City of Sin (Yanyu Jiangnan)

Heavenly Guardian

As Richard meditated, a part of the power flowing into his body was siphoned off to heal the damage to his mana pool. Although it had looked easy to kill every enemy, facing a sky saint wasn’t the simplest of tasks. However, it felt rather strange; he kept feeling his right chest itching, as though something was growing within. His bloodlines seemed to be thirsty for energy as well, far beyond the usual.

Scanning his body, he quickly realised what it was; a whole new heart was growing within him!

The next two days were filled with dull meditation. The growing heart required enormous amounts of energy that took all four bodies orbiting him as well as the well of stars to power, and even so he only managed to barely satisfy its needs.

From the saint to the legendary realm, there was a tiny chance of another heart appearing with every level up; these new hearts were equivalent to new sources of energy. The more powerful one’s body was, the greater this possibility. A new heart would bring a great boost to one’s physical abilities, mana, or internal energy and would also increase one’s burst potential in battle. This was one of the reasons for the great divide between saints even at the same level.

More than half of all saints wouldn’t get a new heart even at level 20, and this signified that they had minimal chances of getting to the legendary realm. Of course, the extra heart didn’t even come close to guaranteeing advancement either; it was just one step along the way. Very few people managed to grow a new heart for every single level they advanced, or somehow acquired another source of energy; those people did have a significant chance of reaching the legendary realm.

And then, there were the chosen few geniuses of the world. They would have three or more new hearts before entering the legendary realm, and as such would walk very far down their path and even had a chance of becoming epic beings. Such a great number of hearts, be it for a warrior or a mage, meant they also had enormous physical capabilities.

As the two days of anxious joy passed, there were no more military conflicts in Faust. Most families seemed to have forgotten about everything, with only the assembly still engaged in intense debate about who the legal owner of the blue moon was. They held a tiny bit of hope, but everyone knew that Richard would not give it up. The storm that had swept through the city seemed to have come to an end.

It was an eerie calm.

Richard didn’t care much about anything but his heart during this time. He wasn’t all that worried about the safety of the island; most of the rune knights in his employ had now gathered close to the portals and would be here within minutes. Even multiple legendary beings would have to think twice about facing 300 rune knights with their enchanted javelins. His quick decisions had minimised the damage to the family, so there was no vengeance to be exacted either. Those who had stirred the pot would eventually be rooted out, but to do that he needed to find new excuses.

Once it was time to meet Noelene once more, he slowed his efforts and gathered every single offering he had on hand. With an escort of fifty rune knights, he headed towards the Church of the Eternal Dragon for the ceremony.

Things were quiet along the way, minor nobles or vaguely powerful warriors glaring at him from time to time. Most of them had lost relatives of friends in the chaos, but all they could do now to show their fury was glower. Within the Church, Noelene was already lying in wait. She looked haggard, a rare sight for someone as powerful as her; she had clearly not rested at all in the past three days. The preparations for the ceremony weren’t as simple as she had described.

Pulling her dishevelled hair into order, she asked, “How much did you manage?”

“About two top-tiers’ worth plus some scraps in total,” Richard answered.

Her brows immediately relaxed, “Not bad… Our chances will be pretty high.”

“Is a guardian from the Lightless Void so important?” he couldn’t help but question. It was obvious that Noelene had just spent a lot of effort on making preparations, paying a significant price, but this was still two top-tier offerings. It was sadly too late for him to help Flowsand directly anymore, but he didn’t want this business partner and great friend to suffer for his sake as well.

Noelene just answered with two names, “Io, Nyra.”

Richard immediately understood her point; both the battle priest and the soul shepherd possessed unimaginable might, and alongside Flowsand they alone could turn the tides on battles of tens of thousands of men. However, he already had a large number of powerful followers. Tiramisu, for example, was basically guaranteed to enter the legendary realm at this point; he need only eat and sleep and it would happen. Waterflower and Phaser were rather powerful as well, and even though Gangdor was a little less talented he was still a saint.

He did lack a powerful cleric since Flowsand’s departure, but he had a batch of young clerics led by Caesar that were maturing quickly in Faelor. It wouldn’t be long before they would be quite powerful themselves, even if not comparable to Flowsand or her group. That being said, just how many families even could?

A heavenly guardian of unknown origin might not be the best choice. Another assassin would be wasted when he already had Waterflower, Phaser, and Zangru for the task. If he used the two offerings to strengthen his followers, he could push the potential of those outside of Tiramisu up to the legendary realm as well. This would be an enormous benefit in a few years.

When he told her of these ideas, stressing the fact that the incident with the blue moon had ended for the foreseeable future, Noelene shook her head, “No, you don’t understand. This guardian will be very important for you; you need great power that you can use right away; the more, the better.”

“Right away?” Richard turned grim, “What are you talking about?”

“Some wheels are turning in the Sacred Alliance,” Noelene said vaguely, refusing to speak further.

Richard frowned a little while as he tried to work out what it was, but after failing he just nodded towards the priestess. The two of them were now on the same boat financially, so she definitely wouldn’t hurt him actively. Knowing her power and breadth of knowledge, he trusted in her judgement.

The ceremony prepared as always, and having done this innumerable times, Richard started placing offerings on the altar and waited for them to converge into possible blessings. They disappeared one after the other, but no options appeared as they instead coagulated into one single bundle of timeforce. This was new; generally, one couldn’t just club the divine grace of multiple blessings together. Noelene had to be doing something behind the scenes.

Standing up once all of the offerings were placed down, he saw a golden silhouette appearing in the bands of light. The figure kept evolving between numerous forms, going from robed clerics to warriors with greatswords and archers alongside many other things. A beam of light shot straight between his eyebrows, imparting the information he needed, “Blessing: Heavenly Guardian. You shall receive a heavenly guardian that is eternally loyal to you. They will follow your orders throughout their lives, and their limit can be raised with more offerings.”