[Second update, fourth update today.]
When Wu Ya mentioned the prison guards, a cold light shot out of Gegels' golden eyes. That was pure hatred. If he could get the power that the Oracle mentioned, he would destroy the Inquisition and make those people pay with their blood.
His hand accidentally peeked out of his sleeve. In his hand was half a statue, but it was a demon with two horns.
He remembered the scene when the demon gave him the statue. His village was destroyed at that time. The X-shaped characters in the sky killed everything except for him, who was protected by the demon statue.
He didn't expect that the thing that the demon left behind saved his life.
Then there was the Oracle, who gave him power and refined the god's bones, making him qualified to be the Pope. The two Oracles weren't good people either. If he hadn't sold them out, Faka wouldn't have gotten them so easily.
Gegels rubbed the demon statue in his hand, completely lost in thought.
Wu Ya's arrangement angered the cardinals. They left the Nick Cathedral and returned to another cathedral in the Sacred City to discuss countermeasures.
There were more than a hundred cardinals in the Cardinal Institution. The powerful ones had all been taken away by Pope Dinicio and didn't return. The Cardinal Institution was now a different world. The original forces were purged, and new mages took over.
If the Church hadn't been in such a mess, the war at the Qinyin border wouldn't have developed to this point. The expeditionary army didn't have anyone to take care of their logistics, and no one to support them in battle. As a result, some not-so-powerful armies fought their way back into the Jialou Lan territory and retreated further and further.
According to the astrologer's theory, the Church was now in a precarious state, and a lot of the power of faith had been taken by the Druidic Order.
The power of faith didn't really appear directly in everyone. Humans were also existences attached to the plane. If there were two gods spreading their religion in a plane, it would inevitably cause a war because the total amount of mysterious power in a plane was limited. It didn't mean that the more powerful the god, the more power they could obtain.
Instead, the more believers they had, the more benefits they could obtain from the plane.
The power of faith came from the plane. It was humans who helped the gods go west. The gods couldn't do this at all, so they had to develop believers.
When the power of faith in this plane was completely absorbed, the plane would face exhaustion.
The believers could not go to heaven at all. They could only struggle in the plane that had become hell.
It would take hundreds of millions of years for a depleted plane to recover. The shortest lifespan of a plane was at least tens of billions of years. If the gods were not extremely demanding, the plane might be able to last until the end of its life.
However, most Gods didn't care about this. For Gods, the power of faith was life and power. It was the capital that allowed them to survive among the Gods.
Everyone was desperately consuming the power of faith in the plane. Unless it was a strange god like the God of Metal, everyone was drinking poison to quench their thirst.
If all the planes of a crystal wall system were to become the pasture of the gods, then the crystal wall system would also be destroyed.
Deities were creatures like this, constantly demanding without restraint.
The cardinals conferred in their own secret council rooms, which could not have happened while Dinicio was alive. Geiges didn't have any connections, and he had been forcibly elected by the Divine Emissary.
Everyone looked at each other in the meeting room. According to the rankings, there were a total of 24 cardinals who had the right to enter here.
In the end, it was the First Cardinal Bishop who spoke. He was a veteran cardinal with a large number of followers in the College of Cardinals.
"Wu Ya wants to exhaust the power of the Divine Kingdom Knights. I don't think this is a bad thing."
"Sir, why do you say that?" the third cardinal, who had always been the first cardinal's assistant, asked.
"We can't defend Calon City, but we might be able to use this opportunity to invite the gods to descend. Prepare 3,000 believers, the purest of faith. If that's not enough, we can borrow from the Divine Emissary. "
"Sir, is it a holy sacrifice?"
All the cardinal bishops were excited.
The so-called holy sacrifice was actually a blood sacrifice. It required the pure blood of believers to activate a divine spell. With the death of a saint, the gods would be stimulated to send a clone.
If the God of Light sent a clone, the kid without the three artifacts would definitely be kicked out. The Cardinal Council would then become the core of the Vatican again.
To activate such a large-scale divine spell, killing people was not enough. The enemy had to do it. This Salin was qualified enough to attract the attention of the gods.
Among the 3,000 reliable believers, as long as one met the standard of a saint, it would be enough to invite the God of Light.
"Yes, a holy sacrifice. If the holy sacrifice succeeds, the Holy City will be ours. " The eyes of the first cardinal revealed a strange, intoxicated look. He said softly, "Immediately go find believers from your districts. The younger the better. It would be best if they are less than 16 years old."
"Sir!" The second cardinal wanted to object, but saw the other 20 over colleagues glaring at him.
This was too cruel.
Less than 16 years old was still a child. Children were usually pure. This method made the second cardinal uncomfortable. But what could he do? He also hoped to obtain the power of the gods and invite the God of Light's clone.
Salin was too strong, and the Vatican was in a state of disunity. Unless the Black Prison Island was willing to support them. Otherwise, the only city that everyone could defend was the Holy City.
With the divine spell left by the God of Light here, even the flying city would be difficult to approach.
"Also, the holy sacrifice of 3,000 believers requires a lot of divine gems. Let's pool some together." The first cardinal obviously would not pay for it himself. In the Vatican, divine gems were equivalent to magic cores among mages.
They were hard currency. The transactions between high-level mages were no longer gold coins, but divine gems that they secretly refined. Of course, the only way to do this was to steal the power of faith from the gods.
Everyone was doing it anyway, and it had been for thousands of years. Presumably, the gods would not mind too much.
If they only relied on the divine gems bestowed by the gods, how could they give power to their followers? Even mages who worked for nobles had to be paid with magic cores, right?
Salin's floating city was still flying west. Calon City was not far away, but Salin gave the floating city a better angle and went around to the north.
He would not attack Calon City directly. Instead, he would drive away all the mages around Calon City before attacking.
Salin no longer planned to stay in Calon City. This city had produced saints. Such a place had to be destroyed. This was a symbol of faith, a place visited by the gods. Also, this was not Glory City. The gods had personally left a divine spell. All believers who could reach the standard of a saint could learn this divine spell and become the most powerful mages in this plane.
There was a reason why millions of believers came to worship every year. If it was just a relic, who would waste so much energy? Everyone wanted to know if they were a saint or not.
Of course, people who thought that way would not be appreciated by the gods.
Calon City was surrounded by a dense population of believers. There were churches even in the villages. In most places, there were no farmers. Those who did were all slaves.
All the civilians had become believers. As long as they prayed every day, the churches would distribute food. Those slaves, of course, belonged to the churches. The priests were so rich that the surrounding checkpoints all had to collect tolls. To put it nicely, it was collected for the gods.
Did the gods need gold coins? No one was willing to ask this question. Those who did were all sent to the Inquisition for dissection.
One church after another turned to dust under Salin's magic cannons. Salin brought three thousand magic cannons, but half of them had been destroyed. Once the magic cannons were damaged, they could not be repaired. Salin's technology was not enough, and he lacked some necessary materials.
Of course, he could use non-elemental crystals or the crystals of giants' bones to make magic cannons that would not be damaged. But that would be too wasteful.
After Salin lost half of the magic cannons, he let the floating city hover in the air. He returned to Metatlin City and took out another three thousand magic cannons from the warehouse.
The consumption of magic cores was also huge. Salin even began to use low-level elemental creatures to replace the magic cores.
Every shot from the magic cannons was a luxury for a mage.
The three hundred and sixty large Thunder Dragon Spears were not damaged at all. However, Salin used these weapons to attack the sacred city, so he had not used them.
The floating city had been fighting with long-range attacks. From beginning to end, Salin did not go down to the ground.
After wandering around Calon City for about three days, Salin had cleared no less than three hundred churches. This number was shocking.
One church would have at least a hundred believers. Three hundred churches would have thirty thousand believers. These believers' jobs were to serve those pilgrims. In other words, there were thirty thousand people around Calon City who specialized in such businesses.
"It's like a market of faith," Salin concluded.
The little girl said, "Market? Only people like you who have no faith are so vulgar. These people serve the gods. If there is no income, why would more people throw themselves into the arms of the gods? "
"No, you're wrong." Salin said seriously, "At the very least, I've personally written a book of laws, built a huge temple, and recruited hundreds of thousands of believers. I've also established the Temple Knights, the Cardinal Institute, and the Oracle Team. Why do you say that I don't understand faith? "
"Because faith never needs anything in return. You've done all this for a clear price, haven't you?"
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