Badge in Azure

The child’s mother was packing up the clothes that she had hung at the front of her door. She was a little too late to pick her child up when the demons went inside the village, so she was unable to do anything when she saw Nailisi walk up to her child and squat down.

From her perspective, Nailisi was not smiling. Is that three-headed monster going to eat my son? She wanted to go up and snatch her child away, but her legs seemed to have been rendered completely stiff. It made her incapable of budging.

Nailisi was almost on all fours on the ground and still was unable to look at the child in the eyes. The child held on to a cat and lifted his head. He looked at Nailisi’s big head and got very interested in the horns on it.

“What’s your name?” Nailisi gently asked. She had impeccable control of her voice, so the child was not frightened at all.

“Gagas,” the child replied.

“Right, Gagas, can I ask you a question?” Nailisi asked.

The village was completely silent. There were villagers looking outside the window. None of them dared to make any sound for fear of spooking the demons and harming the child.

“No problem, but who are you?” the child asked.

“Me? I’m a demon,” Nailisi patiently said to the child.

“What’s a demon?” The child extended his hand, wanting to touch Nailisi’s horns, but was unable to reach it.

What’s a demon? Nailisi was rendered speechless by the child’s question. She thought for a bit and said, “Demons are bad people.”

“You’re lying.” The child was angry and put the cat on the ground pouting. That cat was so spooked that all the fur on its body stood. It ran without a second thought after gaining its freedom.

Nailisi had no intention of harming such a weak creature that was not even considered a magic beast. She smiled and said, “I’m not lying. I’m here to kill the missionaries in the village. You know… Umm, priests.”

“Very good, very good!” The child clapped and pointed at the white tower at the end of the village. “The priests are right there. They live in the white house and are not doing any field work.”

“Thank you, little one. Here, a gift for you from a demon.” Nailisi picked out a small statue with her nails and handed it to the child before standing up and waving at the supreme demons.

The demons hastened their steps and rushed at the white house.

Seeing the demons going far away, the mother wobbled out of the door and picked up her son, running inside a compound.

Saleen followed right behind the squad of demons and shook her head at the scene. According to historical records, even common peasants did not fear demons to such extent in ancient times.

They had been mutated, crazed demons out to harm humans back then. The peasants in those times would have simply gathered around to hunt those demons. Tens of peasants were more than capable of beating a common demon to death. Even three to five retired soldiers would have proven more than enough to capture a level nine demon alive to be sent to the nobles to be dealt with. According to those records, humans back then were probably professionals the very moment they were born.

Saleen knew that Nailisi had no intention of playing with common folk. She only had fun manipulating and torturing powerful professionals, which was why Saleen was not worried at all when Nailisi went up to ask the child about things.

A level one priest was seen preaching to several villagers in a white two-story house at the other end of the village. He was talking about a story in the Holy Codex. It was difficult to propagate the faith in that village. The villagers did not even bother building a true, official church.

There were only a handful of vagrants who bothered listening to the priest’s preaching. Of course, there were also several devout believers, which made the priest feel rather pleased. The first believer would have continued to preach to their own families when they returned home. In time, more would join the faith.

As for the vagrants, they were only there for the free dinner after the preaching. Everyone had bad days after the war. It was deemed worth it to waste an afternoon to get a meal with meat at night.

Nailisi’s demon squad came before the white house. She quickly found that even the demons behind her had problems getting into the house, let alone she herself. She cut a slit at the wall with the Sword of Rules and tore at the front wall with her four arms.

As she pulled, the whole wall came tumbling down. Saleen cast Cleaning and suppressed the dust that kicked up from the crumbled wall.

It was a level one priest who was seen preaching. His was babbling away feeling pleased with himself when the wall at the front suddenly disappeared. A tall demon stood right outside, staring at him with pitch black eyes.

The priest opened his mouth and quickly found he had lost his voice.

Among the ten who were listening to him preach, six fled to the backdoor after letting out terrified shrieks. The other four stood up and hid behind the priest with terrified looks on their faces.

Nailisi was looking right at the nervous priest. Saleen suddenly shared his senses with her. His eyes saw a squad of knights clad in golden armor at a high place over 10 miles away escorting over a dozen holy masters.

The old holy master was observing the inside of the village using something like a pair of alchemy binoculars.

Isn’t that a little too far? Even if she were to kill the priest right there and then, their squad would not have been able to get there immediately. When she was done killing who she came to kill, those people would probably pretend they saw nothing and continue to tail Saleen’s party.

So, what if we just turn around and go kill them? Sounds like a good way to go about it. But, if they are to flee like that, are we going to chase them all the way back to Daliang City?

“What are you doing?” The priest mustered all of his courage and shouted as he saw the demon spacing out.

“Oh? Right, priest. I’d like pray to your god. I wonder if you’d be kind enough to hear me out?” Nailisi laughed.

The priest was done for. If the ones behind are not going to do anything while I have my time with this fellow, we can always just go look for the next town. There will be one holy master in those towns that are deemed important enough to save, no?

That priest gulped and wanted to tell Nailisi that he had no intention of doing so because of what Nailisi did to the place.

Then again, Nailisi politely asked if she were to be allowed to pray to their god, which was something a priest was unable to refuse. If they were to refuse someone who wished to pray to their god, their days in the Holy See would have been numbered.

“Alright, dear lost… believer, state your name,” the priest said.

“Right, priest. I’m not a believer, I simply want to tell the Lord of Glory that he, the stupid pig, should die as soon as possible. I wish for his divine fire get snuffed out, his divine persona broken, his kingdom crumbled, and his body eaten by me,” Nailisi said. “I feel very disgusted seeing his faith propagated everywhere. Why does a piece of trash like him deserve to propagate his faith? Even a wild dog in my master’s city proves more noble than he is. At least the dog won’t go about barking in other people’s places and force others to hear it bark. Priest, do you get what I’m saying?”

The priest was baffled when she was done.

Nailisi called out again. It was only then that the priest came to his senses and pointed at Nailisi’s big nose, saying angrily, “All people who defile our god…”

“I’m not people, I’m a demon!” Nailisi corrected the priest nonchalantly.

It was seen in the Sensory Sharing between Nailisi and Saleen that the golden-armored warriors at the hill did not move. The holy masters had no intentions of getting near the village either. Nailisi felt rather disappointed.

“Demon! You foul creature, how dare you tarnish the light of our lord!” The priest thought he was done for anyway, so he got enraged. He pointed at Nailisi and said, “It was god who created everything. It was god who gave humans happiness. It was…”

“It was you mother. It was your mother who gave you your life. It was your mother who gave you a family. It was your mother who gave you everything. What does anything has to do with god? Is he your father or something?” Nailisi had always been sharp-tongued. People were usually thrown into blind rage by her words.

Furthermore, she was attacking at the highest being in the priest’s mind.

That priest jumped and yelled, “Without god, this world would be condemned to darkness. Without god, all calamities would fall upon us. People would never get a full meal, and they would always shiver in the cold. You demon, don’t you dare try to play with the hearts of men!”

“Oh stupid one, the poorest empire in the whole of Myers Mainland is your Tanggulasi Empire controlled by the Holy See while the richest is the Qin Empire. That outright forbids any preaching in their domain,” Nailisi said “What has your god given your Tanggulasians?”

“The wrath of god has been visited upon the soil of Qin. The light of god shall light up the entire world!” The priest retorted with a firm posture and a proud voice. The army of the Tanggulasi Empire had invaded Northern Qin. It was something known throughout the entire Holy See.

“So, he goes about wrecking other people’s homes just because they don’t believe in him?” Nailisi asked. “Tsk tsk, so that is the god you believe in, eh? What an *sshole.”

“It was you people who defiled the gods in the first place,” the priest said. “God has anger too!”

“You’re kind of right about that,” Nailisi replied. “Humans did kill quite a number of gods, and all of them more powerful than the Lord of Light. A good-for-nothing piece of sh*t like the Lord of Light wouldn’t have stood a chance preaching in the Myers Mainland otherwise. Wait, don’t you know how Myers Mainland got its name? It’s thanks to the Goddess of Myers, not some sh*thead going by the name of Lord of Light.”

“You b*stard!” That priest swung its fists and charged at Nailisi. A believer pulled at his sleeves and peered over his shoulder, saying, “There are no other beings befitting the title of ‘god’ other than the Lord of Light. Myers was but a swindler. She is no god.”

“Well, how would you know?” Nailisi had no intention of attacking anyone. She could have easily killed every single person before her with just one finger. She was simply baiting the ones behind to come save those people she was toying with.

“That’s what the god said. That’s god’s decree,” the believer answered in a straightforward manner.

Nailisi was puzzled for a bit before getting what the believer meant. The demons behind her burst into laughter. The powerful sound waves made the house, which lost a wall, shaking like it was about to collapse.

“So, you just buy whatever he says?” Nailisi asked the believer with exasperation.

“Of course, god never lies.” The believer looked incredibly adamant, losing all the previous fear.

“How do you know your god doesn’t lie?” Nailisi asked. The demon was curious as to how a common believer came to know their god.

“Because god said so. He said he never lied,” the believer answered.

That answer made Saleen, who was right behind the squad of demons, laugh. Oh yeah, that’s how the believers behave. They won’t hear whatever you have to say. In their minds, their god is the only righteous being alive.