"Your Majesty Celes… are you really that idle?"
In the end, Locke was so thoroughly disturbed by Celes that he could no longer calm his mind to cultivate, and simply asked him outright.
It had already been a full month since Locke assassinated Gasco and the nobles around the grand cathedral.
Over the course of that month, the Pope of the Radiant Temple had been run completely ragged.
There was no helping it—this incident had been far too severe. The blow it dealt to the Radiant Temple's reputation was enormous.
The Radiant Temple's grand cathedral was an area personally overseen by the Pope himself.
In the Wakanda Plane, its security could be said to be second only to the imperial capital of the Frostsnow Empire.
Why had those high-ranking figures been willing to defect from the Frostsnow Empire and join the Radiant Temple in the first place?
Aside from the fact that sacrificial rituals allowed them to break through their own bottlenecks and advance to higher realms, security was also an indispensable factor.
Without security, if they defected today only to be hunted down and killed by the Frostsnow Empire tomorrow, then what was the point of defecting at all?
Had they grown tired of living and wanted to die sooner?
Naturally not.
It was because the Pope of the Radiant Temple had personally guaranteed that once they entered the Temple's sphere of influence, their safety would be assured.
For many years, among the nobles who had sought refuge with the Radiant Temple, aside from those who died on the battlefield, there had never been a precedent of anyone being assassinated by the Frostsnow Empire.
But Gasco's death shattered that belief.
It caused everyone to seriously doubt whether the Radiant Temple could still protect their safety.
After all, Gasco had been killed right near the Radiant Pope himself—and yet the Pope had not sensed anything at all.
That meant the assassin who killed Gasco could just as easily kill them under the Pope's very nose.
The nobles who died miserably around the central cathedral were their cautionary tale.
As a result, in order to stabilize morale within the Radiant Temple, the Pope would periodically unfold his Divine Domain within the cathedral to reassure the people.
Seeing scenes like this amused even someone like Celes, who had lived for millions of years. These days, he had been telling Locke amusing anecdotes about the Radiant Temple almost daily.
"Heh heh…"
Even after being called out so directly by Locke, Celes showed not the slightest hint of anger.
In Celes' heart, Locke was a successor capable of reaching the divine realm and eventually replacing him as the ruler of the Frostsnow Empire.
He even hoped that once Locke entered the Water God Plane in the future, he could take Locke under his command.
Thus, he did not take Locke's lack of courtesy to heart.
Of course, the real reason Celes had been so tireless this past month in reporting the Radiant Temple's situation was his overwhelming curiosity about how Locke had managed to kill a Saint Domain expert right under the Radiant Pope's nose.
"Locke, I'm truly curious as well…"
"A god-level expert's divine sense— even if that Radiant Pope is only a Low God— is more than enough to envelop the entire cathedral."
"And yet, after Gasco died, neither his divine sense nor his Divine Domain detected any trace of you. Just how did you do it?"
"I'm really curious…"
Indeed, Celes was deeply curious.
God-level experts and Saint Domain experts were separated by only a single realm—
Yet the gap between them was as vast as a chasm between heaven and earth.
Hundreds, even thousands of Rank Nine experts might be able to gang up and kill a Saint Domain expert.
But no matter how many Saint Domain experts there were, before a god-level being, they were nothing more than dust— not even worthy of being called ants.
One reason was that god-level experts possessed divine sense.
With a single sweep of divine sense, nothing within its range could escape their perception.
And beyond that, god-level experts possessed an even more terrifying ability—
An ability that truly made the difference between gods and Saints like the divide between heaven and earth.
The Divine Domain.
In the Panlong Universe, once a living being fully comprehends a single profound mystery of the laws, they will trigger the omnipresent rules of heaven and earth, causing those rules to descend.
Under the influence of the world's laws, the profound mystery a being comprehends condenses into a divinity.
This divinity can be said to be the concrete manifestation of a profound mystery. Once a being's soul enters and fuses with it, they become a god.
As the embodiment of the laws of heaven and earth, once a god's soul fuses with a divinity, they no longer need to maintain a "unity of heaven and man" state like Saint Domain experts to unleash their full power.
Rather—
A god is heaven itself.
Through the divinity, a god can directly control the elemental forces of heaven and earth within a certain range, forming a domain.
Within that domain, the life and death of all beings below the god-level rest on the god's single thought.
Even a Saint Domain peak expert, one step away from fully comprehending a law, would be completely bound by endless elemental forces inside a Divine Domain, unable to move at all.
Only a Divine Domain can counter another Divine Domain.
In the God Planes and the Supreme Planes, Saints are no different from pigs and dogs.
Only gods can be considered "people."
Yet Locke had succeeded in killing a Saint Domain expert right under a god's watchful eye—and then returned safely to Locke Territory.
How could Celes not be astonished?
"Your Majesty Celes, the reason the Radiant Pope failed to find me is simple," Locke said calmly.
"Because I was never inside the cathedral at all."
Seeing that Celes would not let the matter rest unless he explained himself, Locke shook his head and selectively revealed some of what had happened that day.
"That day, I was hiding in the clouds above the cathedral. I never entered the cathedral itself."
"After locating Gasco and the others, I launched a soul attack against them and killed the three of them instantly."
"After that, the Radiant Pope's divine sense and Divine Domain completely enveloped the cathedral—but he never once paid attention to the sky above."
"That's how I was lucky enough to escape from the Radiant Temple."
"Just as I suspected… your attainments in the soul—"
The rest of Celes' words faded away as his divine sense withdrew, leaving Locke unable to hear clearly.
But there was no need to guess what he was about to say.
As for Locke's explanation, Celes both believed it—and did not.
He believed that Locke had not lied.
But he did not believe that things had been as simple as Locke made them sound.
Locke had not yet become a god, and thus did not truly understand the subtleties of divine sense.
But Celes had been a god for millions of years—how could he not understand the marvels of divine sense?
Even if Locke had been above the cathedral rather than inside it, there was no way he should have escaped the Radiant Pope's perception so easily.
(End of Chapter)
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