Arima really went to the Holy City this time. When he arrived, he sneaked inside as planned. He jumped over the wall with a casual expression and unnaturally mixed with the crowd as if no one could see him. It was strangely lively there.
Arima strolled for a bit until he was standing in front of the church. Of course, he didn't need to go to the castle anymore since the Emperor was no more. The only one left was the Pope.
Arima mused while inspecting the church, "…I need to take the egg and also I can't kill the Pope. Meaning that I can't destroy the building like last time, what a shame."
"I think that destroying the place is not something people would have the idea to do first." Night retorted with blank eyes.
Arima shrugged, "I'll take the egg tonight. So that I can use 'Sicarius umbra' to its full potential."
"Well, we need to wait now."
Then, the two waited for the night. Arima used his darkness magic and became a shadow. He easily infiltrated in the church. Night had to wait outside though.
Inside, Arima swiftly explored every room he passed by. But he still couldn't find any egg. He just crossed path with many believers living there. But none of them noticed his presence. Arima also realized something else about these people.
"(I feel quite uncomfortable… Those believers, they're weird. If Elia was here to see them, then maybe she would only be able to see one, never-changing color.)"
While he was thinking of that, he tried to open a pretty big door in front of him. But when he touched the knob, his hand was repulsed by a magic field.
Arima was surprised and took a second to look at the door more carefully. He spotted a few magic runes drawn on it. He was lucky because this door also possessed a detection function, but it didn't trigger any alarm since he was still in his shadow form.
Arima started to ponder as to how going through without alerting anyone. He didn't know if teleporting inside would activate a trap or not. He could at least suppose that there was a high chance for the egg to be in there. He could destroy the barrier as fast as possible then take the egg in the same way. But if the egg was not there, and he came to be detected, it could be troublesome.
He didn't take too much time to choose. He decided to look at the rest of the church before trying to break this barrier. If he can't find the egg then that means it's in this room or not in the church. In that case, Arima would directly ask the Pope.
After ten minutes, Arima explored the entirety of the building and found nothing as expected. He located Pope's quarters but didn't find any dragon egg in the vicinities.
"Well, I have no choice anymore," Arima returned to the previous door. "[Dimensional Gradus] (Dimensional Step)." He used his magic end teleported on the other side. Apparently, nothing went wrong and Arima sighed in relief.
"…Fuck," But when he looked at what was inside, he cussed. There was a blue egg two meters tall and one meter large inside that room. There was no doubt on what it was. Unfortunately, it was placed at the center of a magic circle drawn on the ground. If the egg is moved then it will alert the one who drew this.
"Wait, I don't need to be sneaky now that I think about it. The egg is in front of me now…" Arima suddenly realized. He didn't wait and directly destroyed the circle with his aura and stored the egg. Of course, he checked if it was the real one beforehand.
"[Atlantis]." Arima teleported into the Pope's room afterward. But when he appeared there, he didn't spot the Pope. Or to be exact, the room was simply empty and silent. At this point, Arima didn't care about people finding him anymore. He used a perceptive magic that encompassed the whole church, but he still didn't find the one he was looking for.
Arima frowned and at that moment, he felt a presence behind him and immediately cast 'Wild Spark' to get away. He turned around to look at where he was standing before. A man wearing a gray gown with golden motifs was standing there with a white light shrouding his hand.
He smiled ominously, "Who are you? Why did you rob the dragon's spawn?"
Arima smiled as well, "Well because it would be troublesome if I had to fight the father to destroy your country."
The Pope's expression turned ugly. "Do you think that an insect like you can destroy the Holy City!?"
"You're the insect here," Arima uttered coldly. He slowly took out Karma and released his aura.
The Pope harrumphed and his whole body became shrouded in a dazing light. He waved his hand and countless beams of light were shot toward Arima.
Arima conjured lightning to clash with the light and rushed to the Pope with Karma in hand. The Pope formed a sword made of light and clashed with Karma. The aftermaths of the attack broke every furniture in the room and the walls began to crumble. Arima and the Pope exchanged one blow after another until the roof fell on them.
Arima just used his aura to clear away the rumbles and so did the Pope.
"[Ira]," Arima called his gun and aimed at the Pope, "[Fulgur]." Like with his rifle, the handgun began to emit a black light. When he pressed the trigger, a dark ray of plasma and electricity erupted from the muzzle and made its way in direction of the Pope's chest.
The Pope used a displacement magic to dodge and the bullet went through the wall behind him. It melted and pierced all the walls of the church until it stopped a hundred meters away from the building.
The Pope didn't have time to process what just happened when Arima fired one more time at him and swung Karma in the same moment. He blocked the bullet with a light shield and met Arima's sword head on, but what surprised was that Karma slashes his light sword in two and struck his chest. He was sent flying miserably and crashed in another section of the church. He groaned and stood up as fast as he could.
He glanced at his injury going down from his left shoulder to his abdomen and laughed meaningfully, "I don't know why, but it seems that you do not wish to kill me. That foolishness will be the cause of your death." He declared and the white light surrounding him changed into a dazzling golden one.
"(It's him who gave that stone to the Emperor?)" Arima instantly connected the pieces together. He also noticed that the aura of the Pope was mixed with something else, "So, that's the power of a Pope, huh?"
"So, are we doing it or not?" Night appeared at his side and inquired.
Arima chuckled, "[Resonance]." The two chanted together and fused. When they finished their resonance, the Pope already looked younger and his hair had turned golden.
"I'll show you the power of my God!" The Pope bellowed and the whole church began to shake and the surroundings lit up. His hand elevated and two golden suns were conjured in the sky.
Arima looked at those two suns made of light magic and frowned, "(It is said that a Pope can use the power of the God in which he believes. That's some power he has there.)"
"[Tenebris Dominium] (Darkness domain)." Arima chanted and everything around him darkened, no light could illuminate the area. Even the one emanating from the two suns, the moon, or the starry sky. Only the red and silver color of his eyes could be seen in this zone of absolute darkness.
"[Infinitae Tenebrae] (Infinite Darkness)"
The same phenomenon occurred above him. Two separated zones of darkness emerged. But if one happened to turn around those zones, they would realize that they were perfectly round. It was actually the same as the Pope, Arima conjured two spheres made of absolute darkness.
Arima and the Pope both waved their hands and the globes of opposite attribute clashed with one another. Each sphere pushed the other as if they were alive and were competing to see who would push back the other first.
Some people would think that the two sides were equally strong, but the Pope's expression stiffened as he watched the situation unfold. He saw that the brightness of the suns he had created was gradually fading away. And he was indeed right, it only took a minute for the two suns to be consumed by darkness. When that happened, everything burst apart and drowned half of the city into absolute darkness.
Even the Pope felt scared by his darkened surroundings. He tried to produce some light but each time he tried; it was immediately overtaken by darkness. Then, he felt a shiver going down his spine. He slowly raised his head and his trembling eyes drifted upward too. Just a few meters away from him, a pair of red eyes were staring at him. In that instant, he had the impression to be the weakest being in the Universe and collapsed on his knees.
Arima approached him and grabbed his head with one hand, "Did you know? Light and Darkness are two very special magic. Light can reveal and abolish but darkness can bury and consume. In a clash like this, darkness always wins. Additionally, it's night right now." Arima said in an emotionless voice.
"I won't kill you but," Arima grinned peculiarly and his eyes glowed with an unusual light, "[Vita Venari]." He chanted and the Pope lost all of his strength before fainting.
Just after that, the darkness dispersed. Arima was standing in the ruins of the half-destroyed church. He was in a daze for a moment, then he looked at his hand with a complexed expression.
"Why did I do that?" He said out loud, in a strange tone. He was really confused about his own actions.
Night released the resonance by himself and reappeared at Arima's side and threw a confused look at Arima, "What was that?"
Arima clenched his hand, "I don't know, I did it without thinking. 'Vita Venari'… 'Life Hunt', huh?"
"What did that magic do?"
"No idea, but, when I used it, I noticed that my physical ability raised to the level nine and my mana pool expanded a bit," Arima replied after confirming his current state.
Night was shocked. He rushed to the Pope and checked his condition, "This guy… he doesn't have any mana anymore and his body became as weak as a normal human." The dragon's eyes widened, "You actually stole his life force. It's not impossible to destroy the life force of someone but how did you take it as your own?"
Arima shrugged in return, "I don't know, don't look at me like that. We'll think about that later." He casually said and walked to the unconscious Pope and woke him up, "By the way, Night. Let me show you what a real trade is."
Arima used his most 'gentle' smile and spoke up, "Hey, where is your treasury? I already know the Emperor's but I'm sure you have your own, right? Don't worry, as soon as you tell me, I will not kill you in a horrible way."
The now powerless man screamed, "It's underground in the middle of the church! There's a hatch under the carpet!"
"Thanks, go sleep now," Arima smiled and knocked out the Pope.
Night's mouth twitched, "Don't tell me that's why you did all of this…"
"Nah, of course not, it's just a secondary reward." Arima innocently shook his head and dashed to the treasury.
Night sighed and followed. In the end, Arima stored all the contents of the treasury. He found a massive amount of money, enchanted crystals, ores, and metals which included mithril and adamantite. But he also obtained something that made him extremely happy as a craftsman.
"That's…" Arima looked big rock in front of him, "This guy had almost a unit of orichalcum."
In this world, orichalcum is a metal that can make evolve and upgrade another one to an extreme level. For example, if a certain metal can withstand a ton normally, with orichalcum, it could withstand twenty tons. But its greatest value was its magic-negation properties.
"I'll coat my equipment with it later. Especially my bullets."
After that, Arima burned down the church with a smirk on his face and headed to the castle. Of course, to plunder the treasury. He one more time gained a lot of different things but nothing like the orichalcum.
"How much gold did you get in the end?" Night asked in curiosity.
Arima laughed like a greedy old man, "In terms of pure money, almost a thousand shining golds."
"You won't give it to the Alliance or the Kingdom?"
"Eh? What are you talking about?" Arima responded in a confused voice.
"I assumed that you would do that. You don't look like the money-loving type in my opinion."
"Listen, money doesn't make you happy, but you can't be happy without it. It can be extremely useful in situations that you won't expect."
"Your true thoughts are?"
Arima glared at him and paused, "…It feels good to have more money than others, particularly when you took it from bad people." He admitted it too honestly.
Night sighed, "I don't even know if you're joking or not."
"Well, forget about that, money could help one day. It's true. In any case, by the end of this week, the Kingdom should be able to absorb the Empire, our job is over. Our next destination is the Republic and its mother continent."
"Already? You're too energetic for a lazy guy who likes to sleep and eat sweets like a kid." Night complained.
"What? Don't tell me you're not curious about a bigger continent with more beasts and monsters?"
Night furrowed as he reflected about it, "…It's probably because of you."
Arima snickered and left the capital with Night carrying the Pope in his spatial storage like luggage.