Titan Bloodline

To become commander of the Papal Legion before the age of thirty, Xiulunte was naturally no ordinary man. He did not take Allen's nonsense seriously, but he simply could not accept everything before his eyes in such a short time.

Everything around them was steeped in strangeness. The administrative hall where everyone had been taking their afternoon nap had become ruins, the Guard Knights had been wiped out, and the Magus under his command had self-destructed.

Most bizarre of all, the Bloodthirsty Qi he had always been so proud of could not be activated properly.

But when he saw Dina's sturdy figure and recalled the abnormal state of the Battle Aura within his body, Xiulunte did not hesitate in the slightest and attacked her directly.

Xiulunte had his reasons for attacking, because he remembered a legend—a legend that made every Holy See Qi Warrior turn pale.

"Savage Heretic!" After exchanging a punch with Dina, Xiulunte said gravely, "Titan Bloodline?"

Dina did not rush to retaliate. She looked at Xiulunte in confusion.

"Hmph, follower of a False God!" Xiulunte said as he drew the sword at his waist and pointed it at Dina. His eyes instantly turned crimson, and a thin blood-red mist flickered around his body.

Xiulunte retreated sharply. Raising his sword high, he let out a low roar of "Holy. Slay!" and slashed through the air at Dina.

His crimson Battle Aura transformed into a three-meter greatsword, carrying a sickening stench of blood as it shot toward Dina.

As Allen's personal maid, Dina had never fought an expert on Xiulunte's level. Most of the time, she relied on brute force to charge headfirst into battle. Beating up insignificant small fry was one thing, but against a high-level Qi Warrior like this, she was clearly flustered.

After awkwardly dodging the crimson greatsword formed from Battle Aura, she was about to rush forward and use her brute strength to engage him at close range. But Xiulunte retreated again. With a low roar of "Holy. Extinguish!", the crimson Battle Aura around his body transformed into a cross covered in skulls and smashed toward Dina.

Just as the huge cross was about to strike Dina's head before she could dodge, two rust-covered Knight Greatswords appeared out of nowhere and slashed across it, sending the massive cross flying.

Blood rushed into Sakre's handsome face as he stood before Dina, holding a sword in each hand.

"Sakre, you dare stop me?" Xiulunte was not doing much better in the distance. Having forcibly activated his Battle Aura to use Holy Hall Power, his blood and qi were churning in his chest as well.

"Enough! Xiulunte, our mission is to spread the glory of the Holy Father, not to come to Outpost County and slaughter innocents."

"Ignorance. The Holy Father's path to glory is paved with blood and bones." Xiulunte pointed his sword at the furious Dina. "This heretic believes in a False God. Should I not kill her? Sakre, do you intend to betray the Holy Father?"

Sakre froze, then asked in confusion, "Dina is merely the maid of Outpost County's lord. How could she possibly be a heretic?"

Xiulunte sneered. "When I approached her just now, the Bloodthirsty Qi I cultivate could not gather within my body at all. Do I need to explain further?"

Sakre looked utterly incredulous. The two Knight Greatswords hanging at his sides involuntarily crossed and pointed toward Dina.

Looking at Dina's irritated yet confused expression, Sakre did not want to believe that this foolish-looking maid was truly a heretic who believed in a False God, just as Xiulunte claimed.

Although he and Xiulunte could not stand the sight of each other, he could not deny that Xiulunte had no reason to deceive him. Moreover, Xiulunte had just mentioned the legendary Titan Bloodline.

Allen, who had been completely bewildered beside them, suddenly remembered Dina's fight with Jess, Austin's guard, a few days ago. That Qi Warrior's Battle Aura had also seemed extremely unstable when facing Dina. He had been so flustered that Dina gave him a thorough beating.

Outpost County bordered the Great Wilderness, and the Wilderness Barbarians who lived there were one of the races branded as heretics by the Holy See.

It was not as though the Holy See had never campaigned against the Wilderness Barbarians, but it had never once succeeded in completely wiping them out.

Although the Wilderness Barbarians possessed natural strength, they did not engage in production and were ignorant and uncivilized. In every heretic-suppression campaign, those barbarians used the same old fighting style: bare their chests and charge forward in a swarm.

With a population of less than a hundred thousand, those barbarians had used that absurd fighting method to stop the Holy See's elite legions on the Great Wilderness, becoming the Behemoth Kingdom's free barrier and premier enforcers.

Logically speaking, while the barbarians possessed natural strength, the Holy See also had countless high-level mages.

But what frustrated the Holy See most was that mages might influence the course of a local battle, yet they would never be the heaviest weight on the scales.

What truly determined the outcome of a large-scale war was still the vast number of ordinary soldiers.

Yet even if dozens of those ordinary legion soldiers swarmed a single barbarian, they might not be able to defeat one with semi-petrified skin.

Under such circumstances, Qi Warriors were the only ones capable of contending with the barbarians.

Unfortunately, though the barbarians were poor, they had plenty of tricks. They had taken poverty to a whole new level.

The Holy See played with equipment, so they played with faith.

The barbarians' shamans could use the Power of Faith to summon vast numbers of Dusk Wolves to fight the Holy See's magical beasts.

The barbarians' chieftains could use the Power of Faith to activate Barbarian Battle Rings against the Holy See's mages.

Both sides went back and forth, and basically neither had absolute confidence in wiping out the other in one stroke.

But perhaps the barbarians were simply too poor for even the gods in the heavens to bear watching any longer, and then... the barbarians came up with another new trick.

That new barbarian trick was called the Titan Bloodline.

Among the hundred thousand barbarians, every ten years, a baby blessed by the God of the Wilderness would be born. After growing up, that child would awaken a racial ability.

This ability basically had no combat use. It merely suppressed an enemy's Battle Aura. Its radius was said to be related to age, with stronger effects the older the wielder became.

The Holy See had suffered terribly from this. More than twenty years ago, when they were fighting the barbarians, they always noticed a particularly sturdy half-grown child wearing patchwork armor running all over the battlefield. He did not fight or stop anywhere; he simply ran around wildly, making a pass wherever high-level Qi Warriors appeared.

After he passed by, every Qi Warrior without exception would suffer disordered Battle Aura, then get slapped to death by ordinary barbarian warriors, dying for no apparent reason.

The barbarian tribe was simply too poor. They claimed they disdained wearing armor into battle, but in truth, they were too poor to afford it.

When a half-grown barbarian child in armor suddenly began running all over the battlefield, he finally caught the attention of the Papal Legion's higher-ups. Once they connected him to those unlucky dead Qi Warriors whose graves had long since grown weeds, everything became clear.

After suffering countless losses, the Holy See's higher-ups began to suspect that the sudden reduction of Qi Warriors to the level of ordinary soldiers was connected to that barbarian child running around.

Later, the Holy See laid a trap and finally captured alive that barbarian child whose racial ability had awakened and who possessed the Titan Bloodline.

Anyone who had spent more than a few years in the Holy See knew of this incident, let alone Sakre, the legion's chief strategist.

For barbarians like Dina who could suppress Battle Aura, the Holy See had many names: Qi Killer, Descendant of Titan Bloodline, Beloved of the God of the Wilderness, and so on.

No matter what they were called, one fact could not be denied: the Titan Bloodline would always be a grave threat to the Holy See.

That was why Xiulunte had been so eager to attack, even at the cost of his own blood essence, forcibly activating his Battle Aura and unleashing Holy Hall Power.

Noticing that Sakre seemed to be wavering, Allen stepped beside Dina and cracked his knuckles.

"Second Young Master, why is that guy attacking me?" Dina asked in confusion. "Is it because I used the ballista to shoot his lackeys?"

"No, it's because you're too beautiful." Allen joked, "He took a fancy to you, so he attacked you."

Dina shot Xiulunte a look of disgust.

"Heh, pointless arguing." Xiulunte assumed an attacking stance again and shouted at Sakre, "Kill her, and I'll request a reward for you from the Pope."

"Sakre, I knew you were a fence-sitter." Allen pulled out his Wolf-tooth Club from behind his back and grinned savagely. "I've hated the sight of you for a long time. Back then, your third sister humiliated me in public. Today, I'll vent my anger on you first."

Sakre was speechless. Princess Hathaway rejecting you has nothing to do with me.

After saying that, Allen also felt that something was off. Maybe he had identified with it too strongly. Still, any excuse would do. He could not exactly say he was jealous of Sakre for having so many lackeys and looking impressive wherever he went.

"Dina, I'll deal with Xiulunte. Sakre is useless, so you go take care of him. Just cripple him. Leave him for Second Young Master to vent his anger on later."

"Got it!" Dina said, then charged toward Sakre with her body bent forward like a maddened bull.

Allen followed close behind, charging toward Xiulunte.