Chapter 411 — The Day History Moves Forward
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 3
"...They're shouting to meet me about that? Good — their brains haven't completely seized up, though they're not much better off," Gao Yang waved a hand dismissively. "They can save their breath. They still haven't figured out what this war actually means."
Hearing this, Byron immediately leaned over to Philip and muttered, "See? I told you. Just keep them locked up. If they want to shout, let them shout — worst case, lock them in with the big machine pumps at the waterworks and see who makes more noise..."
Philip ignored Byron entirely and continued to Gao Yang: "We captured as many of the Church knights and Holy Light priests in the noble coalition as we could, but quite a few still escaped pursuit once they reached the plains. Some are trapped in Cecil-controlled territory and are being rounded up slowly, but a considerable number of Church knights and priests have fled to the Holy Frost Cathedral to the northwest... that place isn't under our control."
Beside him, Byron could not resist muttering, "Take it and it will be."
"Ahem." Gao Yang cleared his throat twice. Though he would have liked to say that Byron had spoken his own mind exactly, at the last moment he refrained from letting himself go too far, because he knew very well that the Holy Frost Cathedral — and Frostgate City, where it stood — held a very special significance not only within the Luminary sect but across the entire Southern Region.
It was the headquarters of the Blazing Luminary Church's southern diocese, and also a theoretical "neutral ground."
Frostgate City theoretically belonged to the direct control of the royal family; the city had no lord, only a Chief Administrator appointed by the crown. But the Chief Administrator was essentially a figurehead — the real master of Frostgate City was the Holy Frost Cathedral within it, and the southern bishop and the order of priests in that great cathedral.
Of course, the southern bishop was gone now, and the high-ranking knights and priests of the Holy Frost Cathedral had for the most part died in this war. The whole cathedral's strength was no problem at all for Cecil as it stood now — but what Gao Yang had to consider was not the cathedral's defensive capability in the least.
What he had to consider was whether he could attack it directly, and under what name he could attack it.
That bore directly on the order of the Southern Region in the days to come, and on his influence over the region's great many followers of the Holy Light.
And there was a more practical question besides: what came after taking the Holy Frost Cathedral? Would he merely occupy Frostgate City, or arrest every Luminary priest in the city — or even tear the cathedral down? If the former, then the Luminary Church's influence over the Southern Region probably could not be fully driven out; if the latter, then the social order of the Southern Region would likely face severe upheaval, and the more devout followers of the Holy Light in his new territory would begin to question the "righteousness" of their new lord.
After all, occupying a city and a cathedral could still be called the normal course of war — because Lemont, the southern bishop, had "attacked" Xuanyao City with twelve fully armed Church knights and a high-ranking priest, and that could be regarded as an act of war. But if, after taking the city, he went on to destroy the Southern Region's system of Holy Light faith, then the several hundred thousand followers of the Holy Light in the Southern Region would begin to doubt the rule of Gao Yang Cecil.
Gao Yang had no way to simply erase the Holy Light faith from the minds of those hundreds of thousands of people, and given his current influence in the Southern Region and the actual state of religious belief in this world, he could not possibly push through any overly radical program of church reform either.