Trafford's Trading Club

Chapter 1603: Chapter 330: News of the Descending Angels

The Sharp Blades drawn from the back plating of the Fear Inverted Cross were pointed straight at Lamias’s throat—there were six of these blades, each one wielded by a different Battle Nun.

Setting aside innate individual differences, these six Battle Nuns, just like her, had all undergone the same training… Lamias couldn’t process it all in that instant.

Betrayal?

“Lord Grant, are these really Lady Katerina’s orders?” Lamias frowned… she could not afford to be afraid; fear would only make her waver—she needed more information to judge what situation she was truly in.

Towering over Lamias by almost two whole heads, Grant said coldly, “First option: you give up resisting, and we simply arrest you. Second option: you don’t give up resisting, we move in and cripple you, then arrest you.”

Lamias had no choice but to meet Grant’s gaze head-on.

Over ten years now, she’d trained under Grant’s command for more than a decade… Lamias knew this woman—who had a body stronger than most men—better than anyone.

“So this isn’t some reunion joke… Lord Grant.” Lamias slowly let out a breath, then said calmly, “It’s just… Lord Grant, have you forgotten one thing… the Godslayer Armor is still on me. Do you really think that with these few secondary Fear Inverted Cross units, developed using the God-slaying Armor as a sample, you can actually capture me?”

As she spoke, she could clearly feel a flicker of hesitation from the Battle Nuns encircling her.

“Perfect, I’ve been meaning to see for myself just how powerful one of the Congregation’s greatest masterpieces, the Godslayer Armor, really is.” Sister Grant now drew that ridiculously oversized Giant Sword and drove it straight into the ground. “You lot don’t move. Just set up a containment barrier nearby… Three years, Lamias. Let me see how much you’ve grown since graduation.”

Lamias’s heart clenched. If the God-slaying Armor were still intact… But as she was now, never mind the fully armed Grant—even any one of the other six Battle Nuns could probably beat her with ease.

“I request to contact Lady Katerina!” Lamias let out a cold snort.

She might look perfectly composed, but inside she was already panicking beyond measure… Facing off against Grant right now was no different from bare-handedly challenging a soldier in an armored vehicle; only an idiot would choose that.

She could only gamble… on them not yet knowing the God-slaying Armor had been destroyed, still harboring some scruples—she refused to believe Lady Katerina would issue such an order.

There was likely only one possibility: the entire Battle Nun corps had already betrayed them… The New Faction’s expansion within the Congregation had reached a terrifying degree, and Lady Katerina didn’t even know the danger she herself was in!

Grant frowned. She could see Lamias had no intention of making a move… She pondered for a moment, not because she was relieved at avoiding a fight—in fact, she would have preferred Lamias to actually strike.

“You want to see her? Then I’ll let you see her.” Grant suddenly waved her hand.

One Battle Nun immediately brought over communication equipment and set it up right in front of Lamias—the connection was established in an instant.

When, after just half a day apart, Lamias saw Lady Katerina again, she instantly had a feeling… This order was very likely issued personally by Katerina.

“Why.” Lamias stared at her in disbelief.

“A lot has happened… all in just the past half day.” Lady Katerina fell silent for a moment, then sighed. “Our last sleeper agent within the Holy Church sent headquarters one final report shortly after your last communication.”

The last report… Lamias could already imagine that that final agent had probably, by now…

“What report?”

“Descending Angels.” Lady Katerina said in a low voice, “The Holy Church has once again received Descending Angels… and this time, there are five of them!”

“What!” Lamias was utterly shocked.

She had never seen a Descending Angel in person… but the Black Religious Congregation’s history held several near-extinction catastrophes, and every disaster of that scale had been triggered by the appearance of a Descending Angel.

“Just one.” Lady Katerina took a deep breath. “As long as a single Descending Angel makes a move, it’s enough to annihilate us… This report is absolutely genuine, so we can’t just sit here and wait for death.”

“Even so!” Lamias couldn’t help but rush forward, only to be quickly restrained by the nearby Battle Nuns, gesturing for her not to move recklessly.

Lady Katerina said, “Faced with Descending Angels, we have no choice but to pin our hopes on Priede’s Human Transmutation Technique… and fulfill his every demand. I’m sorry, Lamias.”

“Lady Katerina, I’ve already said we don’t necessarily have to rely on Priede’s Power!”

“That’s too far away, and its origins are unclear. If we had enough time, perhaps we could…” Lady Katerina shook her head. “You probably don’t know. Just now, seventeen of our hidden branches on the Oth Continent were wiped out… in less than an hour, the five Descending Angels swept across a third of Oth and eradicated nearly twenty percent of our forces—do you understand what that means, Lamias?”

Seeing Lamias completely stunned before the screen, Lady Katerina sighed, her voice bitter. “It means that in perhaps less than a day, if the five Descending Angels continue, they can completely erase the Black Religious Congregation.”

Lamias clenched her fists tightly. Her face had gone pale, yet she still wanted to resist. “Even so… even so, can you guarantee Priede will really succeed? No—if he could, why drag it out until now… he might not be able to! You, and those people in the New Faction, all know that perfectly well! But you’d rather lie to yourselves, rather compromise, rather grovel to that Fat Pig, than face the fear in your hearts!! You’re afraid that a hundred years of effort might be nothing but an illusion… You… you’re all useless!”

Lady Katerina sighed. “Priede seems able to increase his Power through intercourse with women. At present, the New Faction already has Nameless Holy Maiden candidates, so naturally they will be offered… Lamias, putting you last in the offering lineup is already the Limit of what I can do. I only hope that before your turn comes, Priede will have grown strong enough to complete the final transmutation… otherwise… In any case, you must return to headquarters during this period and stand by for orders.”

What exactly was Lady Katerina saying?

Lamias realized that the further Katerina went on, the less clearly she could hear… until she couldn’t hear anything around her at all.

She didn’t know when the communication had been cut. Watching Lamias standing there with her head bowed, saying nothing, Grant swung her broad hand down and said gravely, “Arrest her!”

“Forgive us… Sister Lamias.”

The six Battle Nuns gritted their teeth, about to move.

Lamias lowered her head and kept silent, but suddenly reached out to clutch the hidden pendant she wore… and right at that moment, a sudden change occurred!

She felt something at her feet, gently rubbing against her… Lamias instinctively glanced down, and saw that the thing brushing against her ankles was a fat golden chinchilla… cat.

Lamias froze.

The Battle Nuns, Grant included, all stared, equally dumbfounded.

“I clearly asked for a hundred or so sexy nuns to come receive me! But look what we’ve got this time—what’s with this shabby turnout, only a handful of people! And where the hell did this Vasco-grade giant come from!! Is this all the sincerity your Black Religious Congregation can muster?”

At the same time, a thoroughly punchable old geezer’s voice drifted in on the wind… Father Strala!

…

Lamias clenched the hand holding the Reversed Holy Relic, then suddenly loosened it. A figure could be seen walking over from the distance; in just a few steps, he had already arrived in front of everyone.

Father Strala!

He just wasn’t wearing that set of black priest robes of his… The priest was in a full set of checkered pajamas, and at this moment he was even wearing a sleep cap shaped like an ice cream cone.

“Father Strala?” Lamias seemed almost unable to believe Father Strala would appear in front of her.

“He’s the ‘Iron Fist Invincible Strella’?” Sister Grant’s brows furrowed at this moment.

But faced with Father Strala, who had arrived without a sound, several Battle Nuns were shocked at the same time… Sister Grant’s brows furrowed even more—Father Strala’s final bout of venomous tongue had clearly already pissed her off.

“Don’t call me!” Father Strala snorted coldly at this moment. “I rushed over here full of sincerity, and you greet me with this kind of shoddy junk! You’ve really disappointed me too much! You want me to join you? In your next life!”

She couldn’t care less about Father Strala acting all crazy right now; he was practically like a life-saving straw in her eyes. She hurriedly said, “Father, these people are here to drag you back, be careful! It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s that someone inside on vacation doesn’t want you to join! They’re planning to deny your plan to steamroll the mainland!”

“Catch me?” Father Strala swept a suspicious glance over the several Battle Nuns, then finally let his gaze fall on Sister Grant. Suddenly enlightened, he said, “I knew it, no wonder you sent this kind of junk. Hmph! The plan to steamroll the mainland is a perfect plan that took me a full half hour to come up with, and they dare deny it! That’s outright disrespect to the Lord! They deserve a beating! Eat my one shot of Holy Iron Fist!”

As for names and all that, Lamias no longer even wanted to spit ridicule… But no matter what this name sounded like, as long as this punch had even half the power it did when it blew up the God-slaying Armor, Lamias felt an impulse to rush up and hug this rotten old man and kiss him!

Father Strala spread his legs, sank his waist, and threw out a punch that looked soft and weak; he even put on the whole act and shouted, “Hah!”

Then… then nothing else happened.

Forget a fist wind, there wasn’t even the slightest breeze… This was the Warden of the Former Shenwei Prison, the so‑called “Iron Fist Invincible Strella” who supposedly suppressed all the dark creatures of the Oth Continent with a single punch?

At this moment, Sister Grant, who was standing in front of that fist, fell silent for several seconds before finally waving her hand and saying, “Take… this old man with the brain problem as well!”

“Yes!”

The Battle Nuns didn’t say another word as their aura surged sky-high.

Lamias felt her heart sink into dead ashes at this moment…

Boom—!!!

A deafening roar rang out… Sister Grant whirled around, only to see, on the sea ahead, at the spot where the Nautilus had been parked, a column of water shooting straight up into the sky!

The Nautilus, one of the precious mysterious artifacts passed down by the Black Religious Congregation, had actually been directly snapped in half at this moment…

The water column shot into the sky, then dispersed, turning into fine rain that drifted down with the wind… Only when the raindrops landed on Sister Grant’s face did she suddenly jolt.

She spun around, only to see the six Battle Nuns already lying motionless on the ground, and their Fear Inverted Cross armor had even shattered.

At this moment, Father Strala—whom she had just called a senile old fool—was digging in his nose as he tilted his head back and looked up, saying, “Who were you calling brain‑damaged just now! Come over here, I promise I won’t blow your pecs apart with one punch!”

Sister Grant sucked in a breath of cold air; almost without thinking, she instinctively leapt backward toward the cliff… The armor on the back of her Fear Inverted Cross simultaneously began spraying Blue light, pushing her body up into the air.

“Trying to run? No way!” Father Strala casually picked up a small stone. “Eat my bullet of love and justice!”

He merely threw it out.

Lamias clearly saw Sister Grant plummet straight down from high in the air… and finally crash into the sea.

“Tsk, missed.” Father Strala, however, was standing on the cliff, gazing off into the distance.

Out at sea, the broken Nautilus was slowly sinking, the seawater still surging… Lamias’s emotions had been dragged up and down so violently that she suddenly dropped to her knees on the ground.

She stared at Father Strala’s back; starlight rained down, and it seemed as if a faint, indistinct glow surrounded the priest’s body.

“What are you looking at me for?” Father Strala frowned at this moment. “I sacrificed my sleep to come over here. I thought you people were sincere about inviting me to be your pillar, but turns out you don’t have a shred of sincerity! I’ve changed my mind—give it three, five, seven years, and I’ll find some time to go wipe out your Hive! Tell me, are you scared!”

Lamias suddenly laughed out loud.

Father Strala said in surprise, “Tsk, did you get scared stupid? You can still laugh?”

“Please… make sure you bring me along when the time comes.” Lamias took a deep breath, took off the Reversed Holy Relic she was wearing, placed it in her palm, then prostrated herself before Father Strala. “From today on, you are my faith…”

“What the hell?” Father Strala’s eyes went wide on the spot.

“Father, maybe we don’t have to wait that long. I can take you to the headquarters of on vacation right now.” Lamias stood up directly, her eyes burning with fanaticism. “You will become the Lord of a new era!”

“We’re done, we’re done, this silly brat’s brain really is scared broken…” Father Strala suddenly shuddered. “Can’t afford to mess with this, can’t afford to mess with this, I’m out, I’m out!”

And so the Iron Fist priest slipped away just like that—and very quickly at that.

“Whether you’re really crazy or just pretending…” Lamias took a deep breath and muttered to herself, “it’s still better than a on vacation that’s given up on me…”

She suddenly looked at the several Battle on vacation lying unconscious on the ground, thought for a moment, then walked over and stripped the Fear Inverted Cross armor from these nuns.

“At least I finally have some Power to protect myself…”

Lamias looked at the submarine Nautilus, now completely swallowed by the sea, and suddenly felt a kind of homeless feeling.

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PS1: (7/82)

PS2: Wishing ‘Ren Zai Wutong Xia’ a happy birthday.