Badge in Azure

Chapter 1426: Saint (Part 1)

A cold look appeared in Gagas' golden eyes when Ugar mentioned the wardens. The look stemmed from pure hatred. If there had been a possibility for him to acquire powers of the oracles, he would have destroyed the Tribunal to make them pay for what they did.

His hand was accidentally exposed holding half a carving—a demon with twin horns.

He recalled the demon giving him the carving when his village was destroyed. He recalled the X-shaped holy prose in the sky that killed every living thing in his village except him, because he was protected by the carving of the demon.

He never thought that it would be something left behind by the demon that would save his life.

The oracles came to him and gave him power. They reforged his body, making him worthy of becoming the pope. However, the two oracles were not good people. If he had not sold them out, Fycro might not have been able to take them down so easily.

Gagas rubbed on the carving of the demon in his hand as he zoned out.

Ugar's plans had greatly irritated the bishops from the Pivotal Council. They left the Grand Church of Nick and returned to another church in Holy City, looking into ways to counter Ugar's plans.

There had been over 100 red-robed bishops in the Pivotal Councils. The very powerful ones had all been drafted by Theisio and did not return. The current Pivotal Council was a changed place. The ones originally in power had been replaced by new holy masters.

If the Holy See had not been so messy internally, the war at the Qin borders would not have ended the way it did. No one bothered with the logistics of the expeditionary force, and there were no reinforcements. They ended up being repelled back into Kroraina by forces that were hardly considered formidable, and retreated further and further away.

According to astrologers' theories, the Holy See was swaying in the midst of a raging storm, and a considerable amount of power of faith was being drawn away by the Nature Faith.

The power of faith did not appear in every single person. People were constructs that relied on the planes they existed in. If there were more than two gods spreading their religion on a plane, both sides would definitely go to war due to the fact that there was a set amount of how much mystical power a plane could produce. It was not to say that the more powerful god would definitely acquire more power.

The key was the number of believers. The god with greater number of believers would be able to acquire more benefits.

The power of faith came from the planes, and humans were conduits. There was no way the gods could make that conversion on their own, which was why they needed to expand their number of believers.

When the power of faith of a plane was sucked dry, that plane would fall into decline.

The believers would not be able to reach heaven and would only struggle in pain in the plane that had become hell.

A drained plane needed hundreds of millions of years, maybe even more, to recover. Even the shortest living plane had tens of billions of years of life. If the gods did not extract power in a frenzy, the plane would be able to last until their natural deaths.

However, most gods would not bother with any of that. To the gods, the power of faith was life and power in itself, and the survival of the gods hinged on it.

The gods did all they could to exhaust the power of faith latent on the planes. Unless they were peculiar, like the Metal God, everyone was essentially quenching their thirst by drinking poison.

If every single plane in a crystal wall system became farms for the gods, it would be the end of said crystal wall system.

That was what gods were like—claiming unceasingly and without restraint.

The Pivotal Council bishops discussed the matter in their secret meeting room, which definitely would not have happened when Theisio was alive. Gagas had no connections. He was shoehorned into his role by the oracles.

Everyone in the meeting room exchanged looks. According to rankings, there were 24 bishops deemed fit to enter the room.

The First Bishop spoke first. He was a veteran red-robed bishop and had many followers in the ranks of the Pivotal Council.

"Ugar intends to exhaust the Heaven Knights' powers, and I don't think that would be a bad thing."

"Why would that be, my lord?" the Third Bishop, who had always served as the First Bishop's deputy, asked.

"There is no way Cologne City can be defended. However, we might be able to use the opportunity to have God advent. Get 3,000 believers ready. We need ones of purest of faith. Ask the Oracle Corps if we can't get enough."

"My lord, are you going to do a Holy Sacrifice?"

All bishops got excited.

The Holy Sacrifice was a blood sacrificial ritual, a divine spell activated using the blood of those of purest faith, to incite their god through the deaths of saints, prompting their god to send a double to their plane.

If the Lord of Glory advented, the child without the three godly items would definitely be ousted. The Pivotal Council would then become the core of the Holy See once more.

It was not enough to kill the believers to invoke such a large scale divine spell; the enemy had to be the ones doing the killing. Saleen had done more than enough to draw their god's attention.

If even one among the 3,000 believers were to fit the requirements of becoming a saint, it would be enough to have the Lord of Glory advent.

"Yes, the Holy Sacrifice indeed. If the ritual is a success, Holy City shall be ours once again." A peculiar, intoxicated look formed in the First Bishop's eyes. "Now go out and search for believers in your areas. The younger, the better, and they best be younger than 16 years old."

"My lord!" The Second Bishop was about to voice his objection, but he quickly caught the glares from his colleagues.

It was simply too cruel.

Not being even of 16 years old meant that they would all be children, and children were the purest. The method did not sit well with the Second Bishop, but there was little else that could be done. He too, wished to obtain power from their god, hoping to get the double of the Lord of Glory to advent.

Saleen was simply too powerful, and the Holy See was in shambles. Unless Black Dungeon Island agreed to back them up, the only city they would be able to protect was Holy City.

There were divine spells left over by the Lord of Glory in the city, which made it difficult for even the flying city to get near.

"By the way, the Holy Sacrifice of the 3,000 believers will require many divine crystals. Gather them as well." There was no way the First Bishop would foot the bill all on his own. Divine Crystals in the Holy See were akin to magic nuclei among mages.

The crystals were used as currency. Secretly crafted divine crystals replaced gold coins in trades between high level holy masters, but the only way to make them was to steal power of faith from their god.

Everyone had been practicing it for over 1000 years, so they all assumed that their god would not mind.

Divine crystals bestowed by their god were not enough to bestow believers with power. It worked the same way as mages working for nobles being paid in magic nuclei.

Saleen's Floating City continued to head west. They were near Cologne City, but Saleen decided to shift the angle a little bit and head north instead.

He wanted to scatter all surrounding holy masters of the city before he attacked Cologne City.

Saleen had no intentions of leaving Cologne City intact. Saints had emerged from that city, and places like that needed to be destroyed. It served as a symbol of the faith, for it had been visited by their god. It was not Holy City, but their god had left a divine spell behind, enabling anyone who met the requirements of a saint to use the divine spell, becoming the most powerful holy master found on the plane.

There was a reason why millions of believers made pilgrimages. If it was simply a historical place, no one would bother. Everyone wanted to know if they were fit to become saints.

But people who harbored such thoughts would never be favored by their god.

The surroundings of Cologne City were filled with believers, as even villages had churches. Most places were not even staffed by peasants. The people working on the farms were slaves.

The common folk had all become believers and did nothing but pray every day. The churches fed them for doing that. The slaves, without a doubt, belonged to the churches. The priests were bafflingly rich, due to toll gates everywhere. Tolls were collected in the name of their god.

Does God need gold coins? No one was willing to ask such questions, as the ones who had asked had been sent to the Tribunal and dissected.

One church after another was reduced to dust under Saleen's magic cannons. He brought 3,000 magic cannons with him and half of them had been destroyed. There was no way a destroyed magic cannon could be repaired, as Saleen lacked the skills and necessary materials to do so.

Of course, attribute-less granules or bone crystals of the giant would allow him to create magic cannons that would never be damaged, but using those materials for such purposes was a terrible waste.

Saleen kept the Floating City in midair after losing half of the cannons. He returned to Metatrin City and took another 3,000 from the city's warehouse.

The cost in magic nuclei was exorbitant, so Saleen had begun throwing in low level elemental creatures to replace magic nuclei.

Every single bombardment was a luxury to the mages.

None of the 360 large Thunder Dragon Blasters were damaged. However, such weapons were meant for attacking Holy City, so he never used them to bombard cities.

The Floating City had used ranged attacks as well. Saleen never descended to the ground the whole time he had been in the area.

He spent about three days circling around Cologne City and cleaning up the 300 churches. The number alone was harrowing.

A church had at least 100 believers in them, which meant that there had been 30,000 believers in the 300 churches. The believers were all tasked to receive people who ventured out on pilgrimages. That meant that there were at least 30,000 people who practiced that as a trade.

"This is a market of faith indeed." Saleen concluded.

The little girl said, "Market? Only the likes of you who have no faith would see it all in such a crude manner. They are in service to god. If they were to be bereft of income, how could more people embrace God?"

"No, you're the one with the wrong idea," Saleen replied seriously. "I have written a codex, built a huge temple, gathered tens of thousands of believers, and even established organizations like Temple Knights, the Pivotal Council and the Oracle Corps as well. Do I still sound like I know nothing about religion?"

"Faith never seeks returns. What you're doing has a price."

"Yeah, they indeed have a price. Those who give more are able to rise higher. That is my understanding of gods."