158 Divine Intervention (2/2)
The high priest groaned as he hit the ground on all fours, his white robes blackened by soil stains. Li reached down and grabbed the high priest by the golden mantle hanging around his neck. The man was smaller than Li, small enough that Li could raise him high above his feet.
”False promises? You believe our faith empty?” said Li as he watched the high priest struggle, his legs writhing as he put his hand around Li's arm to try and wrestle free from it. Instead, the priest found that Li's arm was like a mighty tree trunk, immovable by any strength he could muster.
The priest still gripped his staff with the other hand, and seeing the situation grow desperate, upraised it for a blow.
Li shifted his grip upwards, taking direct hold of the priest's bare neck. The divine energy flowing through him, rippling through the cracks in his skin, poured forth into the priest in a raging torrent that set the man alight in green fire.
”Is this not demonstration that our faith is true? Can you not feel it burning you, breaking your unworthy existence apart? Is this not greater proof of faith than a youthful face stolen from the lives of others?”
The high priest dropped his staff and dangled limply from Li's arm as the flames melted his flesh. They did not affect his clothing, merely the unworthy life underneath, and even in the miniscule amounts that sputtered out from under the carpet of Li's human disguise, it was still more than enough to breach the warding defenses, magic resistance, and regeneration that the priest's equipment and class skills granted.
Soon enough, it would reduce the priest into a primordial goop of melted biomass. Perfect for fertilizing the soil beneath.
The knights and other priests all fell back, terrified at the sudden display of power.
A cool hand gently wrapped itself around Li's free arm, and in an instant, he could feel the burning, bursting divine energy within himself flickering down. It did not stop the priest from continuing to suffer in agony, but it did clear his mind. He looked to his side to see Iona, her head turned away as she grasped his arm, the green patterns of divine energy moving from his skin and into hers.
Li tossed the priest unceremoniously away towards his two companions. ”If you waste any more time with us, your priest is going to die, though even if you do heal him, he'll look like a melted mess the rest of his pitiful life. That is, if he even lives.”
Li sighed, remembering the rush of divine energy that had flowered in him, washing away his finer human senses. He could not have gone back to Old Thane like that. And this air of fear around him, he could just now perceive it. It was not one he was fond of - he did not want to lead by fear.
Still, though, he had a duty to protect his followers.
”I'm going to leave now, and none of you will stop me,” said Li. ”Because all of you know you can do nothing. The faith I bring holds just as much right to take root within this land as your one of light does, and if you make yet another move against us, then I warn you to be wary of divine intervention as I promise it will be infinitely more worse than anything your god will ever make the effort to cast, if he is even willing to challenge us.”
Li walked past the crowd of knights, and they broke rank to make way for him, a more solemn silence filling the air now as his followers walked close behind, threading through the stunned, wordless and fearful knights and priests.