736 Bombastic Revelation

Lauren laughed before speaking about what she knew. "Congregation of Revelations is considered an organization of the Light Path, behind the most acclaimed religion on the continent. Its members are considered pure and righteous. Tens of millions of magicians acclaim its path of light.

However, this glorious reputation did not come without great bloodshed. Do you know what really drove the temple against the Cataclysm Order?"

"There are several reasons. Dark Path magicians are stronger than Light Path magicians. Dark Path magicians often have problems with their powers, with many of them becoming mass murderers, dangerous to live with in society. But most importantly, the temple wanted to destroy the last rival on its way to being the dominant religion of the Polaris Realm," Torne said, quoting some of what he imagined was behind the war that destroyed his sect.

"That's all reasonable, ghost." Lauren smiled, but showed an expression that said that wasn't the real reason. "However, that's not what happened at all.

Six thousand years ago, a genius vampire appeared in the Demonic Castaways clan. This genius was not of the warrior type, but of the scholar type, a professional similar to that magician known as Newton, from the Scott Province of the Seidel Kingdom.

This vampire had developed a complex cultivation technique, useful to both Dark Path and Light Path practitioners. But this technique was only compatible with magicians.

Yet, that wasn't as bad as you might think. The vampires wanted to perform The Purification. But the massive amount of Dark Path magicians that existed on the continent a few thousand years ago was a big problem for them.

They made a deal with the then Temple Master of the Congregation of Revelations. This happened around 5,000 years ago. At that time, the leader of Demonic Castaways gave the technique created by the genius of his clan to the Congregation of Revelations."

"What was this technique capable of?" Torne asked, sensing where this would lead: the end of Cataclysm Order.

Lauren laughed at this part of the explanation. "That technique is wonderful! At little cost to the one who uses it, one can use it to sacrifice magicians of the opposite path to one's own and then use the essence of those targets to promote the powers of the user of the technique.

Can you imagine what happened? The leadership of the Congregation of Revelations prepared for just over a thousand years and then started the war against the Cataclysm Order, with the primary aim of abducting the order's powerful magicians.

Dark Path magicians have always been powerful, so it took time and was difficult for the Congregation of Revelations to achieve its purpose. But over 2,000 years ago, the temple ended its crusade by hunting down the last relevant Dark Path magicians at the time.

With the many enemies they got during the war, the key members of the temple at the time sacrificed their enemies, stealing those magicians' essence to strengthen themselves.

The result of all this? The Congregation of Revelations produced the strongest generation in history, producing several High-level Paragons and a few Archmages. More importantly, the Temple Master of that time advanced to the 7th stage before disappearing!"

Vicente, Onyx, and Torne were shocked to hear all this, not expecting to hear from Lauren that such a terrible technique existed on the continent.

"That... They chased us to use us as a magical resource?" Torne asked, his voice shaking and his aura full of hatred.

"In a way, they did what vampires do." Lauren laughed at the irony.

Vicente clenched his fists, seeing the trouble this had created. "So that was it. When the Temple Master disappeared, what happened to the temple? I can imagine the vampires waited for the temple to weaken so that they could put The Purification into practice."

Lauren nodded. "The vampires couldn't sacrifice losing several of their High-level Paragons if they weren't sure they could succeed. So with the strengthening of the temple, they waited to act.

The Temple Master had become a Magus. With his disappearance, there were three Archmages left in the temple. One of them was the last Temple Master, who died recently. The second was hunted by vampires 800 years ago and the third simply disappeared 1,250 years ago.

Nobody knows what happened to this last one, but with so much time gone, the vampires considered they only had the most recent Temple Master as their enemy when they implemented The Purification.

The vampires had been preparing for The Purification for the last eight centuries, monitoring the continent and any signs of new Dark Path magicians appearing.

They were afraid that some great Dark Path magician was waiting for their move to show itself, so they were very cautious, creating agreements with groups like mine and building up their influence. They even made non-aggression agreements with the elves and dragons."

"Did all these beings simply agree to be related to vampires?" Onyx asked with a disappointed tone, not believing that all these beings had let themselves be fooled by vampires.

"Vampires have existed since the beginning of life, Onyx. For elves and dragons, vampires are just one of the many races on the continent." Torne muttered, feeling that this was the justification.

Lauren agreed. "Vampires never even came close to dominating the continent. It's possible that these creatures misinterpreted the vampire alliance's attempt.

Anyway, just as Light Path magicians from the temple used the ancient vampire technique to become stronger by sacrificing Dark Path magicians, Dark Path magicians could do the same by using such a technique against Light Path magicians. The Dark Path sects that agreed to ally themselves with the vampires were all guaranteed a copy of this technique."

"And you received that?" Vicente asked worriedly.

"Yes, but I don't know where it is, nor has the sect had time to use it. For special reasons, the technique can only be used when the user has many targets to sacrifice. Without at least 50 magicians of a level close to that of its user, it's impossible to use it."

"That doesn't sound like much." Onyx muttered.

"But it is. Just imagine an Archmage gathering 50 or more High-level Paragons? Only magicians with that cultivation could change anything for an Archmage. But the vampires have hunted down most of the continent's Paragons and ordered us to kill others..."

"They have tricked you," Vicente muttered with a teasing smile on his face.

Lauren said nothing because, although they had already predicted even before The Purification that it would be difficult for the strongest of their sect to gather their necessary sacrificial victims, they had been tricked.

But what could they do after everything that had happened? After they had signed non-aggression agreements? It was too late for anything!

"Do you know the technique?" Vicente asked.

"No. I was going to learn it after hunting down my fifth pentagram... But now that you've killed my entire sect, we may never get it," she said provocatively.