The Earthquake scripture that was in charge of managing the defense of the realm had raised the nation's security level to the max, but that was just blatantly acting like they did something that mattered. After all, if Ainz decided to invade the Theocracy then all those security measures would prove quite useless against his army of death and his magic power that wipes entire armies of the map.
From a rational point of view, there is only one way of dealing with him. The Theocracy had to use one of their great treasures that were left to them by their gods and destroy Ainz Ooal Gown without a trace.
This task would naturally fall on the Black scripture in other words, Archon would be tasked with coming up with a plan of action against Ainz Ooal Gown. This situation greatly displeased Archon.
In the Theocracy the citizens had to pay taxes twice a year, once to the theocracy as a state and once to their respected churches of worship. Those who prayed to the god of earth payed tribute to the church of earth and so on. As such the church that worshipped the god of death received very little contribution from the nation. And despite this Archon was forced to deal with such a nasty problem on top of having to manage an almost obsolete branch of his religion without anything that he could show for or rather was allowed to show for.
Managing such a horrible post would still be manageable on top of handling the Black scripture but those people are unbearable.
The scriptures that managed the Theocracy were representations of their individual faiths and were the caretakers of the people that they represented. No one thought it odd that the church that worshipped the god of death did not have a scripture to represent the people that devoted their faith to the god of death. This provided the perfect opportunity for the existence of a secret sixth scripture, one which would deal with things that the Theocracy preferred to remain hidden from the public.
"Having to meet with those monsters is bad enough, but now she wants to be present at the meeting as well… what a nightmare."
Archon once again sighed heavily at the thought of what awaited him.
The Black scripture, the most elite of the elite in the Theocracy. An unrivalled unit that excelled at destruction, capture, apprehension and of course assassination. Its members could not be described with merely the word 'exceptional'. Thanks to the citizen registry of the Theocracy they were capable of quickly finding extremely talented humans amongst their ranks. But the members of the Black scripture still could only be described as having God-given abilities that individually couldn't be matched by even most members of their own unit. The only problem was that many of their personalities were horrible and the task of keeping them in line fell to Archon, hence his foul mood.
The carriage finally stopped in front of a large building. This was one of the six cathedrals in the capital. Needless to say to which of the six gods the people in here normally prayed. Compared to the other cathedrals in the capital for whom has provided ample funds for upkeep and even cleaning of the exterior, this one was in dire need of maintenance.
It was a gloomy building, dark and dim. The black color that meant to represent the color of the god of death only added to the depressive aura that this place gave off. Nonetheless, the archbishop proceeded to enter the cathedral. As he entered and started walking towards the end of the aisle he noticed that there were still people in the cathedral who were sitting on the benches in deep prayer.
One of their dear beloved must have passed away so they were praying for a safe passage to the afterlife.
Archon furrowed his brows. Being part of the church that had to deal with so much grief and misery was the second biggest reason why he hated working as the archbishop of death so much after having to deal with the Black scripture.
At the end of the aisle stood a young man in his thirties, he was wearing a lock black robe with a religious symbol around his neck. This was the priest in charge of managing the cathedral and conducting the sermons and Archons most likely successor.
"Welcome your Excellency, I hope the trip went well."
Archon almost broke a smile from the clearly mocking remark of the priest. He as the only other priest of his church that knew about the existence of the black scripture should know all too well that Archon despised coming here if it wasn't for religious purposes.
"No need to break out any smart remarks Elfris, why don't you instead tell me… have they arrived?"
The young priest bowed slightly as he answered the bishop's question.
"Yes Archon-sama, though not all have returned. Most of them are waiting for you downstairs."
"I see…"
Without a further word said between the two of them, the priest started leading the way for Archon. After going to the sanctuary in the back of the Cathedral the priest led him through a hidden door and down a series of steep long winding stairs.
After they had reached the end of the stairs the two of them found themselves in a brightly light underground corridor. At the end of which stood five shining knights in bright white armor, guarding a large sturdy-looking metal door. They seemed to be armed to the teeth, all had in their hands a bright silver shield and an expertly crafted halberd. Around their waist could be seen a beautifully decorated short sword with a golden handle, the blade was concealed by a smooth wooden sheath. But even more than their armor they themselves seemed to radiate a brilliant glow of holy energy.
They were paladin guardians, an elite group of knights which also possessed divine-class abilities. Even the theocracy only possessed about five hundred of them as training was extremely rigorous and required a talent for both physical training and divine-type magic. The ones here were not the cream of the crop as those were reserved for guarding the most inner part of the sanctum or other archbishops but the ones here would still be capable of easily stopping and killing a group of invaders that was ten times their number, provided that they were soldiers with the same level of skill as gold plate adventurers.
When the archbishop and the priest approached the paladins brought their feet together and straightened their weapons to a completely vertical position to salute them as they passed through.
On the other side a whole different area seemed to open up. An underground temple that would remind one of seemed to open op before the two. The ceiling was at the very least fifteen meters high and was being supported by over twenty large pillars. On both sides of the room embedded into the walls themselves stood six massive stone statues depicting the six great gods. This was the hidden inner sanctum of the Slane theocracy where all the five legacies of the six great gods were kept.
Archon noticed someone standing behind one of these pillars though he could guess who it was as few were allowed to casually wander around in this part of the sanctum.
"Reveal yourself Zesshi, it's just us."
From behind the pillar appeared a seemingly young girl. She had a weird hairstyle that seemed to match her heterochromia eyes, with one side of her hair dyed white and the other dyed black. Of course Zesshi Zetsumei or 'certain death' wasn't her real name but she had carried that tile for so long now that it had become like her second name.
"Ara if it isn't Ar-chan, was wondering when you'd show up."
Archon furrowed his brows at Zesshi's lax greeting. He closed his eyes trying to calm down as he responded.