Sam's and Arkiv's provocations are simple. Both of them came out of the forest, out in the open, and stood in the safe spaces of the large patch full of traps, and started throwing attacks at the temple.
Arkiv used some of the special arrows of Sam.
The corrosive poison vial arrow, the bio-fuel vial arrow, grenade arrows that don't need the fire elemental energy to activate, and so on.
Sam also took out his bow and tried to see what he could do with this.
He was really impressed by Arkiv's longshot. It would be really useful, if there is a proper power behind the arrow, it would be easy to take out the target miles away.
Initially, Sam couldn't do that. Even though he could make it reach long just by pulling the bowstring, he couldn't reach the target at that distance.
Even though he could calculate the trajectory and everything that is required for the arrow to go there, something is missing which is making the target miss.
But he didn't care much, currently, the whole temple is his target and he can do whatever he wants with it. He started mixing ripple style and void style with the arrows and shot them at the temple.
The results are actually good even in such a long-range.
He started making some nicks on the temple walls, even though those nicks are not exactly considered serious damage, it is still damaged anyway.
Sam then took out the next thing that could make some real damage to the temple. The Undying Volcanic stone.
He held the stone in the palm of the hand that pulls the bowstring and started coating the arrows with that undying flames and shot them.
The grey flame streak which is small and inconsequential in the night hit the wall of the temple and set some area to fire.
It burned for a while and disappeared soon, corroding the stone a bit.
The quality of this stone is high and it has too many inscriptions on it and this is verified as soon as the formation was activated around the temple.
But Ripple style and Void style are working wonders on the formation.
The Ripple style is creating a disturbance in the energy flow and almost created a gap which would give access inside, even though most of the time it failed, it still worked sometimes, the void style is more damaging to the formation, even though a bunch of arrows is being blocked, he is sure that the formation would be damaged beyond their belief and the arrows would enter it.
Even now, some arrows are making their way towards the temple, causing a lot of disturbance and damage.
Meanwhile, within the room with a golden pool inside, the ritual is completed.
Silva is currently sitting crosslegged as the golden glow from the statue slowly came over to him and enveloped him.
After a few minutes, Silva opened his eyes and stood up. His body language changed and he looked a lot different than usual.
The priestess standing at the side looked at him with awe and was lost in a daze. Only when he took a step forward did she realize who the 'he' was and spoke.
"Greeting Goddess. And welcome to Silva family temple."
"I don't have a lot of time to waste. So, don't disturb me."
Priestess nodded and backed off until she stood at the entrance.
Nike who is now in Silva's body started examining the body of Grace and soon started separating the grey flames with a weird motion. But it is going a bit by bit in extremely small portions that are not even considered consequential. But the process is going fast and Priestess finally saw hope.
But at this moment, an arrow of Sam's made his way through the formation and hit the temple squarely and due to the void style, the explosion caused created a bit of ruckus, with a small stone brick cracking completely.
This could be heard even in that room and Nike looked upwards all of a sudden with a frown.
She stopped the process as if she cared more about the temple.
Priestess knew that something was wrong.
She has to cover this up.
"I will take a look Goddess. Please wait."
With that, the priestess left and ran towards the entrance before flying. She looked at Sam and Arkiv who are shooting arrows leisurely out in the open and wanted to kill both of them.
She zoomed through the air and reached their spot soon and said.
"Please stay put for a few minutes, we can continue this war later."
She is just a few meters away from the patch and Sam is disappointed a bit, he looked at her once and started shooting again.
She attacked the arrows that are coming and called for a few transcendent stage cultivators.
"Block the arrows with all your might. Not a single one of them should enter the formation and touch the temple.
With that, she went back into the temple to meet the goddess once again.
"Goddess, we planned to carve something on the temple to make it look more majestic since today was a free day, the architects and sculptors are laying the foundation for the job, I told them to come back later and they left."
Then only the frown eased on Silva's face.
Nike once again started focusing on the matter at hand and while doing that, she casually asked.
"How is the situation with Sam and Arkiv?"
"We are still trying to capture them. They are slippery and escaping too much."
"Of course, they would. They have too many perks and too many gifts from the gods, they will be hard to catch. But from what I heard, that Sam is not a type of guy who likes escaping. Then you are doing a good job."
"You flatters Goddess."
Priestess's face became awkward as she didn't know what to say.
If the goddess knew that the attack on the temple is made by them, Priestess felt like her soul would be drawn out of her body.
Sam and Arkiv are still playing around. They are annoying the bunch of feathered who are trying to block their attacks.
But soon, they managed to sneak in some attacks from the middle of them, but the transcendent stage cultivators chased the arrows and made sure that they didn't reach the temple.
Sam and Arkiv are a bit curious on why they are reacting on this level, so they wanted to hit the temple even more.
And soon, they managed to do that.
The arrow slipped past them and landed on the temple walls, at least this is outside, but it is still significant because, they finally figured out a way to send the arrows to the temple.
And when an arrow finally landed on the temple, Nike frowned once again and looked at the situation.
"What is happening exactly?"
"I.. I… will go and take a look."
Priestess left the room and began to sweat as she flew away. Nike became more and more suspicious and wanted to see exactly what is happening, when she was about to walk outside though, the body showed a bit of resistance and didn't let her move, this caused her suspicions to grow even more and decided to take a look, but the closer she got to the door, the higher the resistance is.
"You are hiding something from me. But it is not something I couldn't find out."
Nike muttered and closed her eyes.
He started diving into Silva's memories. She was resisted a lot and finally after some struggle and nose bleed because of the pressure on the brain, she finally managed to see some memories.
Memories of the damaged city, crumbled city wall, Sam and Arkiv doing whatever they want as they used Sam's workers cum soldiers to build the special defensive ring.
She opened her eyes and looked angry.
"How dare you hid something like this? How dare you let my city get destroyed?"
She forcefully walked outside even though his body is resisting and took a peek through the main entrance, the arrows are flying and making small nicks on the temple, the feathered are trying to stop.
Nike became even more furious.
"How dare you let him attack my temple? Can you not do anything about two pre-transcendent stage cultivators? Even if you had to die, you can die, but my temple shouldn't be mangled.
I will send the troops to deal with them now on your name and even if they die, you will be the one to blame, that is your punishment for letting my temple get damaged."
She muttered under her breath as Silva can hear.
She paused for a moment, as Silva's thoughts entered her mind.
"I don't give a fuck about your daughter. I can do whatever I want after I cure her?"
"I don't have to wait until I cure her to do whatever I want. The only reason I agreed, to begin with, is because you are the dog that guards my temple and you promised another mural on my name, but here you are making them damage it. Let her die and you will learn your lesson."
