CH390 Silver-haired Deceiver II

***

Alex glanced at Eleanor and offered a faint, knowing smile.

Healers truly were the bane of false divinity.

Unbeknownst to the captive, Eleanor had already cast a specialised Healer spell that severed—no, blocked—Juror's perception of him.

With that spell in place, the Navi could no longer peer into this patch of land from his so-called divine kingdom hidden within the realm of laws… nor could he direct his Paladins or Clerics to their location through the believer's mind-link.

And the best part?

The spell was absurdly easy for Eleanor to maintain.

All she needed to do was anchor the spell to a low-grade Mana Stone, and the stone would keep the anti-divinity screen active without further input from her.

Alex still wasn't sure whether this was standard for all Healers… or just testament to Eleanor, with her freakishly strong bloodline and frightening healer talent.

"Your god can no longer look at you," Alex said. "In this area, he's blind."

He turned to Eleanor with a faint smirk.

"So much for a powerful god, don't you think?"

"Juror must be extremely weak," Eleanor replied sweetly. "Seeing how he can be blinded by a 'fair, weak lady' like me."

"Actually," Alex corrected with a sympathetic shake of the head, "maybe Juror isn't weak at all. Maybe this guy simply doesn't have enough faith for Juror to bother."

"Yes! Yes, that's it!"

The captive practically lunged at the lifeline.

"My faith must be too weak! Lord Juror would never be blinded by the likes of you!"

Or so he believed.

"So you admit," Alex said, smile turning wolfish, "that your faith in Juror is weak."

The man froze.

Something felt wrong… horribly wrong.

Crack!

He flinched violently as something inside his mind snapped.

Terror swallowed him whole.

"Huh?" Alex raised an eyebrow. "Just that was enough to crack your link to Juror? In that case, not only is your faith weak—Juror himself clearly doesn't care about you. He abandoned you at the first sign of trouble."

Alex clicked his tongue pityingly.

"In fact, he probably won't care at all if your faith link shatters completely."

The man went pale.

He knew exactly what that meant.

If his faith link fully broke, and he failed to immediately take refuge under another Navi, he would be branded—marked as a traitor.

A kill-brand.

Juror's devout would hunt him relentlessly.

Other Navi followers would hunt him too—both out of zealotry and because killing a branded heretic brought divine favour.

He wouldn't just be hunted by his former fellow believers. He would be hunted by more than half of the continent.

Even in death, his soul could be captured and tortured by the Navi before finally being able to pass on to the world hereafter.

Alex's smile widened ever so slightly.

Navi were predictable.

Whenever a believer revoked faith, it threatened their energy supply. Worse, it could inspire others to do the same.

Thus, Navi applied kill-brands to prevent mass defections. A simple, brutal deterrent… and one that this man now feared more than death.

And Alex intended to weaponise that fear.

Judging from the man's expression, this plane indeed had its own version of the kill-brand concept.

'Good. That made things easier.' Alex nodded to himself.

Still squatting, Alex leaned in—close enough that his silver hair brushed the man's cheek. His voice turned low, coaxing, devilish. A silver-tongued (and silver-haired) tempter.

"Don't worry. We can protect you," he whispered. "We can prevent you from being marked. Juror isn't as strong as you think. If we can blind him while your link is still intact… then doing so after it shatters will be even easier. All you need to do is speak."

"You… you did this to me!" the man stammered, trembling between rage and fear. "And now you act like my saviour?!"

Alex leaned back and laughed lightly.

"In my defence, I did tell you I'd be forced to use irreversible methods if you refused to talk."

He flicked a speck of dust from his sleeve.

"Besides, I am saving you. Saving you from worshipping a false divinity—a leech feeding on your plane's providence."

He sighed theatrically, shaking his head.

"If only you knew the truth, you'd be thanking me. Well… you'll learn it soon enough. I can wait."

The man's glare sharpened, burning with resentment.

Alex's smile didn't waver in the slightest.

"So," Alex continued pleasantly, "will you abandon your false god and join the side of truth?"

"Do… do I even have a choice?" the man asked bitterly.

"No. Not really."

"You devil!"

"Excellent," Alex said, clapping once. "Let's talk."

The man swallowed hard.

"…What do you want to know?"

"Anything you can tell me about this plane."

Cornered and terrified that the next word he spoke might invite divine punishment, the man began cautiously… slowly… haltingly.

But nothing happened.

No lightning from the heavens.

No divine rebuke.

No holy condemnation.

The longer he spoke without being smitten, the braver he became.

And the braver he became, the more he revealed.

By the end of the interrogation, a realisation dawned on him—one that chilled him even more than Alex's smile.

'Perhaps this devil is right… perhaps Lord Juror is not omniscient after all…'

Crack—shatter!

His faith-link broke completely.

Eleanor shot Alex a complex look—one halfway between admiration, disbelief and something else...

Alex caught the glance and raised a brow.

Eleanor tilted her head, 'It's done.'

Alex's eyes brightened.

He gestured to Kavakan. The weretiger moved forward and untied the man.

"Welcome aboard," Alex said, extending a hand with the calm authority of a pirate captain receiving a new crew member. "You still haven't told me your name."

"K… Kron Belloc," the man replied, shaking Alex's hand hesitantly.

Suspicion still lingered in his eyes. Trauma too.

Alex noticed, and chose not to push him further.

He asked Kavakan to bring a sleeping bag so Kron could rest where he was.

He wasn't worried about Kron running.

After the information he'd spilled, if Eleanor dispelled the shielding spell even for a second, Juror's automatic safeguards would likely strike him down instantly.

On the walk back to camp, Eleanor kept glancing at Alex—quietly, curiously, as though reassessing everything she thought she knew about him.

"What's wrong?" Alex finally asked.

Eleanor studied him for a moment longer before speaking.

"I used to think you were too honest for your own good. But now… I see you could easily play the villain if you chose to."

"Haha! I agree!" Kavakan barked with his usual boisterous lack of awareness.

Alex shot him a glare over his shoulder.

Kavakan shut up immediately and hurried ahead.

Eleanor chuckled, skipping a step forward.

"That's not a bad thing to see," she said with a warm smile.

Alex could only smile wryly.

In truth, he had manipulated Kron Belloc.

The first crack Kron sensed earlier wasn't Juror 'abandoning' him, as Alex claimed—it had merely been Eleanor's ward scrambling the link between Navi and believer. What truly broke the connection was Kron's own shaken belief and his eventual rejection of Juror's faux omnipotence.

So yes… Kron had been correct.

Alex had played the silver-tongued devil perfectly.

Quite the contrast to the 'too-honest-for-his-own-good' Alex Eleanor had grown familiar with.

"I disagree," Alex said, lifting his chin in saintly righteousness. "I was clearly a benevolent saviour, rescuing a lost soul from the cesspool of ignorance."

Before Eleanor could comment, Alex tugged her behind a nearby tree—well out of sight of the camp. His hand slipped around her waist as he leaned in close.

"Besides," he murmured, "if I were a villain… you'd be my accomplice. Which makes you just as guilty."

He kissed her.

Eleanor's face flushed as they parted.

"I am not," she protested.

"You dare deny it?" Alex kissed her again—this one firm, chastising. "Wasn't it you who cast the ward? And the translation spell? Without you, none of this would have worked."

Eleanor stomped her foot, spun around, and marched off without another word.

She was smart enough to realise that saying anything else would only give him an excuse to 'punish' her again.

'Smart woman,' Alex smirked as he watched her leave.

He was just about to follow her back when something struck him like a lightning bolt.

He froze.

'Translation.'

An epiphany bloomed in his mind.

**40**

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