Chapter 490 — Impact

"Yes... I see it now... on your leaflets, you really do rarely stress words like righteousness and honor," the priest said with a bitter smile, shaking his head. "What your leaflets say most is that everyone can eat their fill and dress warmly, that everyone can study doctrine, and that free holy water is there for the taking..."

"Exactly—that is what we 'unrighteous' people are here to do," Amber laughed. "I heard from Light that you too rose step by step from the common folk, and that even now you keep sending the monthly donation money allotted to you back to the countryside—so are you interested in this 'unrighteous' authority called Cecil? We will purge those who dissent, we will control the Southern Region, we will use means fair or foul to achieve our ends. As Duke Gao Yang Cecil once told me—he will stop at nothing, spare no cost, exhaust every scheme and calculation, and rule this land without a shred of noble spirit—so that this land may prosper and grow strong.

"Perhaps we are not grand and upright. Perhaps we truly are only a new authority about to replace the Yaochen Church. But we can give all the people of the Southern Region better lives, and the Holy Light can continue to endure on this land that grows better.

"Priest, for a business so unrighteous—are you in?"

The room fell utterly silent. Sevin Terry's heart pounded, and after several deep breaths he finally spoke. "...There are about a hundred clergy in the city who oppose Faran Belan, most of them low-ranking, but we control the small chapel districts on the outskirts..."

"Every priest who awakens and takes the correct side will have Cecil's friendship. So long as you are willing to obey our laws and accept the new doctrines, you may still operate in this land. You remain messengers of the Holy Light—and this Frostgate City... may even continue to serve as a 'holy city.'"

If Amber's earlier words had merely dealt Sevin Terry a tremendous psychological shock, it was this answer that finally set the priest's heart at ease.

The situation could no longer be salvaged.

Frostgate City was sliding into the abyss, and everyone in the cathedral district knew it. The Yaochen Church's influence here had already crumbled to pieces, and whatever the cathedral's college of priests did next would only hasten the collapse—whether they sat waiting for death, offered pale justifications, blocked the leaflets, or even carried out bloodier and more extreme suppression of the commoners... there was no hope at the end of any of it.

The power of speech had always lain with the Church, and now the Cecilian held greater power in that regard—so a Church that lived on "faith" could not possibly keep living.

In truth there was no choice. Four days ago, when Sevin Terry returned to the cathedral district under the "escort" of disciplinarian monks and Church knights and found a note stuffed into his pocket signed "the Shadow Goddess's Own Daughter," he had already known it.

To preserve the lives of the few like-minded brethren left in the Church, he had to agree to Cecil's demands.

Before that, he had only wanted to see clearly what sort of face belonged to the people about to rule all of this.

Now he seemed to see it clearly—it was indeed not a glorious and great ruler, but it was a more suitable one.

"What am I to do?"

Amber smiled. "We are going to take the cathedral—take it together with the commoners of Frostgate City—and you will become the symbol and representative of those in the Yaochen Church who have awakened."

(Everyone, the PV2 for the anomaly is out!! Let me tell you, the scenes and visuals are insanely strong, especially the small chapel—sure enough, it is original art burned through with money, and heaven knows how much funding they poured in to keep the visuals from collapsing...)