The Hypocritical Holy Knight 107 Part 1

The festival lasted for an entire day, until the sun sank low in the west, burning out the last golden rays belonging to the light. Only then did the crowds depart from the Square of Light in droves.

However, it was regrettable that in this year's Advent Festival, the Goddess of Light still did not bestow any miracles upon the Delan Continent.

In the nine hundred years since the establishment of the Church of Light, the Goddess of Light had bestowed a total of twenty-eight miracles during the Advent Festival, roughly once every thirty years.

Including this year, it had been thirty-one years since the Goddess of Light last responded to the devout prayers of the faithful. Based on past patterns, it was highly likely that people would witness a miracle of light in the next few years, and everyone was waiting piously.

However, He Yan knew that they would likely never see it.

The reason was simple.

In the recently concluded divine war, although the Goddess of Light retained her throne as a high-ranking deity, a portion of her divine essence was contaminated by the primordial divine power of the God of Darkness. She had already entered a state of secluded cultivation to purify her divine essence, and would likely not have the energy to connect with her followers for the next two hundred years.

The divine essence is a small, irregular crystal that exists within the true body of a deity. It exhibits various colors and forms according to the attributes of the deity, and is the source of their power.

The true body of a deity may be destroyed in a divine war, but as long as the divine essence remains, they can still be "reborn" someday in the future. Unless there is deep personal hatred, deities also have an unspoken agreement not to destroy each other's divine essence in war.

After all, the divine wars that shuffle the positions of the gods are held once every nine hundred years, and dozens of deities "die" in each war. On average, a new deity is naturally born in the universe only once every three thousand years.

If after each divine war, the victors crushed the divine essence of the defeated, causing them to be unable to be reborn, then before long, the number of deities in the universe would sharply decrease to single digits.

The world needs balance, just as light and darkness, although mutually hostile, cannot exist independently of each other. If only a handful of deities remained in the world, it would one day head towards destruction due to imbalance.

Every deity pays special attention to protecting their divine essence, because once it is damaged, it is very difficult to fully recover without a long period of recuperation.

Although the God of Darkness is currently only a mid-ranking deity and cannot compare to the Goddess of Light in terms of strength, due to the innate incompatibility between light and darkness, the Goddess of Light was a bit overconfident when battling the God of Darkness. As a result, the God of Darkness found an opportunity to contaminate a corner of her divine essence.

Of course, the God of Darkness and the Goddess of Light do not have any irreconcilable hatred, and he did not intend to destroy her divine essence. His true goal was to force the Goddess of Light into seclusion, and then take the opportunity to seize the power of faith on the Delan Continent.

A considerable portion of a deity's power comes from the faith of living beings. The more living beings who believe in a deity and the more devout their faith, the faster that deity's divine power will grow. This is also the reason why deities are very enthusiastic about developing their sects in various planes.

The struggle for the power of faith between deities has always been very fierce. Basically, in every plane, there are two or more mainstream religious sects belonging to different deities. The believers are like obedient puppets, manipulated by the deities behind the scenes to fight each other, battling for the sake of faith.

It could be said that the Goddess of Light was lucky. The Delan Continent was a newly born continent. Before the Goddess of Light descended, only a few low-ranking deities had left their mark here. After driving away those low-ranking deities, the Delan Continent naturally became the possession of this newly ascended high-ranking deity.

However, this situation was bound to be unsustainable. The Delan Continent was vast and full of living beings. The other deities could not possibly stand by and watch as the Goddess of Light swallowed this delicious piece of fat alone.

Therefore, there was this injury and seclusion of the Goddess of Light.

......

After the attendants had finished placing all the bathing supplies, He Yan said in a calm voice, "Leave."

Then he took off the holy and solemn archbishop's robes he had worn all day, walked down the steps into the pool, letting the warm pool water submerge his ankles, knees, and waist, until his shoulders were also submerged. He then leaned back, his back against the cold pool wall, his body relaxed, slowly exhaling, and closed his eyes to rest.

—Although the Son of Holiness's attire looked very gorgeous and used top-grade materials from the Delan Continent, it was really not comfortable to wear.

As the "image ambassador" of the Church of Light, he wore such a set of clothes that prioritized appearance over comfort, maintained the proper bearing of the Son of Holiness, and accompanied the Pope through the entire Advent Festival. His whole body was stiff.

Although as someone who came from the military, maintaining a proper bearing was as ordinary as breathing for him, Cecil's physical fitness was really too poor. By the second half of the festival, he was gritting his teeth to hold on.

Now that he was relaxing, even the gaps between his bones ached.

And the greatest sense of fatigue came not only from the body, but also from the mind.

Originally, the Pope alone was enough for him to deal with, but for some unknown reason, the leader of the Holy Knights, who usually left halfway through the Advent Festival in previous years, very graciously stayed until the end this time.

This directly led to He Yan having to be on guard against the cunning Ambrose, who, although not old, was just as sly as a fox, while also straining his nerves to deal with that old fox, the Pope.

Now that he was in a relatively safe place, his mind relaxed, and the fatigue surged up from the depths of his psyche, almost drowning him.

He rested in the pool with his eyes closed for a moment, then scooped up a handful of hot water from the pool and splashed it on his face to wake himself up.

Crystal water droplets rolled down his cheeks, tracing his delicate neck and beautifully shaped collarbones, before finally returning to the pool.

He opened his eyes and rested his head on the specially made pillow by the pool. His long eyelashes were dampened by water droplets, blurring his vision slightly. His wandering gaze fell upon the exquisite and magnificent divine painting on the ceiling. Amidst the hazy steam, the handsome and aggressive face of Ambrose flashed through his mind.

Ambrose Ace, born to aristocratic parents - his father was the renowned Duke Ace, and his mother was the second daughter of a duke.

Inheriting the excellent bloodline from his parents, Ambrose displayed exceptionally high magical and martial arts talents from birth. Coupled with such an illustrious family background, his official career was smooth sailing after reaching adulthood, ultimately ascending to the position of Holy Knight Commander at the mere age of twenty-eight.

In the eyes of the people of the Delan Empire, Ambrose was an extraordinarily gifted holy knight. He was humble, polite, powerful and just. His handsome appearance and perfect physique often left noble ladies distracted. Additionally, his identity as the Holy Knight Commander meant that there were always lovely noble ladies wanting to devote themselves to him at almost any given moment.

However, this good-looking commander inherited his father Duke Ace's devoted nature and never misbehaved. He always tactfully declined the invitations from ladies, further earning him a reputation for being a man of propriety.

But all of this was merely what Ambrose wanted the outside world to see. In fact, the true character of this Knight Commander was far from the gentlemanly politeness and knightly loyalty he displayed.

...He wasn't even the real "Ambrose".

The true heir of the Duke's pure bloodline from the Ace family had passed away from a sudden severe illness twenty years ago. The current "Ambrose" standing in the limelight was nothing more than an imposter who had altered the memories of Duke Ace and the Duchess.

As mentioned earlier, besides humans, there were various strange creatures on the Delan Continent. This fake "Ambrose" was a member of the elf race, or more precisely, a mutated blood elf.

The reproduction method of elves differs from other races. This race has a very low birth rate, with the vast majority of newborns being born from the elven mother tree.

In the eyes of the world, elves are the embodiment of purity and holy spirits. Their food is clean leaves and morning dew. Their eyes are clear and pure, never seeing the filth of the world. They act arrogantly and have long avoided the world, being extremely exclusive.

But this statement is not entirely comprehensive. Although the vast majority of elves in the elven race are kind-hearted vegetarians, for some unknown reason, every few hundred years, the elven mother tree gives birth to a mutated elf.

These mutated elves are far less holy in appearance than normal elves. They often have a pair of evil blood-red crystal eyes, a gloomy and unpredictable personality, and use the blood of other creatures as a source of power. They are accustomed to being active at night, with habits vastly different from normal elves.

Naturally, the elves who never consume blood and flesh are very unfond of such bloodthirsty kin. They even wanted to expel the blood elves from the elven race at one point. However, when the Elf Queen consulted the elven mother tree, the result showed that blood elves were also under the protection of the mother tree. So they had to reluctantly accept these "different" kin.

However, apart from their terrible diet, eye color, and unpleasant personality, blood elves are no different from normal elves in other aspects. Perhaps as the elven mother tree's compensation to them, blood elves have particularly outstanding shapeshifting talents, almost unmatched.

As long as they obtain even a tiny bit of blood from a creature, they can effortlessly transform themselves from head to toe into that creature. Whether it's aura or talent, they can imitate it perfectly, making it completely indistinguishable.

Because of this almost godlike shapeshifting talent, the Elf Queen ordered the existence of blood elves to be sealed from the outside world.

They are often sent by the Elf Queen to the outside world to carry out undercover missions. Facts have proven that blood elves perform exceptionally well in such missions, bringing quite a lot of practical benefits to the elven race.

This is undoubtedly a very suitable ability for invasion...

A single blood elf has already stolen nearly a third of the rights of the entire Delan Empire. If there were a few more, directly controlling the entire Delan Continent would not be impossible.

The elven race is indeed accustomed to avoiding the world, but when they have enough power in their hands, their ambitions inevitably expand as well.

Fortunately, the number of blood elves is extremely rare. Long experience has shown that only one blood elf exists in the entire elven race at the same time. Only after the previous blood elf dies can the elven mother tree possibly give birth to a new blood elf. This prevents the elven race from having too many chips that defy the natural order.

He Yan shifted his gaze from the magnificent goddess painting on the ceiling and fell back onto the pool wall engraved with delicate golden outlines of sacred instruments.