As Han Shuo made his way to the Hall of Cardinals, Wolf described everything about the eldest cardinal to Han Shuo in great detail. Han Shuo felt sick to his stomach just hearing about the cardinal without even having met him.
This Cardinal named Kironlo had not only helped found the Church of Calamity. In fact, the reason why the entire Profound Continent joined forces to crack down on the Calamity Church a few hundred years ago was entirely due to this very person!
Why? Because at that time, he had indiscriminately unleashed the Plague on the entire Profound Continent, turning the citizens of many countries into undead creatures overnight. The Plague was a type of contagious necromancy disease. Those infected with the plague would turn into zombies and then spread the disease by biting other people.
Thanks to the madman Kironlo, who unleashed the plague on each country, turning large numbers of the population into undead creatures, every single nation on the continent was outraged. Before Kironlo's mad act, the reputation of the Church of Calamity on the Profound Continent wasn't as great as that of the Church of Light, but it was still highly respected. Members of the Church of Calamity were proud to stand among the rest of the continent.
However, after the plague broke out, every country was panicked and their attitude towards the Calamity Church became hostile. As a result, the Calamity Church became the public enemy of the entire Profound Continent.
During the battle against the plague, the Church of Light mobilised all of its white priests and toured every single country. They expended a great deal of energy purifying the masses of undead creatures infected with the plague.
It was also during this time that the Church of Light, then a small religious organisation, seized the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to become the number one religion on the Profound Continent. Meanwhile, the Church of Calamity was hated and despised by all lands and was forced into constant hiding. It was around this time that this underground headquarters of the Calamity Church was established.
Kironlo, the main perpetrator of the disaster, was fortunate enough not to lose his life. Even though some of the church members were unhappy with his actions, as Kironlo was one of the most senior members of the church and the existence of the church was threatened at that time, they decided to be patient. In the aftermath, even Kironlo had realised the detrimental effects his unspeakable actions alone had brought upon the Church of Calamity. In the hundreds of years that followed, he lived a reclusive life, staying away from the affairs of the Church.
Kironlo was incredibly powerful to begin with. His painstaking cultivation during his hundreds of years of seclusion had allowed him to progress even further. He had become one of the most powerful Ancient Existences of the Church. Kironlo's current influence within the Church was second only to the Pope, as many core members of the Church had previously received training from Kironlo. The long passage of time had effectively pushed any memory of his grave error into the deep, dark annals of history. Having kept a low profile for many years, when he saw that the Church of Light was on the brink of destruction, he decided to emerge and wreak havoc once more.
At the centre of the Church of Calamity's headquarters was the Hall of Cardinals. The hall had a solemn and sombre atmosphere. A bright magic lamp hung from the dark stone ceiling, and every inch of the walls around it was carved with patterns of various evil gods. The hard stone seats were covered with the comfortable skins of several magical beasts. White bones arranged into bizarre shapes were placed at the four corners of the Cardinal's Hall.
When Han Shuo entered the hall, the dozen or so cardinals and the big fat pope all focused their gazes on Han Shuo. They were all of different strengths. The most powerful was a basegod, while the weakest were sacred ranks. All of them looked extremely old and exuded an intense aura of wickedness, while their eyes glittered with either cruel, sinister or callous radiance.
Apart from the big fat Pope, there were thirteen cardinals in all. Of these, one was a basegod, three were demigods, and the rest were all sacred grade experts. Most of them cultivated the energy of death, darkness, destruction and summoning.
Wolf had previously described Kironlo's appearance to Han Shuo. But without even consciously using his senses, Han Shuo could tell at first glance that it was the tall, slender Kironlo with the devilish green light radiating from his eyes. His body radiated so much aura of death that there was almost no presence of life to be felt from him. He looked more like an undead than a human.
As Han Shuo scanned the crowd gathered in the hall, the crowd also scanned Han Shuo - especially Kironlo. Not only did he not bother to hide the hostility in his eyes, he also did not stop examining Han Shuo with a gaze that would make an ordinary person's blood run cold.
Suddenly, a pulse of soul-searching energy from Kironlo enveloped Han Shuo. The corners of Kironlo's mouth had even turned up in a sinister sneer as the soul energy was released. It looked like he wanted to humiliate Han Shuo.
Han Shuo, who had come in with a stratagem, wore a genial smile the whole time and sized up Kironlo with a big smile on his face. Then his consciousness struck. A soul energy much more powerful than Kironlo's suddenly pulsed and hit Kironlo hard.
""Owww..." Kironlo cried out in pain, clutching his head. His inhuman appearance became even more vicious and terrifying.
"How dare you attack me!" The beaten Kironlo shouted after the pain in his head eased slightly, glaring at Han Shuo with his dark and cold eyes.
Han Shuo did not react. Instead, he smiled at the big fat man and said innocently, "Your Holiness, who is this person? I just walked in and haven't even sat down yet. Why is he trying to slander me?"
All those present were of reasonable strength. Although most of them were unable to know what had actually happened, they could faintly sense with their souls that the two were having a confrontation. That innocent face of Han Shuo's seemed very genuine. He had obviously gotten the better of Kironlo, and yet he could pretend to be falsely accused, and he did so with such sincerity. He immediately won the unanimous approval of everyone present for his skills in deception.
Truly a most despicable and wicked man. One of us, in fact. No wonder the Church of Light couldn't prevail over him, many of the Cardinals in the hall lamented inwardly.
Being dark, cunning and evil themselves, these people found Han Shuo's practice admirable.
The chubby pope was torn between laughter and tears when Han Shuo had obviously hurt Kironlo and yet pretended to be innocent. The Pope forced two hollow laughs and tried to mediate, "This is just a misunderstanding..." But before either of them could say anything, he hastily raised his voice and announced, "Hey hey! Let me introduce you to everyone. This handsome young man is the most outstanding member of our church - Bryan! Haha, I don't think I need to tell you all about his past achievements!"
"Courageous one. I could tell you were one of us just by looking at you!"
"Even though you haven't been in the church all these years, we never considered you an outsider!"
Some of the people in the room began to praise Han Shuo in a seemingly sincere and heartfelt manner.
At that moment, another party entered the hall. When Han Shuo turned around, he discovered that the newcomers were actually the six-horned tribal king of the Soul Race and his two penta-horned subordinates. Han Shuo was quite astonished as he didn't understand why these aliens would be invited to such a high level meeting of the Church of Calamity.
"Bryan, let me introduce you. These are people from the same side as us. In that great war five thousand years ago, one of the leaders who led our fight came from their race!" the fat man explained quickly, as if he knew of the grudge between the two.
Meanwhile, for some reason, this Kironlo suddenly fell silent. He looked at Han Shuo and the Six-Horned Tribal King as if waiting for a joke to unfold. He seemed to be waiting for the Six-Horned Tribal King to attack Han Shuo.
It seemed that all the cardinals sitting in this room were aware of the enmity between Han Shuo and the Six-Horned Tribal King. These people had only heard of Han Shuo's strength through hearsay, and had never actually witnessed his power. Some were even sceptical about these reports. However, when it came to this Six-Horned Tribal King of the Soul Race, the vast majority of them had ingrained, first-hand impressions of his extremely terrifying strength. When they saw the two crossing paths, they had amused looks in their eyes.
It turned out that the Soul Races had participated in the great war that had engulfed the entire Profound Continent five thousand years ago. No wonder! Han Shuo was greatly enlightened by the Pope's words.
Han Shuo glanced around the hall before he realised from the emotions in the cardinals' eyes what was going on in their minds. He sneered. But after careful observation, Han Shuo noticed that only the big fat Pope had an unperturbed and calm look on his face.
From this observation, Han Shuo concluded that Edwin and Belinda must have been loyal enough to the Pope to report what had happened between him and the Six-Horned Tribal King the day before. Otherwise, the Pope wouldn't have taken it so calmly.
The rest of the cardinals had their eyes darting back and forth between Han Shuo and the Six-Horned Tribal King, as if anticipating some sort of drama. Kironlo was somewhat concerned when the two did not come into conflict. Then, as if he suddenly remembered something, he smiled wickedly and said, "Do you two not know each other? As far as we know, you two have met before in Tarrag Canyon. There had even been some misunderstandings between the two of you. Am I right?"
Kironlo also thought that the six-horned tribe king wasn't good at distinguishing human appearances, so he spoke his malicious reminder. He couldn't wait to see Han Shuo humiliated.
But how was it possible that Han Shuo was unaware of this?
"Haha, that's right. Back in Tarrag Canyon, we did indeed have some misunderstandings," Han Shuo clearly admitted.
Everyone in the room tensed up, as if they expected something to happen next. Their gaze was completely focused on the six-horned tribe king, waiting for him to strike. They knew that people of their race were cruel, ruthless and did not have the same scruples as a human. It was only natural that they would expect the tribal king to attack Han Shuo immediately.
Kironlo scoffed in his heart. Since he and the Pope had personally fought the Six-Horned Tribal King before, he knew better than anyone just how formidable the Six-Horned Tribal King was. Seeing that a showdown was about to take place before them, the excitement in his heart had grown so much that he almost couldn't contain himself!
However, contrary to what the crowd had expected, the six-horned tribal king did not strike. The whole room was completely stunned and couldn't understand what the six-horned tribal king was waiting for.
"It was Bryan who took your things, wasn't it? You even told me that you would kill him if you saw him. What's going on?" Kironlo couldn't wait any longer and reminded him explicitly.