571 Coercion Part 2 (2/2)

Saleen suddenly remembered Ismail. That fellow seemed to possess the ability to retain faith too!

”Then do you think we will be in any danger?”

”In the near future, no. Until Fycro becomes a God, he will not go against the bond. Neither he nor his disciples will come for you unless you attack him.”

”What if I tell the Holy See what has happened?”

”Don't even think about it,” Lex interrupted Saleen and said, ”Your Metatrin city and my Bitter Water Prefecture will both be destroyed by him.”

”Why would Fycro do that?” Saleen did not understand.

Lex said, ”The Holy See has started the Holy War, but that may not bother the three big empires. If the war does not go well, even if the Lord of Glory is unable to descend onto this dimension, he will still think of ways to send his strongest subordinates here. If that happens, Fycro's position will be shaky. It will be very normal to plan ahead.”

Saleen's thoughts gradually cleared and said, ”In that case, Fycro is of no threat to us in the near future.”

”At least not for the next five years,” Eleanor was confident in her reply. Saleen felt relieved that he had not killed this elf back then. Without Eleanor's knowledge, he probably would not have figured out what Fycro's real goal was.

Fycro left behind the state of mess that the Holy See was in and came to Metatrin City for half a year on his own. Clearly, he did not care about the Holy War. Saleen deduced that Fycro might even hope for the Holy See to be defeated, then he would be able to bring away even more disciples. While Fycro was in Metatrin City, he must have been observing his city. If he decided that the city had a future, it was entirely possible that he might give it a boost so that the Holy See might be defeated sooner.

Fycro said that he helped Saleen settle some problems. He was probably referring to the combat vessels from Lianyun City.

After the countries of Eastern Sea were defeated in their expedition, Lianyun City gained a large number of combat vessels. In comparison, Metatrin City only had two combat vessels other than the pan's turtle alchemical boat. The outcome of the battle was that Lianyun City's three main combat vessels were sunk, which led to a crushing defeat.

While the pan's turtle alchemical boat could certainly defeat one main combat vessel, there was no way it could defeat three at one go. Fycro did help him out in this matter. It seemed that he did not have any tricks up his sleeves, but just wanted to use Saleen's left hand and Lex's God's ring.

”Jola, from today onwards, you will take over Daniel's tasks. Let Daniel build another army.”

”My Lord?” Jola did not understand. Daniel was already put in charge of Metatrin City's defence, why would Saleen want to take away his authority?

”Humph, the victory over Lianyun City was not as simple as it seemed. I want Daniel to form an army for offensive operations. You just have to look after the city. He is a death mage and has an advantage over you in field operations. When I am back, I will use Lianyun City as an excuse to attack Phoenix.”

Deep down, Saleen knew that little progress would be made if he did not merge Metatrin City and Phoenix together. Although Phoenix's climate was similar to Metatrin, they produced much more grains and needed to be taken over. In the future, this would pose as a potential threat to his country if he were to expand it, but still rely on imports for grains otherwise.

Lex's goal was probably the Qin empire. She only needed to win over the majority of the noblemen's support in order to succeed the throne. With Saleen coordinating on the outside, it was even possible for Lex to become Emperor. Only when all these were in place would they have a chance of spreading the Goddess' faith within one-thousand years.

Saleen was not against the Goddess' revival. After all, magic was more popular when the Goddess of Myers was still around. The Goddess of Nature viewed magic more favorably than the Lord of Glory because most elements of magic were taken from nature itself. On the other hand, the Lord of Glory's light had nothing to do with the light element from the six great elements.

At this point, Saleen said, ”Lex, regarding the building of an army, I will have to trouble you to help out.”

Lex already knew before Saleen even asked. She supported Saleen building his country, in return, Saleen was also going to help her return to the center of Holy Rock City's power where she belonged. If she had been the one to expand her lands continuously, she would have attracted the attention and pressure of the other powers instead.

”Rest assured. When you are back, you will see a proper and complete army. Now…,” Lex paused and laughed. If Saleen's army were to fight against her swordsman's camps, they would be crushed. To conquer Phoenix, they could not use her men yet so they had no choice but to take the tougher route of training up a proper army for Saleen.

”Let's eat.” Saleen waved his hands. He had thought that things would get easier when he returned from the purgatory desert. Who knew that something like this would happen? Although this might seem like a good thing in the near future, if Fycro really were to become God, who was to stop him from coming over from another dimension? Saleen knew that Fycro was from the Myers Mainland. If he became a God, the rules of the dimensions would not stop him from descending into this dimension anytime he wanted.

Although there seemed to be more harm than good overall, there was no other choice. What Fycro did was simply coercion and there was no way Saleen could refuse.

Food had been ready for some time. When it was served, Saleen was shocked beyond words. Food was served by a group of spirits of the dead and grade-3 skeleton warriors. Their phalanges had been polished thoroughly and their bodies washed countless times, even a trace of blood could not be found.

Jola laughed bitterly, ”Daniel said that this is an important place and the people that served you must be the most loyal and trustworthy ones. At the moment, there are not enough of these people so we will just have to make do with spirits of the dead for the time-being…”

Saleen nodded. At this moment, he realized that although his city's population and army had expanded by more than ten times, the people that he could really trust were still those that had been with him from the beginning. He would not be around in Metatrin City most of the time, there was not going to be a quick fix to solving this issue of loyalty.