“Well, I just wanted to mention it, nothing more,” Tayfun gave up, “Lastly there is the Kingdom of Graycastle… ah, it is better if you see it yourself,” saying this he took out a scroll from his sleeve and threw it in front of Mayne.
Mayne unfolded it and swept his gaze over the letters with his two eyes, the letter had unexpectedly come from the Queen of Clearwater, Garcia Wimbledon. It didn’t take long, and his eyebrows wrinkled up.
“Did she even hang her priest?”
“Not only him, she even fed all of our believers to the fishes,” Tayfun added, “and the church was then completely broken down even to the last stone. Plus, she should have already discovered the side effects of the pills.”
Heather smacked her lips, “I had already told you that it was only a matter of time. Even if they supplement their soldier unceasingly with those toys, with each new pill taken the effect would become smaller, until they die in the end because of weakness. Taking those pills and using them to destroy their armies was a good idea, but when its effect came to the surface, they will immediately discover what kind of game we are playing. The true problem is, if I remember correctly, that our spies had reported that only a small group of her soldiers have taken the pills, right? Instead it were the barbarians from the south who have eaten a lot of them.”
“Not more than a thousand, and she said that we will have to pay for them.” Mayne put the letter down, “It’s ridiculous, without the support of the Church, how could she have ever become the Queen of Clearwater? Where is Timothy Wimbledon right now? He also received our pills so why is he still delaying his attack on the South?”
“He is currently plundering the North, he had set out to handle the attempted rebellion from the Protector of the Northern Border. He has to first stop this rebellion, to prevent any instability later. He probably wants to first take down several Duke’s, and only then he will go face Garcia.” Tayfun replied, “I just don’t know if the new King, after capturing the North, will really make a beeline to the South or if he first goes to the Western Border, trying and take it back.”
Chapter 178 The Mysterious Secret Temple
“Ha ha ha…” Heather laughed out loudly, “It must not be expected that a chess-piece will stay completely obedient the whole time, and as long as it is consistence with our final goal everything will be alright. It doesn’t matter where he strikes, as long as the soldiers continue to consume the pills. Anyway, the Kingdom of Graycastle is the last one on our list, so there is still enough time left for them to fight it out. Furthermore, Roland Wimbledon didn’t reject our pills last time, right? Maybe when Timothy puts some pressure on the Western Territory, he will be prepared to accept them.”
That being said, the matter concerning the Queen of Clearwarter still caused some displeasure to Archbishop Mayne, after all, she was a piece he had personally selected. In case that Timothy, after conquering the rest of the Kingdom of Graycastle still didn’t fight a decisive battle with Garcia, and they instead stationed their troops between them to maintain the confrontation, the battle for the throne wouldn’t achieve desired outcome. Apparently it is time to adopt some different methods.
“There still isn’t any news from the envoy we’ve sent to the Western Border, so we will meet again after we hear from them,” Mayne decided. “Let’s end it here for today. Will the two excellencies act accordingly to the plan, I still have some other matters I have to attend to on Hermes.
“Oh, that’s right isn’t it,” Heather seemed to suddenly have remembered something, “Wasn’t today, the day of conversion? How many people have decided to participate in the conversion ceremony?”
“That is confidential information.” With this Mayne stood up and went straight out of the chamber, not turning around even once.
…
After walking on a seemingly endless stairway that was hanging in mid air leading to the bottom, the Archbishop crossed a mirror-like white millstone and went towards the depths of the Church’s core.
Different from its usual quiet, the core was quite lively today, a group of Judges were standing outside of the temple, waiting to be lead in. For most of them, it was their first time entering this place, so they were all busy looking around still full of curiosity. The moment they saw Mayne their hands went straight to their chest and they gave him a salute, “Your Excellency!”
He smiled and nodded in their direction. These Judges were the elite warriors of the church and they were fully devoted to God, sacrificing their life for the chance to be part of the God’s Punishment Army Conversion Ceremony, without having any guarantee of success. This was a point that they had to understand clearly before they could apply, but even so, they were still willing to give up their life for this great honor.
The eyes of the warriors were full of reverence as they looked at him. In this way, he passed the third checkpoint and came to the gate of the Central Secret Temple. The Pope’s personal guards were already here waiting for him. They bowed to greet him, then pushed open the metal gate behind them.
Mayne followed the guards and stepped in behind them, through the gate. From this point onwards, he has entered the heart of Hermes, it was here that all of the Church’s inventions and research took place.
There were no torches within the central secret area, because of this his vision suddenly darkened and only after a moment for him to adapt did he see a narrow passage appear in front of his eyes. The channels roof and walls have been fully covered with cast iron, and both sided of it were inlaid with fluorescent stones. These strange stones were a type of the God’s Stone of Retaliation, and after soaking in demonic beast blood they began to emit a green fluorescence.
Reaching the end of the channel a cage appeared in front of him. After entering the cage, the guards activated the mechanism and it started to go downwards. The chain above their heads issued a crunching sound, which seemed to be especially ear-piercing within the narrow channel. Accompanied by this cacophony of sounds, the cage slowly sank into a hole in the ground, then suddenly Mayne’s eyes were flooded with light.
An extremely spacious underground area suddenly appeared before his eyes.
No matter how often he had seen this scene, he would always be shocked by it anew, giving birth to a feeling of insignificance from his heart.
In accordance with common sense, buried so deeply underground, the cave should have been dark, pitch-dark. But here, the entire cave was illuminated by the light coming from the God’s Stone of Retaliation. The God’s Stone of Retaliation were spread over the whole cave, rising from the ground and forming several stalagmites like crystal flowers. Even the smallest stalagmites were so thick that it was nearly impossible for as many as ten grown men to encircle it. While the highest stalagmite almost reached the apex of the cave, even higher than the Hermes’ Cathedral’s Tower.
Their colors were also all differently having almost nothing in common with each other, the densest stalagmites of God’s Stone of Retaliation were lavender, while the ones at the edge had changed from a dark blue to a light green. The smaller ones were even white, while the seemingly only recently emerged stalagmites had a near transparent body. The lavender colored God’s Stone of Retaliation were the stones shining the brightest, especially the stalagmite which surpassed even the Cathedral’s tower. Its brightness came close to the that of the full moon, making it possible to see the end of the cave without the help of a torch, but also allowing one to just faintly be able to see the ground.