From God of Lies to Lord of All Worlds

Chapter 206: Move, and Your Clan Perishes

"Cardinal Rasinger, speaking so forcefully to Prime Minister Lomeni makes it seem like we are brimming with confidence!" Nikki Dio remarked with an inscrutable expression.

Rasinger smiled and replied, "We do have plenty of confidence. After all, dead or alive, this city will be preserved!"

"Indeed. Dead or alive, this city will be preserved!"

Nikki Dio nodded. He certainly knew this; in fact, he was the one who had proposed the plan to evacuate the city. As members of The Church, standing in the city that served as their foothold, they had countless reasons to stay.

In truth, their words held two meanings. If they could lead the congregation to defend the city, that would naturally be for the best.

But if they failed, the deaths of two Cardinals—especially two incredibly devout Cardinals—would undoubtedly serve a far greater purpose!

Both the New Testament and the Old Testament explicitly stated the importance of The Faithful, and there was certainly no shortage of tales detailing how Catholic angels fiercely protected their own.

Trading the lives of two Cardinals for the descent of an Angel or the Descent of a Saint was a perfectly acceptable price to pay.

They were Fanatics. They could embrace their own deaths, but they absolutely could not tolerate their Holy Land being desecrated. They would gladly lay down their lives!

However, while the two Cardinals possessed such unwavering resolve, they had no intention of dragging others into this perilous endeavor. Therefore, Nikki Dio had assigned the vast majority of the clergy to join the evacuation teams.Rasinger, meanwhile, returned to the Church and instructed Andrea to head to the Suburbs to receive Leon.

"Knight Leon will be your leader for a very long time to come. Andrea, go and welcome him, and welcome the remaining members of your Exorcists!"

Rasinger told Andrea, "Using the Parchment Scroll, His Holiness Mario has located even more Exorcist families!"

"Your Eminence, if I leave, you will have no one to protect you..." Andrea said, hesitating.

"I do not need your protection, Clergyman!" Rasinger waved his hand, the Power of Holy Light coursing through his body. "His Holiness is praying for us in the Vatican, and this is the Milan Cathedral, the Duomo, the Cathedral of the Nativity of Saint Mary!"

"We will protect everything here. This is the promised land of The Lord, the Holy Land where we live, a place that Dark Creatures must never be allowed to defile!"

"Do not worry about us. Go now!"

Sensing the unwavering determination of the two Cardinals, Andrea knew that nothing he said would change their minds. He nodded. "Take care of yourselves. I will return as soon as I have received Sir Leon!"

Andrea departed, looking back repeatedly with every step. He left behind two Old Men whose combined ages approached one hundred and thirty years. They remained in this Church that seemed forever untouched by the ravages of time, each finding a place to sit down.

"We two Old Men certainly do not fear death. If we die for our Divine Faith, it will truly be a worthy end!"

"Indeed. I originally thought we would spend our entire lives achieving nothing of significance. Now, this is the greatest reward we could ask for!"

Rasinger spoke with deep emotion. He knelt on the floor and slowly began to pray, "O Lord, may Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven..."

...

Time trickled by, and night soon fell. As the last two priests and Deacons of The Church departed, Italy's second-largest city—a metropolis that should have been bustling with endless noise—plunged into a deathly silence.

Not a single light shined in any building other than the Milan Cathedral. Only this grand marble structure continued to flicker with eternal Light or Radiance.

And this radiance quickly caught the attention of a group of uninvited guests who had just arrived.

"Heh, this city is actually completely deserted. The only thing left is the glow from that Church..." a voice rasped maliciously from the Darkness. "It seems these fools from The Church still refuse to accept reality!"

"They have been the masters of this land for the better part of history. Why would they ever accept reality?" another voice chimed in.

"Should we perhaps change the battlefield? Even the Tzimisce Clan wouldn't be crazy enough to join us in a place like this, right?" someone said anxiously. "This is the Milan Cathedral. Even though there hasn't been any trace of Holy Light in this area for a long time, what if The Church left behind some ancient relics..." This remark left the gathered Vampires temporarily speechless.

They were Nobles among the Vampire Race—the Toreador Clan. They were not an exceedingly arrogant lineage like the Tzimisce. They possessed a much more thorough understanding of the past, which meant they were privy to far more information.

The very scenario that had just been mentioned was not without precedent. Vampires were a Long-Lived Species, and the extensive memories that came with their immortality had taught them many harsh lessons.

There had naturally been many instances where they assumed The Church was too weak to ever rise again, prompting them to launch an offensive—only to be inevitably beaten into scurrying like rats by some random old man who appeared out of nowhere!

There were many such Old Men. Some belonged to the Shadow Guard, others to the Knights Templar, and still others hailed from certain Exorcist families... In short, they were remnants of a bygone era, but they were undeniably powerful!

The Catholic Church's past power had simply been too magnificent. The three great Knightly Orders, coupled with the Crusaders, had completely dominated an entire era. During that time, their Supernatural Teams had cast an incredibly massive shadow over all Dark Creatures.

Even though they had successfully carried out a series of retaliations during that chaotic period, that heaven-sent genius, Pope Urban V, had managed to prolong the life of the Catholic Church despite overwhelming odds, forcing the creatures of the night to pay an even steeper Price.

Following that came the Post-Renaissance Era, a time of utter agony for all Dark Creatures.

During this era, The Church had visibly withered. Whether it was their secular Power or their mystical strength, everything was in a constant state of decline. Yet, even in this weakened state, The Church had still managed to systematically purge and suppress them over the ensuing years.

The forces they thought had vanished began to resurface one by one: the Religious Tribunal, the Inquisition, the Holy See Council, the Knights Templar, and even the Exorcist and Assassin families...

"Exactly!" someone sighed. "If a member of an Exorcist family were to show up right now clutching their Holy Relic and detonate themselves to take us down, the other clans would have a field day laughing at us!"

At this thought, several individuals looked noticeably uneasy. Then, one particularly cunning Vampire raised his head. "Hey, why don't we feign weakness first and let the Tzimisce Clan butt heads with whatever forces The Church has left?"

"Those lunatic gentlemen should be thoroughly interested in destroying one of The Church's Holy Lands, shouldn't they?"

That statement seemed to strike a chord with many of them. They exchanged glances, slowly nodded, and then vanished from their spots in unison.

'Let those fools watch us make a joke of ourselves! Heh, do they really think the Toreador Clan's humiliation is for them to gawk at? We are all millennium-old families; there is no point in discussing trust or responsibility here! Once this holy war is over, we will bring about a Reckoning upon them all!'

Bats flashed through the air, melting into the boundless Darkness. Yet, from the even deeper shadows, a group of Monsters with erratic, unstable auras materialized in front of the Church.

"Oh? Have the cowards of the Toreador Clan run away again?" A much colder, eerier voice drifted through the air. Over a dozen "people" with blood-red bodies landed squarely in the plaza. Compared to the previous group, these Monsters appeared far more unstable, far more frenzied, and undeniably far more dangerous!

"Why doesn't this city smell like blood anymore? Did those Toreador cowards eat everyone here?" one of them snapped impatiently.

"Obviously not, you fool! The people here received advance warning and evacuated all the humans... Wait, no, there are two left!"

As they spoke, all eyes turned toward the adjacent building. Their arrival had clearly caused enough of a commotion to alert the two Old Men who were inside the Church, prompting them to slowly walk outside.

They were dressed in the Red Robes of Cardinals, wearing Papal Crest Rings on their fingers. Golden-red cords hung around their necks, suspending Crosses against their chests, and they wore Red Zucchettos atop their heads!

This image appeared incredibly kind and benevolent, but fundamentally, it represented the highest authority within the entire Catholic Church, second only to the Pope!

The Red Robes symbolized the loyalty to bleed dry for one's Divine Faith, the Cross represented their unwavering belief in The Lord, and the Red Zucchetto, stitched together from eight pieces of silk, carried the meaning of the Eight Beatitudes.

The two men stood firmly at the main entrance of the Church, gazing at the flock of "people" before them. Even though these intruders possessed wings, even though they reeked of endless Bloody slaughter, and even though their sheer brutality seemed to spill from their very eyes, the two Old Men did not waver in the slightest.

They stared intently at the Vampires before them, their eyes burning with fury. "Heretics! You dare step onto the land of The Lord. You are committing Blasphemy against the territory of the Catholic Church. Get out of this land immediately and crawl back to your Hell!"

Hearing this, the Vampires of the Tzimisce Clan exchanged glances before bursting into uproarious laughter. "Hahahaha! The Church is just as blindly arrogant as ever! This is no longer your era, Bishops! This is the era of the Vampire Race!"

Rasinger stepped forward. Facing this horde of Vampires, his expression was utterly indifferent. "I advise you all to stay exactly where you are. Make a move, and your clan perishes!"