In the next moment, countless lights erupted, and Shaya's form seemed to be enveloped by holy power. The South District, for an instant, seemed to greet the dawn.
Adam leapt from his bed and hurried to the window, but the view outside remained peaceful. The last traces of the sunset gradually faded, and everything seemed unchanged.
"Don't make any moves; Shaya's really serious now," came the voice of Jin. Unlike before, he wasn't perched on a pile of dirt but had solidified into a dark gem, vibrating gently by Adam's ear as he spoke.
"His senses now nearly cover half of Roya City. If you transform, he'll immediately sense that there's a non-human here," Jin said gravely.
"So powerful, but how have the non-humans survived?" Adam murmured.
"First, Shaya's body can't sustain his powers for long. Sending him to search for non-humans in this state would be a short-sighted strategy."
"Secondly, it's hard to discern the vast expanse of a city. With so much information converging, if he truly tried to absorb it all, he'd likely burn out and die from the overload."
"Shaya's energy is limited. Don't expect an old man to handle such vast matters. So long as you don't transform or make yourself too obvious right now, you should be relatively safe."
"Faith gives them immense power, but it also limits them. If Shaya were in his prime, he would have wiped out all the non-humans in the city by now," Jin continued.
"Is the battle happening over there?" Adam asked, glancing into the distance. The space appeared empty, yet he could vaguely sense a force emanating from that direction.
"Shaya is much stronger than I imagined," Jin affirmed.
"With that instant burst of holy power, he carved out a sacred space in time and space. That's why you can't see any anomalies there."
"However, for those who can perceive space, the cracks there have already turned into a battlefield."
Upon hearing Jin's words, Adam tilted his head, adjusting his soul's weight. The world around him seemed to distort, as though a colorful ink painting had been drained of its hue and then dropped into water, where the ink merged with the liquid, revealing another world before his eyes.
When Adam fully extended his soul's weight, he could even make his soul's perspective pierce through worlds and observe others. For now, it wasn't necessary to use such a unique ability. The world, once seamless, now fractured before his eyes, revealing countless cracks. But one particular crack stood out, almost as if a delicate white flower was struggling to bloom through it, fully opening within this world.
Jin glanced at Adam with some surprise. He could sense the change in Adam and realized he had underestimated Adam's bloodline abilities.
"Ah, it's really your style, Shaya," Poldo said, standing in the sacred space created by the Grand Monk Shaya.
Shaya had always been decisive when acting. Once he made up his mind, he would immediately strike, never wasting time on words. Meeting him meant facing swift death.
If one were to tally the number of lives Poldo, Alva, and even Anthony had taken, they would not even match a fraction of Shaya's.
Of the Sacred Three of the Holy Sound, Anthony was known for his charm, Alva for his talent, but Shaya was feared for his ruthless methods.
In their generation, Shaya was undoubtedly the strongest. When Alva fell from grace and was stripped of his holy power by the church, everyone was stunned, and some even wondered if they had mistaken his name.
Back then, many suspected that Shaya might have killed most of the church's spies who were monitoring him, leading to a mass defection.
Indeed, at the time, Shaya had already been regarded as a dangerous figure, watched closely by church officials.
Ironically, Shaya later became the benevolent Grand Monk of Roya, revered as a good-hearted man by countless monks, while the other two, once seen as the church's most promising figures, had fallen to such fates.
Poldo watched Shaya from across the room, beads of cold sweat forming. The tremendous holy power and the violent spatial forces it invoked were enough to tear everything apart in an instant.
He had almost become dust in the explosion of that sacred space.
In all these years of visiting his old comrade, Shaya had always presented himself as the one who believed people needed redemption, always extending a helping hand to those mired in misery.
Poldo had almost forgotten that Shaya's version of "redemption" was to obliterate the enemy before they even realized it.
Had Poldo not spent so many years in the Holy Sound, familiar with the deity's teachings, and had he not swiftly employed his sorcery to change his own state, blending into the sacred space, he would likely have become another victim of Shaya's power.
With a flick of his finger, Poldo's mental power formed a three-dimensional array, from which countless lights gathered. In the next moment, they vibrated and transformed into glowing butterflies, fluttering through the space.
Shaya still appeared as an old man holding a cane, but his aura had changed drastically.
The Holy Sound Church revered the deity's voice, and the mysteries of that divine sound were what they sought to interpret. With each flutter of the glowing butterflies' wings, they vibrated through the space, collecting feedback from it.
Then, one of the butterflies suddenly exploded. The world seemed to crack, and a great fissure appeared where Shaya had been standing.
Shaya, using holy power, had created a sacred space within the cracks. Poldo, in turn, used vibrations to perceive the space, then employed holy power to connect with it. The explosion followed, causing the space itself to shift.
"There's always this feeling that ordinary people and them aren't even in the same world," Adam observed after watching this scene, pulling his gaze away. He felt as though the world before him had become somewhat illusory.
Most people around him spent their days concerned with mundane things, trapped within the confines of their own lives. Yet, beings like Shaya could open battlefields within the cracks of space itself.
Though they lived in the same city, it felt as though they were worlds apart, like the difference between gods and humans.
"Don't be disheartened. The gap between you and them is not as vast as you think," Jin said, noticing Adam's subdued expression and offering some comfort.
Adam nodded but did not voice the sense of disconnection he felt between people. This world was indeed one led by supernatural forces, unlike the previous world where wealth had been people's "power."
In that world, supernatural abilities weren't as overtly evident, but the disparities between people, driven by wealth, were equally unbridgeable.
Shaking off these thoughts, Adam refrained from watching the ongoing battle.
Remaining in a state that favored the soul for too long would weaken his body, hindering his knightly training.
"Anyway, as long as Jin tells me the outcome, there's no need to exhaust myself just to spectate. That would be unwise," Adam decided, calmly settling back into his bed and starting his meditation practice.
Jin glanced at Adam, surprised by how his disciple could resist watching the battle.
As he admired Adam more, Jin didn't stop observing the ongoing conflict.
In the face of countless glowing butterflies attacking, Shaya's figure seemed to be constantly shifting. But in the sacred space, Shaya adjusted his holy power, altering the space's structure to make his movements possible without actually moving.
"Can he avoid these attacks without activating the state of divine communion?" Jin pondered. "Is it that he doesn't need to, or has he already lost the ability?"
"Shaya, old friend, your body is far too frail now," Poldo said, revealing the truth. His surroundings pulsed with ever-changing halos, blocking some of the attacks.
If only ten years earlier, even with a ritual in place, Poldo wouldn't have dared to fight Shaya for so long, and certainly not chosen to come to Roya.
"But now, let's bring this to an end." Poldo spoke slowly, drawing a massive spine from the rift in the space. An overwhelming aura of resentment filled the entire sacred space.
"This will be the sword that points to the gods!"