Chapter 121: Remnants

At dawn, the first light slowly brightened, casting a faint radiance across the vast, empty wilderness.

Yet on a deserted country path, a hurried band of people was racing forward as though fleeing for their lives.

The next moment, a rain of arrows began to fall. Several men groaned and collapsed on the spot, pierced straight through by the shafts.

“Damn it, knights of the Adis Duchy!” the man at the front cried in terror. As figures gradually emerged in the distance, despair filled his eyes.

The knights merely sneered at their cries. Then, in the next instant, a ripple of divine power arose. Countless fireballs shot forward, engulfing more than a dozen people before exploding in a deafening burst.

When the violent detonations finally subsided, most of the men who had been standing in the open ground moments earlier now lay sprawled across it, their bodies aflame and the surrounding grass catching fire.

A few survivors remained. As knights, they possessed unusually tenacious vitality, and they struggled desperately while divine power continued to eat away at their bodies. They had nearly become human torches, burning furiously.

The scene was utterly惨惨.

Seeing this, the knight leading the party could not help grumbling inwardly. “Ever since they’ve been through a few battlefields, these priests have grown more and more violent. They throw a fireball at practically everyone they see.”

As that thought crossed his mind, countless pale-blue ice blades gradually condensed in the air. They shot forward with tremendous force, accompanied by a shrill whistle, and pierced through the few remaining survivors.

“That would have been better from the start. Why use fireballs? Aren’t they afraid of setting the whole grassland ablaze?”

The squad leader glanced at the open ground, which had nearly become a sea of fire, and complained as he urged the priests beside him to put out the flames.

Once the burning grass had been extinguished, the knights stepped forward and severed the heads from the corpses, which had been reduced to a bloody mess.

The entire process was clean and practiced. Clearly, this was not the first time they had done it.

“Fortunately, even though the bodies were almost blown apart, they can still be identified,” another knight said with satisfaction as he examined the heads.

Behind them, several priests exchanged awkward glances.

They had long since grown accustomed to such scenes and did not take the matter to heart. After a while, when the knights had finished their work, the bodies were piled together and burned. Then, led by an elderly priest, they silently began to pray.

It was both ritual and tradition—the nature priests’ tribute to the dead. According to their legends, the ceremony allowed the departed souls to enter the heavenly kingdom of the God of Nature, where they would be judged by the deity.

In truth, as the power of nature gently rippled outward, it followed the threads of faith and beckoned to the souls that had just formed before them. More than a dozen newly departed spirits were slowly drawn upward, rising toward the divine realm where the God of Nature’s true form resided, where they were sealed away.

When the ritual ended, the group withdrew.

By noon, the squad leader led the others to a large military camp, where they began handing over their reports.

“Have the rebellious heretics near Cecil City been more or less eradicated?”

A voice rang out across the camp.

The group looked ahead and saw a burly man standing there. His body was covered in thick hair, his voice was rough, and he wore the armor of a legion commander.

It was Carter.

Standing before the knights, Carter nodded. “His Majesty has issued an order. Throughout the Adis Duchy, we are to hunt down and exterminate all those who still worship the ancestral gods of the former city-states.”

“If any are discovered, send men to capture them immediately and deliver them to the local church, where they will be handed over to the bishop. Anyone who resists is to be killed on the spot.”

This was a problem left over from the old days.

After the newly established Adis Duchy occupied the three regions, the many city-states that had once dominated those lands were naturally destroyed, leaving behind only dust and memories.

Yet although the city-states had perished, the worship of their ancestral gods had endured.

For centuries, those city-states had ruled the land, and faith in their ancestral gods had become deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Even after the city-states fell, the people of that former age remained. Though they no longer dared to openly worship the old gods, many continued their rites in secret.

That ran directly counter to Adis’s interests.

As the God of Nature, before he had kindled his divine fire, Adis still relied heavily on faith as a source of power. If he lost that faith, he might not immediately be cast down into the mortal world, but a fall of five divine ranks was certain. In this turbulent period, that would be virtually fatal.

Therefore, from the moment the Adis Duchy was founded, Adis had explicitly abolished the old ancestral worship and ordered the arrest and severe punishment of anyone who continued to practice it.

As the campaign intensified, ordinary subjects across the land posed relatively little trouble. In particular, once churches began to rise throughout the regions, most people abandoned their former gods and chose instead to believe in the God of Nature.

After all, although they had once lived under the rule of the old city-states, they had never been valued. During the rituals of the ancestral gods, they were often the victims, offered up as sacrifices in blood rites. Resentment had long been boiling among the common people, and most had never been particularly devout. Even the few who were sincerely faithful gradually changed their allegiance after being brought into the churches.

The true difficulty lay with the many nobles left behind from the era of the old city-states.

Those nobles were deeply entrenched. Nearly every family had a history stretching back hundreds of years, and they had once enjoyed the protection of the ancestral gods. As a result, they possessed a large number of fanatical believers. Even after the ancestral gods had been suppressed, many stubborn diehards refused to change. They continued to perform secret rites and even used them to rally the surrounding nobles into rebellion.

That was something Adis could not tolerate—especially since most of those rituals involved blood sacrifice.

Previously, however, years of continuous warfare had left him without the strength to deal with the matter. Now that he had finally freed his hands, he immediately ordered a thorough investigation and began suppressing those involved.

Once Adis made his resolve known, the nobles were exposed one after another. Rebellions of all sizes erupted across the country, forcing Nadir and the others to race from place to place and put them down before the unrest could gradually be quelled.

Yet as the rebellions were suppressed, large numbers of nobles from the old era were slaughtered, while the altars and idols of the ancestral gods were smashed. In turn, the faith of the God of Nature spread much more rapidly.

At that same time, far away in the royal palace of Adis City, Adis was speaking with several people in a garden.

Barton, Bill, and the others stood beside him, reporting on the situation.

“Your Majesty, these are the lists of heretics captured by the churches throughout the country.”

Bill handed a thick stack of reports to an attendant, who passed them on to Adis.

Adis accepted them and glanced through the pages. His brow furrowed at the shocking figures recorded there.

“There are really this many?”

“Yes.” Bill gave a wry smile. “Almost half of the noble families in our country had someone involved. That is why the great rebellion some time ago became so serious.”

“Then that explains it.” Adis smiled in understanding. “The eastern region rebelled several months ago, and countless nobles answered the call. The rebellion grew so powerful that it nearly reached the northern region.”

“If so many nobles were involved, it makes sense now.”

Hearing this, Bill could only continue smiling bitterly. “Even so, a large portion of these names were reported by the families themselves. Some of them even assisted us in making the arrests.”

“Those nobles who worship the evil gods were, in truth, only a fraction of their respective families. Their numbers were nowhere near as great as we imagined.”

“That is only natural,” Barton interjected quietly.

After seven or eight years had passed, he looked considerably older, though he remained strong and robust. After several priests had used divine power to cleanse and bless him, his health had even improved somewhat.

“These families place their interests above all else. When the survival of the entire family is threatened, abandoning a few members is perfectly normal. In truth, they may not have been sincere believers in the first place.”

He spoke quietly, clearly drawing on his own experience.

Adis nodded but did not dwell on the subject. Instead, he asked, “Bill, how is the construction of the churches throughout the country progressing?”

“The progress is very good,” Bill replied. “In the northern region, thanks to the enthusiastic cooperation of the believers, churches have already been established in most places. Only a few areas are still under construction.”

“In the eastern and western regions, however, our rule has not lasted as long, and we lack the cooperation of the local believers. Construction has therefore proceeded much more slowly. Still, work is gradually advancing, and the churches should be completed within two years.”

At this point, he hesitated before continuing. “However, the more serious problem is the number of priests. With so many new churches being built, we simply do not have enough qualified priests. In some cities, the position of bishop has already become vacant, leaving white-robed priests to preside over the prayers.”

This was indeed a serious issue.

When Adis had occupied only the northern region, the foundation of believers accumulated over the previous several decades had been sufficient. Now that he controlled three regions, the problem had finally revealed itself.

Yet Adis had no easy solution. Qualified priests could not be produced overnight. They required not only long-term purification through divine power but also a deep understanding of the authority wielded by the deity. Unless one used an enormous amount of divine power to force the process through, a considerable amount of time was necessary.

Adis pondered silently before saying, “Make some adjustments for now. First, complete the construction of the churches in those regions. Then have the church authorities recruit a number of promising candidates from among the people to serve as supplementary priests.”

Hearing this, Bill gave another helpless smile and slowly nodded.