Mystery: A Spark

“Only when we have officials or nobles who truly support us in the upper echelons of Rune can our church gain a firm foothold here.”

“But now the upper echelons of Rune have been divided up by the three major churches and the military. How can we break through them?” Bishop Raman played along, offering a straight man’s response.

Arthur nodded and said:

"Indeed, the three major churches have a stable position. If we were to cultivate an official from scratch and let him slowly climb up the ranks, it would be too much trouble."

"Therefore, our best solution is to snatch a high-ranking official or nobleman from another church."

Utravsky frowned, and said hesitantly:

"Won't this cause too much conflict?"

Arthur smiled and said:

"Therefore, we need to find a suitable target."

"Do you have an idea?"

"Well, among the three major churches, the Steam Church is friendly with our church, while the Storm Church is the state religion of the Kingdom of Rune, so the situation is quite clear for us."

“We must compete with the Church of the Night for believers, and our first target is…”

Arthur slammed his fist firmly on the table.

"It's the supporter of the Church of the Night, Representative Macht!"

Chapter 225 Traditional Arts

Speaking of the more famous conspiracies in the original work...

Therefore, Lilith's plot to impersonate Omibella and betray Ares during the Battle of Dusk, leading to Ares's demise, is certainly worth mentioning.

The root cause of this conspiracy is that if Night wants to ascend to the Old Days, it must obtain the God of War's Sequence Zero Extraordinary trait.

However, the God of War's direct combat power was too great, and the Goddess of Night could not defeat him, so she could only conspire with Lilith.

Of course, Father Golden Hair should also be involved in this matter.

In short, this is the story of three cunning old foxes teaming up to use shameless means to cheat a simpleton.

These three cunning old foxes will each get what they want from this conspiracy.

In the original story, due to George III's crazy antics, he was eventually killed by Klein, who hated him to the core, which greatly weakened Rune's power.

So the goddess of night took advantage of the situation and lured the god of war into launching an attack by feigning weakness.

Although the conspiracy ultimately succeeded, the result of the Goddess of Night showing weakness was that the people and army of the Kingdom of Rune suffered heavy casualties.

This was unacceptable to Arthur.

Whether out of pity for the people of Rune or out of practical interests, Arthur absolutely could not allow the Battle of Nightfall to proceed as it did in the original story.

At the same time, since his stance was already set, he couldn't go against those three old sly foxes.

In other words, Arthur must minimize the impact of the Twilight God War while ensuring the outcome remains unchanged.

So what to do?

This is what Arthur is doing now: stirring up a religious conflict between the Church of the Earth Mother and the Church of the Night.

There are other ways to reduce the anchor of a true god besides war; war is just the fastest and most intense method.

Besides war, there is another way: a struggle over beliefs.

For example, the three major churches in the Kingdom of Rune are equivalent to the three religions of the Chan, Jie, and Ren, while the Church of the Earth Mother Goddess is equivalent to the Western religion.

The number of believers in this place is limited, so if the Western religion wants to flourish, it must suppress one of the three religions: Chan, Jie, and Ren.

In the Investiture of the Gods, the one who suffered was the Jie Sect, which appeared to have a large and powerful following, but was actually a mixed bag of people.

They suffered a crushing defeat and were converted to Buddhism by the Western religion, which led to the great rise of the Western religion.

However, in Arthur's view, the Church of the Night of Rune was more like the Chan Sect, and the Goddess of the Night was more like the cunning and ruthless Primordial Celestial Venerable.

But regardless of who they resemble more, under Arthur's arrangement, the situation of four religions coexisting in Rune is already set.

The best way for the Church of Mother Earth to establish a firm foothold here is to find ways to exploit the Church of Night.

Just like those two from the Western Church, they shamelessly went up to people and said:

"Fellow Daoist, you are destined to join my sect."

Of course, one must be careful not to overdo it and know when to stop, lest one really push the Church of the Night to the brink.

Otherwise, if the two sides actually start fighting, Arthur might end up making things worse.

"Therefore, we should maintain the strategy of 'just lingering outside without going in,' making small, incremental moves from the sidelines. If they get impatient, then we should back down a bit."

"If we gain five points and concede two, we can still gain three. In short, we need to keep the conflict within a certain range and try our best to win back believers and supporters from the Church of the Night," Arthur summarized his plan.

Like flies, they keep buzzing in other people's ears.

You can wave your hand, but it won't drive it away.

But if you stand up and want to get serious, the fly will fly away in the blink of an eye.

He's just shameless.

Most importantly, very few people know that the current Earth Mother Goddess is Lilith, not Omibella, which naturally gives Arthur's plan a very high success rate.

Because Lilith and the Goddess of Night are actually allies in secret.

After hearing Arthur's plan, Bishop Utravsky and Bishop Raman couldn't help but exchange a glance.

Bishop Raman paused for a few seconds and then said:

"How should I put it? This plan is good, but this... um..."

For a moment, he was unsure how to evaluate the situation, so he passed the difficult question to Utravsky, who was standing to the side.

Do you think it can work?

Utravsky didn't answer, but looked at Arthur and asked:

"So, the core element of this plan is... shamelessness?"

“Uh…that’s a very insightful summary.” Arthur nodded. “So now the question is, Your Excellency, are you capable of carrying out this plan?”

The meeting room fell silent for a few seconds.

Then, Bishop Utravsky gave a playful smile and said:

"Of course, don't forget,"

"I used to be a pirate."

For pirates, shame is really not that important.

Upon hearing this reply, Arthur's lips curled up slightly, and he said:

"In that case, the plan is settled."

……

Inside Earl Hall's luxurious villa.

Although it was late at night, none of the people in the villa were sleepy.

Because the most beautiful gem in this family has not yet returned.

Earl Hall had lost his usual composure; he paced back and forth in the living room, his face full of anxiety.

Lady Catherine's eyes were red, clearly she had just been crying.

“I’ve said before that it would be best to arrange two bodyguards when our daughter goes out, but you just wouldn’t allow it, saying it would interfere with our daughter’s freedom.”

"Now look what's happened, such a big thing has occurred..." Earl Hall said with some resentment.

"Such a big thing has happened, do you think sending two bodyguards will be enough?" Catherine looked up at Earl Hall, her tone somewhat unfriendly. "Don't you know the details of what happened today?"

“I…” Earl Hall was speechless.

"You've been discussing and debating how to control the smog for months without reaching a conclusion. What are you doing in parliament?"

Lady Catherine, her anger rising, stood up and launched into a tirade against Earl Hall:

"Don't you know why Emperor Russell launched the Patriotic Health Campaign? Once such a disaster occurs, will there still be a distinction between the rich and the poor?"

"I... I also have my difficulties," Earl Hall said, too embarrassed to retort after being scolded.

What could he do? He wasn't the one in charge of the Kingdom of Rune; the direction of the kingdom was decided by the king, the nobles, and the council.

Such a system has its advantages, such as stability.

However, there are also downsides, namely, administrative efficiency is a major problem.

In fact, the issue of tackling the Backlund smog has been raised for a long time.

Because any family with a deep understanding of the extraordinary world knows the importance of this issue.

However, for a country, many things cannot be started immediately simply because they are correct.

Sometimes, driven by self-interest, some countries will even deliberately do things that will incur public wrath.

For example, a certain shameless country that dumps waste.

Combating smog requires financial investment and human resources to implement it.

Is it necessary to pay the price to do this? How exactly should it be done? These are all questions that need to be discussed carefully.

It was after a long period of discussion and wrangling that the Air Pollution Investigation Association was finally established in October.

However, the establishment of the association does not mean that things can begin.

The distribution of interests among all parties and the arrangement of personnel will likely trigger a new round of disputes.

Moreover, this is not the only issue facing Ruen; other issues such as civil service exams and worker treatment require time to discuss.

As a result, the massive smog event broke out while the discussions were going on.

Lady Catherine was certainly aware of the political situation in the Kingdom of Rune, but she hadn't paid much attention to such matters in the past.

But now that her precious daughter has been affected, she naturally didn't have a kind tone.

In the corner, watching his parents argue, Hilbert Hall sat there quietly, not daring to utter a sound, for fear of getting caught in the crossfire.