CH416 Divine Heist II

***

As soon as Alex drew close to the half-collapsed temple, the instinctive sensation he had felt earlier—that something important to him lay within—returned with renewed strength.

This time, he allowed himself to follow that inner pull.

Instead of cutting back through the rubble, he circled the temple and entered through the front entrance, the section still standing. He passed through the public hall and moved deeper into the restricted inner sanctum where only the clergy were normally permitted.

He soon came upon a wall.

The urging in his chest intensified. Whatever was calling to him was behind that wall. And the faint mana seeping through its surface made it obvious that the wall was fake.

Alex scanned the corridor, but there were no levers or other mechanisms—nothing to reveal how the clergy accessed the hidden chamber.

'It is most likely sealed by a divine spell… or something only the clergy possess,' he mused. 'So… what now?'

A whimsical impulse struck him.

He gathered the recycled energy circulating through his body from the Plate of Happenstance and channelled it into his arms. Then—

[Dragon Kumite: Blast]!

—he punched the wall.

His fist tore straight through it, and the explosive force within the strike obliterated the remaining structure.

HOOORN!!!

A blaring alarm erupted through the temple, loud enough to rouse even the dead.

Under normal circumstances the entire fortress would have been alerted, and mobilised at once… but today, every credible threat had already been reduced to corpses.

"Alex, was that you?" Zora's voice came through comms.

"Yeah. I'm treasure-hunting in the temple," Alex replied lightly.

"Treasure-hunting? Why would you want Navi relics?"

"I don't know. Something's calling me toward them."

"…Really?" Zora asked, concern colouring her voice. "Be careful. There's no telling what kind of vile traps these parasites might have placed."

"Understood, my lady. I'll behave," Alex said in a teasing tone, clearly trying to ease her worry.

He had to repeat similar reassurances to Udara and Eleanor before they let him proceed.

Finally, he examined what lay beyond the shattered wall.

Rather than a hidden room, he found—

'…a hidden staircase?' Alex raised a brow. 'Not what I expected.'

[Dragon Kumite: Burst]

He began descending the spiral stairs, releasing faint pulses of mana through his feet to detect traps or reactive enchantments.

But nothing responded.

No traps, just silence.

And Alex found himself growing… disappointed.

'What kind of secret location doesn't have boobytraps? What amateurs…' Alex thought.

He was actually mildly offended at the lack of traps or resistance.

To be fair to the temple clergy, everyone within the fortress—and within its surrounding domain—was a devout follower of Juror. None of them would ever conceive of breaking into the temple, much less attempting to access a secret floor beneath it.

As such, boobytraps were unnecessary.

Heck, the idea likely never even crossed the clergy's minds.

The stairway eventually opened into a narrow corridor, ending in a single door.

Alex continued forward, sending tiny pulses of mana ahead—each one recycled by the Plate of Happenstance before it faded—and soon arrived at the entrance to the chamber.

He paused.

He allowed himself a moment to imagine all the possible treasures hidden inside: relics, divine curiosities, forbidden scriptures, magical artefacts—

His first treasure hunt in another world.

A true hallmark of an MC

Alex chuckled at himself, amused at how childish he was being… but he couldn't contain his curiosity any longer.

He opened the door.

'…Huh?'

To say the room didn't meet his expectations was an understatement.

Inside was…

A statue.

Juror's statue.

It was man-sized, carved with vague, indistinct features. But the divine aura radiating from it was unmistakable. The flavour of mana was identical—perhaps even purer—to the divine energy used by the Priest and Paladins they had just neutralised.

There was no doubt.

This was Juror's.

'So this is likely Juror's faith conduit in this region,' Alex sneered inwardly. 'Gathering and condensing the people's faith, making it easier for that parasite to absorb.'

Still… something didn't add up.

'Is this what was calling me? Or is something else in the room drawing me?'

He extended his Spiritual Force, trying to consciously trace the source of the sensation. To his mild surprise, the pull did originate from the statue.

'No… that's backwards.'

Now that he actively tugged on the vague instinctive call, he realised he had misunderstood.

'I wasn't being called by the statue—I was being directed to it.'

His eyes widened in realisation.

If he wasn't drawn by the statue, then something within him had guided him to it.

And there was only one entity on his person capable of such a thing.

"…Daddy golden energy?" Alex murmured aloud without thinking.

But Alex was wrong.

Close—very close—but still wrong.

As if timed perfectly with his spoken words, the back of his hand suddenly lit up, answering the question he had asked aloud.

A faint, radiant glow took shape upon his skin.

Slowly, the light condensed into a familiar silhouette.

The Heartwood Tree.

The miniature form of the Bonsai in his Sanctuary—

The Bonsai that had sacrificed itself to save him and the expedition from the interplanar travel sabotage—

The Bonsai that had been dormant, unmoving, and unresponsive for the last couple of days…

Its image shimmered vividly on his hand.

And then, impossibly, the tree's roots in the glowing image moved.

A root uncoiled from the "ground" of the mark, stretching outward toward Alex like a living thing.

"What the—?"

Before he could recoil, a thin, ethereal tree root emerged from his hand as though slipping through a tiny spatial portal. It didn't hurt, and it didn't even leave a mark—yet the sensation made him jolt.

But the root wasn't interested in him.

It launched past him, stabbing itself straight into the divine statue.

Alex stood there, stunned for a heartbeat, then slowly grinned.

The root pulsed, and the statue's stored faith energy began draining away, siphoned like water pulled through a straw.

'Now this is what you call poetic irony.'

A parasite deity that siphoned faith from mortals, now having its own energy being devoured in turn by another being.

For a moment—just a moment—Alex actually pitied Juror.

Just a little.

Faith energy of this scale took a very long time to gather.

Years, if not decades, depending on regional devotion.

And now?

All of it was being vacuumed up by Lord Bonsai.

'I wonder why the Priest didn't use this to cast a miracle?' Alex mused. 'Knowing how fanatical he was, he probably decided we weren't worthy of consuming Juror's precious hoard.'

A small, wicked grin tugged at Alex's lips.

'If that's the case… the joke's definitely on him.'

Not only had the priest died, but the faith pool he so jealously guarded now fed Alex's own ally instead.

Insult to injury—and then some.

Within minutes, the accumulated faith energy, stored here who-knows-how-long, was completely drained by the Heartwood Tree's root.

The root slowly withdrew, retreating back into the glowing image on Alex's palm. The tiny Heartwood Tree re-rooted itself, then the light faded until nothing remained.

All that was left in the secret chamber was a cracked, mundane statue—an empty shell.

Alex exhaled softly.

Juror would definitely feel the loss of that massive faith reservoir.

Shaking off the thought, he prompted OmniRune, opening a shimmering gateway to his Sanctuary Pocket dimension.

He stepped inside and hurried to the Bonsai tree.

As he hoped, faint signs of recovery were visible. Its bark, once dry and lifeless, now held the slightest moisture. Its brittle branches seemed to pulse with a fragile vitality, though they were still far from sprouting leaves again.

While Alex was carefully examining it, a dried vine hanging loosely from the tree trunk suddenly twitched. Life flooded into it once more.

Alex smiled slightly, expecting the vine to ruffle his hair—the Bonsai's usual affectionate greeting.

But that didn't happen.

Instead, the vine descended to the ground like a serpent, slithering toward the Nest Queen's cocoon… and stabbed into it.

Alex tensed, alarmed, but forced himself to stay still. He trusted the tree.

A moment later, he realised the Bonsai wasn't attacking the cocoon—it was feeding it.

A steady stream of energy pulsed through the vine.

Faith energy.

But something about it was off.

'This feels… strange. Stripped?' Alex frowned.

Then the answer hit him so hard he slapped his forehead.

"Of course! Faith energy always contains a fragment of Providence. That's how Navi can override a plane's laws!" he exclaimed. He turned to the Bonsai tree. "So that's why you guided me to the statue—you stole the Providence embedded in the faith!"

The Bonsai remained still, too weak to respond in its usual manner. Alex could only assume his deduction was correct.

It also explained why the tree redirected the purified energy into the Nest Queen's cocoon.

She was the only being under Alex who could use Providence at all.

Unlike a Navi, the Nest Queen couldn't gather faith energy or cultivate it. She would likely devour and refine it into a usable evolutionary fuel.

"I really hope she doesn't develop a taste for this stuff. Hunting for faith energy sounds like a nightmare…" Alex muttered.

The moment he said it, an explosion went off in his head.

Alex's eyes widened as he stared at the Bonsai tree.

"You… you… you scheming tree!"

***

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