Badge in Azure

War could eradicate everything. At first, the people of Titan who were escaping thought that they were facing a massacre from the Tanggulasi Empire, but at this moment, the blood knights had been secretly recalled. The blood knights had gathered upstream of Chishui River, getting ready to cross the river anytime. The ones responsible for cleaning the duchy were now the regular knights’ group.

The pastors began recruiting believers blatantly, leading to the development of hundreds of churches. As long as one believed in the Lord of Glory, they would be spared and could still reclaim their lost lands and peasants.

The Titan nobles did not harbor as much hate for the Holy See compared to the Qin people, especially the small nobles, who had no opinion of the Holy See. As the Agares family had disappeared and no longer made any noise, a number of smaller nobles had begun leaning towards the Holy See to recover their freedom and riches.

The disobedient nobles were captured by people from the inquisition and then thrown into the Black Dungeon, where they would never get out again. As a result, a short-lived peace was actually present at northern Chishui River, as if the war had already ended. It was currently deep into autumn, and winter was just around the corner, so the farmers did not need to work. Most of them were commanded to restore the ruined cities.

The Holy See had put it in a very nice way when in fact more than half of Titan nobles were still killed. Where did the extra land for building additional churches come from? A portion of the nobles were spared so that the Holy See could spread the heart of tolerance of their god. The moment Titan nobles got segregated, they could no longer converge to oppose the Holy See, and that was how the northern region got suppressed.

The Holy See had thousands of years of experience in such affairs, they could handle it perfectly.

By occupying the northern Chishui River, the southern part of Tanggulasi Empire had immediately gained an additional barrier. It was already no longer possible for Cloudflow Empire to achieve a breakthrough on land and pose a threat to the Tanggulasi Empire. The Tanggulasi Empire only needed to defend the vital coastal cities, preventing Cloudflow’s fleet from dropping off soldiers, to amass their forces in peace. They then could try to break through the impasse in Loulan again.

The soldiers of Cloudflow were very much inferior to the sailors. The Tanggulasi Empire was very fearful that Cloudflow might launch a two-pronged offensive, attacking from sea and land. If that happened, the Tanggulasi Empire would be in a very precarious situation, even though Cloudflow’s army was lousier than Tanggulasi’s iron knights.

Once such an event happened, the Tanggulasi Empire would be warring on three fronts. By then, who could guarantee that Sikeqinya would not seize the opportunity to cause even more damage? Sikeqinyans were people who valued money, as long as there were benefits, those mercenaries would appear in hordes.

It was out of desperation that the Tanggulasi Empire invaded Titan, unless Cloudflow was willing to sign an alliance treaty with Tanggulasi. The problem was that the Holy See had too many demands, so the imperial family of Cloudflow would not compromise. Just on taxes alone, the Holy See would claim almost half the income received by the royal family of Tanggulasi.

That meant that the Tanggulasi Empire had the lowest income even though the surface area of its land was the largest out of the four big empires because the blood-sucking Holy See was around. As a result, taxation in the Tanggulasi Empire was always complicated and demanding. Be that as it may, the Tanggulasi Empire still could not get out of its dire straits.

The civilians of the Tanggulasi Empire led the toughest lives. As the Holy See frequently distributed alms and helped the poor, it had an excellent reputation. The peasants would not know so much. Without the Holy See, the Tanggulasi Empire would not even demand so much taxes. The Holy See had occupied large amounts of land. Besides using these lands for constructing churches, the Holy See also had their own farmlands.

This time around, the Tanggulasi Empire and the Holy See had conspired to take over the world, and their first step was to invade Loulan. The lifestyle in Loulan was extravagant, far from the ferocity found in Qin. Who knew that the Qin emperor would personally lead an invasion, disrupting the favorable situation. The Holy See played along, ambushing the Qin emperor. When the Qin emperor died, the inner ranks of the Holy See also suffered huge losses.

Because of this, the situation in Loulan was once again equalized. On the other hand, negotiations between Tanggulasi and Cloudflow had fallen through, so Titan was immediately invaded to stabilize the situation at the border.

Everything was going smoothly, until this day.

Glorious Plains in Holy City; his place contained the largest church in the empire. This church was also the center of theocracy, where the thirty-second pope handled official business.

The Nico Cathedral was made up of over one-hundred building clusters. Situated at the peak of the center point was an open air altar. This altar had a radius of one-hundred yards with an open air design, it was the nucleus of the whole city.

Holy prose, such as images, lines, and mysterious symbols were carved into the center of the altar. There was a grand total of twenty-four towering pillars surrounding the altar. No matter the time of the day, there would be sunlight passing through the crystals placed atop the pillars, causing the converged rays of light to bathe the altar in brilliance.

The altar was originally flat, but there was now a stone platform on top of it. The Holy See’s code was placed atop this platform. In front of the stone platform was an elderly person clad in a long golden robe, standing there with an earnest expression. Gathered behind him was a group of bishops in red clothes.

At the center of the altar, in the middle of the image used for sacrifices, was a burnt human body.

The sacrificial process of the Holy See demanded the use of live humans. This live human was originally an elite in the Holy See. After going through god’s baptism, his powers were immediately boosted by two grades. He had been qualified to become a cardinal. In this round of sacrifice, the god was furious, and this believer with a bright future got incinerated into ashes.

Beside the pope, a middle-aged man in a long yellow robe held up a code, flipping it to the pages at the back. Lips trembling, he scanned the rows of words, remaining silent for a long time.

“Sharjah, what is going on?” The pope stared at the burnt human, feeling very perturbed.

After the battle with the Qin emperor, the power of the pope suffered the greatest loss, while the power of the seven oracles remained fairly unaffected. Currently, the oracles were secretly harboring the thought of leaving the pope, as Fycro had too large an ambition. If Fycro succeeded, then the Holy See would suffer its first ever fission since establishment.

This red deacon was handpicked by the pope out of thousands of people, his power was already equivalent to that of a grade-7 human sorcerer. After god’s baptism, he could immediately become a grade-9 expert. Unexpectedly, the god was outraged, thus implicating the innocent. In less than a second, this elite had been killed by a holy light.

The Red Bishops maintained their silence out of fear. Theisio had announced to the public that he himself had sustained serious injuries and would die soon. In reality, he was not close to dying even though he had sustained serious injuries. A few disloyal people had already been directly killed by the pope, so these Red Bishops did not dare try anything.

Sharjah was the pope’s chief of affairs, which meant that he was the pope’s personal servant, and he did not wield much authority. If the pope died in an accident, and there was no appointed successor, then he would be the temporary pope. At the same time, as the pope’s chief of affairs, he also had a very important holy equipment of the Holy See; the Ring of Many Gods.

Legend had it that the Ring of Many Gods was created after the Lord of Glory went on a crusade in the godly realm and killed countless other gods. The power of this holy equipment was stronger than the three holy weapons the pope possessed. The Ring of Many Gods could only unleash its greatest might in the hands of the Lord of Glory, humans would never be able to control it fully.

Sharjah closed the code, then said, “Your Excellency, god has… given a holy decree.”

“What?”

Not only were the Red Bishops astounded, the pope was equally shocked as well. Usually, the Lord of Glory would only disseminate a holy decree after some special ceremony. The royal decree also had never been directly translated into words to a code before.

“Many believers of other gods have appeared on the glorious mainland.”

Sharjah’s words had caused everyone to go numb. All these years, the activity the Holy See was most involved in was killing pagans. After killing for two three hundred years, the original believers would have also died even if they did not get captured because humans had finite life. The Holy See had secret agents all over the mainland who specialized in sniffing out believers of other religions. It could be said that for the past over five-hundred years, there were no real pagans, with the exception of the black magicians.

The devil worshipped by the black magicians was not a real god, their god also could not use a religion to preach. The god was so enraged because the pagans which had appeared were obviously believers of a real god.

That bit of divine power in Saleen’s body was in fact brought about by the Tree of Life, there was actually no religion in it, so it was hardly noticed. When the Black Bishop returned to Tanggulasi, he did not report this to the pope. He instead tried to resolve the problem using the inquisition’s sphere of influence, and that gave him great merit.

The divine power exerted by Ismail was the genuine power of religion. He frequently wielded the Elemental Spear and the Eye of Hades, and he did so while in the purgatory space personally created by the Lord of Glory. Even though the Lord of Glory could not descend on the plane of the Myers mainland, it was impossible for him not to detect it.

Two of his powerful believers were slaughtered by Ismail. After so many years, no one on Myers mainland had ever challenged his authority. Had this been a normal person, the Lord of Glory would not even care. This matter was created by a believer of some other god, thus causing the Lord of Glory to blow his top.

The worst thing was that Nailisi still used the power in the divine crystal to slowly remove the holy imprint on the Twelve Notes of the First Purgatory, leading the Lord of Glory to think that a pagan was challenging his ego.

This situation was like if one went to someone else’s home and then killed their servants. Then thereafter, they still wanted to alter the title deed in order to seize the house.

“The holy war must be brought forward. All those who refuse the gift of god shall be killed.” Sharjah’s tone was that of anguish because he knew that, on the mainland, the Holy See did not have such capabilities yet. This was god’s order, it could not be defied.

Pope Theisio remained silent for exactly five minutes, then said to Sharjah, “So, where is Fycro?”

“Sir Fycro is not in the Holy City, he has been away for several months now.”

“Get the head inquisitors over…” Theisio sighed deeply. Even though the Holy See had ignited a war, the scale of the war had been controlled very well, a holy war was different. The moment a holy war was initiated, the Holy See had to deploy all forces to launch an all-out offensive against the enemy.

Ismail never knew that he would create so much trouble by killing two adjudicators. At this moment, not only was he dead, but countless other living beings would also be dead soon.

Sharjah bowed and took his leave. The pope turned around and observed the dozens of Red Bishops, then said icily, “What are you all still standing there for, arrange for me to meet His Majesty. Tomorrow, by this time, I want him here.”

“Yes, Sir Pope.” The Red Bishops left in a fluster, the events of this day were too astonishing. After so many years, this was the first time their god was so incensed. These Red Bishops would inevitably experience some fear, their usual actions were not in much conformance to their doctrines. It was not known whether their god knew about their actions or not.

The burnt body was pulled off the altar, and then thrown into a mass grave. Those who had been killed by the god had no rights to enter the Holy See’s graveyard, even if this person was very staunch and his morals were flawless.