Gate of Apocalypse

"You guys, who is the head of the Holy City Knights now?" Chen Xiaolian glanced at Ulysses and Lucius, who had just reared up, and asked.

He could see that of everyone present now, these two had the highest status. Since Mene had died, they would definitely elect a new successor as well.

"I ...... am the current leader, Ulysses, and this is the deputy leader, Lucius." Ulysses took a deep breath and was trying his best to suppress the fear and worry inside.

He was already forty-three years old, and when Tatsu had beaten the entire Holy City Knights to pieces and taken away the feathers, he was only a newcomer who had just joined the Knights.

He had seen with his own eyes how Saint Canaan, who had been thought to have been unbeatable by the winner, Monyin, had been killed by Tatsu.

And now, it seemed like everything was about to repeat itself?

"Well, don't worry so much." Chen Xiaolian smiled, "Since you're the one in charge, I'll spread it out. All I need is for you to promise to lend me this thing for a while, and when I've used it, I'll return it to you."

"Lend?" Ulysses clenched his teeth: "What do you take as a guarantee?"

"It's simple, if I really intended to take it away completely today, I wouldn't even need to bullshit with you guys." Chen Xiaolian shrugged, his tone was relaxed: "The strength to easily kill you guys is my guarantee."

Ulysses was silent.

Chen Xiaolian's words were very unpleasant, but they were the most impeccable truth.

"Ulysses! Do you really intend to give in to this blasphemous devil!?" A knight in the back called out, although his hand holding the hilt of his sword also had a slight tremor: "The holy relics are a gift from the Lord, and we will not hesitate to offer even the price of blood in order to guard the glory of the Lord!"

"Well, give me a decision." Chen Xiaolian pressed to ignore the knight behind Ulysses, his gaze only looked directly at Ulysses: "I believe you are very pious, but you are not a crazy person like Gattuso and will make a wise choice."

"...... Since it says it's a loan, it should have a deadline." Ulysses hesitated for a moment, and his tone began to loosen.

"One year." Chen Xiaolian casually said a number.

He was not lying, and was really planning to return the pair of feathers to the Knights after everything was done.

Although if he could penetrate the message hidden in this pair of feathers, he would be able to make an ordinary awakened person leap to become a supreme master that even ordinary S-classes could not look at, but this was not a big problem for Chen Xiaolian.

For one thing, there aren't too many of these guys who can be as devout as Gattuso - or as crazy as that. According to Chen, it is only one or two hundred years to produce the last one of the kind. Even if they are given back, there may not be another one in a short time.

Secondly, even if one of them does appear, as long as you can solve the problem of Tatsu, to suppress it is not a big problem - and if you can not solve the problem of Tatsu, then you are dead, there is no need to worry about it.

As for the one-year time limit, Chen Xiaolian himself does not know exactly how long it will take for Tatsu to get out of the trap, and it costs nothing to say it casually. Even if it does drag on until that time, the big deal is to renege on a debt, these Knights guys and where to find themselves to collect debts?

"A year ......" Ulysses looked back at the knights behind him, as well as the feathers on the altar, gritted his teeth and slowly nodded: "Okay, I'll give you."

Although as a knight serving the Lord, allowing the other party to take away the holy relic was also a great humiliation for Ulysses, he was after all able to distinguish between the light and the heavy.

Even if you refuse Chen Xiaolian's proposal, all of them die here in battle, the holy relics will still be taken away in the end. In that case, why bleed and die for nothing?

"I really did not misjudge you." Chen Xiaolian smiled, nodded in satisfaction, and walked towards the altar in front of him.

Originally, those knights were all straight in front of the altar, some hands pressed on the hilt of their waist, some even simply had their crossed longswords drawn long ago, but when Chen Xiaolian came, the few knights who were originally in front of him involuntarily took two steps backwards and made way.

"Thanks." Chen Xiaolian gently walked to the altar, took the feather in his hand, turned his head and smiled at Ulysses: "By the way, besides that, I have something to ask you. Please, find a secluded room."

......

"...... Ask away."

At the top of the Order's castle, within a small, narrow room.

It was between the Order's meditation retreats, and there wasn't even a window. The room was empty, except for a few sheets of linen visiting the floor, with a shelf in the corner, there was nothing.

Not only did he archly give the holy relic to Chen Xiaolian, but even now he has to answer his questions ...... Although this is a helpless act of necessity, Ulysses' heart is still filled with great humiliation.

"Don't be so excited, put calm. I said I would return it to you." Chen Xiaolian leaned against the wall and looked at Ulysses with a smile, "At least it's better than the last time. I heard Chen say that he had killed one of your good saints that had appeared, right?"

"Didn't you also kill Gattuso?" Ulysses said coldly.

"That was in the copy." Chen Xiaolian shrugged his shoulders, "Hostile to each other, what can I do? Besides, you must know better than me what kind of madness Gattuso has become."

Ulysses did not speak, only hanging his head low.

"And I know Tatsu very well, he is not as good at talking as I am. Without using my brain, I can figure out with just my butt that he must have killed more than that saint in the first place, right?" Chen Xiaolian didn't care about Ulysses' reaction and spoke on by himself, "But interestingly enough, the information I got from another source was a bit off.

Someone said to me that Chen did not take all of the feathers because he and Hussein made a bet, two out of three. Although Hussein eventually lost, he still forced Tatsu to take only half of the feathers.

The question I have to ask you is, which of these two pieces of information is the truth in the first place?"

"Who told you about this?" Ulysses suddenly raised his head and stared at Chen Xiaolian: "Hussein himself?"

"Another friend, a guy who used to stay in the Thorn Blossom Regiment. He said that it was Tatsu who told him." Chen Xiaolian smiled, "I can trust him."

"Both." Ulysses was silent for a while before he whispered.

"All of them?" Chen Xiaolian smiled, "So ...... Hussein is not that saint, is he?"

"No ...... Hussein was the head of our knight order at that time, and the name of that generation's saint was Canaan." Anyway, even the holy relics have been surrendered, in the matter of answering the question, Ulysses has nothing to resist: "He was originally just a low-ranking knight. The system in our knight order, is that everyone can take turns to allocate time to enlighten the holy relics, only according to the different levels, the length of time allocated to different. But for some reason, the ones who can get divine enlightenment from the holy relics are the lower rank members."

"The higher the level of the big people, the more things need to worry about in their heads, and of course they don't have so much energy to concentrate on." Chen Xiaolian smiled: "Go on."

"When Chen first contacted us, I had not yet become an Awakened One, much less been called by the Lord's favor to join the Knights of the Holy City, so I did not know the details of the time. I only heard afterwards that there had been a villain who tried to take the holy relic from our hands, but was defeated by Saint Canaan.

Then ...... was the second appearance of Tatsu. At that time I had joined the Knights, just a most ordinary low-ranking knight only.

This time, surprisingly, even Saint Canaan is no longer his opponent! For the rest of us, although he did not deliberately kill, but we still have quite a few people died in his hands, even Hussein Paladin and Mene they were ...... seriously wounded.

Just when Tatsu was about to take away the holy relic, Hussein did something.

He took the holy relic ...... angel's feather and inserted it into his own body!"

"I don't think this will work." Chen Xiaolian heard this and frowned.

"Paladin Hussein also knew that he couldn't possibly stop Tatsu." Ulysses shook his head, "There hasn't been any bet either. He only forced Tatsu to make a pact to take only half of the holy relic and promised to return it to us in the future."

"How did he force it?" Chen Xiaolian immediately pursued the question.

The feather itself certainly contained great power, but that was not something that an ordinary Awakened could easily harness. Previously, Alter was only able to barely exert the power of the feathered wings under the power of many other knights, but he was soon drained of his life force and died as well.

What's more, the power of the feather itself is far less than the ability to decipher the source code contained within it. At that time, Tatsu was already able to kill saints, even if Hussein could borrow the power in the wings, it was impossible to be Tatsu's opponent.

As a matter of common sense, since Tatsu was able to kill the saint, he should have taken all of the pair of wings away.

So, whether it was a bet or any other way, how Hussein forced him to make this promise became the biggest key.

"Hussein Paladin's exclusive skill ...... named Aurora, is an S-rank skill." Anyway, Hussein has long left the Order, Ulysses also do not need to worry, directly said: "In the necessary moment, he can burn all the attribute power he personally possesses to wash, into the daytime attack power, extremely powerful. The only drawback is that ...... after launching an attack, the value of the washed attributes will not be restored."

"What a coincidence." Chen Xiaolian secretly smiled.

This guy, Hussein, turned out to have extracted the same personal exclusive skill as himself in the first place.

And he also guessed what Hussein had done in the first place.

Ulysses continued: "At that time, the Hussein Paladin forced himself to endure the great pain of his physical body and told Tatsu about his skills. If Tatsu did not agree to our request, he would release the Sunburst Wash.

Hussein himself was not sure if this level of attack could kill Tatsu. But because the holy relic and he were in a bound state at the time, once the skill was released, the power contained within the holy relic would also be washed away along with his own power."

"He does have the courage to gamble." Chen Xiaolian praised Hussein.

If he could really release all the power contained in the feather, whether it could hurt the then-current Tatsu, Chen Xiaolian was not sure, but he knew that Tatsu would be worried about whether the feather would suffer any damage in the Sunburst Washing.

The power that was extracted was not important, but Tatsu would definitely be worried that the information contained in it might be lost as a result.

"Tatsu accepted Hussein's offer and the two set up a bet of two out of three." Ulysses whispered: "It's just that ...... even with the power of the holy relics, Paladin Hussein was still no match for Tatsu. He lost the first game, and if he loses again in the second game, the holy relic will be completely owned by Tatsu.

At the last minute, Hussein still released his exclusive skills and cleansed all of his attributes.

When the Hussein Paladin released his skill, the whole person was like turning into a sun, emitting light uncontrollably.

The light kept going as if the power in the feathers was endless. It didn't completely dissipate until a long time later. When the light dispersed, we could see that Hussein Paladin's whole body was covered with large and small wounds, blood flowed all over the ground, and the whole person was almost so weak that he would fall to the ground at any moment.

And Tatsu was standing in front of him with an odd expression on his face.

Just before the Hussein Paladin was about to fall to the ground, Tatsu stepped forward, held him up, and told him that he had lost this second game.

There was no third game, because Hussein had exhausted all the strength in his body and could not even stand up straight by himself.

Tatsu also did not take the entire holy relic, but separated it as previously agreed, taking only half of it.

And the Hussein paladin almost died on the spot because he had taken too much power. Luckily, the Lord did not abandon his faithful servant and still barely survived.

But after he had cleansed himself of all his attributes, he also almost became an invalid.

Although blessed by the Lord, Hussein later regained some strength, but he still ...... can never return to the original S-class powerhouse degree."

"Okay, there is no need to say the next." Chen Xiaolian waved his hand at Ulysses.

The back how Menai rebellion, killed Hussein's wife and children, that is their family business, Chen Xiaolian is not interested in prying more.

The only thing he wanted to know was how Hussein had forced Tatsu to set the bet and actually carry it out.

Now, it seems that there is not much reference value.

But Chen Xiaolian did incidentally unravel a doubt in this regard, that is, Hussein was clearly once the leader of the Holy City Knights, a strong person who could barely compete with Tatsu, why did his strength decline to the extent that he could not even beat Tian Lie when he saw him.

"I have told you everything you wanted to know as you requested." Ulysses took a deep breath and gazed at Chen Xiaolian: "You will keep your promise and return the holy relic to us, right."

"Don't worry, what even Tatsu can do, how can I not do it?" Chen Xiaolian laughed, stood up straight from his position leaning against the wall, and waved his hand at Ulysses, "Goodbye."

A green curtain of light fell from above Chen Xiaolian's head, and in an instant, he disappeared in place.