Chapter 707 — A Terrifying Fellow

"...What they implanted in me was not just this heart, but also the 'knowledge' that rushed into my mind along with it," Bard shook his head, as expected. "An ordinary heart cannot drive the body of a high-tier extraordinary being, so they used something called 'God-Sin Factor' to create it. And these God-Sin Factors... carry the knowledge of the gods.

"From that day on, I stayed in the Evernight Cult's underground palace for three full years, in the company of darkness and nightmares. In those nightmares I gazed upon indescribable monsters. I called out to the God of War I believed in, but only sank deeper into the nightmare. I saw their malice, saw their madness, saw them calculating the hour of doomsday in their palaces of false chaos...

"In the end, I once believed I had died—died from severe physical and spiritual rejection. The priest tending me even had me dragged into the laboratory, preparing to dissect me once I was gone. But at the final moment, I woke from the nightmare.

"I lost my faith in the God of War not merely on some inner level, but from the inside out. All the talents and powers once bestowed by the God of War vanished entirely.

"And after that, I became a priest of the Evernight Cult, just as you see me now."

Bard's recollection ended. Gao Yang furrowed his brow, digesting the sheer volume of information in the other man's words.

Faintly, he guessed what purpose those Evernight Cultists' experiments on Bard had served.

The Evernight Cultists had used surgery and mental reconstruction to forcibly shatter Bard's "spirit brand"! They had snatched a "God-Blessed" from the God of War's domain!

This brilliant and fiendish experiment reminded him of the Defiers—of those stubborn "ghosts" Viroday had mentioned.

Judging from the intelligence currently in hand, he was almost certain that Defiers were active deep within the Evernight Cult.

Gao Yang placed his hand on the table, his index finger unconsciously tapping the surface. His gaze swept over the beating artificial heart in Bard's chest, and a sudden feeling of emotion rose in his heart.

This man before him had, in the eyes of the Evernight Cultists, most likely been nothing more than an "experimental subject" at first.

The utterly mad cultists and the already-uncontrolled Defiers would hardly care what identity or status a man held in the secular world. Their selection of Bard Wendell was likely based solely on his value as experimental material. If Bard's identity as the "Wolf General" held any meaning at all in the eyes of the Ember Shadow cultists, it was probably just that it conveniently worsened relations between Typhon and Ansel, adding fuel to the fire of the internal pressures and conflicts that would later erupt within Ansel.

Considering it more conspiratorially, Gao Yang suspected that Bard Wendell and his subordinates' encounter with aberrants near the Dark Mountains had been arranged by the Ember Shadow cultists all along. The Order of All Things' End and the Gundor Wasteland undoubtedly shared hidden and complex connections. The only truly surprising thing was that they had possessed the ability to drive a portion of the aberrants away from the Grand Wall so many years ago... Perhaps that attack Bard Wendell suffered was the Order of All Things' End's very first attempt to breach and infiltrate the Grand Wall?

It was truly a vast, complex, and hidden plan, astonishing in both its temporal and spatial scope. But if the plan had been devised by one or several Defiers, then Gao Yang was not particularly surprised.

They could plot a single endeavor across a thousand years, and pursue one endeavor for a thousand years.

"The Defiers..." Gao Yun drew a soft breath, his gaze seeming to rest on some distant place. "Truly a terrifying host of ghosts..."

...

Virodai—or rather, Ophelia Norton—now stood in the plaza of the Holy Frost Church, watching expressionless as the assembled nuns gathered before her.

After completing the restoration of order at the Yaoxiao Cathedral and assisting the White Knights in taking over the northern church, she had traveled with the second "relocation convoy" to the Southern Region, and at the invitation of the Grand Patriarch Wright had come to the White Knights' training base—the former Southern Diocese headquarters, Frostgate City.

Her first purpose in coming here was to observe the White Knights' training process and their new holy-light equipment; her second was to inspect the order of nuns the southern church had just finished organizing, and to promote nuns who conformed to the new doctrines and canon to the Empire's other dioceses.

The Defier of old, now the Holy Maiden Princess, slowly moved her gaze. Under her scrutiny the young nuns straightened their backs one after another, their expressions solemn and earnest. They wore uniform white clerical gowns, evidently modified somewhat for ease of movement; in their hands they gripped metal staves nearly as tall as a person, each staff bearing peculiar mechanical and runic structures at both ends—clearly a new type of arcanomechanical equipment...

Besides the staves essential to any clergy, each nun also wore a lightweight arcanomechanical terminal bracer and mechanically-wrapped gauntlets on her arms, with prayer books and potion vials hanging at her waist. Of course, the holy emblem of the clergy was indispensable as well—that sacred insignia was stamped upon every nun's combat pack.

"The combat packs are lightweight, and designed with both appearance and comfort in mind..." Wright said beside Virodai.

"So..." Virodai said slowly, grasping her platinum scepter, "this is the order of nuns that has just finished training here in the Southern Region?"

"The official designation is 'Armed Nun'; the leader of each combat echelon is called a 'War Nun,'" Wright nodded. "They have indeed only just completed their training, but they are already reliable clerics. Every one of these girls is a resolute and brave warrior of the holy light, fully capable of faithfully spreading the gospel of the holy light and the Empire's new order."

Virodai felt emotions she had not stirred in centuries beginning to ripple: "...And that thing in their hands is the tool they use to spread the gospel?"

"Yes, the provisional name is 'Gospel Angel,'" Wright nodded with considerable pride, a smile on his face. "When it is not firing, it can serve as a staff capable of casting holy-light healing spells."

When it is not firing, it can serve as a staff...

Virodai—Ophelia—drew a soft breath and gently closed her eyes.

The Cecil folk... truly a terrifying lot.