Strength 99999 but the Holy Sister

She was a head shorter than Elsa, but if the length of her tail was included, she would be several heads taller than Elsa. She did not deliberately lower her height when they first met, but it seemed that she did so on purpose this time.

Elsa couldn't help but glance in the direction of the sea army. Among the group of mermaid warriors, an old mermaid was looking at everything here nervously, and her eyes met Elsa's for a moment.

Elsa looked away.

"We, the Sea Clan, do not want to go to war with your Church." The girl said, and once again faced Elsa. She took a deep breath, and seemed to no longer be as nervous as last time, but still did not dare to keep her eyes. She continued, "Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Meera, Scimitar Clan, Beautiful Voice, Tide..."

"Okay, Mela, I'm Elsa Faris," Elsa interrupted the girl directly, "I'm not here to represent the Holy See. I'm just looking for my friends."

Elsa distanced herself from the church. She didn't want the already tense relationship between the Holy See and the sea people to worsen further because of her actions. Moreover, it was indeed unexpected that the sea people would be involved this time.

"You're looking for your friends, and I'm looking for mine." Meera didn't care how Elsa addressed her. "But this is no reason for you to set foot in our holy land. If it were your church, you would never tolerate us entering your temple, right?"

However, Elsa shook her head: "The church doesn't have such a rule. As long as one has justice and kindness in their hearts, anyone can join the church and meet the goddess."

This is the doctrine of the church. In fact, the church does not only have humans. Elves, demihumans, orcs also exist, but their numbers are very small and they are distributed in remote areas, making them difficult to see.

Meera opened her mouth and felt a little choked.

"But I certainly have no intention of engaging in violence against you," Aisha said with a smile. "Your proposal is exactly what I want. What happened just now may have been a misunderstanding. I accidentally stepped into your holy land, and your people attacked me without asking any questions. We are even now."

Mela wanted to refute - if there hadn't been such a big commotion on the sea and Elsa hadn't stepped into their holy land, how could their people have attacked Elsa for no reason?

Forget it, it's even now. Reason told her that Elsa was just giving both parties a way out, and it was not the time to make a fuss.

Because they have more important things to do now, the movements in the temple are becoming more and more abnormal, and there cannot be any more variables at this time.

"I know I can't stop you from entering the temple, so how about we both take a step back? I'll act as your guide and take you into the temple. If necessary, I can help you find your friends, but once you find them, you must leave immediately and swear an oath as proof."

Taking an oath, or swearing to God, this means of restraint is actually almost non-existent. It is essentially just a psychological comfort. Elsa thought, could it be that these sea creatures will definitely abide by the oath just because she is a nun?

That's too naive.

Elsa glanced again at the direction of the sea clan army.

"If I don't agree, what will you do? Attack me? Or turn against the Holy See? Or target the ports along the coast?"

Elsa's gaze fell, and the flat voice immediately made Mela's whole body tense up. She subconsciously reached for the scimitar at her waist, but saw Elsa's beautiful mouth raised, and suddenly she smiled brightly.

"Your proposal is feasible. Take the oath."

On the other side, a goddess in the void was thinking with a sad face, looking at the Saint Inksha who originally belonged to her through the statue, and was very distressed.

Sudden.

"I swear by the goddess—"

"Alas!?"

She let out a strange cry.

Without any warning, a voice echoed in her mind, and then all the strength in her body was drained away in that instant. She shrank visibly, and even her robe, which had originally fitted her well, became a little loose.

She stood there in confusion.

What happened just now?

……

Meera swore an oath to the sea god, and Elsa swore an oath to the goddess.

After the oath was taken, Adele just happened to return from nothingness and brought news.

"Tricia, Becky, and the others are all here!" This was good news, but Adele changed the subject and continued, "But I feel something is wrong. When I was looking for them, I saw Tate performing some strange ritual on the throne in the center of the temple. Logically speaking, how could a vampire enter a place like that? That place is the core of the temple, like a person's soul. How could they allow others to enter and exit freely?"

"ceremony?"

"I can't see clearly. I can't break the spatial rules of the temple."

"That's great, I'll give it a try, and we have an extra guide." Elsa pointed at Mela, who was staring at Adele strangely at this moment. It was the first time in her life that she saw someone living in a sword.

"Hey, sea people, hello." Adele was very familiar, and Mela forced a smile a little unnaturally, "Hello, I'm Mela Scimitar..."

"Lead the way."

Elsa interrupted Meera again.

Mela took a deep breath, suppressed the feeling of suffocation, and swam towards the temple with Elsa. Elsa followed her side by side, and the magnificent deep-sea wonders slowly receded.

"By the way, what was the ritual that little girl just mentioned...?"

"I don't know what it is either. I think you should ask Tricia about this kind of thing. She knows more than I do." Adele popped her little head out of the black sword and corrected him dissatisfiedly, "Besides, I'm not a little girl."

Mela didn't know how to respond for a moment.

"Tricia again...?"

"That's the person I'm looking for."

Aisha spoke.

"I see……"

Perhaps in order to get closer, Meera took the initiative to continue the topic.

"Actually, I wasn't lying when I said I was looking for my friend too. That person is called Randall. She's my best friend and the sister I admire the most, but she's been missing for a long time."

"Your sister?"

"Yes, don't look at me like this, I am actually the princess of the sea tribe - of course, I have many brothers and sisters, so we don't distinguish who is the older brother and who is the younger brother and sister, but Randall is special."

Mela deliberately revealed her identity at this time, seemingly in order to make Elsa pay enough attention to her. If Elsa suddenly turned against her, this identity would become her last resort.

Elsa didn't care what Mela thought. She just treated it as a chat, and through the conversation she could learn more about the sea people.

"This mermaid isn't here for the first time. She seems very familiar with this place," Adele said in Elsa's mind, looking at Mela. "She must have a high status among the sea tribes."

"And she has injuries that she didn't have at the harbor."

Elsa also added that her perception was very sharp, and the faint smell of blood in the sea water was enough for Elsa to detect.

"I remember that you were also involved in the temple summons, but why were you able to leave?"

"This..." Mela hesitated for a moment, wondering whether she should explain the projection space, the Sea Emperor candidate, and the sacrificial ritual to an outsider like Elsa. In the end, she just said, "We sea people have our own way to escape."

However, she didn't know that Adele had seen everything in her heart and told it to Elsa.

It turns out that one can give up by self-harming and leave the projection space - Elsa guessed that this might be the reason for Mela's injuries.

"The first time I saw you was at the port. Why were you with those vampires?"

Elsa asked another question that was very important to her.

Everything was too coincidental. There was no reason for the vampires to suddenly capture a sea creature and bring him with them. Elsa intuitively felt that there was some connection between them.

"That matter... actually..." Mela frowned, as if recalling something troubling. "A few days ago, I heard someone had seen Randall near the shallow sea off the coast, so I went looking for him. For some reason, I didn't bring anyone else with me, and ended up running into a woman—that woman was very powerful, and I was no match for her. She captured me, brought me ashore, and handed me over to a man, and eventually, I was handed over to those guys."

A woman? A man?

This just doesn't sound right.

"Can you tell me more?"

"can."

There was no need to hide this matter. Although Mela was a little reluctant, she began her story. Her story was actually very brief, but Adele was always reading her heart and repeating it to Elsa.

——In terms of status, Mela is the princess of the sea tribe.

As for her exact ranking among those brothers and sisters whom she had never met, she herself didn't know and didn't care.

This is not surprising. There are many princes and princesses, and their mothers belong to different clans. Moreover, if their own bloodlines are not excellent, the Sea Emperor will not even look at them and will completely let them go. No one will pay more attention to them just because they are princes or princesses, because the Sea Emperor has too many descendants, and the qualifications for preferential treatment are limited, and they must be reserved for other descendants with better bloodlines.

The sea people are such a place. From the perspective of humans, they seem to be considered too cruel, but in Mela's view, there is a difference between indifference and cruelty.

Anyway, Mela did not have any hatred towards her father, the Sea Emperor. She was very open-minded. In a sense, the Sea Emperor at least gave all princes and princesses equal opportunities to obtain excellent bloodlines, and this opportunity was something that other sea creatures wanted but could not get, and it also brought her mother a rich and stable life.

Furthermore, continuing the excellent bloodline is one of the obligations of the Sea Emperor, and even the most important job of being the Sea Emperor. The Sea Emperor himself cannot go against the will of the entire clan.

If even the Sea Emperor couldn't disobey, what could these princes and princesses do? What could anyone else do?

This is the place where the sea people live. If you live here, you must abide by the rules here.

Mermaids don't have the ability to give birth to hundreds or even thousands of offspring at a time, unlike their more distantly related marine relatives. Like humans, they typically have a litter of one year or more, and only one offspring at a time. Their pregnancy rate is also very low, believed to be an effect of deep-sea magic.

In order to increase the number of high-quality bloodlines in the clan, the Sea King's harem is always crowded with a large number of women with excellent bloodlines. They come from various clans. Once they become pregnant, they will return to the clan to be carefully cared for, and the next candidate in the clan will enter the palace - pregnant "concubines" cannot occupy the position in the harem, and the harem is always a busy place.

For this reason, the Sea Kings of all generations are basically men - men can reproduce all the time, but it is difficult for women to do this. Therefore, even if a woman with better bloodline appears, she will most likely not become the Sea King because she cannot fulfill her reproductive obligations in the same efficient manner.

These pregnant "concubines" would give birth to children and raise them within the clan. During this period, the clan would provide special care for the mother and child until the child reached the age of six or seven, at which time he or she would enter the palace again for a blood test.

The blood testing ceremony is not an easy task. The priest will draw blood from their heart veins. It is a very painful experience and the patient will be weak for several months after being drawn once.

Therefore, testing must be done only when the age is appropriate.

Before the bloodline test, every prince and princess will be held in the palm of their hands like a treasure by their respective clans, because they may be the future Sea King. The clan will spare no effort to seize this brief time to instill ideas and cultivate feelings. However, bloodline is something that most of the time does not meet their expectations. Generally speaking, the bloodlines of princes and princesses are only slightly stronger than those of ordinary people, and occasionally even worse. At this time, the disappointed clan members will withdraw their expectations and no longer treat them as treasures.

Many princes and princesses have experienced this huge gap.

Mela too.

The result of her blood test was "mediocre", so she lost the special care of the clan early on. She was once the center of attention, but later no one cared about her - even her mother. She will almost never forget the disappointed and even disgusted expression on her mother's face when she learned the result. The woman didn't want to stay for a single day and went back to the palace. A year later, she was sent back to the clan to nurture her baby, while Mela, her biological daughter, was turned away.

The huge gap between before and after made the young girl mature quickly in life and understand her position in the clan.

She hated most of the people here, but there was one exception, Princess Randall. Of course, this was also a short name. She might be considered her sister because they had the same father, but to Meera, Randall should be called a "best friend."

Randall's bloodline is extremely excellent, even far surpassing their father's, and is considered very likely to become an empress.

And it was such a person who should have been high and mighty, but was willing to lower himself and be friends with Mela - even after knowing Mela's mediocre bloodline, they could still sit together to go hunting at sea and talk about their troubles to each other. It was a feeling that she had never experienced from her mother. This made Mela regard Randall as her most cherished friend and idol, and Randall's career as her own pursuit.

However, the world played a big joke on them.

Another blood test, which was supposed to be an insignificant routine that happened every few years, but the priest found that Randall's blood had become "mediocre".

Everyone thought that the priest did not strictly follow the steps of the ritual, but that was not the case, or rather, it was the result of a mistake the first time.

In a very short time, the Sea King personally found Mela - Mela was the one with the best bloodline.

Since then, Meera and Randall have switched positions. People start calling Meera a princess again, and she is the center of attention, while Randall is missing. Meera knows that Randall must not be able to accept the fact for a while, and the huge gap has made her lose her direction. Meera understands this feeling very well, and she knows the pain involved.

Mela was extremely worried, and at this moment, someone said that a mermaid who looked like Randall was seen near the coast. Mela decided to go to find it alone, hoping to have a good talk with Randall quietly without being disturbed.

But an accident happened and she was caught by a powerful woman.

Then, everything happened to her.

Meera described the characteristics of the man and woman to Elsa.

The man and woman were very mysterious, their faces covered, and their conversations were rare and secretive. There wasn't much to impress people about them, but Mela had fought with the woman, and the man had taken her to be handed over to the vampires. She knew that the woman was proficient in magic and her strength was unfathomable, and the man was so good at illusions that even the vampire Marquis Tate fell easily under his control.

"That's just the way it is."

Meera paused her story.

Elsa was very skeptical about how "deep" the "unfathomable" that Mela mentioned was, but judging from the fact that Tate was also easily subdued, the opponent's strength was indeed not to be underestimated - at least he was an extraordinary wizard at the same level as Grace and Sophia, and perhaps even more dangerous.

Elsa also senses something's amiss about the mermaid named Randall. Meera deeply admires Randall, but what kind of mermaid is he? The answer lies beyond the scope of this article. But the timing and location are both incredibly coincidental, and Meera is a simple-minded young woman.

"If the information you received is correct, then you should pay more attention to your so-called best friend. She may have betrayed you."

Elsa kindly reminded Mela, but Mela immediately became anxious when she heard it.

"What nonsense are you talking about? You are not allowed to say bad things about Randall!"

"Perhaps I am indeed talking nonsense, but don't you think this is all too coincidental? And think about it again, why did that woman capture you? Why did you fall into the hands of the vampires and remain unharmed? Why did they take you to the harbor? As for what happened afterwards, I don't need to explain it in detail."

Mela suddenly fell silent. She had stopped refutation when Elsa was halfway through her words, and now she was completely quiet.

Elsa turned her head and saw that Mela's eyes had turned red without her knowing when.

Tears are invisible in the deep sea. Some say mermaids' tears turn into pearls. Elsa knew it was just a legend. She watched Mela cry silently. Noticing Elsa's gaze, Mela turned her head away stubbornly.

Obviously, Mela may have already had the answer in her heart.

At this time, the entrance to the temple was right in front of them. Elsa and Mela entered the temple one after another. However, the moment Elsa stepped into the temple, the scene in front of her froze instantly, and then with a series of sharp explosions, the scene in front of her shattered and peeled off like glass.

This piece of space actually cracked.

Mela turned around belatedly and happened to see this scene, her eyes widened immediately.

Space cracked, and she cracked too.

"Damn it! You despicable bastard! What did you do to the temple!?"

Mela screamed in despair, feeling as if her spirit was about to break apart. If she hadn't been defeated, she would have torn Elsa apart alive and thrown her on the beach to dry like salted fish! Oh no, salted fish!

At this time, Adele suddenly said, "Something is really wrong. Why has the power of the temple in the space gap become so strange? This is not the power of God at all... Elsa, if Tricia and Becky continue to stay in here, I'm afraid they will be in danger..."