From the God of Lies to the Lord of All Worlds

Chapter 188 The Overlapping of Historical Shadows

"No wonder, no wonder we knew nothing! No wonder, no wonder that battle was followed by the Hundred Years' War between England and France, and the Roman Wars in Italy!"

As Lasinger read this passage, he felt a mixture of amazement and desolation, terror and faith intertwined!

The Vatican's lack of information is now explained: it all stopped because of the Black Death! No wonder there was no information at all!

Mario lamented, "So many powers... this is the Papal States of the Middle Ages..."

Listen to this, look to this: the three great knightly orders, the Inquisition, the religious court, the Holy Council—what a powerful force this is, and this is in the late Middle Ages, after everything has been weakened!

How many of those priests and bishops from all over Europe will be left after this war?

Moreover, he was surprised to find that this matter seemed to match the history of Leon Rankoch's family!

Mario met Leon in America and they talked.

Compared to the other self-taught individuals, this one could actually be considered to have a "family tradition of learning".

In the story told by Lyon, Mario learned about the origins of the "Brotherhood" and, together with the people of the Papacy, calculated that the great calamity of the Brotherhood most likely occurred between the 13th and 15th centuries AD, and now it seems that this is indeed the case!

In the 14th century, the Black Death, a disease that even killed the Pope, could hardly have been just a simple illness.

Because of the Black Death, the Papacy's power was completely depleted here, and it even fought against itself, consuming the vast majority of its strength.

In order to preserve these forces, Clement VI chose to let the members of the Dark Guard leave first, while he himself stayed here with many priests to hold out for another year.

But in the end, he couldn't hold on any longer and collapsed on the eve of dawn!

"Is this the fate of those who persevere?" Mario sighed. And most importantly, even those who left didn't have an easy time.

Lyon's family was founded by one of the departed members. The near-total annihilation of the Knights Templar is a true reflection of the fate of those who left.

Everyone must hide in the mountains to escape that terrible crisis and wait for the dawn...

This is the old Papacy. The downfall of idealists began in that era.

Mario suddenly understood why Clement VI's next pope was like that: because the lineage was destroyed, because the crisis had temporarily subsided, and because the true believers had died in the dark war!

The Papacy truly lived through that dark period!

"Your Majesty, look here!" Just as Mario was pondering these things, Lasinger noticed something new and suddenly exclaimed.

"What?" Mario looked up and saw the sentence the other person was pointing to.

“A peasant girl will surely give birth to an infant wielding a flaming sword!” Mario read it aloud, then seemed to understand. “You mean, Joan of Arc?”

“Yes!” Lasinger nodded vigorously. “It can only be her, it can only be her!”

"Even on his deathbed, this pope left a final reminder for future generations!" Mario remarked with emotion, picking up the parchment and continuing to read.

After Clement VI left, the next person to write was, of course, the famous reformist pope, the devout believer, Urban V!
The letter reads as follows:
Urban V, the Christian warrior wielding two swords
To the departed spirits of Clement and the Antichrist of a thousand years:
I wash this letter with holy water that has soaked the bone meal of martyrs in the port of Marseille—those white wisps rising from the sulfur spots are proof that hell fears the light!

"Now that the maggots of the Seven Serpents of the Council have been exposed to the sunlight, they can forget about ever coiling back the folds of the Holy Robe!"

These words brought a look of joy to Mario's face. He was overjoyed, befitting his reputation as a devout follower, a reformer of the Papacy, and a Puritan determined to bring the Papacy back to Rome.

Urban V's words have proven to Mario that what he has done is gradually improving the situation at the Vatican!

"I searched for the remnants of the Knights and formed the Silver Thorn Knights; I collected the books of the Inquisition, enshrined them as laws, and inscribed them on stone tablets; I searched for relics and, using the secret methods of Jewish sages, locked them in a crystal ark to extinguish their seductive power..."

"But the burned books are hard to find, and the dead priests are hard to come back to. The angels answered my call, but no miracles were performed..."

"We have to rely on ourselves!"

Mario could sense the Pope's sense of urgency and regret. He had accomplished many things, but also left behind many regrets that could not be repaired or severed, thus making it impossible to completely resolve the Papacy's problems.

When the other party gathered these items, they were still infinitely incomplete, which they found regrettable. But to Mario, this wasn't a regret at all; it was clearly a display of wealth!

After all, the other side still has people to gather and data to pass on. Look at our own situation, hmm?

He had nothing. He was even told about the coming of the Lord by America's people. What thoughts could he possibly have?
"At this moment, the temple bells toll like an anvil forging the night, and we are walking alone in the darkness!"

Listen! Senior Clement! The silver thorns are piercing through the pulsating sulfur embryo—

This heartbeat will ultimately be celebrated as the rhyme on the title page of the New Gospel!

Finally, of course, it was his signature:

Urban's seal (heraldry: a cross of thorns entwined around a broken scorpion's tail)

"On the Feast of Corpus Christi in 1367, as the morning light in Rome pierced the gloom of Avignon."

The parchment ended there, but the two old men who had read the message felt a profound sense of melancholy. Then Mario suddenly said, "Lasinger, do you think we can still see traces of the former Papacy at the original site of the Papacy in Avignon?"

“I think so, Your Majesty!” Lasinger said. “After all, the divine revelation from the Lord has already marked this place!”

But after thinking it over, Mario decided against going. "Forget it, I'll leave it for now! Even if I were to go, I'll wait until the Saint and the Saintess are free before we go together!"

The pope knew perfectly well that there might be something there, but there might also be evil there!
So their going there now is most likely not to seek past power and inheritance, but to open Pandora's box!

He certainly couldn't do such a thing.

“You’re right!” Lasinger nodded. “Then, shall I take my men to Milan first?”

Mario shook his head, looked at something on the parchment, and slowly smiled, "No, your line of work has gained an advantage!"

Lasinger looked over curiously and saw Mario staring intently at the parchment, then pointing his finger precisely at a blank spot.

"In the name of myself, Bishop of Rome, Representative of Christ, Successor of the Lord of the Disciples, High Priest, Patriarch of the West, Chief Bishop of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Province of Rome, Head of the Vatican City State, and Servant of the Servants of God, appear!"

As he finished speaking, the distinctive characters on the parchment, which had previously been unmarked, were once again highlighted.

"This is writing that only the Pope can see, and it is a gift I leave for my successors!" It was still Urban V's handwriting. "The Holy Church Council has indeed been destroyed, but the seven exorcism task forces that belonged to the Holy Church Council still have hope of survival."

"I have recorded their names and distributed them throughout Rome, France, and the German states. If needed, they will become one of the most trustworthy forces of the Papacy!"

"I hope these powers will never be activated, but if they are, I will express my regret and blessings to them!"

Upon seeing this sentence, Mario's face truly lit up!
These elderly people, in the end, still left these things for us, instead of leaving nothing at all.

"Notify the city of Rome that we are about to set out!" Mario said. "Lasinger, come with me. We're going to find this group of hidden, devout believers, our own exorcist team!"

Lasinger's eyes were glazed with thought, yet brimming with an undisguised excitement. "Of course, Your Majesty!"

……

"I'm such a genius!" Bai Yang looked at this piece of history, which had been successfully incorporated into the world's history, and at the special traces that were slowly emerging from the underground ruins of the city called Avignon. He proudly put his hands on his hips for a while.

He was able to edit out this part of history and seamlessly integrate it into the original history, which certainly made him proud for a while.

Beside him, Alvin slowly appeared. "Your Majesty, the people have been chosen. They are all families who have been Catholic for generations and have basically never moved their living area! There are more than thirty such families in Rome!"

Bai Yang nodded slightly, "That's good. We don't need to show them all. Just three or five will do. They need to have combat power, but not too high. You can determine their strength level!"

Alvin nodded slowly.

"It's only exciting when there's a back-and-forth exchange! The battle between the vampires and the exorcist teams started a thousand years ago, and this is just a rehearsal of that ancient era!" Bai Yang said with a smile, letting the story continue to unfold!
P.S.: Ugh, flipping through all that information gave me a headache, but I finally managed to put the plot together! *hands on hips*

(End of this chapter)