King's Rule: Creating the Strongest Kingdom With My Broken Talent-Chapter 28: Cult Branch

"So this is the place, huh?" Vesh looked below while holding a telescope for a clear view of the cult’s branch.

It was hidden quite sneakily, right in a valley and surrounded by deliberate trees and a strange vine barrier.

"They wouldn’t have any innocent people held captive there, right?" Vesh turned to the squad.

All of them shrugged their shoulders.

Who knows?

"Well then, let’s head down and greet them. Also, our suits are made of S-rank-quality material like the Skylord Behemoth K and powered by A-rank energy. It will last for one hour, so during this time, there’s no need to fear enemy attacks. Your physical parameters will vary as it depends on how much power of the suit you can exert without hurting yourself."

Everyone nodded.

The gang of five, adorned in exotic, sleek full-body metallic suits, headed down while being controlled by Vesh’s wind.

Soon, they were just a hundred meters away from the small tower that the cult had, along with a few buildings.

"They’ve got some security here," Vesh spoke up as soon as he felt himself passing through a strange barrier that allowed everything to pass through, but he figured with a glance that it was a detection barrier.

Below, many people came out of the buildings at once, and eleven people flew up, all bearing strong Sprout-rank auras, except for the bald man who was with the Crosshawk King, who had a Root-rank aura.

Seeing the five strange armored people, the bald man raised his eyebrows. "Who are you all?"

He could sense their auras, as Vesh and the others didn’t hide them.

Vesh descended and floated across from the bald man at the same level as he stretched his hand. "Hello, we are the Shadow Apostles. We would like to know more about your cult to discover if there’s an opportunity for us to work together."

"Huh? Do you know who we are?"

"Naturally. You are members of the Great Tenebrous Light." Vesh coldly smiled behind his helmet. "We are members of the Shadow Devouring Cult."

"Shadow Devouring Cult? First time hearing about that." The bald man suspiciously narrowed his eyes. "What is your specialty? For example, we have Tenebrous Runes that grant significant power boosts and are growth-type."

"We are relatively new in this world, but I’m afraid in terms of overall power, the Great Tenebrous Light is beneath us."

These words caused reactions among many people.

"What did he say?"

"Humph, some nameless cult dares to boast like that?"

The bald man laughed. "That’s an interesting thing to say. Alright, so what makes you above us?"

"Would you like to know?" Vesh blinked as the white light in his helmet’s eye sockets brightened.

Waving his hand, Vesh manifested something.

A right-hand gauntlet made of black material with triangular gemstone sockets on the back of the hand, from which linear neon lights of purple and violet of different shades extended throughout the gauntlet.

"Our cult’s god can weave tools of immense power that anyone can use." Vesh wore the gauntlet as it turned into streams of motes and rearranged, mounting around his already armored arm. "It can adjust to any hand and combine with armor."

"And its power?" The bald man raised an eyebrow, looking even more suspicious. "It doesn’t even have an aura."

"Naturally, because it’s just an unpowered weapon right now." Vesh grinned as a small, nail-sized crystal appeared, causing the bald man’s eyes to widen slightly. ’What the fuck?’

That nail-sized crystal had enough power to invoke a sense of threat in him.

"This is a mini-sized A-rank Battery Crystal." Vesh brought the crystal near the gauntlet, and the moment it touched, the gauntlet absorbed it. "It can socket the battery automatically and power up."

The gauntlet began powering up.

Vesh pointed his hand away toward a mountain a couple of kilometers away. "If I use the whole battery at once, this is its power."

The gauntlet flickered with light as a chaotically surging purple orb began manifesting in front of his palm, as if it were being suppressed and compressed by an invisible field around it.

The bald man began sweating. ’What the fuck? This thing can kill me...’

In the next moment, the small orb shot forward so fast that nobody could see it.

Not even a sound occurred as it vanished.

Everyone looked at each other.

"Was it a dud?"

The moment he finished speaking—

BOOOM!

On that huge mountain, its bottom-left portion now had an uneven crater over a hundred meters in radius, and the ground looked charred by such high temperature and radiation that it appeared completely different around the crater.

[Arga: Lord Vesh really created some crazy stuff.]

[Rovina: I pity our enemies.]

[Kayan: Heh, look at their stupid faces, not knowing they’ll be next.]

[Viana: These people are truly the worst. I hope they rot in hell forever.]

[Rovina: That would indeed be befitting for these rotten apples.]

Their suits had communication devices connected to each other via signal waves of higher caliber than radio waves, so they could talk telepathically while in the suit.

Meanwhile, the others who witnessed the blast were shocked. If that attack had landed here, their branch would have been wiped out!

"T-This..." The bald man gulped. "That was indeed an attack equivalent to a Stem-rank powerhouse’s attack. Not to mention, it wasn’t just energy compression, but had the formation of a complicated technique, as if a real Step-rank powerhouse had released it."

The bald man’s heart began racing. This was a golden opportunity!

"What’s the price?" His face turned serious as he asked straightforwardly. "We will buy it."

"Price?" Vesh chuckled as the gauntlet visibly detached and vanished. "Surely, you don’t think you can attach a price of common currency to this, right?"

"That’s understandable." The bald man nodded. "But our cult’s higher-ups are some of the very strong kings on the mainland. On the front, they are an alliance, and behind the scenes, they run the cult and use wars to sacrifice their people for more power. We have no lack of resources and money if the products are like the one you showed me."

’Damn these bastards. It will be fun annihilating that alliance.’ Vesh icily grinned. ’But wait, mainland? So this is not the mainland?’

Putting that aside, Vesh focused on the task at hand.

"Before we discuss the price, take me to the place where you keep your sacrifices," Vesh said. "Our god requires some extremely specific things as our price to sell our product, so I need to take a look at the people first."

"Haha, very well." The bald man laughed and turned around before gesturing with his hand. "Follow me. I’ll take you to our stockhouse."