With Creuserey dead, Katerea's betrayal, and Vali's defeat, the whole attack ended with a whimper.
The only ones still resisting were Walburga and the witches under her command.
Because Rod volunteered himself, that group of witches was quickly beaten down, and even Walburga herself was forced to her knees.
Inside the old school building, Walburga looked at Rod, her delicate face full of disbelief.
"I really didn't expect you to be one of the Three Factions too."
"I get it now. You must have been planning to infiltrate the Three Factions from the start and wait for the right moment to act, right? You already knew this attack would fail, which is why the Hero Faction never took part in it."
Walburga suddenly looked enlightened.
"That poor fool Creuserey. To think he'd end up betrayed by one of his own kind. How interesting."
"And your Hero Faction must have struck some kind of deal with Katerea too, right? To fool everyone this thoroughly... I should've realized it sooner."
Then, as if suddenly thinking of something else, Walburga added, "That power you used to defeat White Dragon Emperor just now... that was my master's Longinus, wasn't it?"
"If that's the case, then the one who killed my master that day was you, right? How impressive. You really managed to deceive everyone. If it weren't for the aura of Incinerate Anthem, I never would've recognized who you were."
Even so, in Walburga's eyes, Rod looked nothing like the mysterious man in glasses who had killed Augusta that day.
If there had not been only one Incinerate Anthem in the world, Walburga probably would never have known that Rod was the real culprit behind her master's death.
"As expected of Cao Cao's Hero Faction. It seems his cunning truly can stand shoulder to shoulder with that great schemer Cao Cao of the past."
Hearing that, Rod's expression nearly cracked.
If he did not know what kind of person Cao Cao really was in this world, he might actually have believed it.
Gathering the descendants of heroes and powerful humans from all over the world to form the Hero Faction, brainwashing his team members into believing they were fighting the mystical forces of the world in order to display humanity's unique brilliance amidst gods, Buddhas, Asura, and Maou, and to make humanity great again, judging only from the principle of it, Cao Cao's whole act of brainwashing people really did sound grand.
After all, in this world, humanity's fate was as fragile as a lone leaf adrift on water.
If not for the God of the Bible, that legendary protector, human beings across the world would have long since been carved up by the various factions.
And even so, the peace on the surface was only a method the great powers used to maintain stability.
From culture and economics to politics and military affairs, those areas had already long been replaced with their own people by the major mythological factions.
Born into such a world, the descendants of heroes naturally wanted to do something different.
But what had Cao Cao actually done?
To put it bluntly, he brainwashed those chuuni descendants of heroes and sent them all over the world to cause trouble.
He even made deals with gods from mythological factions and did work for them.
If he had not stooped to making deals with gods, Rod might have been able to acknowledge Cao Cao's ideals a little. But the fact that he was even willing to deal with Hades just meant he had pushed hypocrisy to an entirely new level.
Of course, all of that was known only to Rod.
From Walburga's perspective, what she saw was the Hero Faction inserting itself into the Kyoto incident, maneuvering between the witches' night, the fallen angels, the Five Great Principal Families, and the Utsusemi Agency. Not only had they eliminated Satanael, they had also killed her master. The Utsusemi Agency had been wiped out, the Five Great Principal Families had suffered heavy losses, and even the treasures stored in the Inner Sanctuary, the heads of the Three Great Youkai and a huge amount of gold and silver, had all been swept away.
And on top of that, they had managed a perfect retreat at the very end.
Now, they had even joined the Khaos Brigade and become honored guests in the eyes of the Three Factions.
Katerea's betrayal very likely had something to do with the Hero Faction as well.
Thinking of it that way, Walburga only found Cao Cao more unfathomable. To play with something this dangerous so effortlessly in the palm of his hand, his schemes ran frighteningly deep.
Of course, Rod himself could not be underestimated either. At the very least, to perfectly fuse with a masterless Longinus in such a short period of time and even awaken its Balance Breaker...
Terrifying.
The moment she thought about how even Old Maou royalty and White Dragon Emperor Vali had fallen at the hands of the man before her, fear rose uncontrollably in Walburga's heart.
Yet outwardly, she remained obedient.
She was deeply afraid that once this man realized she had seen through his false identity, he would kill her to silence her.
Rod had never expected Walburga to be this good at making things up in her head. She had actually pinned everything he had done onto Cao Cao?
Still, that saved him the trouble of having to explain anything.
At that thought, Rod asked in a low voice, "Since you've already guessed all of this, what do you plan to do next?"
Here it comes! Just as I thought!
Walburga had already guessed that Rod would definitely say something like this.
If she said even one wrong word now, then in the very next second her head would roll!
Rod naturally had no idea what was going through Walburga's mind.
If he did, he would probably only say, "Why is your headspace this dark? Did you come here from DC?"
Of course, if he simply left Walburga alone, accidents might still happen, so he needed to find some way to make sure she kept this buried in her head forever and never spoke of it.
Seeing Rod fall silent in thought only made Walburga panic even more.
Brain, hurry up and think of something!
Wait!
Got it!
Then, without warning, Walburga dropped to one knee and said, "Is it still possible for me to apply to join the Hero Faction?"
"Hm?"
Rod was genuinely surprised.
Seeing that, Walburga immediately corrected herself. "Of course, more accurately, I don't mean joining the Hero Faction. I mean joining under you, Lord Rod. After all, someone as outstanding as you would never be willing to remain under Cao Cao forever, right? If you're willing, I'm ready to devote everything I have to helping you."
After saying that, Walburga lowered her head and held the pose, her heart pounding with anxiety.
Meanwhile, Rod looked at her with the exact expression of an old man staring at his phone on the subway.
I didn't say any of that, so don't go making things up.
Back then, he had joined the Hero Faction purely for the quest reward. If there had been no quest, he could not have been bothered to join any organization in the first place.
And what surprised him even more was Walburga's actual attitude.
"I thought you'd have the kind of personality DC's Joker or Harley Quinn has."
Walburga, of course, knew those famous DC comic characters and their crazy, unhinged way of doing things.
In fact, a large part of her own behavior had been inspired by Joker, dressing herself up brightly and flamboyantly, keeping a smile plastered across her face in every move she made.
But in reality, only Walburga herself knew that she was actually very timid.
When facing enemies, she only dared to fight when she had an absolute advantage.
When her master Augusta died, Walburga had run away on the spot. She only dared go back to clean up the battlefield after everything had been quiet for quite a while.
Of course, that was not something most people knew.
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