Millennium Witch

Book 3: Chapter 253: The Storm Is Brewing

“What did you want to ask?”“I want to know… is that Lightning Apostle real?”

“Yes.”

Leilani fell silent for a moment.

In the information her intelligence officers had provided, there was nothing more on the Silver Witch Church—no mention of a Throne, no headquarters cathedral. All their intel pointed to just one person: the Lightning Apostle, shrouded in mystery.

Yet when the Lightning Apostle had only just started acting, before his name had even spread, Councilor Nameless had already claimed to be the Throne of the Silver Witch Church and asked whether Leilani wanted to join.

That could only mean that Councilor Nameless had known about the Lightning Apostle long ago, and that her identity as the Throne was, in all likelihood, genuine.

Seeing the subtle look on her face, Yvette tilted her head slightly and quietly asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Um——Councilor—no, Your Eminence, Throne, I wanted to ask if… if you think I could join the church? I’m very devout toward the Goddess,” Leilani said in a humble tone.

Of course, her thinking was opportunistic. Whether it was the divine favor represented by the Lightning Apostle or the mysterious relationship between Councilor Nameless and the Wandering Wind Ranger, both gave her ample reason to keep working for Yvette. Before, she hadn’t taken it seriously; now, things were different. From an investment perspective, the Silver Witch Church was full of potential.

Who knew—perhaps in the future, the Silver Witch Church could become a third major church in the Free Alliance, on par with the Sunflame Sect and the Cloudpeak Sect!

“You didn’t want to before, did you?” Yvette looked at her.

The half-elf woman, with her strong-career-woman aura, instantly looked embarrassed. Her fingers subconsciously rubbed at the hem of her clothes as she forced a smile and said, “No, you misunderstood. I was just worried about my duties in the company, so I hesitated. But I’ve made up my mind now. I hope I can contribute to the church’s development.”

“Too late,” Yvette said.

Leilani froze, instinctively thinking she was being mocked, but then she heard Yvette continue in a calm tone, “I’ve already changed the church’s development policy. We’re mainly relying on believers to build temples on their own and spread the faith on their own. There’s no longer any need for official proselytizing. So even if you want to help the church grow, there isn’t really anything for you to do.”

After a pause, she added, “But you can help spread the Goddess’s radiance in your own way. As long as you’re devout enough, the Goddess will notice you sooner or later.”

“Yes.” Leilani bowed her head devoutly. Of course, she was still quite confused inside. This didn’t match her impression of traditional churches at all, because in other sects, the first step to receiving divine Benediction was to enter the church hierarchy. As you climbed the ranks, you’d be granted Benedictions or divine spells along the way—the system was clear and structured.

But the Silver Witch Church seemed to be entirely grassroots. As long as you were devout, even if you didn’t formally join, you could still receive the Goddess’s favor. That sounded——a bit too dependent on luck.

Was this just the style of the God of Serendipity?

Still, it did take a lot of pressure off her.

After confirming that she wouldn’t be able to meet Moga again in the short term, and with August almost over, Yvette returned to the Old Oak Inn and had Lucia start packing, getting ready to take an airship back to the Academy of Truth.

The straight-line distance between here and the Academy was nearly four thousand kilometers—about the distance from the west coast of America to the east coast. The trip would take a day and a half and was quite tiring. Before they left, Yvette had Lucia go to the bookstore to buy her some random books to kill time on the way.

When Lucia came back, Yvette, while packing her own things, handed her a silver ring formed from one of her flesh-and-blood markers.

Even though, after Yvette explained what the ring could do, neither of them misunderstood anything, when she saw the red-haired girl’s cheeks flush—whether from joy or something else—Yvette still felt the atmosphere had turned a bit delicate.

The sky was dark. A fierce wind howled, whipping up dust on the streets and letting out a low, mournful wail. Near the central plaza of the Gem District, the tall spire of the Sunflame Sect’s church trembled slightly in the cold wind. The radiant stones symbolizing the sun were dimmed by the heavy clouds.

Standing before an arched window inlaid with stained glass, Radiant Bishop Ekef Gibran read the scroll bearing the decree from the Council of Seven Priests, a faint frown on his face.

He hadn’t expected the matter to escalate to this level—ordering him to immediately seize that Lightning Apostle, and even being willing to form a joint task force with the Cloudpeak Sect. This wasn’t just making a mountain out of a molehill anymore.

He even began to wonder if, when he’d filed his report, he’d gone a bit overboard in exaggerating how special the Lightning Apostle was,

and in emphasizing how under-resourced the Adelock diocese was, causing the Council of Seven Priests to misjudge the situation here—when in truth, he’d only wanted to use the opportunity to secure a bit more resource allocation.

If he sent in another report now, more plain and truer to reality, would the lords of the Council of Seven Priests forgive him?

Then, when he thought about how this operation required cooperating with those birdfolk from the Cloudpeak Sect, Ekef felt a wave of irritation. But to be safe, he still decided to follow orders and, while he was at it, sound out how the Cloudpeak Sect viewed the Lightning Apostle.

As the appointed time drew near, he picked up his staff inlaid with the holy sun emblem, put on a gray-black hooded cloak, and headed to the meeting spot: an abandoned windmill on the outskirts of Adelock.

The evening wind was strong, clearly the prelude to a stormy night. The broken wooden vanes creaked in the twilight breeze, as if they might collapse at any moment. When he stepped inside the mill, he saw another cloaked figure turn around—a square-faced man. It was the Cloudpeak Sect’s bishop in Adelock, Isaac.

It was said that during the Era of Withering, the birdfolk had bird heads on human bodies, covered in feathers, but that was all legend and impossible to verify. The birdfolk of today, aside from the wings on their backs—black, white, or gray—were no different from humans. But precisely because of that, hiding their identity required larger cloaks, which made them look somewhat bulky.

“You’re late,” Isaac said.

“The roads are bad. I don’t have wings,” Ekef replied coolly.

After a brief silence, Ekef heard Isaac ask, “How did you report this incident up the chain?”

From his tone, Ekef vaguely understood that Isaac was also deeply puzzled by this joint operation. The whole thing carried a sense of urgency, like headquarters had no time to send in experts, yet feared the Lightning Apostle would slip away, so they hurriedly ordered the two of them—the strongest local combat power—to deal with it first.

At the same time, Isaac had probably also exaggerated the Lightning Apostle’s threat level, just as Ekef had. Their original intent was to make headquarters pay more attention to Adelock, but instead, it seemed they’d managed to scare them.

“As I always do,” Ekef said.

Isaac nodded, looking as though something had just clicked for him. He dropped that topic and said instead, “We move at midnight. Capture alive if possible. Don’t make too big a scene. This is a covert operation.”

“I’m only working with you because that’s the order. Just don’t drag me down,” Ekef said coldly. Like Isaac, he was a mid-tier mage, already among the top experts in Adelock. With the Sun God’s miracles he wielded, he was fully capable of fighting above his level—his actual combat strength was not far off from a high-tier mage.

What’s more, as a Radiant Bishop, he could pray directly to his deity, asking the Sun God to send down holy light to burn away evil.

Under the deity’s gaze and radiance, he did not believe that fake believer would have any room to resist.