The girl pointed her raised index finger at her own face and tilted her head, giving a command: "Charge!"
In front of them was the edge of a cliff, where the ambush soldiers in cloaks put away their bows and formed a line, jumping one by one.
As their bodies fell into the air, they pulled a knot on their necks with their left hands, releasing their cloaks into the air.
Thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud...
These people landed on the ground, their silver armor illuminating the dark sky, revealing a neat formation spread out on the ground, like scales of a dragon.
The armor that covered their entire bodies, the helmets hiding their faces, the shields and giant swords held in their hands, all these features indicated the extraordinary identities of these people to the envoys.
The ambush soldiers lying in wait for the Inran convoy were clearly well-trained warriors in the army, far superior to mercenaries and the like.
On the continent of Hezhong, there were specialized mercenary organizations who acted solely for money. Small-scale ones were called mercenaries, while large-scale ones were called guilds.
However, the behavior of mercenaries exuded a sense of recklessness, and even when adventurers formed a team in a guild, their attire was not as orderly and uniform as this.
All these details proved that their origins were not from a mercenary group nor did they belong to any guild. Instead, they came from a more powerful force...
"The Holy Empire!"
Sapele finally had a moment of clarity.
In the early stages of its development, the Church of the Main God could only be considered a mobile religious group.
But with its expanding scale and the gradual increase in the armed forces in the hands of the Pontiff, the simple term "church" was no longer sufficient to describe them.
Therefore, like all other separatist forces in history, the Church of the Main God used the territories it occupied as a basis to establish the "Holy Empire."
From then on, the nation represented by the Church of the Main God gave birth to two centers of power:
First, the "Holy See," which commanded the whole country, controlled a mighty army numbering in the tens of thousands, and was led by the Pontiff personally.
Second, the "Church," which was spread throughout the continent, had a broad base of faith in every country and was led by the Holy Maiden as a spiritual leader.
Both centers of power were indispensable for the Holy Empire.
The Church was subordinate to the Holy See, and although it had an army composed of monks, it did not possess the most elite forces within the nation. This was precisely why the Pontiff was the true leader.
The highly skilled armed forces were given a name by the other countries on the continent.
And in special circumstances, apart from the Pontiff, bishops and anyone of higher ranks in the Church could also mobilize a portion of this force. This meant that the people who ambushed them were directly under the command of the Pontiff's "Crusaders."
It should have been thought of and understood earlier.
The crosses on the soldiers' chests were not just for decoration.
Apart from this force, there would not be any other army on the entire continent that possessed both solemnity and madness.
The iron-clad humanoid monsters in front of them were truly fearless in the face of death, willing to be torn apart to carry out orders.
As for the person commanding them, considering their gender, there was no doubt:
"You're the one, aren't you?" Sapele shouted at the girl on top of the cliff, who simply bent down without confirming anything.
"Apologies for disturbing you in the middle of the night. If possible, as a gesture of apology, could you follow the people below to the Church for compensation and hospitality?"
"Then we won't have to come back! Cut the crap, is His Majesty the Emperor's scepter here? Do you dare to attack?"
Sapele revealed the scepter, at this moment, his identity was equivalent to the Emperor of the Inran Empire.
Anyone who dared to harm him would be the same as declaring war on the spot.
Among the envoy, no one believed that the people in front of them would dare to do such a thing!
"Huh? Is that the scepter representing the royal family? The craftsmanship is exquisite! Let me pay my respects."
The girl didn't care about her own status and lowered her head in a distant bow towards the direction of the scepter, her devout posture leaving the observers astonished, but no one knew her true attitude.
