"You value your life so much that you would attack me with your true form?"
Sailesi flung his arms and legs, throwing away the two puppets that had temporarily bound him.
He rubbed the bark he was holding in his right hand and looked at Geliwusi in front of him with a surprised expression.
However, unlike his previous relaxed attitude, Geliwusi's expression turned serious at this moment:
"I never expected that Sailesi, who is used to head-on confrontations, would actually use a clone?"
Not long after the battle began, Geliwusi had already noticed something amiss:
Sailesi's symbiotic plant abilities were indeed incredibly powerful, and his aggressive demeanor and every move he made were indeed the same as those of the cardinal he knew.
But neither failing to shatter the giant Clear Void Pine with a single blow, nor being temporarily stuck by its Clear Void Pine, seems like something a High Tier practitioner of both physical and magical arts could accomplish.
If Sailesi were this bad, he would have been overtaken by others long ago.
It was precisely to verify his own ideas that Geliwusi, who was always cautious, timid, and afraid of death, chose to risk his life.
As expected, although he did not succeed, his guess was confirmed.
Geliwusi's abilities are mostly related to symbiotic plants. His [ Symbiotic Mistletoe ] is incredibly resilient and has a wide variety of abilities, allowing it to do many things that Luxiusi and Sailesi cannot.
However, there is only one weakness of Geliwusi's: his ability to fight in close combat.
Despite his background in the Records Office, his close-combat skills were no different from those of a Middle Tier Grand Knight Commander, and he was no match for Sailesi, who came from the Holy Crusaders, or Luxiusi, who came from an exiled priesthood.
So, although Sailesi barely dodged his short cone thrust, it still tells us something.
Despite not being injured by such an attack, Sailesi failed to mount a counterattack, indicating that Cyrus's combat skills were not much better than Cyrus's.
At this moment, Geliwusi was certain that the Sailesi before him was not the real Cyrus.
"Are you a stand-in or a puppet? Where is Sailesi?"
Geliwusi asked with a stern face.
What are you saying?
The tender leaves wrapped around Sailesi's arm instantly straightened, transforming into a long, thin sword.
With a casual wave of his hand, he severed the heads of four or five pine puppets around him.
Geliwusi shook his head:
"Your strength is getting weaker and weaker. Don't forget that just five minutes ago, you could severely injure a giant tree with a single blow. How come you're having so much trouble even chopping off a head now?"
"Stop talking nonsense!"
Sailesi charged forward with a stomp of his foot, Geliwusi parried continuously with his short dagger, realizing that his opponent's strength was indeed mediocre.
"Since you're unwilling to admit it, then..."
Geliwusi seized the opportunity and kicked out, causing Sailesi's muscular body to stagger back several steps.
The shorter Geliwusi lunged forward, his short dagger thrusting repeatedly, while Sailesi's rapier grew increasingly weak.
"Drink it!"
Geliwusi crossed his hands, and Sailesi's right hand was instantly pierced through.
After realizing that the other party was a fake, Geliwusi seemed to have grasped some kind of secret and began to launch an unusually aggressive attack.
The next moment, Geliwusi transformed into a nimble fat man and severed " Sailesi's " tendons in a few swift movements.
With his left-hand dagger pressed against Sailesi's throat, and his right-hand dagger retracted beneath the flesh, Geliwusi slammed his palm down on Sailesi's face, just as he had a minute earlier when his skin had been ripped off.
"Who are you?"
"I am Cardinal Sailesi Richter!"
Sailesi's tone remained firm, but it had become more rigid, as if he were answering questions mechanically.
"I am Cardinal Sailesi Richter."
"I am Cardinal Sailesi Richter..."
" Sailesi " repeated the phrase over and over again. Geliwusi pressed his right hand against his face, and fine barbs sprouted from his palm and fingertips, piercing into " Sailesi's" skin.
With a gentle push, Geliwusi peeled away a layer of something that was neither a mask nor a hood from Sailesi's face.
At the same time, his voice was also changing little by little, from deep and authoritative to numb and... sharp?
"I am...
Cardinal...
Sailesi...
Richter.
The mask was peeled off, revealing a face completely different from Sailesi 'Geliwusi.
The man's eyes were vacant, his face was covered in blood, yet he was still muttering to himself:
"I am Cardinal Sailesi Richter."
Geliwusi pressed the mask back onto the stand-in's face, wiped away the blood, peeled it off again, and bent down to examine it closely.
After glancing at that face a few times, Geliwusi uttered a name:
Luorui'er Fitz.
"It was you?"
Geliwusi remembered the archbishop, and of course, he remembered the surname.
The Fitz family, former nobles of the kingdom, submitted to the newly established Tree Worship Church Theocracy, and their original territory was directly converted into the Fitz Province.
Because a pointless war was averted, the Fitz Family was promised the right to inherit the position of Archbishop of Fitz Province for generations.
Therefore, Geliwusi naturally recognized Luorui'er Fitz before him, both in the seminary and at the ceremony of appointing archbishops.
And now, she has appeared before me in this manner.
Geliwusi recalled something that had happened a few months ago --
The "rebel army" led by the Son of God conquered the entire Fitz Province. As Sailesi's good student, Luorui'er successfully escaped back to the Holy City with a withered [ Dream of Rebirth ].
Surprisingly, Luorui'er was not punished at all. Instead, Sailesi gave her a leisurely job in the Holy Soul Hall and promised that she would remain the archbishop of Fitz Province after its recapture.
At the time, Geliwusi was somewhat puzzled by this, but he simply took it as a move by Sailesi to win people's hearts.
But now that I think about it, the old man must have had the idea of turning Luorui'er into a stand-in back then.
After all, the effects of her symbiotic plant [ Forget-Sorrow Mint ] are quite similar to Sailesi's [ Dream of Rebirth ], making her more susceptible to being suppressed and brainwashed by [ Dream of Rebirth ].
Having figured it out, Geliwusi felt a pang of disappointment. He had originally planned to use Sailesi's head and the credit for breaking the brainwashing to buy himself a way out, but now the credit he had in his hands had flown away.
Luxiusi was right after all; Sailesi had already prepared an escape route. I wonder if his men outside the city had made any progress.
Even Luxiusi didn't expect that Sailesi didn't just run away because he couldn't win, but instead ran away from the very beginning, leaving behind only a clone that inherited some of his abilities.
Geliwusi casually locked Luorui'er in the plant prison, pondering what he should do next...
Now that Sailesi has run away, the process of disindoctrinating him must be thorough, and ideally, it should also contribute to the capture of the Holy City.
He glanced around, a thought flashing through his mind. More and more pine golems appeared, gradually suppressing Sailesi's die-hard followers...