Volume 3: The Land of Mist Chapter 71: Failed Secret Ritual
Storm Province, Wanren City, Terra Cathedral.
Because of the previous apparition of the holy image, in the past few months, a large number of devout believers from all provinces of the empire have rushed to the nominally supreme temple of the Eighth Order to make a pilgrimage.
The Eighth Religious Order also did not waste such an opportunity to expand its influence. In addition to the cautious martial law during the initial period, they continued to carry out massive sermons and preaching, making full use of this incident that could have turned into a religious persecution, and coordinating with the propaganda of the Imperial Expeditionary Force's dispatch to Ava Continent, they strengthened the people's support for the Eighth Holy Spirit and the Riel Royal Family.
Nowadays, countless believers go to the Terra Cathedral almost every day, just to listen to the sermons of Adrian, the Patriarch of the Eighth Church, the spokesperson of the Eighth Holy Spirit on earth. As a result, the business of hotels, taverns, post stations and other shops in Wanren City is booming. This city, which has been declining due to the relocation of the Riel royal family, seems to have a second spring in the past 800 years.
"I've said before that publicity only needs to be done to the necessary extent. If it continues like this, it will only cause trouble..."
Listening to the prayers outside the church that were loud enough to cover up the hymns, Adrian said helplessly.
Today is not a day off for the church, but the doors of Terra Cathedral are closed.
Not only was the gate tightly closed, but it could even be said that the security was tight - even when the divine apparition had just happened, the security was not that tight.
The fully armed paladins of the church and the guards transferred from Wanren City stopped hundreds of believers who wanted to make the pilgrimage outside the church.
Because at this moment, Patriarch Adrian and his eight archbishops, three high-ranking officials of the Star Council, and a man in a black robe who exuded an aura of "no entry" were holding an extremely important grand secret ceremony inside the church.
The huge choir evoked sufficient resonance of faith with their soulful singing, the high-ranking officials of the Star Council continued to supply magic power in a dazzlingly complex magic circle, and the mysterious man in black robes was communicating with the power of the Moon Realm.
These are merely auxiliary to this secret ceremony; the real subject of the ceremony is the church itself.
The founding emperor Terra Riel ordered the construction of the Terra Cathedral two years after his failed conquest of Ava. The Imperial Senate at the time had always been dissatisfied with the design of the Empire's religious landmark building in the style of the elves, but afterwards, the emperor suppressed all those opinions and issued a strong order.
The reason Terra Riel did that was for this day to come.
The Cathedral of Terra, which was built in the style of the Palace of Moonlaw City, uses the power of the mist spirits of the high elves to its advantage through symbolic resonance, allowing the Emperor's power to transcend cause and effect and be engraved in the cyclical fate.
This was something he had planned more than 800 years ago. Although the probability of success of this plan was shockingly low, it was still worth a try.
For this plan, the Eighth Order even cooperated with the blasphemous existence , using the Void King named "Iron-Hearted Widow" to create a container large enough to contain the power of Holy Spirit Terra, and drive the wedge into the enemy's heart.
But these things are destined to be impossible to explain to the devout believers outside the door.
Those who have not yet become gods must be promoted as gods in order to have the possibility of becoming gods. In a sense, religion is essentially no different from deception.
Adrian is one of the few people who understands this truth.
What is even more commendable is that even after understanding this truth, he still chose to be pious.
"Forget it, let's continue. Let's finish these things as soon as possible. We can't miss this opportunity..."
As far as Adrian knew, there was no one who could share those feelings with him, so he could only sigh.
Most of the people present were more active than talkative, which seemed to be the habit of most of the powerful people in this world. Therefore, after hearing Adrian's order, everyone started their own work.
The secret ceremony was initiated, and the magic arrays in various places were lit up one after another.
Adrian, who was at the center of the secret ceremony, felt the surging faith and magic intertwined with the power of the Moon Realm. Then, across tens of thousands of kilometers of space and countless concepts, his master took a step further to sit firmly on his throne.
At the beginning, the secret ceremony went smoothly.
And then...it was a complete failure.
First, the expressionless man in black robes stopped communicating with Yuejing. Even when the ascetic monk of the Demon Burial Agency, who was responsible for security and surveillance, scratched the man's neck with a dagger engraved with pain runes, the other party was unwilling to continue cooperating.
"This is the oracle of Lady Air. She will pay the corresponding price for her breach of contract, but the contract between her and Lord Terra ends here."
This is what the iron-hearted widow’s human spokesperson said.
There was still no expression on his face, as if the pain that was enough to drive a person crazy was just a breeze to him.
Adrian nodded, then waved his hand to let the ascetic monk of the Demon Burial Mechanism retreat.
He understood that inflicting painful torture on a staunch widow believer was like threatening to castrate a woman.
So he walked forward, broke the opponent's neck, took off the opponent's head, sealed it in the [Cocoon of Time], and threw it to the servant beside him.
The servant looked at Adrian in panic and confusion.
"Sacrifice the soul of this modern spokesperson of Ai'er to the Void King who is hostile to her. We should find someone else to cooperate with."
He said in a normal tone.
It doesn't matter. Without the help of the Moon Realm, this secret ceremony has only become a little more difficult. After all, the most important part, the connection, has been established. Next...
Adrian was thinking so, and the next moment, the Moon Law City Palace, which had originally resonated with the Terra Cathedral, completely... disappeared?
Its geographical coordinates simply disappeared from the world.
Adrian was a little stunned.
How could a palace suddenly disappear?
The secret ceremony, which was halfway through, was thus stopped, and all the remaining people present looked at Adrian, who was leading the ceremony, with confusion on their faces.
"It's okay, there might be a little problem."
Adrian quickly calmed down and said so.
"Even without the physical coordinates, we can still use the matrix of the Holy Spirit Disc to search. As long as the matrix is complete, there will be nothing that is not within the field of vision of the Eighth Holy Spirit..."
As he spoke, Adrian tightly grasped the holy image on his chest, and used his authority as the patriarch to connect to the matrix of the Holy Spirit Disc - or in other words, he communicated with Holy Spirit Terra, whose consciousness was split into countless fragments, and used her will to regain the disappeared Moon City Palace.
Although it would take a little more time, as long as we used the matrix to search, we would be able to continue the secret process.
As a result, the entire Terra Church fell into a long, embarrassing silence.
Time passed by minute by minute, until Adrian, using the vision of the Holy Spirit, finally saw the outline of the Moon City Palace in the storm...
He suddenly met the eyes of a being.
Those were a pair of silver eyes, emitting an unfathomable power like the abyss.
Then in the next moment, he was knocked back by a force like a hammer, and was disconnected from the matrix of the Holy Spirit Disc. At the same time, in his perception, the originally precise Holy Spirit Disc Matrix was no longer complete.
When he opened his eyes again, he found himself surrounded by a group of people.
Judging from the concerned looks in those people's eyes, it seemed as if I was knocked to the ground by some force.
"I, wow..."
Adrian opened his mouth to speak, but the strong smell of rust blocked his words in his throat first.
He lowered his head slightly and looked at his chest. At this moment, his entire chest was sunken.
Then his consciousness was like a kite with a broken string, drifting away continuously until it almost disappeared.
were his last thoughts before he completely lost consciousness.
Who was that person who just glanced at me?
…………
"presiding judge?"
"Oh...what's wrong?"
William came back to his senses and asked.
Blake looked at William with some concern and said:
"You just froze for a few seconds...do you have anything to say?"
William shook his head and said:
"I don't know why, but I just felt like someone was watching me from a distance through the Holy Spirit Disc, so I simply fed back the last bit of magic power left in the disc..."
Although it is "that little", it is enough magical power to maintain multiple clones at the same time.
As he spoke, William looked at the broken disc in his hand with some distress, then raised his head and said:
"But that's probably my own illusion... Well, it's time for you to tell me about yourself. As mentioned earlier, Valk's subordinate 'Reason' suddenly came to you. What did it say?"
