Chapter 607 — The Month of Revival
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 5
"What's even more suspicious is still to come," Amber said, a strange expression on her face. "Would you believe it—from last month to now, in the royal-controlled zone along the standoff line of the Holy Spirit Plain, the number of Church of the Eternal Silence cultists captured and hidden altars destroyed by the noble armies is actually even higher than in the Eastern Region!!"
Gao Yang blinked, failing for a moment to react; when he did, his first thought was that this was simply impossible—
Those old nobles in the north had suddenly stopped being useless? Was there anything in the world more suspicious than that?!
Could one warning letter from him really have had such an effect? The Ansor nobles had suddenly realized the danger of the Final Death Church and decided to unite and root out the wicked? Had Victoria Wilde instantly completed the ideological transformation of the old nobility?
Gao Yang would sooner believe those Final Death believers who had been dragged out had committed suicide!
"What exactly is going on?" Gao Yang looked into Amber's eyes. "I don't believe the old nobles suddenly became more efficient."
As expected, Amber had more to say: "The reason both the Eastern Region and the royal nobles are so efficient is that someone is informing on them."
"Informing?" Gao Yang frowned. "You mean the Military Intelligence agents you sent out?"
"Only the first few times were reported by our agents. But after Frost Month ended, the reports suddenly surged, and almost every day leads on cultists were delivered to the local lords. It took the agents a long time to trace the identity of those informants—guess who?"
A strange thought suddenly surfaced in Gao Yang's mind: "...It isn't the Final Death Church itself, is it?"
"Exactly—it really is them! And the situation is utterly bizarre!! Every site reported was one where a dark ritual had already been performed, and all the Final Death believers who took part had killed themselves during the ritual. So strictly speaking, whether it was the royal faction or the Eastern Region, what they 'captured' after receiving the leads were only the corpses of cultists who had already completed their rituals..."
Before Amber had even finished speaking, Gao Yang's brow twitched.
So they really had committed suicide after all...
And then, right on the heels of that, he realized that behind this absurd situation lay something deeply unsettling—
This looked exactly like some kind of secret, sustained, large-scale sacrificial ritual! The Ember Shadow cultists were sacrificing themselves on a massive scale!
There was no doubt that Amber, who dealt with all kinds of intelligence regularly, had reached the same conclusion. A grave expression had appeared on the half-elf's face as well: "Looks a lot like mass sacrifice, doesn't it—over the past two months, the cultists on the Holy Spirit Plain have held at least several hundred dark rituals requiring participants to kill themselves. As many as a thousand Final Death believers may have already completed their sacrifices!"
"Yes, sacrifice—this is undoubtedly sacrifice," Gao Yang said, his brow unknowingly knit tight. He couldn't help pressing a hand against the desk, his voice low and grave. "But why would they inform on themselves... why voluntarily expose those hard-won secret altars and strongholds after the sacrifices were finished... unless the ritual requires it... wait, it isn't necessarily the ritual!"
It was as if a flash of light suddenly cut across Gao Yang's mind. He jerked his head up and stared into Amber's eyes: "Were all those bodies that were discovered burned?"