Immortal Kingdoms

"Why would the Cardinal ask for so much gold and silver for our weekly tributes recently?.."

"You ask me, but who should I ask?"

"I thought you had a very good relationship with the Cardinal?"

"These are orders passed down from the Pope, and the Pope got these orders from the High Priest, and the High Priest got these orders from someone even more frightening. You tell me, again, who am I supposed to ask?"

"No way! This much gold and silver could be considered a lot for a mere Cardinal, but now you're telling me that a respected High Priest requested it? If you don't want to tell me, then fine!"

"Naive!"

The irritated middle-aged man in white priest robes snapped, not bothering to correct his colleague about a simple yet foolish misunderstanding. If the High Priest wanted to pass down orders, would he single out their Arcadian Church out of the hundreds of houses of worship across the Human Domain?!

Obviously, this bit of gold and silver isn't much in the eyes of a High Priest, but what if you had ten times, a hundred times, or even a thousand times the amount?

Let alone a High Priest, that's enough gold and silver to stone a High Saint to death, metaphorically of course…

This procession of fourteen carriages strapped to the rear of massive magical beasts crossed the silent night in the illumination of the three silver moons. As they were trudging ahead while conversing with one another, they noticed two silhouettes in the distance that were approaching them at a pace that wasn't fast or slow, but their black-fitting combat suits and masked faces already gave everyone some sort of a dangerous feeling. Then, they could sense a silently expanding domain— two overlapping domains that locked them down.

Although the hundred or so people could feel the danger, they weren't scared.

One of the carriages that had a sacred touch of elegance and dignity to its structure opened, and a dignified middle-aged woman in white priest robes that were decorated with golden scripture stepped out into the moonlit night, a muslin veil covering her face, revealing a pair of tranquil eyes.

This woman took one step, crossing the insignificant bit of distance between her position and the front carriage, her delicate figure striking like a tall invisible wall that blocked both domains.

The air seemed to buzz with the illusion of space twisting, but what was truly being twisted was the combined domain of two interlopers, almost deforming out of shape.

The hundreds of people who were slightly trembling from the pressure suddenly went silent one after the other, gradually and ultimately, the only sound between heaven and earth was the incomprehensible noise of two immaterial forces clashing under the influence of mystical laws unknown to man.

"Who sent you two? Tell me and I'll make it so your end is a peaceful one."

This woman's voice was soft and gentle like running water, her powerful aura slowly merging into the cracks of the other party's overlapping domain with practiced ease, seemingly intent on trapping them both for a session of interrogation that could be long but could also be short.

"Do you really wish to know?"

After finding themselves trapped in the other party's powerful domain, feeling their bones quacking under the pressure, the elf that goes with the name Olivia finally spoke.

"Don't tell her anything!"

The human girl, Meranda, struggled with difficulty spitting out four words. At this moment, the domain compressed and bound Meranda so tightly she could barely breathe, shock and disbelief filling both her and Olivia's eyes.

The corners of the woman's eyes had the hint of a smile when she noticed the shock in those beautiful eyes. However, when she noticed that their focus wasn't on her body but behind her, a bad feeling sent shivers down her spine.

With a whirling sound, she turned around, her jaw slacking in shock.

The hundreds of personnel were still fine. However, that's precisely what was wrong; she found the people behind her, she found the beasts and carriages, but everything was empty.

The gold and silver were gone, and hundreds of her people were either seated on their coachmen benches or on the ground, sound asleep. Furious, her body whirled around to detain the captives of her domain— former captives at this point, as both of them were similarly gone.

The gold, silver, and two saints instantly disappeared on this woman in dignified priest robes, leaving her standing there blankly in a daze.

Not too far away, Pandora led the three girls who were laughing uncontrollably, their waists bent while struggling to keep up.

"Boss, why didn't you kill that woman?" Zofia asked in a puzzled tone, thinking that leaving behind such a powerful witness was a bad idea.

"You ask me, but who should I ask?" Pandora responded while crossing miles ahead with each step, the trio running behind her.

Zofia stared blankly for a moment, quickly understanding that these must have been instructions from above.

"But this way, the operation would become even harder to accomplish as the difficulty snowballs…" Olivia swallowed nervously.

"This is what makes things interesting, right? It's my lord's will against the so-called faith. When the people are at their lowest, they need a pillar of faith. However, if this pillar of faith can't even protect themselves, let alone the masses."

Pandora chuckled lightly.

"You mean… " Meranda probed.

Although it was a very obvious attempt, Pandora didn't mind.

"I mean that the church will most likely keep these matters a secret from the public to maintain the blind faith, allowing them to continue collecting these taxes. However, if people start dying, this matter will be too big of an incident to conceal. Moreover, these people responsible for gathering money are our special goose that lay golden eggs; if they die, who will play the hypocritical priests that collect money from the poor and deliver it to our hands?"

"We are not roaming the Human Domain with our identities as assassins, but as heroes who steal from the rich to feed the poor! This is Operation Robin Hood!"

"…"

"…"

"…"

The three girls stared blankly for a moment. Then, they felt a bit of reverence toward Leonardo and his schemes, but they couldn't help but burst out laughing at the final segment of Pandora's impassioned speech.

What are 'heroes'?

What is 'feeding the poor'?

However, jokes aside, it was truly brilliant.

The party then arrived at a dilapidated building, and on the stone gate of this building were a few lines written in the Ancient Indian numeral values, something Leonardo taught to his immediate subordinates.

These were coordinates left behind by Lucas, and the three girls were already used to seeing Pandora decoding these secret numbers with awe, wishing that their organization had this type of secret code language as well.

"Wouldn't leaking this information put your mole in danger? House Erudite would definitely question the suspicious point; how did we get news of the time and trade route coordinates?" Meranda popped a serious question.

Pandora rolled her eyes, "If even a silly girl like you can think of something like that, how would my lord miss it? He already handled that matter, we only need to ransack as much gold and silver as we can before the first light of dawn."

When she finished recording the information, Pandora would send the coordinates to Leonardo.

"Alright girls, we have a very long night ahead of us…"

Pandora sighed, running a horizontal cut along the coded numbers, basically confirming to Lucas who would visit later that this route's supply was already ransacked.

Then, the party of four faded silently into the night...

This was destined to be a sleepless night for far too many people...