finally managed to hold on.

This kind of thing can only be dealt with once in a lifetime. The mercenary thought silently, and before the other party could react, he pushed him back with force and kicked him, knocking him to the ground.

The long sword, whose light had not yet faded, flew out of his hand and stuck into the rock not far away, as if it was cutting into a piece of butter. The man with a ponytail wanted to reach out to grab it, but the mercenary would never give him this chance again.

"Dang!" The black flame giant sword, which had also become scorching hot due to the Holy Slash, swept out and knocked the weapon that was like a sword or a shield away. The man tried to continue resisting, but when the flaming sword blade passed by his ear and pierced the ground, even he had to stop temporarily.

"Gu... Kill me!" The man's face was twisted and trembling with extreme humiliation and anger. "Come on, villain! Turn me into one of those wronged souls around you! Come on!"

Reslaufer wanted to end this man's life in the most brutal way, but after hearing this, he paused and said, "Can you see them?"

"Surprising?" the man sneered. "From the moment I saw you, my senses were going off like crazy. You've taken more lives than anyone else I've ever met! If you're still trying to make excuses, you can shut up now."

Leslaufer closed his eyelids slightly and saw the spirits around him, but these guys were as numb as most of the time. They just stood around him silently and did not show any excitement.

"Can you only sense their presence, or can you actually see them? If the latter, they don't seem to welcome you."

"So what?" The man sneered, turning his head slightly to look at Angarita behind Leslaufer.

There were also a large number of spirits around the girl, which made him subconsciously think that she was also an unforgivable criminal. However, if he looked closely, he could hardly see any human-shaped beings around her, and all the spirits were in the form of beasts.

What is this? She killed a lot of wild animals?

Under his control, the man's mind cooled slightly. He once again focused on observing the spirits surrounding the girl, only to discover that both the wild wolf and the giant bird were showing fear of something. They were afraid of... the man who had defeated them?

No, that's not right. Their source is the same as the spirits surrounding this man. They are afraid of the other spirits surrounding this villain!

Their deaths had nothing to do with the girl, but were also the work of this man. The spirits around this man were rejecting these non-human beings - to be more precise, they were rejecting spirits that were too weak!

The paladin's eyes widened in surprise, as he saw the spirit around the man suddenly transform under his watch, transforming into a gigantic monster with the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a black lion, gazing at him seductively. And when the man who had restrained him closed his eyes, the monster, in terror, disintegrated into its own individual parts.

The divine power's perception of the five senses roared at that moment. There was no doubt that the monster was an extremely evil existence when it was alive, but it died at the hands of this man!

Could it be... that my perception was wrong? In my haste, I had superimposed the evil of the spirit upon this man? A hint of hesitation crossed the paladin's face. However, this didn't prove the man before him was a kind person. There was a clear discrepancy between the two perceptions; this man must have blood on his hands.

"We're really not bad people," the woman holding the zither finally found an opportunity to come forward, "Do you know Xinmu City? They've been in quite a bit of trouble recently, and we've been helping them a lot!"

"Xinmu City?" The man was stunned, then immediately re-assessed the crowd before him. "I wasn't there at the time, but I heard that a five-member adventuring team greatly helped Earl Xinmu, even killing a Lamia."

The shadow of the monster flashed through his mind, and it was indeed the appearance of that hateful monster.

In front of him, behind Reslaufer, five people were lined up in a row - he had never heard of the beastman, but he could identify the others.

"Dwarf, druid, half-elf..." The man's face turned red and black, as if it were molten iron. "So, you are not members of the Stone Fox Gang?"

"How refreshing!" Bella breathed a sigh of relief. She finally understood the reaction of Leslaufer and Angelita when they first met her. It was indeed unpleasant to be wrongly accused of being a bad person. "This is the second time we've heard this name. The first time was just now, and you called it out yourself."

"They are a group of ruthless criminals. Once, a kind-hearted judge captured some of them and sentenced them to imprisonment instead of hanging. But when their accomplices broke into the prison, they murdered the judge's entire family. Even the guard dog was found with only half a rib left. Recently, they massacred 32 people in the village of Pamiti. I am hunting them for this."

"Look at these guys lying on the ground," Leslough kicked the man around, just enough to see the thieves, whose faces looked miserable. "We just killed them, and you rushed over, shouting about price and sin."

At Reslaufer's feet, after seeing the faces of the corpses clearly, the man finally began to tremble. He hammered the hard rock on the ground with his right fist, not stopping even though blood was dripping. "Gods be upon you! These villains have finally been brought to justice today! Marlena, did you see that? Did you see that?"

Chapter 116: Oath of Dedication

"I thought you were serious when you said you didn't believe in God." After a long while, until the man's emotions finally calmed down a little, Daisy couldn't help but complain.

"I don't believe in them, but that doesn't mean I deny their existence," the man was silent for a moment, then spoke again as if explaining, "I'm Patrick Cormon, Marlena is my wife, and her father is the Inquisitor I was talking about."

"She happened to be home during those few days... and I wasn't... by her side..."

"Your wife's last name is Holmgren, right?" Angelita looked at Patrick sympathetically. "I've heard about this tragic case, but it seemed that they claimed the murderer had been caught."

"My father-in-law and several of his colleagues were always at odds. They were bribed and had a few random homeless people hanged at the city gate," Patrick laughed bitterly. "They could deceive others, but not me."

Daisy listened to the paladin's story, but at the end she raised a question: "That's quite strange. If that's the case, why would you swear devotion instead of revenge?"

To ensure that the world will never again suffer such injustice? That's truly selfless.

"Because I had already embarked on the path I swore to before that," Patrick's lips seemed to twitch, but it was not easy to detect because he was still in close contact with the ground. "I was once a servant of a lord. He was a very noble man. He taught me a lot and made me yearn for and pursue virtue and justice. Unfortunately, death also favored him because of this."

"His successor was different from him, and I was no longer bound by the contract, so I left my hometown and followed the path he guided me to this day."

"Today, you almost killed a group of strangers who helped you complete your mission," Leslaufer kicked him mercilessly and then stepped back. "Okay, stop lying on the ground pretending to be dead. Get up."

He had never met Patrick before, but he knew that there did exist a group of people similar to him, called "Paladins" or "White Knights." Among mercenaries, these people were rumored to be the easiest fools to fool and the most difficult to deal with defenders of morality. But no matter what kind of person they were, there was no falsehood in Patrick's words, otherwise he would not have the astonishing power he had just now - and then Reslaufer would have been even less afraid of him.

"Ahem, thank you very much," the paladin, who had been severely kicked by the mercenaries, stood up. The first thing he did was not to pick up his weapon. Instead, he straightened his armor and clothes and bowed to the crowd. "I apologize for my reckless behavior just now. I should have been more cautious, but I was blinded by hatred and nearly led to irreparable consequences. I dare not beg for your forgiveness, but I hope I can make amends for my previous actions."

"As for you, sir," Patrick glanced at Reslaufer. Although he looked hesitant, it wasn't out of fear. "This was indeed a misunderstanding. I won't excuse my actions, but you have a lot of blood on your hands. If this continues... I'm afraid we'll have to face each other again."

"You mention it, and I'm tempted to finish you off right now. Dying beside your enemies isn't such a bad outcome," Leslaufer half-jokingly raised his sword again. But even as the blade approached the paladin's neck, he didn't see Patrick blink. "Boring."

This attitude made the mercenary feel bored. If he really chopped off his ponytailed head, he would have nightmares for several nights. "We'll talk about it next time. Don't regret dying by my hands."

"I hope you can repent before then."

Patrick replied calmly, but his gaze soon softened as he saw Angelita walking towards him holding a map.

"When I first met my wife, she was not much older than you." The paladin smiled and half-knelt down. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"You just mentioned the village of Pamiti," Angelita handed over the map. "I can't find it. Can you mark its location?"

"Of course." Patrick would not refuse such a small matter. He quickly pointed out the location of the massacred village to Angelita and others. Looking at the distance between there and the stone mountain, even Leslaufer could not help but fall silent.

The straight-line distance between these two points, just on the map, was nearly a thousand miles! How long had Patrick been chasing them? No wonder when they ran into those bandits, none of them had even the slightest chance to fight back!

How many normal people can stand being hunted like this?

"But there's another problem," Angelita's voice drew everyone's attention. She pointed to the surrounding camps, "These people obviously settled here, right?"

"There's no doubt about it. Speaking of which, how did you find it..." Patrick was interrupted by Angelita raising her hand before he could finish his words.

"Then why would they go so far to commit such a crime?" The girl looked into the paladin's eyes. "Is there something important in Pamiti Village that they absolutely must steal?"

"I haven't seen that," Patrick began to think after hearing this, and began to list the crimes of the Stone Fox gang. "They took two barrels of milk from Old Spike's house west of the village, five strips of bacon from Tom's house, and Jerry's house - in short, either food or daily necessities. But of course, you can imagine that these may have been invaluable assets to the villagers and these robbers, and they had to exchange their lives for them. But objectively speaking, the most valuable item among them was just a silver-plated hand mirror - what happened?"

"Where's the hand mirror?" Leslough and the others didn't bother to argue with him anymore and immediately pounced on the bodies of the robbers to search. However, even after stripping the dead bodies of their clothes, they could not find any trace of the hand mirror.

"It's here with me." Seeing this scene, even the slime monster knew that something was wrong. The holy warrior quickly stretched out his hand and turned a ring on his ring finger. The next second, a silver hand mirror of the same model as the one obtained by Leslough and others appeared in his hand.

"This is a sub-dimensional ring. I caught up with and eliminated most of the gang members on the way. I kept all the loot they took inside it."

Even a paladin wouldn't be able to chase the bandits while carrying two buckets of milk.

"Exactly the same," Fate quickly took it and came to the conclusion after a careful comparison, "but there's clearly one on the mountain... I don't understand?"

"Because that hand mirror belonged to my unfortunate sister, and this one..." The gray-white fox face appeared in the air again without warning, "Whatever my sister has, I must have more."

Chapter 117 Isabara's Priest

"Fox girl!"

Vondar immediately swung his battle axe and chopped it straight at the enemy's face: "You tricked us once, but not this time!"

"Indeed, I won't." The fox man took a step to the side and, with a simple flick, deflected the axe's blade slightly, just avoiding her body. "You actually killed my followers in front of Isabara's statue? How dare you!"

"The goddess will punish you bastards!"

The fox-man stepped into the range of the light spell, and this ghostly, elusive creature finally revealed its true form: her head was pale, her torso nearly human-shaped, and numerous gemstones and necklaces were lavishly but haphazardly arranged across her torso, leaving only a bare spot at her chest. Pale fur lay fluffy and piled there, obscuring the most important part.

In her hand, there was a thin sword with a large cat's eye stone inlaid on the guard, and the entire hilt was wrapped with gold wire, which looked so... "extraordinary taste".

"These things could arm a dozen noble ladies from Magparese," Angelita frowned. Compared to the impact the other party had on her martial arts, the vulgar aesthetic before her also put her under considerable mental pressure. "Even the most vulgar upstart couldn't imagine such packaging..."

"That's why none of them can gain Lady Isabara's favor, not even women (the fox goddess rarely grants favors to men)," the fox man sneered. "You girls can stay. Maybe with luck, you can become my sisters. As for you, as the price for killing my pets, you will take their place."

"Wait a moment!" Seeing that the two sides were about to fight, the werewolf Fate rushed to the front. "Please wait a moment, are you...are you the priest here? This is the temple dedicated to Isabara?"

"The temple was destroyed many years ago, along with most of the sisters, little dog," the fox man sneered. "As for the others, why do you think I'm living in such a... less-than-luxurious place?"

She might want to use other more appropriate words, but this is still her god's temple after all.

"Well... no matter who you are, you're at least more visible than those guys who are already forgotten. Maybe after taking you in, I can rebuild this place. So, happily decided." The fox man nodded to herself. However, before she was about to take action, she suddenly thought of something else. "Oh, I remember why you came - has your tribe been feeling sad recently? Are you their leader or shaman, or both?"

"I am... a shaman for now," Fate said hurriedly, "I saw this place in the revelation, I-"

"Hush, hush, hush," the fox-man interrupted him. "You saw discontinuous pictures? And heard no sound?"

"Have you ever thought about why you, a werewolf, would come to the fox temple to beg for forgiveness?"

Fate was stunned. "You know all this? We believe we've neglected the goddess Isabara, as her fate is the same as the god Darragher's."

"Pfft," the fox priest rolled his eyes in disdain. "You're so easy to fool, you idiots. Of course you'll neglect my goddess, because in this world, she's never protected werewolves, you know? She never intends to protect you either!"

"No wonder the mistress said now is the best time. Apart from you, there are no other shamans in your tribe, right? As long as we get rid of you, you will never hear the voice of your god again - die, little thing!"

The fox-man's figure was once again enveloped in the silver-white mist. The next second, she appeared before Fate. The werewolf, who hadn't recovered from the shock yet, was still asking, "But God has revealed—"

"Your gods are still locked in a bloody battle in Purgatory!" The fox girl laughed wildly and shrilly. "You've all been fooled!"

The dwarf turned and pounced, narrowly saving Fate, but the fox girl's fangs had already gnawed a strip of flesh off the werewolf's face. "Don't be afraid. I'm not like you lowly lycanthropes. I won't infect you."

The fox girl did not get entangled with the crowd at all. She disappeared immediately after a brief fight. The temple seemed to provide her with an endless supply of power, so that her magic power would never be exhausted. Therefore, even Leslaufer, who could predict her landing point, could not easily hit her body which would be shattered with a little force.

"Come on, come and catch me! As long as you catch me, I can... hehehehe!" The fox girl challenged arrogantly, her figure disappearing into the darkness again, and the next moment she reappeared behind Patrick. "Why don't you have a weapon? You still call yourself a holy warrior."

The rapier silently stabbed at Patrick's lower body at a tricky angle. Although the fox girl spoke arrogantly, she was actually very cautious in her actions. She was always ready to teleport invisibly and not give anyone any chance to hit her.

"Weapons are not important," Patrick leaped over a meter high. He turned in the air and landed, looking down at the fox girl expressionlessly. "So... you are actually the real culprit behind the massacre of the entire Pamiti Village."

"It's me, so what, my Lord Knight?" Seeing that Patrick had no intention of picking up his weapon, the fox girl attacked again, "Oh, you want to kill me for revenge? I'm so scared. I want to retire after this crime."

"Will you give me this chance?"

No one would think that the truth would come out of this fox man's mouth, but Patrick actually paused for a moment: "Will you?"

"Of course I was lying to you, idiot!" A ferocious expression suddenly appeared on the fox face. The fox priest instantly appeared in front of the paladin and pierced his lower abdomen with a sword. "I finally understand why paladins are so hard to find. Most of them have killed themselves with stupidity. Hahahaha!"

"Is that so..." Patrick raised his right hand and grasped the half of the sword that was still outside his body. "Maybe, but I just made a mistake. I can't... make it again."

"But since you've admitted it yourself, it doesn't matter..."

"What nonsense are you talking about... Let go!" The fox girl tried to pull back her sword, but the paladin's more powerful left hand immediately caught up and grabbed her arm. "I can bite through your throat!"

"As you wish, ma'am. Now to answer your last question," Patrick stared fearlessly into the pale, furred face, "'Why don't I pick up a weapon?' Because I don't need one."

"As long as I want it, it will return to my hand - the shield is the sword!"

The shield on the ground instantly turned into a sword light and flew straight towards the fox girl's heart!

Chapter 118 Forced Confrontation

Luxurious ornaments could not protect the fragile body. Gold, silver, gems and pearls were scattered all over the dark underground at this moment. Isabara's priest fled into the fog again in embarrassment, but this time, there was an arm she could no longer take with her.

The shield turned into a sword again in the hand of the Holy Knight. He pulled out the weapon from his body and tried to step forward to continue the pursuit. However, a circle of sacred pink barrier lit up around the fox girl not far away, blocking his attack and not being able to affect him at all.

"Hah, hahaha, this is the mistress's sacred place. You can't continue to harm her servant here!" The fox girl covered her severed arm where blood was gushing out. Power from a higher level enveloped her, quickly stabilizing her injuries. "It's useless, knight, you can't hurt me! My master will give me strength again, but your injuries cannot be healed!"

Leslaufer rushed forward and struck the barrier with his sword, but the protection bestowed by the gods was beyond the reach of ordinary people. No one could interfere with the fox girl whether she was escaping or healing.

"Please step back," Patrick walked past Leslaufer and went straight to the fox girl. "I wrongly accused you before and almost made a big mistake. Now it's time for me to atone for my sin."

"I am Patrick Cormon, a paladin of the West Inassus, and today, in the presence of Isabara, the fox queen, I challenge you to a duel!"

"Are you out of your mind? I won't--" The fox girl would certainly not agree to such a ridiculous proposal. Her arms were almost grown back, and the new pink limbs reappeared on the body that had lost the protection of the precious jewelry.

But as the paladin spoke, white crystal threads emerged from the void around her and tightly bound her limbs, torso, head and neck, penetrating the protection of divine magic, and the latter had no reaction at all.

"What did you do?" The fox girl was horrified and wanted to break free, wanting to continue to maintain the barrier around her, but everything seemed in vain. Her god left her at this moment - when she needed him most.

"Your god has agreed to my proposal. Let's begin." Patrick threw the ostentatious gilded rapier to the fox man's feet. "Pick it up. I don't kill unarmed people."

"You're truly 'generous'!" The fox girl practically gnashed her teeth as she uttered these words. She glanced at the paladin, who was also wrapped in threads. This seemed to be some kind of witness spell, not a control spell...

She unconsciously picked up the rapier, and her whole appearance became more like a fox than a human. With the strength and reaction brought by the transformation, she naturally took a step forward and stabbed the person in front of her.

The man quickly swung his sword to block, but his abdomen had been severely wounded, and the constant blood loss slowed his reaction. If he hadn't ducked at the last moment, he would have been stabbed in the face. The rapier severed the rubber band holding Patrick's hair, which gave the fox girl considerable courage.

"You're overestimating yourself!" She bared her teeth. "You'll regret this decision. Is this a duel? Excellent! I'll kill you first!"

"Should we go help him?" Angelita asked nervously as she watched the injured paladin constantly struggling under the fox girl's sword. "He might die if this goes on!"

"Then he deserves to die," said Reslaufer, his voice devoid of emotion. "It is foolish to take risks without understanding one's own abilities. If that's the case, it's better for him to rot here. At least we can clean up the mess and save him from causing harm to others later."

"The spell that forced the fox girl to fight him cannot be disrupted, otherwise she will hide under the protection of her own gods again," Bella explained from another perspective, "Now we can only hope that he can win."