Chapter 284 (1): Such is Faith

Holy Maiden of the Church of Darkness, Anastasia...

You’re still alive!

Wayne looked at the magical puppet in surprise. He had thought that the Holy Maiden of the Church of Darkness was dead, but she was alive and well, only having moved her thoughts to another body.

Judging by her name, she was from the Rus Federation! What should he do? Should he return her body to her?

Wayne frowned deeply. He had more than toyed with the dark elf’s body, putting her in more than a hundred and eight different positions—perhaps even more than a thousand and eight hundred. If he handed the body back to her now, it might end up making her fall. He couldn’t do that to her when she wasn’t his enemy!

However, she didn’t seem to be faring well. She had lost her body for sixteen years, forced to inhabit magical puppets and remain cut off from the joys of being human...

Still, he couldn’t give her the body back. Anastasia’s body was already his shape. Once her thoughts entered it, the consequences would be dire. She wouldn’t even be human anymore, much less relish the joy of a human life.

After consideration, Wayne chose silence.

Yes, it was wrong of him to experiment on Anastasia’s body, but the dark elf was his loot, and it had already been corrupted when he picked it up. Even if he hadn’t tampered with the body, Anastasia still wouldn’t be able to use it.

As soon as she entered it, she would become an ancient god’s vassal!

Convincing himself, Wayne no longer felt as guilty. He said solemnly, “So you are the Holy Maiden of the Church of Darkness. I’ve long heard about you. I’m from Londan and I know a few friends from the Church of Sun. I heard that you met your demise in the Ocean of Mist, which was why I called you ‘former Holy Maiden’. I hope you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind,” Anastasia said slowly. “Although I’m still alive, I’m as good as dead.”

How pessimistic!

Wayne grumbled silently. As expected of the Holy Maiden of the Church of Darkness, her mindset was dark indeed.

“Anastasia, so you’re still alive. It’s been a long time since I last heard from you. I thought you were dead.” Senna came up to Wayne and gave the puppet a once-over. She said with a smile, “Nice craftsmanship. It suits your temperament.”

The sarcastic remark made it clear that there was bad blood between them. Wayne perked up, silently retreating to Megan’s side. He looked expectant, like he was waiting for justice to arrive.

Fight, fight!

𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

He had missed the spectacular fight between the black knight and the white knight, but he would settle for a battle between the Holy Maiden in a dark elf puppet and the Oracle High Reverend in a tentacled dragon-blooded body. He wasn’t picky.

“Senna...” Anastasia murmured, shaking her head. “I’ve been stagnating for sixteen years. Not only haven’t I made progress, but I have become weaker. If you are hung up on our fight in the past, we can simply consider you the winner.”

Consider me the winner? How generous of you!

Senna pursed her lips in annoyance, about to open her mouth to shoot back, but she swallowed her comeback when Wayne messaged her.

She asked the question for him: “Anastasia, what’s your current condition? Are you alive or dead? Who made the body for you?”

“Why does it matter to you?” Anastasia said faintly.

Senna gnashed her teeth together. If Wayne hadn’t stopped her, she would’ve started to tear the puppet apart under the guise of learning about its structure.

Forced to control her temper, Senna took a deep breath and said stiffly, “We’re friends at the end of the day. Can I not ask after an old friend?”

“Friend? You?”

Anastasia chuckled. Her laughter sounded nostalgic.

Wayne flipped through Senna’s memories as she remembered their past. Outside of the insults they had hurled at each other and the false diplomacy, they could be considered friendly rivals. There were personal grudges, but not much.

Anastasia and Senna were the same age. After becoming the Holy Maiden, Anastasia met Senna. Since they were both geniuses with a stunning appearance and great charisma, they tried to determine who was better as soon as they met, and their first meeting wasn’t exactly pleasant.

After that, the two kept clashing and trying to defeat each other...

Senna’s impression of Anastasia was half good and half bad. The good part was her approval of the Holy Maiden’s magical talent, while the bad part stemmed from her pride, jealousy, and competitiveness. She hated the way Anastasia considered herself better than anyone.

Wayne made an objective evaluation: Anastasia had been a stunning beauty even without turning into a dark elf.

Senna and Anastasia once fought in a forest and patched themselves up by a waterfall afterwards, comparing their figures since they were already naked. The memory of their thirty-minute competition was vivid, allowing Wayne a clear look. He silently called them childish. What was the point of the competition? He had never met anyone as petty as they were.

He created a figurative zip file of the images and copied it to his mind.

Reminiscing about their shared past, Anastasia glanced at Senna before lamenting her current condition, “I’ll tell you. The Darkness Knight had been unreachable, so, after receiving an oracle from the goddess, I came to the Frozen Land to guard the seal for him. Due to the failure of the seal, my body became corrupted, and I had to abandon it...”

“I made this body with the help of the three chosen knights, Sir Moula, Sir Leo, and Lady Darienne. Now significantly weaker, I’m no longer your match.”

“You were able to take the Darkness Knight’s place?” Wayne said in surprise.

Senna’s face darkened. That proved Anastasia’s magical talent. She had always been a genius, and it was likely that she had become stronger than Senna before she lost her body.

Wayne nodded to himself. Anastasia was a legendary mage who received divine oracles as the Holy Maiden and had access to the divine arts that the Goddess of Darkness taught her. The Holy Maiden of the Church of Darkness was incredibly powerful. Unfortunately...

An elf’s existence was far inferior to an ancient god's, and she was no match for an ancient god’s vassal. Anastasia was forced to abandon her body after confronting Thoggua.

The fact that her thoughts had escaped the Ocean of Mist and that she could return to the Frozen Land to reshape her body proved her prowess.

“How about you, Senna? Why did you come to the Frozen Land?”

“I’m assisting the Nature Knight to seal the ancient god’s vassal!” Senna said, refusing to admit defeat.

“Senna, we both know that the chosen knights would solve everything on their own,” Anastasia said bluntly. “And if they can’t deal with something, no number of extra pairs of hands would help. You are in no place to assist Mr. Moula.”

“Not the current Nature Knight, but the future one.”

Anastasia paused, remembering what Wayne had said in his introduction. She turned to him curiously. She hadn’t been paying attention earlier, so she only realized now that the young man had black hair, black eyes, and a bashful smile. His appearance made him easy to like.

Based on the education Anastasia had received since she was little, Wayne’s appearance alone granted him sixty points of base affection from her.

Such was the blindness of faith!

“Senna, how are you assisting Mr. Wayne?” Anastasia asked in confusion. “Someone as prideful as you isn’t going to lower that pride to help someone else, are you?”

Those who know you best are often not your friends, but your enemies. Since the two women saw each other as rivals, making them something like enemies, they knew clearly what kind of person the other was.

Senna considered Anastasia an arrogant hypocrite, while Anastasia saw Senna as a haughty, cold woman. She didn’t believe that Senna would voluntarily help Wayne without ulterior motives.

Since Wayne was the Nature Knight’s successor, Anastasia could more or less figure out Senna’s motive. She scoffed, “Of course you’d make a move on the future Nature Knight. Let me guess. You’re his master and something more than that outside of lessons, aren’t you?”

I would like to be!

Gnashing her teeth together, Senna responded with a sneer, “Don’t judge me as you once did. After all these years, I’m no longer the same person. To prevent the ancient god’s vassal from waking up, I’ve recognized Wayne as my dragonrider, so I carried him to the Frozen Land.”

Anastasia was stunned. For a moment, she wondered if she had misunderstood. But no, Senna meant it literally.

That was even more incredible!

Was this the same Senna she had known? Where had the arrogant, prideful, cold-hearted, and mistrustful woman gone?

Anastasia didn’t have dragon blood, but she knew what a dragonrider meant to a great dragon. She tilted her head to stare at Wayne, curious how the young man had managed to tame Senna. Just being the Nature Knight wasn’t enough. There had to be something else.

“Stop overthinking. I’m doing this for justice and the Chosen Land!” Senna declared, permitting no question. At the same time, she messaged Wayne and said awkwardly that she and Anastasia didn’t have a good relationship. Neither of them wanted to lose to the other, so she hoped that Wayne would play along to preserve Senna’s dignity. After that, he could do anything to her, and she wouldn’t resist.

Really? I am the one resisting now!

Wayne rolled his eyes. Taking two steps forward, he said, “Yes, Master Senna has lowered her pride for the greater good. I respect and admire her for it.”

Senna nodded. Yes, that was it. Then she telepathically urged him to honor his word and do something to her.

Wayne ignored her, pretending that he couldn’t hear her.

Anastasia stood by her first speculation. Shaking her head, she said, “He calls you ‘master’, Senna. So at the end of the day, you are his master but also more than that.”

“I’m his master’s master, to be exact,” Senna said. “He is my student’s student.”

Doesn’t that make it worse?