--

"HAH! That was fun! I’d do it again, but I don’t have anything that can launch me that high again."

The Crimson Tyrant then stood up and attempted to pat his lower body off of dust, but he stopped when he felt a sticky wetness on his hand. There was also something mixed in it.

He then looked below him and saw that there was a pool of blood from where he landed. That sticky wetness on his hands and his pants was blood. And there are some bits and pieces of flesh in there too.

"Ahah...uh, oops? Bad landing, I suppose. I hope whoever this is wasn’t too important to you guys because, well...he isn’t coming back."

That was Father John. The Crimson Tyrant landed on Father John and squished him to an unrecognizable bloody stain on the already bloodstained floor of this underground mess.

Cardinal Miles felt bad for the poor fool, really. The last thing that unholy priest heard before he died was someone yelling ’CANNON BALL’ as if they were diving into a pool.

The Crimson Tyrant looked around, seemingly unconcerned that he just literally killed someone when he dropped from the sky out of nowhere. He didn’t even give Cardinal Miles more than a single glance.

He saw the crucifixes with tortured people in them. Some were still alive; others were already long dead but still bleeding. He glanced at the occult markings on the floor, caught the scent of blood, saw the chalice, and took note of pretty much everything else in his surroundings.

"Oh, as expected of her, she did send me to the right place!"

Swoosh!!

Just as he said this, a change in the breeze occurred.

All of sudden, Cardinal Miles was upon him. His pristine white clothes have now been switched to a full white and golden armor. He was fully armed, and he wielded a giant sledgehammer. He was bathed in golden light, making him look like a holy being; he almost looked like a paladin.

His sudden move was a surprise one, taking advantage of the enemy’s distraction. His attack wasn’t weak either. He slammed his sledgehammer using all of the strength he could muster.

Furthermore, he was using some kind of magic instead of martial arts. Increasing the strength he could exert and wield at a moment’s notice.

But even with all this, the Cardinal’s surprise attack resulted in nothing.

The Crimson Cataclysm Tyrant held a single hand and stopped the sledgehammer flat. Cardinal Miles felt like he struck an incredibly dense and solid wall just now, and it felt worse for him because of the reverb of his attack.

Meanwhile, the Crimson Tyrant looked unconcerned; he didn’t even seem affected at all. It’s like I just stopped a rubber toy hammer from hitting his face, that’s all.

However, this certainly attracted the attention of the tyrant, who was now looking at the Cardinal with an amused expression.

"Well, well..." he said, inspecting the man from head to toe, taking note of everything that’s not supposed to be in this man. "...a miracle, huh? It’s been a while since I’ve seen one in action."

"But...I’m pretty sure that you’re still human. And from what I recall, we—the Martial Gods—banned you all from using anything other than martial arts."

"Is this some kind of rebellion, then? Hmm?" The Crimson Tyrant’s eyes narrowed and a lick of his aura emerged.

That small leak of power was enough to ground Cardinal Miles to the ground and make him feel like he’s being stared down by a Primordial Beast that could tear him apart limb from limb effortlessly.

Seeing their master at a disadvantage, the two bodyguards moved. They melded to the shadows and emerged at the tyrant’s back. Then, like twin vipers, they struck at him with their daggers. One aimed for his neck; the other was aiming for the heart.

But before any of their sharp knives came close, their heads already exploded like watermelons, and their corpses fell to the ground lifelessly.

Their blood rained down on the tyrant; some drops stained the holy visage of their master too.

But neither the Crimson Tyrant nor Cardinal Miles cared about them. As far as the two of them were concerned, those two were pets who don’t know what they’re dealing with, and their audacity cost their lives.

"We don’t listen to irrational tyrants like you. The grace of the lord and savior is the only one that matters to us." Cardinal Miles refuted the tyrant’s words, not a shred of doubt or fear in his voice.

"You mean the Patriarch of the Gold Saint Race?" The Crimson Tyrant raised a brow before shaking his head.

"Nah, buddy. That old thing is not some ’Lord and Savior.’ He’s a scheming bastard that wants to enslave all of humanity because his world is dying. A conman, nothing more, nothing less. Hate to break it to you, but you’re putting your fate in the wrong hands, dude."

"Shut up! Silence!" Cardinal Miles screamed, slamming his sledgehammer again at the tyrant.

His face twisted in malice; his cross-shaped pupils gleamed with a golden radiance of righteous indignation and fury.

"A simple-minded beast like you has no right to demean our God! It’s people like you sitting at the top that our beloved race is dying! He calls us his lost lambs! He promised us salvation! He promised us a future with no pain and suffering! He could give us everything that people like you so ruthlessly took away from us!"

"Okay, but in my defense...they put me in there." The Crimson Tyrant just casually shrugged off another attack.

"I never ran for the position. Hell, I’ve been trying to get rid of it as soon as I received it. They put me in there. I didn’t want to be there at all."

"All I did was beat some monsters to death and become ridiculously strong. So don’t pin all bad things on me. I never wanted to be involved in politics."

"Also, I suggest you don’t believe in that fool’s words. I don’t think you’re aware of the full story. Assuming you don’t, that ’Lord and Savior’ of yours damned his entire race because he was a bitter old gourd. His boyfriend cheated on him with a girl, and he resented them so badly that he went mad."

"Now, only he and a handful of his people were left. And only now was he starting to regret what he did. But it’s far too late. They’re going to be wiped out from existence soon."

"The reason why he’s trying to seduce you all is because he wants more servants. He was hoping to use them to save his old and wrinkly ass. Not very ’holy’ of him, if you ask me."

"Besides, he’s a pervert and doesn’t like it when he’s being questioned. His ’miracles’ are a sham. He gave a parasitic seed that allowed you to use his power but at the cost of your sanity and lifespan."

"He’s no different from humanity’s other enemies. All of them are trying to enslave or wipe us out completely so it’s one less enemy for them to deal with."

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! HOW DARE YOU! I WILL KILL YOU FOR SPEAKING BADLY ABOUT—"

Boom!!

Cardinal Miles never got to finish whatever he wanted to say because the Crimson Tyrant killed him before he could.

Picking his eyes with a slightly displeased expression, the Crimson Tyrant sighed and said:

"Well, I guess there’s one less lunatic in this world. Seriously, how could anybody believe the lies of that old pervert?"

He crouched down and searched the remains of the cardinal. Then, he tried to recall what exactly it was that the Azure Saint wanted him to fetch for her, but he discovered that he had already forgotten what it was.

"Ah, damn! Whatever, I’ll just take the whole body back to her instead." He muttered before putting the headless corpse of Cardinal Miles in his inventory.

This is basically all that he’s here for. The Azure Saint discovered this place from the traitor’s mind and sent him here to search for something very important. She also predicted that Cardinal Miles will appear here too.

The Crimson Tyrant was just doing her a favor.

But instead of leaving right away, he glanced at the poor victims crucified around him. He felt pity for them, so he knocked them all unconscious and also tossed them into his inventory.

As for the cultist that managed to stay alive after he fell here and was playing dead, hoping that he wouldn’t notice them so that they could stand up and flee after he left.

"No, no. Not happening."

"I can smell how many of your own kind you killed."

"You don’t get to live and repent after committing that many atrocities heartlessly. Your victims don’t deserve what you did to them. And you don’t deserve to live or a second chance, either."

The Crimson Tyrant stomped the ground and flattened everything within a mile’s radius around him, killing all those that left and burying them here along with their sins.

Once he was done with that, he left and returned home.