Yes, Madam Prime Minister

Page 257

A portion of the magic and power of the previous generation can be passed on to the chosen successor.

If the previous generation was at level 5 when they were about to die, and the next generation is at level 4, and you transfer some magic power and add a spell, the level 4 will directly become level 5.

It has been passed down for many generations, starting from hundreds of years ago.

The last three generations are all seventh-tier.

He possesses the best magic from his predecessors, plus his own, making a total of seven types.

And this is only one part of this special magic.

This divine magic also has a special ability: it can temporarily imitate and copy other people's magic. The exact number you can imitate at the same time depends on your own rank.

In other words, the person Ronan and his companions are about to face possesses seven different divine spells, and can also cast spells on Ronan and his companions, with a maximum of seven spells.

There are fourteen in total.

Furthermore, his own magical power is exceptionally high, as it is increased with each generation of inheritance.

The battle began without warning.

At the very first moment the battle began, Ronan and his three companions worked in perfect unison. The Grand Master rushed forward to stall for time, while Ronan and Dinia, in their combined form, immediately took the Pope away from the battle.

There's nothing he can do; he's not Ronan, so they can't merge.

If Ronan couldn't merge with Dinia, he would have to run as far away as possible. With his fifth-tier strength, he wouldn't even be able to withstand the aftershocks in a battle of this level.

However, what Rondinha didn't expect was...

The first magic spell unleashed by the Deputy Director of the Relief Department was a spectacular, earth-shattering event.

White clouds dispersed in the sky, and the sun shone brightly. Like a torrential rain, a holy cross shaped like a sword poured down.

The area within several kilometers is within the strike range.

There was no way to dodge it, so Dinia could only keep using the red light cannon to blast away the rain of holy light swords.

And this was not a burst, or even several rounds, but a shower of light that lasted for ten minutes.

It can be said that this one move alone, without a large group of mages, would be enough to annihilate an entire army in a minute.

Ten minutes later, the rain stopped.

This small basin in the valley, spanning several kilometers in circumference, has been completely transformed into a desert. The hard rocks and soft soil have all been crushed into sand, and the tree branches, wildflowers, and weeds have all been ground into powder and have completely disappeared.

All around, as far as the eye could see, was yellow sand.

"You didn't say there was such a move."

Ronan said to the Pope.

"His job is to provide relief to disaster victims and help the poor. Who do you think has ever seen him truly demonstrate his abilities?" the Pope retorted with a grim expression.

"What we should be concerned about is why he turned this place into a desert."

Dinia said.

The ten-minute-long shower of light did not actually cause them much harm.

Creating such a grand spectacle and altering the terrain—it couldn't have been just for show, could it?

Normally, this is setting the stage for the magic to come.

“From now on, you’ll probably have to take care of yourself, Your Holiness,” Ronan joked.

“Ah, no need to worry, my reinforcements have arrived,” the Pope said.

Just then, three magical auras approached, two of which were very familiar.

Giovanni and his old flame, the doll witch, but this water elemental mage seems to have really bad luck, encountering the desert again.

Dinia glanced back. "Then we can rest assured. It's time to move, Ronan."

Chapter 581 Heretics are the most hateful; absolute defense and absolute offense; verbal offensive.

Soon, Ronan and Dinia understood why the Deputy Director of the Relief Department, the Vatican's strongest force, had turned this vast area into desert.

Previously, the combined Roddy took the Pope to a very far place. This was not to avoid the rain of light swords. If he really wanted to avoid it, he could have just run out of the coverage area.

Taking the Pope away was to ensure that the Deputy Director of the Relief Department could not attack the Pope with other magic. Lightsaber Rain is a continuous effect, not a continuous spell.

At the same time, ensure that the rain of light ends so that you can rush back to support the Grand Commander as soon as possible.

If the Grand Master is gone, everything the Pope promised Ronan will be nothing but empty words, and he himself may even go to heaven to serve the Father.

Now, the return of the combined Roddy is being hindered.

The surrounding sand continuously coalesced into various shapes, obstructing the two in various ways, such as quicksand, sandstorms, sand walls that suddenly rose up, sand blades that suddenly flew in, or sand bonds that suddenly sprang up to try to envelop the two.

These sands weren't being manipulated by the Deputy Chief of the Relief Department; he was fighting the Grand Commander and had no way of having the energy to control the sands.

These sands are "alive," controlled by a persistent magic, rather than by the Deputy Director of Relief.

It can only be said that it truly deserves the title of "divine art," and cannot be judged by ordinary thinking.

Lightsaber rain, living desert—so far, this strongest member of the Holy See has only revealed two moves.

However, the power of these sands was still a bit lacking. For the merged Roddy, they were only somewhat annoying, not a threat at all. The merged Roddy could dodge at will, and when he didn't want to dodge anymore, he would raise his hand and unleash a red light cannon.

Although it posed no real threat, it did indeed hinder Ronan and Dinah's return to reinforce.

"Why are the Pope and the Deputy Director of the Relief Department in such a life-or-death confrontation?"

"Dinia asked."

After returning and reuniting with Ronan, she learned a little about what the Pope had told Ronan earlier: the Pope wanted to use the Church's organizational capabilities to help establish a third-party oversight body composed entirely of civilians.

Regardless of his secret plans or hidden motives, on the surface, he was helping a large number of powerless and voiceless lower-class civilians.

On the other hand, although I don't know this deputy director of relief well, judging from his words alone, he also strongly advocates helping the common people and deeply abhors the corrupt state of the church.

What is the source of conflict between these two?

Like the Grand Master, Dinia was filled with doubt, not understanding how things had escalated to such an irreconcilable point.

Ronan explained, "The Pope wants the Church to keep pace with the times, to evolve and change while maintaining its influence, even if it means becoming more secular than in the past. The Deputy Director, on the other hand, believes that it is better to maintain the Church's independence and purity, even if it is only nominally, than to lose its influence."

"The Pope hopes to use the Church's organizational capabilities to build a platform for ordinary people to voice their opinions, and to resolve conflicts between ordinary people and the ruling class on this platform. To ensure the platform is recognized, there will inevitably be compromises with secular laws. The Deputy Director hopes that the Church will play a sacred role, giving voice to the people, taking something back from the ruling class, and giving it to those in need, which is to say, robbing the rich to help the poor."

"Their starting points may be similar, but their routes are completely different."

"So, as the old saying goes, heretics are more hateful than heretics. In the eyes of this deputy director of the Relief Department, those who use the church to seize power and money are heretics, while the Pope is a heretic. Heretics can be eliminated from time to time, but a few heretics are not a big problem. However, the existence of heretics is a much bigger problem."

"Just like in the government, anti-corruption work is always going on, and the scope of the crackdown depends on the situation, but political enemies need to be eradicated without hesitation, uprooted completely."

"The position of Deputy Director of Relief has no real power within the Church. Since he cannot remove the Pope through political means, he can only resort to physical elimination."

"As for the Pope, since you want to kill me, I have no choice but to kill you first."

Ronan wasn't sure if this deduction was correct, since he didn't know much about the church or the people in it.

But judging from the conversation between the Pope and the Deputy Director of the Relief Department, that's exactly what happened.

"Understood," Dinia said, cleaving the sand wall in front of her with a single sword stroke.

Finally, they arrived at the battleground between the Grand Commander and the Deputy Chief of the Relief Department.

At this moment, the chief commander and the deputy director of the relief department stood facing each other, more than ten meters apart, without making any move.

The commander suffered minor injuries, while the deputy director of the relief department was unharmed.

The two had stopped a little over a minute before the combined Roddy arrived, because they had both reached a point where they could no longer cause any real harm to each other.

The Deputy Director of the Relief Department possessed a strange magic that prevented the Grand Master's attacks from hitting him. Although he inflicted some damage on the Grand Master at the beginning of the battle, his magical attacks quickly became ineffective.

"Finally, we can hand over the reins." The Grand Master smoothed his messy, half-length hair with one hand. "We've tested two techniques. The first is 'Degeneration.' The closer the magic gets to him, the faster it degenerates, turning him back to his undeveloped state. In short, whether it's magic or physical attack, as long as there's a process of casting and hitting, it's absolutely impossible to hit him. You can't even cast it right next to him."

The deputy director of the relief department saw that Roddy had arrived, but he did not move, nor did he stop the chief commander from revealing the truth to the two of them.

"The second is a guaranteed hit, an undefendable piercing attack."

A passive ability that guarantees you won't get hit, combined with attacks that always hit.

For someone like that, it seems there's no other way but to wear them down.

Ordinary mages don't even have the right to wear him down. The Grand Master's attacks are ineffective against him after a couple of hits, while Dinia has super-fast regeneration, so taking damage is no problem for him.

The Grand Master looked at the combined Roddy, "He also has another one, which is magic detection. It's because of this that I fought you seriously. Otherwise, there are plenty of ways to fool those idiots."

After saying that, the commander left.

He had spent a lot of mana acting with Dinia at the beginning, then he spent another wave of energy dealing with the people who were trying to assassinate the Pope, and then he spent another wave of energy staying behind to hold off the deputy director of the Relief Department. He was really at his limit.

“I’ll say it again, this has nothing to do with you,” the deputy director of the Relief Department said to the merged Roddy.

“You’re getting impatient,” Ronan said. “The Pope’s reinforcements have arrived. If you keep dragging things out with us, you might not have the strength to kill the Pope. This is your best chance because a powerful figure like you, who holds a hereditary ability, cannot hold power within the Church. It’s a Church rule. You can only take advantage of this turmoil to eliminate the Pope and use those who opposed him, those you’ve got leverage over and then let go, to indirectly use power and make the Church follow the path you want, right?”

"Of course, if you insist on risking your life, we might not be able to stop you, but you probably wouldn't want to take that risk, since we haven't found a successor yet, right?"

Ronan continued to verbally provoke the other party.

Chapter 582 My defenses have been breached, my trump card is about to be revealed, and I'm back.

Ronan's words provoked a slight change in the Deputy Director of the Relief Department's expression. Besides his studies in magic and theology, he had been working on the front lines for many years, traveling to various countries to raise donations from the powerful and wealthy, and personally managing the church's charitable activities. He had met all kinds of people.

There were people who spoke ill of him.

But Ronan was the first person to make him feel uncomfortable.

Ronan continued, "Do you know how that old Pope described the plan against you? It was fishing. You are the fish, understand? No matter how big or fierce the fish is, even if it can capsize the boat and eat you up, it is still a fish, a weak one."

"You may scoff at the idea that you are weak, but there is no doubt that you are. No matter what, the old Pope has one or two friends and a group of supporters. Even if they are a bunch of corrupt and degenerate fools, he can still win the support of a large number of people. What about you? You are all alone."

"Does anyone genuinely want to listen to what you're saying? No."

"They can only achieve their inner vision by finding fault with others and forcing them to comply. They use inferior methods, are carried out by a bunch of corrupt people, and at the same time sing high-sounding praises of sacred values. Even politicians would be impressed."

"A pathetic wretch dreaming other people's dreams, utterly worthless..."

Before she could finish speaking, Dinia's head was pierced by a short, white spear, entering through her eyes and exiting from the back of her head.

"Shut up." Dinia reached out and pulled out the eyeball along with the spear, tossing it aside. The wound, brain, and eyeball regenerated instantly. "You're the one who got to vent, but I'm the one who's in pain." The spear was no ordinary pain; when it pierced through the head, it felt like a hole was punched in the skull and boiling water was poured in.

"Ha, he's broken down." Ronan laughed.

As soon as she finished speaking, Dinia raised her hand, and countless red, active bacteria, resembling sand worms, rushed from all directions towards the Deputy Director of the Relief Department from within a radius of several hundred meters in the desert.

She knew, of course, that this wouldn't have any effect on the other party, but the purpose of doing this was not to allow the bacteria to invade and parasitize, but to force the other party to keep that absolute defense active and continuously deplete their mana.

The deputy director of the relief department naturally wouldn't sit idly by and watch himself be consumed, so he raised his hand and began to actively manipulate the sand to crush the red worms.

In the blink of an eye, the surroundings were covered with red fragments.

However, these red fragments quickly began to form threads, split, and reactivate.

This does not consume Dinia's magic, because this thing is a magical life form created by Dinia through magic and her own original power; it absorbs energy to reproduce.

These magical creations require magic to kill.

Seeing that the physical method of manipulating sand to strangle the strange red worms was not actually killing them, but instead causing them to multiply, the deputy director of the relief department took off from the ground and flew dozens of meters into the air in an instant, where he hovered.

“The fifth type of magic,” Dinia read aloud.

Immediately, Dinia, wielding two swords, stepped onto the floating shield and leaped into the air.

Without armor or floating shields, this defense was useless against the Deputy Chief of the Relief Department's attacks, only wasting mana.

The aerial battle began.

The combined Roddy launched an attack at an extremely fast speed. In the air, the deputy director of the relief department could not keep up with the combined Roddy's speed, which was so fast that it was invisible. In the eyes of the Grand Commander in the distance, it was like countless red rays of light, constantly sweeping past and impacting a nearly motionless gray wooden stake from all angles.

The combined Roddy's attack appeared to land solid blows and slashes on the deputy director of the relief department, but in reality, it missed its mark.

On the contrary, the combined Roddy was covered in white light short spears and his body was soaked in blood.

But this is exactly the result Ronan and Dinia wanted. The two of them were using the least amount of power output and the least amount of life force loss to force the other to maintain a state of absolute imperviousness.

It can only be said that the church's strongest fighter was utterly lacking in strategy.

He shouldn't have driven those people away in the first place. Instead, he should have been honest with them about his purpose and let them become his allies. Those spineless cowards would have stayed without hesitation.

Now, he shouldn't have attacked the combined Roddy at all; he should have just stood there, ignored the attacks, and let himself be beaten.

But he drove the group away and continued to attack them.

This person is incompetent with people and incompetent with tasks; they lack both strategic thinking and combat intelligence.

Divine magic is the most mana-intensive of the six types of magic. The mana consumed by his white light spear far exceeds the mana consumed by Roddy's self-regeneration and injury repair when he is combined with Roddy.