337. Chapter 335: 334 Gray Knight Secret Records Plus [1015]
Chapter 335: 334. Gray Knight’s Secret Story – Plus More [1015].
(For brother “Chen Wenjun2” [5/5])
Trying to test each other with the powerful departments of the other world didn’t take up too much of Murphy’s time and energy.
It wasn’t even included in the top five things he was worried about at the moment.
It wasn’t that Murphy really didn’t care, but he didn’t have the means to exert more influence on the other world at the moment, so he could only try to maintain his own mystery to keep the other side from throwing in the towel. But considering that the authority to “disconnect” has always been in Murphy’s hands, so this “deterrent” is not really a disguise.
As long as the power to enter the other world is in their own hands, then the leading power of this “third type of contact” will not be moved to the hands of the other side, Murphy feels that he is sitting in a fishing boat is not false at all.
Even if you consider the worst case scenario, it’s just a change of country and a group of small players to start over.
But Murphy’s vampire intuition told him that the other side will not let go of this “opportunity”, in the current premise of 100% of the players are from the same country, this can also be regarded as a valuable “first mover advantage”.
Therefore, under this premise, Murphy’s hand can play a lot of cards.
He does not intend to prematurely lift this layer of “cloth of shame”, only to maintain the mystery in order to let the other side to act cautiously, so that their own planning in Transylvania will also be the least impact.
Both sides can cooperate!
Murphy is convinced of this.
Just now his hand is still missing the chips needed for cooperation, he does not have what people want, but if he can find some clues in this continent that the other party desires, even if there are only a few trading opportunities, then Murphy believes that this will become his own in critical moments to turn the tide of the “absolute bottom card”.
Not to mention the one-time “rent” a powerful otherworldly army, put in other summoners and lords, afraid of not dreaming at night can smile open.
That is truly the “strongest army in the other world”.
Murphy estimated that if he could have tens of thousands of quotas in his hand, then when the situation was right, he might be able to start a quick war to restore the Confederacy of Portia.
Of course, the premise is that he has to prepare enough weapons and equipment on this side of the line, can’t let people carry big swords and spears to the battlefield, right?
Moreover, this kind of transaction is only the most common one in all the cooperation methods Murphy can think of. However, now is really not the time to consider these too long-term plans, because the vampire lord now has another urgent need to figure out the problem in front of him.
At this time, it was already dawn, in a wilderness not far from the Carpe family’s caravan, Murphy met with the hard-faced President Natalie and the old Father Eugene as well as Sister Marianne.
In a clearing beside the three of them, the remains of those four Chaos Swordsmen had already been partially purified by the natural spiritual energy, but they still exuded an extremely uncomfortable aura of collateral spiritual impact.
As Murphy commented earlier, they were like several mobile “subspace pollution sources”.
“So, you’ve come to a conclusion?”
Murphy asked in a low voice, leaning on his staff and sword:
“Have you confirmed the identity?”
“It is indeed our Grey Knights, as evidenced by those as-yet-untainted sacred oath tattoo marks on their bodies, their residual psychic energy, and their unique armor style.”
Old Eugene’s tone was low and tinged with strong resistance and disgust as he said:
“Their life breath is so contaminated that we cannot tell the faction they belonged to before kneeling to worship subspace, but judging from the results of the autopsy, it can’t be more than two years since they were transformed into Chaos warriors by subspace.
There are still parts of the internal organs of their bodies that haven’t been completely twisted into filth, but their brain marrow and hearts have been transformed into organs that spread filth.
It was a horrible transformation that meant total depravity from the body to the soul.
But it also showed that there were still formed Gray Knights existing on the continent or somewhere in subspace.
Regrettably, they have already detached themselves from the light of my God and have degenerated to the point where they can be attached or even not commented upon, which would definitely be a scandal that would be enough to shake the Holy Land and even the entire church system if it were placed in the era when the old religion was still in existence.”
“Facts have also proven that Old Finok’s exhortations before his death were not empty words.”
Sister Marianne’s tone was filled with hoarseness and sadness.
She whispered:
“Without us realizing it, the Church had already bred decay, and even that rebellion itself hid unspeakable insiders.
The grave robber under your command previously described to us her discoveries in the ruins of the Holy Land in the Antani region ten years ago, and if her words are true, then the Grey Knights, who represent the Neutral Path of Arbitration for our god, fell long before the rebellion of the Old Church.
Alas, it is not that Our God has abandoned His followers among mankind, but that we have first turned our backs on His appointed path.”
Natalie, for her part, said nothing.
She leaned on the Watcher’s Holy Blade in her hand.
The edge of the blade of this elven greatsword pulsed with blue-green purifying fire, and after the conversation with Murphy was over, she was responsible for incinerating the four bodies that were still spreading contamination with the flames.
But it was clear from the expression on Natalie’s face that the young leader of the current Church of Avalon was not in a peaceful state of mind, and what had happened tonight announced to her the tip of the iceberg of the horrific things that had happened in the past in the collapse of the old religion.
“So, what exactly is a Gray Knight?”
Murphy asked, frowning:
“I know that the White Knights, represented by old Finnock, walk the path of nature’s guardianship, and the Red Knights, which my warrior Woo Meow will become in the future, represent the discipline of conquest and wild nature, but the Gray Knights have always seemed vague in your canonical positioning?
Few outsiders have even heard of the name.
According to Tris, the Gray Knights seem to be the outliers among you?”
“No, they are not deviants, but rather the responsibilities that the Gray Knights carry were never meant to be publicized!”
Old Eugene explained:
“The believers of Avalon have always believed that the existence of the Church is the embodiment of the God of Nature on earth, which not only blesses the souls of the believers but also sanctions the filth and prevents the evils of the otherworldly worlds from infiltrating our home.
This is one of the duties of the Gray Knights.
In the centuries since the Church of Avalon officially founded the Order of the Grey Knights on the island of Glamour, those silent but resilient brothers have prevented at least thirty otherworldly invasions and infiltrations of the material world.
Some of the more typical ones occurred during the First Black Night War, when cultists from the Plane of Hades attempted to spread a plot to spread the Land of the Dead in the Cato region.
That showdown cost the Gray Knights ‘Emerald Blades’ Order two-thirds of their Protectorate, but they routed an army of Necromancers commanded by an ancient mummy lord.
There was also the simply unknown ‘Battle of the North Sea’!
That was a hidden war that took place five years after the end of the Second Black Plague.
The frenzied elementals of the Elemental Plane attempted to open a permanent rift in the Frozen Sea, but our Grey Knight brothers, led by their Head Preceptor, Lord Tav, brazenly jumped into the Elemental Plane, where they battled for eighteen days and nights before decapitating the enraged Elemental Lords.
As well as that punitive expedition against the Bloodfear Clan executed by your Venerable Lord Paying himself.
Your decimation of the Bloodfear Clan in a month’s time was not just a vampire war, our Grey Knight brothers were involved and your Venerable Lord Payeng acquiesced in their actions.
The Gray Knights’ most recent action was twenty-five years ago.”
Old Eugene said eloquently:
“The Gray Knight brothers of the Order of the ‘Purifying Flame’ under the leadership of the august Head Firnus penetrated deep into the frontier archipelago of the Sea of Mists, where they exterminated a deep-sea fishman who worshipped the subspace evil god ‘Dagon’ and an extra-terrestrial Barbarians mixed together in an evil city.
It was a terrible battle.
More than half of the warriors of the Purifying Flame perished on that distant frontier, aided by the Atlantean Sharks, and to this day the mermaid singers of the Great Reef Province on the coastline of the Land of Origin still sing the grand songs of that battle.
From my explanation, you will understand the responsibilities of the Grey Knight brothers.
They do not intervene in the wars of the mortal world, but only fight those otherworldly dangers in hidden corners for the sake of my god’s dogma of caring for the world.
The Grey Knights are anonymous and unassuming.
They are the most honorable hidden guardians of the church, so it’s really hard for me to imagine the temptation of a Grey Knight voluntarily defecting to subspace.”
Murphy nodded. Sr. Eugene’s explanation was quite simple but profound enough to give him a general impression of the Grey Knights in his mind, but then Sister Marianne spoke up:
“It’s not impossible, Eugene, you can’t just talk about their glamorous side and ignore the risks one must take to become a Grey Knight! Gray Knights deal with dangerous otherworldly evils all year round, making them uncontrollably exposed to a lot more forbidden knowledge belonging to other realms.
This led to the Grey Knights’ corruption rate actually remaining high.
However, when the church system was still perfect, there were oak sages and the Council of Elders who could use the water of the Holy Grail to wash their bodies and hearts to help them find their way back to clarity, but after the collapse of the church, it wasn’t unfathomable that the Gray Knights who were no longer assisted by the temptation of the forbidden knowledge in their minds would make a wrong step.
Even more horrifying is the fact that the Grey Knights have several secret depots beyond the shores of the Antani region.
There they kept all the evil things they had collected over the centuries, dangerous items that could not be destroyed in the conventional way but had to be sealed, but after the fall of the Church I heard that the psychics of the Tower of the Ring took them over with great joy.
They also had a forbidden tower to house these evil things, but with the dangerous nature of the Spiritualists, it’s really hard to say what they would do with those things!
At least I’m certain that the source of the kind of psychic plague used by the Pathfinder Legion during the destruction of the city of Sikor two years ago might have been related to a few of the Underworld Evil Objects that the Gray Knights had seized, and I’ve heard legends about them, I just didn’t think that the Tower of the Ring would actually dare to use them.”
“Both of you! We’re not here to discuss the duties and burdens of the Gray Knights, so please calm down.”
Murphy reached out his hand to stop the old man and woman from bickering.
He said:
“What I would like to inquire is, if it is now confirmed that the Fallen Grey Knights have become a ‘weapon’ that the Subspace Shadows can drop into the material world, is there a way we can take care of them as fast as possible as soon as they appear?
Let me put it more bluntly, what are the weaknesses of the Gray Knights?”
“Uh?”
Murphy’s question surprised both Sr. Eugene and Sister Marianne a bit.
The Sister looked at Murphy in surprise as she said in confusion:
“You were able to clear out four Fallen Gray Knights with almost no injuries by yourself, don’t you have the know-how to fight against them?”
“My situation is a bit more complicated, I wouldn’t mind moving around, but I can’t be dropped wherever there are Fallen Gray Knights, right?”
Murphy said, rolling his eyes:
“I need someone else with a way to fight them in their hands as well, I only have two hands after all if I can fight.”
“That’s a problem.”
Old Eugene said shaking his head:
“The Gray Knight’s combat power is not as strong as the Red Knight’s, but this comparison is based on comparisons made by both sides being combat masters of a unified class. In terms of absolute strength, our Gray Knight brothers are first-rate exorcism toughs even in terms of the entire continent.
After they were infused with evil greatness by Subspace, their destructive power would only get stronger.
Under the dual protection of the specially made Holy Word Heavy Armor and the Hidden Oath of the Way, their physical defense and resistance to psychic energy has reached almost as far as you can imagine.
Trying to pile them up with numbers is almost impossible”
“Holy Grail!”
Natalie, who hadn’t said anything, suddenly spoke up:
“They swore an oath of secrecy and arbitration when they became Grey Knights, just as my father also swore an oath of guardianship, as long as we can retrieve the Holy Grail of Avalon, then when we face these ‘Oathbreakers’, we can order them to enter an extreme weakness and a ‘God’s Condemnation ‘ state.
That way only a few sacrificial and deadly attacks would be enough to take care of them.
In addition, the Church’s holy blades can also effectively kill them, and those weapons are all purified items with our god’s divinity attached to them.
Of course, the best way to get rid of them once and for all is to retrieve the Gray Knight Holy Blade ‘Arbiter’.
That weapon holds the arbitration power of all the spirits of the Gray Knights since their birth, and as long as it’s in our hands, these fallen Gray Knights will be nothing but lambs to the slaughter!”
“Then the key question comes, where is the Holy Grail of Avalon?”
Murphy pursued with his hands spread out.
This caused the three witch hunters to fall silent, this question could not be answered, after all, if they could know where the Holy Grail of the Holy Land of Gramo was, then why would they still need to rebuild the church in Transylvania in a bitter manner?
With that holy relic in their hands, they only needed to call out from the top, and the millions of believers wouldn’t have gathered in the clouds?
“Alas, I knew it wouldn’t be that easy.”
Murphy could see the witch hunters’ dilemma.
Instead of pursuing the matter further, he spoke:
“My warrior found some clues about the holy blades, and he sought out seven pieces of information about different holy blades in Lady Cecilia’s handwritten notes, which also stated point-blank that the Shadow Elves of the Eternal Rift Valley were also collecting these holy relics.
If there is a chance in the future we might be able to start from that direction, but Natalie, since those are your holy relics, the quest chain to retrieve them”
“I’ll take care of posting it!”
The Blackheart Demon Hunter Hime nodded and took on the burden.
Murphy no longer had any questions.
He watched as Natalie turned to activate the Sacred Blade and incinerate the four corpses with purifying fire from Avalon, only to let out a long breath at the approaching dawn as the subspace filth dissipated completely.
After waiting for a few minutes for the old Eugene to finish the farewell prayer for his former Gray Knight brothers, Murphy asked in a low voice to Natalie, who maintained her indifference beside him:
“This time, the young Earl of Sherron invited you to observe the oath ceremony of the mountain people actually has another meaning…”
“I understand.”
Natalie replied:
“Before I came here, Sister Jules specially explained to me the feud between the Sachs Mountain Folk and the Old Church of Nature, and I guess the Little Count wants to use this opportunity for the two sides to complete their reconciliation.
In fact, there have always been discussions about the beliefs of the mountain folk within the Avalon Church, and there is a part of the Master of Doctrine that believes that the beliefs of the mountain folk also belong to the variants under the belief system of the Avalonian gods, even though that kind of primitive worship of the spirits of the mountains and forests has existed for a period of time that is even earlier than the time when the Avalon Church was born.
I mean, if Count Sherron can convince the local mountain people to accept us, then the Church of Avalon, which we have built with our own hands, can indeed accomplish a reconciliation with them in this matter as well.
l’ve carefully considered what you told me last time.
I have to admit that you are right!
We are all shepherds of the God of Avalon on earth, and we should do our duty without actively stirring up conflict and confrontation among the flock.”
“Well, it’s naturally good that you can realize this.”
Murphy nodded, since Natalie already had her judgment, he didn’t need to say anything more.
He reminded:
“I heard Sherron say that the mountain people also have a Holy Grail in their hands.”
“No, the Forest Grail and the Avalon Grail are not the same concept, in terms of the source of belief and the way it was formed, those can even be said to be two very different things.”
Natalie wanted to popularize the difference between these holy relics on a religious level for Murphy, but associating it with the fact that Murphy himself was an unbeliever vampire, so she decisively gave up this pointless effort.
It was just said very briefly:
“I understand what you mean, if the mountain people agree, we can use the Mountain Chalice to try to see if we can rebuild the power system of the church that has been cut off.
If it is possible, I also do hope to see new White Knights being born in the Transylvanian land, and if we can do that, I think my father will also feel relieved in the Natural Sanctuary.”
(End of chapter)