The Rise of the Black Plain

Hours after the action of the Spiritual Church...

It did not take long for the news to reach the capital of Albano, in the royal palace of the West family.

In this place, the queen was not doing any immorality at this instant, being in her office with her staff, receiving the daily updates.

Only women could be seen there, each of them very beautiful and young-looking, some standing near the throne where Iris was, others on bended knees in front of her.

"Your Majesty, we bring news from the Spiritual Church." One of the women with bent knees in front of Iris solemnly said, alerting the monarch that there was a problem.

"Spiritual Church?" Iris' eyebrows drew together, but she could not imagine what kind of problem would be related to such an organization. "What happened?"

"Your Majesty, Furious Shadows was exterminated by a group led by a Cardinal of the Spiritual Church this afternoon." So, the same woman from before said after taking a deep breath.

When she heard such absurdity, Iris' eyes almost jumped out of her face as she stood up in shock, not believing such a thing. "What? How? Why?" She unconsciously asked.

"Answering Your Majesty, it seems that Furious Shadows was plotting to act in the northern region of the Central Continent. They even sent a group of Spiritual Emperors to the Black Plain to deal with King Stuart's forces."

After the incident, the powers in the city formerly home to Furious Shadows quickly asked for details of that organization's crime to the Church.

Such people did not dare to ask for detailed information from the Cardinal's group, but talking to local people they knew was not that difficult. So, to confirm what had happened, many had sent their questions to Church branches in this state.

Among the powers that received answers from that organization was the royal family of Albano. For that reason, such a woman correctly informed the queen about that detail.

"They what?" Iris felt her heart beating faster as she could not contain her anger at this organization that dared this absurdity.

"It seems that this organization found out about the rumors regarding the Black Plain circulating in the local underworld. Perhaps they wanted to absorb the power of that state..." One of the women standing near the queen commented in a low voice.

Hearing this, Iris remembered her youngest daughter had already left towards the Black Plain to visit Minos and worried. 'I hope Lulu doesn't do anything foolish...'

"Damn!"

"How those bastards dare to attract the fury of the Church to my state? Now we will come under suspicion from that organization and still risk extermination!" She muttered, feeling the headache of having such incompetent and crazy vassals.

The Spiritual Church had no reason to act against this royal family.

But every large organization always had some kind of contact with the leader of its state. So, it was natural for Iris to think that her movements would be watched and any mistake on her part could cause big problems.

On the other hand, with the destruction of Furious Shadows, her state had now lost experts and become subtly weaker!

As such, she could not help but feel angry, infuriated by those people's audacity.

"Your Majesty, what should we do?" One of the subordinates there asked.

She tried to calm down for a few moments and then said. "First of all, send a message to Lulu. We can't let her get to Black Plain without knowing what happened."

"This new neighbor of ours is strange and is probably behind the complaint against this damned organization. So, she must be careful dealing with this Minos Stuart guy."

"He may be young, but someone capable of making as much noise as he can't be simple!"

"Yes, Your Majesty!"

...

A day later, the news of the extermination in Albano reached the other states of the alliance against the Flaming Empire.

Two of the three states allied with Albano reacted in surprise at what had happened, shocked that such a plot had been orchestrated against that state in the impoverished northern region.

These states were aware of a new state in that region, but no one was paying attention to Minos' local affairs. However, with this shocking news, many were already researching King Stuart and his state to understand better what had motivated Furious Shadows to commit this crime.

But in one of these three states, the situation was not pleasant for one of the few who understood what had happened in the Albano underworld.

...

"Your Highness, the Spiritual Church has wiped out an entire organization!" One of Abe's subordinates said as he broke into a cold sweat, remembering that they had done much worse than Furious Shadows.

As the crown prince of this state trembled in terror, his bodyguard gave voice to his worst nightmare. "Your Highness, I fear that Leo, perhaps even Bond, have their deaths related to this event!"

"What?" The people there exclaimed, fearing that this was true.

The possibility of a Spiritual Sage on Minos' side was frightening enough. But the Spiritual Church being behind all that was countless times worse!

After all, they could run away from a single Spiritual Sage. But from the Spiritual Church that was spread all over the continent, that even had Spiritual Demigods in its ranks, well, they could not run away, at least not for long.

Considering this, several of them began to panic, not knowing what to do given such a threat.

The bodyguard then said. "Your Highness, that makes the most sense! We have to do something, or I'm afraid we won't have a chance even to defend ourselves, as happened with Furious Shadows!"

Abe swallowed his saliva in fear upon hearing that, regretting that he had let his greed speak louder, and listened to the diabolical words of the Saints Killing Sect.

"Damn it!"

"Prepare our escape and alert the rest of the family to the slightest sign of suspicion of our involvement in these matters by the Spiritual Church or even other powers." He said in an agitated tone.

"On the other hand, prepare hints to be left to the case we fail. If the Church finds out about everything, we'll leave the evidence that those damned Flaming Empire people were behind it all!"

"They brought it to us, so let them prepare to suffer with us!"

"Yes, Your Highness!" The people there responded before leaving in a hurry to follow Abe's orders.

Meanwhile, Abe felt the bitterness of defeat, 'seeing' the plans and ambitions he had nurtured for nearly 200 years crumbling as if everything was a sandcastle.

'Damn! Bloody Saints Killing Sect! Damned Black Plain!'

...

Albano's news also reached Black Plain!

There were no periodicals from that state delivering news in that region, much less people from Minos to gather information there and bring it to Dry City. But with Gloria around, it was not difficult for her to communicate with one of the Church posts in that state and then bring the news to her man.

"So, our enemies have been eliminated, huh?" Minos smiled as he finished hearing from his favorite redhead what had happened in Albano.

"Gloria, the Spiritual Church isn't so bad. That was a pretty quick response, which will give us the time we need to get seriously involved with these troublesome neighbors."

"Hmmm." She nodded in agreement to him, feeling relief in her heart. "And what do we do now?"

He answered her without much thought. "For now, we will continue leading our lives as normal. After my advancement to level 61, we will visit the Kingdom of the Waves."

Hearing that, Abby smiled, already wondering if she could finally relieve the urge she had to solve the mystery of the Goddess of Life's heritage.