Since the new ship couldn’t sail, heading towards the island’s control hub for a final fight was the only thing Zhen Jin and the others could do.
Meeting someone like Jia Sha, who could use divine spells, and his group made Zhen Jin feel fortunate.
These days, anything related to Zhen Jin being a divine scion knight as well as the crazy beastification incident were naturally known by Jia Sha.
But Jia Sha never questioned Zhen Jin about his divine scion knight status.
It seemed to signal benevolence.
After the miserable fight in the ruins, the beastification was an immense hidden danger everyone was fearful of.
Jia Sha’s actions were extremely crucial, without him, none of them would have advanced through the alchemy factory!
Zhen Jin knew he had to tell Jia Sha ahead of time, or else if he was forced to transform in the future, Jia Sha would misunderstand his beastification and he would suffer the attacks of his comrades, a terrible fate.
Even if he wasn’t attacked, it would be difficult to avoid suspicious from Jia Sha and the others if Zhen Jin suddenly transformed.
“Our biggest enemy currently is War Merchant.”
“If we cannot cooperate in good faith, and have internal suspensions and apprehensions, we cannot use our full strength and our hands will be tied, that is stupid.”
“I don’t want to see my comrades harmed because I cannot use my full strength.”
“I don’t want to feel remorse……”
Holding these opinions and emotions, Zhen Jin went alone and found Jia Sha, using a heavy tone: “Lord Priest, I want to confess something.”
Filled with deep thought, Jia Sha smiled at him: “Young templar knight, did you know? I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time.”
“Priest, I am guilty!” Zhen Jin creased his brows and revealed a pained expression.
“Everyone is guilty.” Jia Sha shook his head, his gentle tone contained encouragement and consolement, “You are courageous to confront your own sins, this will lead you on a sagacious path.”
Zhen Jin nodded.
The confession began.
With a heavy mood, the young knight half-knelt on the ground and faced Jia Sha.
Zhen Jin said: “Since waking up on this island, my master never responded to my prayers. Without battle qi, I could only rely on my master.”
“But my master never responded to me, I could not help but feel frustrated, disappointed, and even resentful.”
“I am guilty!”
Jia Sha nodded.
Zhen Jin continued: “I didn’t think the problem lay with me, rather it the special island environment and War Merchant’s methods that disconnected me from connecting with my master.”
“I underestimated my master’s power, and actually considered him weak.”
“I blamed the outside world for my problems and didn’t genuinely reflect upon myself.”
“I am guilty!”
Jia Sha sighed: “Child, by recognizing and confessing this, you have already eliminated half of your sins.”
Zhen Jin’s brows tensed as he painfully grinded his teeth: “When I saw you pray everyday Lord Priest and be imbued with divine power, I realized this island does not prohibit divine spells.”
“But I didn’t dare confront the truth, my weakness didn’t allow me to perform an in-depth investigation on myself.”
“I misread my master, I underestimated my master, and I even fooled my master!”
“Many times, in order to improve morale, I used my master’s name and falsely pretended to be a divine scion knight. From start to finish, I was never one, I never received a response from my master.”
“My sins are very serious!”
Jia Sha nodded, he was unexpectedly unsurprised: “Child, my master’s wayward lamb, you are a pitiful and venerated person. I meet you with happiness and gratitude, because you seek to return to your original path.”
“Anything else? Continue speaking, good child.”
“My master’s vision is omniscient, maybe he has been watching you all along, but you didn’t understand what he was looking for.”
Jia Sha caressed Zhen Jin’s hair, he used a divine spell to placate Zhen Jin’s painful and heavy state of mind.
Zhen Jin felt his spirit warm.
The pure white light that bathed his body made him feel like an exhausted man finally returning to his family.
The young knight deeply breathed and opened his mouth. He wanted to declare secret, that he could personally control his transformations, however the words seemed to stop in his throat.
He deeply breathed and opened his mouth again, but he still couldn’t say anything.
Zhen Jin’s breathing became more hurried and slightly chaotic, there seemed to be a mountain crushing his heart, making the holy light around him seem flimsy.
“There is an important situation!” At this time, Zi Di’s voice suddenly appeared in the distance.
Soon after, a templar guardian knight responded: “Please stop, President Zi Di. The Lord Priest is presiding over Lord Zhen Jin’s confession.
The interruption eliminated the courage Zhen Jin drummed with great difficulty.
The pressure overwhelmed his heart, he could only deeply sigh: “Nothing else Lord Priest. That was everything I wanted to confess.”
Jia Sha stopped in place and looked down at the kneeling Zhen. After a moment of silence, he said, “Good, I understand.”
Afterwards he lowered his head, gripped the holy insignia with both hands, and chanted softly:
“Master, great Heavenly Emperor Sheng Ming, my god.”
“Thou are the god of hope, thou are the god of victory, thou are the god of light.”
“At this moment, I have templar knight Zhen Jin before thee, only thou knows his heart. I am powerless to change Zhen Jin, only thou can. I beseech thou to help Zhen Jin understand what caused him to leave thee. I beseech thee to enable Zhen Jin’s convictions and provoke the longing for reconciliation in him. I beseech thee to make him loathe sin, I beseech thee to do everything required to shatter his cowardice and prejudice, however I also beseech thee to be gentle. During Zhen Jin’s life I beseech thee to encourage him to return to thy side.”
After saying these things, Jia Sha held out his hand and helped Zhen Jin stand.
“Child, you must have faith in yourself.”
“Even more important, we must have faith in our master.”
“His benevolence is greater than the ocean and the blue dome of heaven.”
From beginning to end, Jia Sha’s attitude was gentle, he looked like an old father. His words had deep meaning, and Zhen Jin’s recent hesitation was very obvious.
Zhen Jin nodded, and the two people left the corner together.
Blocked by the templar guardian knight, Zi Di’s face was grave when she saw Zhen Jin and Jia Sha coming over: “The scouts have returned, the situation ahead is very different!”
Zi Di detailed the frightening information, causing Jia Sha and Zhen Jin to look at each other in dismay.
Not long after, everyone came to the entrance of a ruin.
It was clear an intense battle had happened here.
Previously, as Zhen Jin and the others passed through a few workshops, the destruction they saw grew worse. Finally, here, the metal passage completely vanished, replaced by a huge cave mouth.
Despite not entering the cave yet, the astonishing heat inside assaulted their senses.
The scouts were cautious and hadn’t entered the cave yet.
Jia Sha, Zhen Jin, and the others discussed for a while after using a divine spell. Then the scouts returned again with information, shaking as they incoherently babbled.
Everyone stealthily infiltrated the cave, inside was a massive battlefield that was nearly the side of a township.
Dark red light was everywhere, the floor and ceiling were bumpy, nothing was level, there were golem fragments visible everywhere, and there were bloodstains left behind from the ambushing saint level people.
Everywhere, there were traces of battle.
Nearly half of the battlefield had transformed into magma. Because of the rumbling magma, there was a dark red light and a terrifying heat present.
Without the divine spell elemental protection, an ordinary person could not breathe here.
The other half was walkable and full of golems.
“So many guardian golems!”
“There is also a big one……”
After everyone avoided a boulder by hiding in the divine spell shelter, they sized everything up with grave expressions.
Since seeing them in the first workshop, the survivors finally encountered unshattered guardian golems.
The golem was at least twice as strong as a transportation golem!
To destroy the guardian golem, everyone needed to use all of their strength.
Ten guardian golems could be seen standing on the battlefield!
The most attractive thing in everyone’s line of sight, was an enormous monster. It was also a golem; however, it did not have a humanoid shape. It had a dragon head, a pig’s body, elephant legs, and a python tail.
Some guardian golems stood in place, while others were constantly moving about, there didn’t seem to be any patterns to their patrol routes.
The monstrous golem was six meters tall; it constantly opened its mouth and devoured the golem fragments on the ground. In its mouth, the golem fragments were mashed into smaller pieces.
“The battle that happened here exceeded the limits of our imagination! There should have been an alchemy factory defensive position, but all the installations were destroyed, beaten into the abyss and even into the magma!”
“How dreadful, there are golem fragments everywhere, untold numbers of golems have died here!”
“Have you noticed, some of the fragments are special, they look like gold. They should be from a golem that is bigger than the magic beast golem, currently we still haven’t encountered one.”
“Who won in the end?”
“I feel like the saint level people did.”
“It is also possible they died in battle and their bodies were taken away. These guardian golems are still moving, while that big one is clearly cleaning the battlefield.”
War Merchant could make and sell that alchemy cannon, this proves making batches of gold level equipment is completely within his abilities. From this, we can speculate making batches of gold level golems is extremely possible for him.
Although those at the saint level were strong, if there were many gold level enemies, they could still form an immense threat to them.
“How do we get across? The guardian golems all have a true field of view.
Everyone felt awkward.
“This is impossible to get through. If we forcefully charge in, just three guardian golems can land us in a crisis.”
“We should take a detour and walk around.”
Most of the people approved of this proposal.
But Jia Sha, Zhen Jin, Zong Ge, and a few others hesitated.
“It's a little strange.” Zong Ge said, “There are so many defenses here, why weren’t some transferred to annihilate us? The tower spirit already discovered our intrusion.”
“Do you know what’s strange?” The guardian templar knight Xiong Dun curled his lip, “The tower spirit is clearly somewhat broken.”
“Lord Priest, how about using the extreme eye spell again?” Zhen Jin suggested.
Jia Sha nodded and quietly activated the divine spell.
After a moment, his complexion turned deathly pale: “I can only see magma, and the dark red magma assaulting our senses.”
“We had better retreat and find an alternative path.” Xiong Dun also suggested.
Just as Jia Sha was about to nod, a sound suddenly echoed in everyone’s ears.
Roar!
From the manga, an intense dragon roar disseminated. At the same time, hundreds of gigantic golden light beams shot out from the magma.
The shadow of a huge dragon appeared in the magma.
“That is……a flame dragon king!” Zhen Jin’s and the others’ heart quaked.
Notes
If only someone could fly and carry the rest across the lava. External interruptions constantly break Zhen Jin’s plans and thoughts. Still it's ironic, the one who beats himself the most out of anyone in this story is the one who says he is sinful for not managing to reflect. Then again, it is that time again.