Chapter 489 — Sevin Terry

This tall, thin middle-aged priest was one of the penitent priests who had stood on the heresy trial plaza in a hemp robe, barefoot, under the watch of the discipline monks. Yet he had not been the only priest punished that day, which made him all the more curious.

Amber answered offhandedly: "There was once a priest preaching in the Southern Region who passed through Frostgate City. His name was Wright."

"Wright... the big fellow?" Sevin Terry was briefly taken aback, then caught on. "Ah, I see... So he really is with you. I remember him. Since the reform of the divine arts, I have rarely seen a classical-style priest like him. How has he been lately?"

"Not bad. The God of Holy Light cast him off, and then he cast off the God of Holy Light. Now he conjures his own Holy Light, and he is leading a group teaching others to conjure it too," Amber shrugged. "His situation would take too long to explain. I will tell you just one thing: Wright said that if there were even a few people left in Frostgate City who still held to their conscience, Sevin Terry would have to be one of them. That is how you were chosen."

"So holding to one's conscience has become a rare quality among the clergy?" Sevin Terry's tone was thick with mockery, but his expression quickly returned to normal. He looked at the short half-elf before him, and at the agents of the Military Intelligence Bureau in the room, his face extraordinarily complicated. "You... or rather the Duke behind you—what is it you actually want?"

Amber smiled slightly and said, politely and with tact: "To drive the Yaochen Church out."

The skin of Sevin Terry's face twitched again. "Aren't you afraid I will go straight to the Grand Cathedral and denounce you?"

"Don't say anything that foolish—it would make me doubt Wright's judgment as well. By now you must be able to see the situation clearly enough. Do you think we are worried about you denouncing us? Besides... do you believe the Yaochen Church can still hold its footing in the Southern Region?"

Sevin Terry's expression shifted, dark and bright by turns. He seemed about to argue something, but before he could speak, Amber suddenly picked up a sheet of paper from the table beside her and held it out to the priest. "Take a look."

Sevin Terry took the sheet of paper curiously. At first he thought it was another leaflet printed by the Cecils, but when he saw what was written on it, his expression froze.

It was a newspaper, dated yesterday, and across the top of the front page, in enormous type, ran a headline:

"Evil Flourishes in Frostgate City; Millions Across the Southern Marches Await Their Lord's Restoration of the Holy Light Order"

Beneath that horrifying headline, the priest saw a sight that made his head swim: in a vivid black-and-white image, the Church's knights and soldiers of Frostgate City were dragging battered, half-dead commoners up onto the pyre.

Such scenes of heresy trials had grown common enough in recent years, yet the photographer's angle and the mood of the plaza behind it made this one look especially savage and terrifying.

"This is a newspaper. I don't know whether you've heard of such a thing under the blockade, but I can tell you, it circulates throughout the entire Southern Marches, twice a week. Do you think there have been many leaflets dropped into the city these past few days? In fact... those leaflets are nothing but the scraps left over from printing these newspapers."

Sevin Terry let the newspaper slip from his fingers. Every last shred of his resolve and his desperate hope was gone.

So... those terrible, overwhelming leaflets in Frostgate City were only the tip of the iceberg of everything the Cecils had been doing.

The thought of how long these people before him had been lurking in Mingyuan City, of how much they had sent out about Frostgate City through some magical power, made the priest's blood run cold.

And all of this... had been orchestrated by that terrifying founding hero, Gaoyang Cecil?

"Exiling the Holy Light... what do you gain from it?"

The devout priest of the Holy Light finally spoke, and his own hoarse voice startled him.

"You've got one thing wrong. We never intended to exile the Holy Light," Amber corrected him at once. "What we intend to exile is the Church — only by exiling the Church can the people have the Holy Light."

"Exile the Church?" Sevin Terry's heart, which had been sinking to the very bottom, suddenly gave a leap; he seemed to have grasped the point. "You mean..."

"A new order of the Holy Light... Ha, I never thought I'd be discussing such a thing with a priest of the Holy Light, but it's my job — we will establish a new order of the Holy Light, and all it takes is a little cooperation from you."