'Oh joy, ten minutes in this city and we're already being singled out by missionaries. I'm starting to get flashbacks why I had a falling out with my cradle faith...'

[Wait, you were religious, milord?] Nepherage asked.

'I was, but the leadership of my church underwent a change when I was a teenager, and I kind of tampered back on it. You know, the usual issues.'

[I actually read up on some of the previous Kaijin Lord using their faith as a base for their Kaijin designs,] Razorstella stated. [Like the Devout Heretic. Although, I think he might've based them in the demons of his old religion...] 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

'I feel like I should be focusing more on those words...but I think we should focus on the weirdly sexy nuns trying to recruit us for what I'm assuming is a ritualistic orgy.'

[Fair.]

…

^Come on! ~ Don't you want to be in the throes of religious ecstasy?^ Another nun piped up, this one with blonde hair and thick thighs. She settled up next to Antonio in an attempt to seduce the young man.

Surprisingly, it sort of worked.

"Uh…"

Antonio's face turned bright red as he felt the softness pressing against his leg and the scent of the woman's hair tickling his nose.

In a few moments, Zhen Liu could sense that the resolve of several of his companions was about to collapse until it led to a group peer-pressuring into participating in whatever weird bullshit that these nuns had planned.

'Okay, I am definitely going to need to do something to cause a distraction and get everyone out of here ASAP!,' Zhen Liu thought to himself as yet another scantily-clad priestess threw herself into Olstenna's arms. 'I can probably just use a zako to…wait a minute, who the fuck is that?'

But before he could act upon this idea, another group of zealots had shown up to interject and interrupt whatever the hell these Sisters of the Hearth were planning to do to Zhen Liu and his friends.

Although the way they went about it was absolutely terrible…in a social sense.

^Begone, harlots!^

^This is our territory!^

'Oh, I can already tell I won't like—what the fuck?'

Zhen Liu had mentally prepared himself to come face to face with a duo of religious nutters who were probably dressed in robes that were too small for their oversized bodies.

He did not expect said duo to actually be a single guy matching that description with two heads.

Evidently, Zhen Liu was so shocked by the sight of this two-headed ogre that he couldn't help but to clam up and ask Logos and Pathos whether or not he was seeing things.

…Its a damn good thing these blurbs happen at the speed of thought…

'Logos, Pathos, real quick, are there any two-headed tribes of people I should know about in Valresta or nah? Because my memories are only digging up Aetherii and Bloodliners, and the latter are usually furries.'

=Actually, these two are indeed a type of Bloodliner. More specifically, they're descendants of the Twin-Headed Hell Elephant King. Although, it is strange to see one of his kin this far from Radiant Feather...=

'Twin-headed ele—actually, that does explain the size...'

<And from the looks of it, they're not the only Bloodliner with two heads...>

…Back to the religion fight…

^This area is the preaching ground for the Order of the Twin Embers. How dare you attempt to poach our potential converts! ^ The two-headed ogre-like Bloodliner snarled in stereo.

Immediately echoing this sentiment, several other members of this man's congregation let out cries in stereo. These fellows were also Bloodliners of two-headed beasts.

^Harlots!^ cried out a Bloodliner that had two snake-like heads.

^Damnedable temptresses!^ snarled a wolf-like priest with two heads.

^Begone, you sacrilegious whores!^ screeched a bird-like fellow with…look, you get the deal at this point.

Needless to say, the Sisters of the Hearth didn't appreciate the words being thrown their way.

^Oh fuck off, you duplicitous bastards!^ cried the red-headed nun who tried to seduce Jinju Ren and Rianna into joining their religious service. ^We found these travellers fair and square.^

^She's right!^ echoed the blonde temptress with the plunging neckline. ^ Your territory is from the baker's district to the park. The entrance is ours!^

^Blasphemy!^

"What the fuck…" Zhen Liu mumbled at the sight of arguing religious figures.

Seeing all of these double-headed Bloodliners speak in stereo as they argued with a literal sisterhood of sexy nuns made Zhen Liu feel uneasy. Not because he was afraid of them; if things came to blows, he could probably blow them all away with a single punch, he was just weirded out of the sheer absurdity of the situation.

'I can make literal monsters out of literal garbage, and yet somehow seeing double-headed furry priests arguing with sexy nuns still weirds me out…what the fuck,' Zhen Liu thought to himself.

As Zhen Liu watched the religious figures argue with one another, he eventually noticed that they had more or less stopped paying attention to him and his companions. Zhen Liu threw a glance at his friends, wondering if they had also noticed this change and made a gesture that they should probably get going while the going was good.

Thankfully, most of them had, and so they began to make their way away from the arguing sects, hoping that things weren't going to come to blows as they left.

That didn't happen, although Zhen Liu did hear some mummering complaints.

^Huh? Where did they go?!^

^Look at what you did! You scared them off!^

^We scared them off?! You're the ones who—^

The arguing voices faded once Zhen Liu and his friends got out of earshot, but it gave them a pretty good idea of what they were going to be expecting once they had gotten deeper into the city.

…Kaijin Aside Time…

[Well…that got intense.] Screamira commented once Zhen Liu had left the vicinity of the screeching nuns and double-headed priests. [I knew religious sects of the same faith get a little…fighty, but I didn't expect it to be so loud.]

[I did,] Hurricroak grumbled. [Religious folks like them get very loud and preachy whenever it comes to their faith. Especially when they're trying to convert strangers to their cause.]

[That sounds like the voice of experience,] Nepherage commented. [Did you have to deal with that kind of thing?]

[More than I would like to talk about,] Hurricroak answered with surprising defensiveness. [And besides, looks like the Maestro is about to see why we should've probably avoided this city like the plague.]

…Now back to the mortals…

^Come and join us for our afternoon mealtime service! We're serving stew!^

"No thanks."

^Join us and we'll give you a free copy of our sacred Formula! Guaranteed to turn you into an Aether Saint!^

"Then why aren't you one?"

^I'm not here to convert people, I'm just here to gather donations for the orphanage we run.^

"That…is the most honest thing I've heard all day. Here's some gold."

^Thank you.^

The deeper into Emberona they went, the more numerous the sects began to appear and the more zealous the priests, preachers and priestesses became.

All of the sects were focused on the [Sacred Flame], which given the name of the overall theocracy made a lot of sense, but the way they went about worshipping it went all over the place.

Some believed in the healing abilities of the flame and sought to replicate it via acts of service and charity, giving hope to the hopeless and food for the hungry.

Others cared more about the punishing and burning aspect of the flame, which expressed itself in the form of inquistors and weird self-flaggelation rituals involving burning whips.

In other words, the religion that Zhen Liu was already feeling hinky about when he fought Bishop Olmen, had turned into full-blown distaste.

A part of him felt bad for judging an entire religion based on its offshoots, but there had to be a reason for so many of these damn things to exist.

'Wait a minute...'

Actually, now that he thought about it further, it made no damn sense for all of these religious sects to exist in such close proximity to each other.

Based on his own understanding of religious history, even the tiniest difference in doctrine led to to violent conflict that made no damn sense.

So, how the fuck did so many of them exist in a single citystate?

'Is it because their object of worship is an actual object that is known or...hmmm.'

Zhen Liu thought back on Bishop Olmen, how the man wielded a tiny bit of [Sacred Flame], and how that flame actually had a small tint of [Chaos].

And how [Chaos] had a tendency to take a desire and enflame to the point of...oh.

'There is a very high chance, that the innate nature of [Chaos] is causing religious indoctrination...and I'm not sure how to feel about that.'

That stated, there was a chance that this was actually a case of [Law] being used instead.

'Those tools I have on hand did feel odd to the touch...bah! I need someplace quiet to think about it.'