The Evil God Summoned by the Saintess

Chapter 263: Chapter 261: Polar Blood Alliance

Hilia fell silent.

"It can’t be... such a coincidence, right?"

Even as she said this, she was already certain.

This was a heretic base.

That strange kind of taint, she had never encountered before—an unknown sect she’d never seen.

"No idea what sect it is... But I was just here to practice my magic. How did I end up finding a heretic base?"

Rose chuckled lightly and said, "This just means you’re fated for sects—you stumble around and find their lair."

Hilia: "...Is this what you call fate?"

Why did the Southern Border City Divine Hall bring people here to look for so long, only to find a single base revealed by someone, while she just came to practice magic and walked right in?

Of course, what Hilia found even stranger was that this cave was way too obvious. Shouldn’t it have been easy to find?

Rose smiled and said, "Think about it—if you weren’t here to practice magic or curious about the Ice Wolf’s ’den’, would you ever enter this cave?"

Hilia thought for a bit, "I think I would."

"Then if you were the Southern Border City Lord and knew about the Ice Wolf and its den, would you come check specifically? Besides, you know heretic bases are always hidden, not in such an obvious cave. Just now, you only thought this was an Ice Wolf’s den, not a heretic base."

Hilia was silent for a moment, then shook her head: "I really didn’t expect this to be a heretic base, if it weren’t for Mage’s Hand sensing traces of an array."

Rose said, "Sensing and detecting an array outside is a feature of Mage’s Hand. Mages who don’t know this magic find it very hard to notice, unless they’re an Array Master."

Hilia nodded, "That makes sense."

"Even the unusual demonic qi you sensed is only because your Divine Contract affinity is high enough."

"You can sense it just because the affinity is high?" This was something Hilia had absolutely no idea about.

"Normally, no. But the pollution is unique because it carries a trace of divine power. People with high Divine Contract affinity sense something different—not the pollution, but the divine power itself."

Hilia suddenly understood, "So, there’s a God behind this heretic base, just like back in Southern Border City... Wait, a God?!"

She glanced toward the depths of the cave, feeling the urge to retreat at once.

"Don’t be scared. There’s no God inside here—at most some power gifted by a God. The heretics here merge taint and divine power together."

Hilia relaxed a little.

Rose tempted her: "Since you’re already here, aren’t you curious? If you don’t go in and wipe out the base, will you really just go back?"

"..." Hilia suspected she’d been influenced by Rose to come here and ’coincidentally’ discover this not-at-all-hidden and rather bold heretic base.

Rose sensed Hilia’s thoughts and said blandly, "Don’t push everything on me. This is just your luck."

"Luck..."

Hilia immediately recalled what Rose said about Water Reversal Disperse—and that after reaching proficiency, you get a lucky +1 effect. Her eyes brightened.

"Don’t think about it. This isn’t Water Reversal Disperse at work—it’s just your natural luck. Born with it."

Hilia: "..." freewebnovel.cσ๓

The girl gave up discussing this with Rose.

She used Mage’s Hand to sense array runes hidden within the cave walls and asked, "Lord Rose, can I invade this array? If I don’t disable it, I feel uneasy entering the heretic base."

Rose smiled faintly, "Go ahead and try. If you run into trouble, just ask me."

"Okay!"

Hilia nodded.

Her spiritual power tendrils slowly reached for the array runes, trying to break through. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm

A moment later, Hilia withdrew her hand.

"This is too far out—can’t reach the core of the array. I’d better go in and take a look."

Hilia disguised herself, then walked further inside.

With each step, she stayed alert, watching for any sign of heretic activity ahead.

Soon, she ventured deeper and stopped in front of an unremarkable alcove in the cave.

"There seems to be a hidden door here..."

Hilia ducked fully into the alcove, used Disguise Skill to turn herself into a rock, and continued the array breaking she hadn’t finished before.

This time, the process went much smoother.

After an hour, the rock in front of her gradually faded and disappeared.

Hilia let out a breath, rubbed her forehead, and realized she was sweating.

"This base looks really bold, but it’s actually more secretive than the Deep Sea Mutual Aid Association’s base. If you don’t go in from here, you’d just end up in the Ice Wolves’ nest... But then, why didn’t they dare come in just now?"

Hilia was puzzled.

Judging by the structure of the array, if she didn’t break through here in the ordinary alcove, there’s no way to reach the real base—going deeper would just lead to the innermost cave.

Through the array, Hilia sensed a grass mat inside, covered in wolf fur; faint ice element fluctuations radiated from the fur, same as that on the outside wolf king.

"No wonder no one found this—the hiding spot is too good."

Hilia recalled what the Holy Court documented about the Twelve Heterodox Sects. After some elimination, she picked out one sect.

"Polar Blood Alliance."

Rose asked with interest, "Polar Blood Alliance?"

Hilia nodded, "The Holy Court’s heresy compendium says it’s a sect operating in the Land of the Far North. Normally very covert, unlike the Dusk Sect or Deep Sea Mutual Aid Association, they hide their bases very well—it took centuries to destroy only two or three of them.

"Their ambitions are a lot like other sects. They claim the world should be full of iron and blood, that coldness is the true tone of the world. Every time they appear, they start wars somewhere. Northern Alliance’s independence supposedly had them behind it—but no one’s sure if that’s true.

"Only one thing is certain: wherever there’s war, they’ll be around the battlefield. Sometimes, they even orchestrate wars themselves—they’re likely the ones who incite them."

As she spoke, Hilia paused, remembering something: "Lord Rose, do you think this Polar Blood Alliance could be linked to the ’Ashugar’ that Mr. Jonathan talked about?"

Ashugar—one of the Twelve Apostles, still alive according to Jonathan. Before he left, he said he would struggle against the Gods to the end. Jonathan didn’t know where he went.

"Ashugar..." Rose pondered for a while and said, "No idea for now. Out of the Twelve Apostles, he was the legion commander—fought battles alongside me for a lifetime. Wherever there was war, he might go. But he wouldn’t start a war for no reason."

Hilia said, "Mr. Jonathan said Ashugar wanted to fight against the Gods to the very end. The Northern Alliance’s independence from Holy Court rule fits his goals perfectly."

Rose gave a slight smile: "It’s possible. But to know for sure, you’ll have to find the core spiritual object of the base."

"Okay! I’ll do that right now!"