The First Pope - Chapter 58

Chapter 58

Witchcraft required one to have witch power in their bloodline to practice, but formations had no such restrictions. Under the unreserved tutelage of Chelsea and Betty, the God Race quickly learned how to create Teleportation Arrays.

A cave full of gems was transported back to Manden City; the Light Crystals alone, meant for crafting staffs for the God Race, filled several warehouses. Crafting several thousand staffs at once was no easy task. After discussing it with her clan, and at Darcy's suggestion, Chelsea simply moved her entire family into Manden City to focus on the crafting in seclusion.

Some of the God Race who were very interested in crafting magical artifacts would occasionally come to watch. The Morgan witches were not guarded about this; on the contrary, they were very generous, giving them several books on artifact crafting and sharing their experience.

The relationship between the witches and the God Race, which had started out distant, slowly grew much closer. It wasn't just the Morgan Family who took the initiative to show goodwill; through Betty's efforts, the witches of the Garcia Family also began trying to interact with the God Race.

While the Morgan witches were in seclusion crafting staffs for the God Race, the Garcia witches were helping the God Race set up Teleportation Arrays.

The Slade Sea Region was a vast area, and the distances between cities were great. Although they had conquered all the cities here, they only truly controlled the three they inhabited.

Neither the God Race nor the witches possessed the speed of the Wolf Race or the Vampires, who could travel thousands of miles in a day. This prevented them from sending a portion of their people to occupy the other cities, because if reinforcements couldn't arrive in time, their scattered forces could easily be picked off and consumed by the Vampires.

But the Teleportation Arrays could largely compensate for their disadvantage in speed.

Therefore, as soon as Darcy learned of the arrays' function, she immediately took her people and sought help from the Garcia witches again, tirelessly traveling between the various cities to set up numerous Teleportation Arrays.

Only if reinforcements could keep up could they continue to expand their territory. Only with a larger territory could they shelter more humans and find more Light Believers and knights.

The Vampires would not tolerate their prey challenging their position as overlords, so they had to become as strong as possible before the Vampires started taking them seriously.

Only then would they have a chance to withstand the Vampires' assault when they finally reacted.

Their war with the Vampires had not yet truly begun.

While busy with the Teleportation Arrays, Darcy was also discussing plans with Susan to continue expanding into the surrounding areas. Cynthia was not with them; she had more important things to do.

Carapaces from giant spiders, replacing parchment, were piled on the trestle bridge. Although most were failures, a small portion had been successful, but the teleportation channels were not very stable.

Cynthia and Olivia had been researching for several months, trying many different methods, but the success rate was not very high.

Fortunately, however, they had been able to confirm that the carapaces could indeed serve as a medium for storing elements.

Late at night.

A bright moon hung in the night sky, its brilliant light bathing the trestle bridge and making it seem like day. Cynthia sat on the ground, her hair casually tied back, studying a piece of carapace in her hand.

Olivia casually destroyed another failed carapace. She glanced sideways at Cynthia, then leaped down from the bridge.

Below, Polly and other Elf guards were dragging over the corpses of giant spiders. Seeing Olivia descend, Polly said with a worried expression, "We're about to catch all the giant spiders in this area."

For the sake of Cynthia's research, Olivia had spared no effort, using her Nature Power to search for the lairs of nearby giant spiders and then sending her guards to capture them.

Why was their queen going to such lengths for that member of the God Race?

Olivia glanced at Polly and said flatly, "If there are no more here, go catch them somewhere else."

Polly shrank back and said in a small voice, "Her Majesty the Queen, you're being too good to that God Race member."

Olivia frowned. "Am I?"

Polly nodded repeatedly. "Yes! Your Majesty, not only have you been helping Cynthia research the scrolls without rest, but you've also expended Nature Power to find giant spiders for her. It's been so long. I don't think she'll ever figure it out."

All of Olivia's attention focused on the latter half of Polly's sentence. Displeased by her lack of faith in Cynthia, she corrected her expressionlessly, "She's already halfway there."

Now, they just needed to find a way to stabilize the teleportation channel.

Polly: "..."

Fine, she thought. At worst, they would just have to work a little harder. Who could argue when Her Majesty the Queen trusted this God Race member so much?

The giant spider corpses were large. The carapaces had to be stripped off one by one and cut into small pieces before being sent up to the bridge. Polly and the Elf guards processed the bodies with practiced skill. Olivia watched for a moment, then turned to return to the bridge when a green leaf suddenly drifted down from the sky, slowly landing on her shoulder.

Olivia glanced at it, then raised her hand to take the leaf. A flash of green light passed, and the leaf in her hand transformed into a piece of parchment.

She lowered her gaze, her eyes scanning ten lines at a glance, and her brow slowly furrowed.

When Cynthia returned to her senses from her research on the scrolls, the sky was already brightening. She casually set the carapace aside, stretched, and her gaze naturally sought out Olivia.

Standing at the edge of the bridge and gazing at the sky in a daze, Olivia heard the movement behind her and turned her head slightly. Seeing Cynthia's relaxed expression and the faint smile on her lips, she asked, "Any progress?"

Cynthia picked up a nearby scroll and tossed it over, smiling. "Much more stable than before."

Olivia caught the scroll and glanced down at it. "That's good news."

Her tone was flat, and her expression was not as relaxed as before, which made Cynthia's brow furrow and the smile on her face fade slightly. She walked over to Olivia's side and asked, "What's wrong? Is there bad news?"

Olivia was silent for a moment before handing the parchment she had received to Cynthia. She sighed and said, "A message came from Clan Leader Helen. The Fire God's temple has been destroyed by the Vampires."

Cynthia took the parchment and read it carefully. "Including the God of the Ocean and the Beast God, this is the third temple the Vampires have destroyed," she said in a low voice.

And they still had no idea what the Vampires' purpose was in destroying the temples.

It seemed that while they were striving to grow stronger, the Vampires hadn't been idle either. They had been making such a commotion, yet the Vampires had paid them no mind, simply because they had more important matters to attend to.

"Clan Leader Helen has discovered the Vampires' next target. She wants to invite me to help stop them." Olivia paused, then asked, "Do you want to come along?"

Cynthia was a little surprised that Olivia would ask if she wanted to go. She folded the parchment, a smile involuntarily touching her lips, answering Olivia before she could even speak. "Of course."

"It is my honor to fight alongside Her Majesty the Queen."

Going to stop the Vampires meant leaving Manden City for a while. Fortunately, there was still some time before the day she, Olivia, and Helen had agreed to meet, which gave Cynthia enough time to create a few emergency teleportation scrolls.

Although the stability of the teleportation scrolls was still somewhat lacking, they were now usable. However, because the success rate was too low, they couldn't be mass-produced in large quantities.

Darcy, who had started planning their territorial expansion after setting up Teleportation Arrays in all the cities, somehow learned that Cynthia would be leaving for a while. She immediately dropped what she was doing and rushed to find her.

Next to the Slade Sea Region was Ochester. The Beast God's temple had already collapsed, so the area was no longer a priority for the Vampires. Therefore, Darcy and Susan both agreed that they could incorporate this territory into their own.

However, Susan had sent people to investigate. Originally, the dozens of cities within Ochester's territory were guarded only by fifth-generation Vampires, but now, for some unknown reason, many fourth-generation ones had appeared.

This created quite a bit of trouble for them.

The Light Believers and knights were still in training. The only ones truly capable of fighting the Vampires were the God Race, the witches, and Susan's knights, and among them, the witches and Susan's knights were not capable of fighting alone.

They were severely short on manpower right now.

Darcy spread a map out in front of Cynthia and pointed to a circled location. "According to Susan's investigation, there are at least nine fourth-generation Vampires in this city."

"You must conquer this city before you leave."

Cynthia was a little surprised. "Why so many fourth-generation Vampires?"

In the past, these cities had at most one or two.

Darcy shook her head. "Susan said these Vampires only appeared recently."

She suspected that the Vampires had sent these fourth-generation members to deal with them, so she wanted to strike first and eliminate a batch.

Darcy's guess was very plausible, but Cynthia was reminded of the third-generation Vampires who shouldn't have been on the Sitatul Continent, the ones who had besieged Olivia at the Ice Lake.

Perhaps these fourth-generation Vampires weren't specifically sent to deal with them.

Instead, the Tzimisce and Lasombra had begun to ignore the warnings of the Ventrue and other clans, sending large numbers of Vampires to the Sitatul Continent.

Just as Cynthia had guessed, the fourth-generation Vampires in Ochester were not there for them. The Vampires who had actually been sent to deal with them were still on their way.

In a castle shrouded by night, Iman stood on a terrace holding a glass full of blood, staring blankly into the void. Not far from her, her fourth-generation lords were gathered together, chatting leisurely. The topic of their conversation was the God Race that had occupied the Slade Sea Region.

"The God Race and the witches, a bunch of ants who are barely stronger than humans. When did they get so bold?" a vampire sneered, speaking with malice. "But it's good that they've gathered together like this. Saves us the trouble of hunting them down one by one."

"It's perfect. We can capture them all at once and send them to the Lasombra. I hear they're already preparing to destroy the next temple."

Another vampire reminded him, "Don't forget the Elf Queen is over there."

"The Elf Queen is indeed a problem."

Iman listened quietly to their conversation for a while, then suddenly turned her head to look at a red-haired vampire standing in a corner, enjoying her blood alone. "What do you think of the God Race?" she asked.

Avira hadn't expected Iman to suddenly ask her this question. She raised an eyebrow, stroking the glass in her hand, her tone soft. "They were ants before, but that might not be the case now."

Iman leaned against the railing, her expression languid. "Yes, I haven't forgotten how Andre died."

The God Race had already aroused Iman's vigilance, but unfortunately, the second-generation elders within the clan did not take them seriously.

Iman drained the blood in her glass and sighed deeply. She already had a feeling that this trip would not go smoothly.

In contrast to Iman's solemn mood, Avira was rather looking forward to this trip. She had infiltrated the Tzimisce clan to search for the whereabouts of the Blood Coffins, but after finding several decoys in a row, she had grown a little bored.

Scrounging for evidence of the Tzimisce and Lasombra's transgressions was no longer fun. She had a much more interesting plan.

But before that, she had to see if the God Race was even worthy of being placed on the board as one of her pawns.

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