After being forced to step down, the once-annoying nun eloped with me.

She no longer believed in the reason why God wouldn't intervene in sectarian conflicts and the killings between believers.

Now, having witnessed firsthand the smog billowing from the holy city, the so-called "angels" falling chunks of flesh and blood from the sky, and the believers who were swallowed by the river of smog, died, and then rose again... she began to doubt the doctrines of her faith even more.

What on earth is going on? Why is the God I believe in completely different from the doctrines I've seen...?

Is the God of Light I believe in truly the one who is putting believers to death right before my eyes?

Cecilia looked down at the sacred texts she had carefully protected at her side. She took a deep breath, knowing full well that she could no longer afford to daydream.

She had to go back and prepare people for the future, while also preparing for the invasion of Peter the Great and the Roman Empire.

After all, the parish no longer belonged to the Roman Empire, nor to Peter the Great.

...........

Soon, guided by the bishops, the golden-gray sea of ​​haze spread across half of the central region of the Roman Empire.

The bishops had already abandoned their followers and fled the moment the smog entered the central district, and the believers' piety in the face of the smog only increased the number of the dead.

Caught completely off guard, the rebels, who were fighting the nobles, ran headlong into a sea of ​​smog that surged forth along with the corpses. All those with foresight would recall the charge they had leveled against His Majesty the Regent during the Silent Exile incident.

But before they could even react to whether it was that man who did it, the golden haze engulfed them, relentlessly swallowing up wave after wave of warriors, town after town, and even wiping out a force of about two thousand elite Alessar air rifle infantry.

The Alessands inexplicably lost two thousand elite soldiers in less than ten days, while the Roman Empire lost nearly half of the towns and nobles in the Central and Western regions, as well as millions of people, in less than ten days.

These millions of people became a terrifying horde that flowed along with the river of smog. Wherever they went, the golden river followed, and those they killed became part of their ranks, severely impacting the morale of the Romans.

For a time, even those most disloyal to the Roman Empire ceased their preparations for continued fighting. They temporarily abandoned their mutual hostility and instead fearfully resisted the five figures, the River of Mist, who might continue their southward advance at any moment, and sent messengers to the capital to plead with Prince Gassen to intervene and take charge of the overall situation.

On February 25th, the nightmarish river of golden smog finally dissipated. Prince Garsen had no interest in the bigger picture, feeling that everything happening outside was none of his concern.

He could stay in the palace, enjoying wine and roast chicken at any time, and he could relax and feel tired. More importantly, even if he wasn't sitting on the throne, the Alessandrians still needed to be subservient and obsequious to him in order to legally control the country.

This pleased Prince Garsen immensely, but his attendants were utterly astonished by what had happened to Roman.

"Attendant—my attendant, where are you going?"

"Sir, I'm going to prepare some food for you. Please wait a moment."

As the attendant left Prince Garsen's resting place, after leaving the corridor patrolled by the Aresers and entering the kitchen, the demonic attendant finally couldn't help but mutter:

"What on earth are these Romans up to?"

Prince Garsen allowed his people to die, which was one thing, since his attendants knew very well that these were the corrupt people he needed at this stage—but what was going on in other places?

Do you Romans really enjoy massacring your own people? And what exactly is this God of Light?

The demon's limited understanding prevented him from comprehending the parish's actions at this very moment. Meanwhile, at that very time, Master Peter was using his eloquent speech to explain to his followers everything that was happening in the Roman Empire.

He said that all of this was a gift from the Lord—because the refugees in the central Roman region hoped to live without starving, so the God of Light used a golden mist of grace to make them people who could live without starving, only slightly slower and unable to speak.

Those who felt blessed by the God of Light wanted others to join them, so they made strange noises in an attempt to bring others into their own heaven... and in fact, they did succeed, didn't they?

"But Master! How can you guarantee that those they harmed have truly entered heaven?!"

Some believers raised questions, but Peter simply said kindly that as a leader who had personally witnessed the coming of the God of Light, he was of course the one who understood God's grace best.

"As for those who still have doubts, you are free to go and see for yourselves—come back and tell the others who still don't believe after you've entered the Kingdom of Heaven. Of course, I imagine you won't be planning to come back by then. But we still need you here to wage a holy war."

Peter the Great did not try to stop anyone who wanted to leave, but generously invited them to go, even offering to pay for their journey to heaven.

Now, those who were willing to leave to witness the Kingdom of Heaven have departed, preparing to seek out those fellow believers who have already ascended to Heaven, and with their help, leave this miserable world.

Those believers who remained were in high spirits and decided to enter a more beautiful heavenly kingdom after winning the holy war.

After finishing his business in the parish, Bishop Peter took a breath and rested in his room.

Fortunately, he had made all the preparations! Fortunately, the believers were all brainless idiots—but the question is, what should he do next?

The Light God's "smog" has successfully and completely turned the diocese into an enemy of the Roman Empire. They will never be able to integrate into the Roman Empire again, and they will have to rely on themselves from now on!

The problem is that self-sufficiency requires a unified nation. And that saint was undoubtedly a thorn in Peter the Great's side...

We must find a way to deliver a devastating blow to the Saintess's stronghold—Public Leader Peter pondered deeply, but he also knew that things absolutely could not be rushed.

In the end, he could only continue cultivating his land according to the original plan.

Meanwhile, the nobles of the Roman Empire, having suffered heavy losses, were forced to unite on their own in the face of threats from the dioceses and the capital's lack of response. They formed a new council modeled after the Round Table Council of the past, and now all the nobles are clamoring about it, vying to make others the main force in resisting these terrifying undead.

"We must stop them in the north! If they get through the mountains into the plains, our logistics and supplies will be severely affected, not to mention this year's spring planting!"

"You make it sound nice, but who's going to send troops to garrison in the mountains?! The only ones here who are good at mountain warfare are the nobles from the east, aren't they?"

Upon hearing this, everyone turned to look at the Mining Council. The nobles of the Mining Council exchanged glances, ultimately unwilling to send troops to the central district to defend against the attack of the undead.

Ultimately, they had no need to attend this meeting—firstly, the eastern mining area was far from the central region and unlikely to be affected by the smog-induced death toll. Secondly, there was ample arable land on the mines, and with the wildlife in the mountains, they could easily sustain themselves for two or three years...

So why did they attend this meeting and send their troops to protect the nobles who would eventually fight them?

If it weren't to avoid becoming the target of everyone's criticism, the nobles of the mining council wouldn't have planned to come at all! But with the fire reaching their own eyebrows, the mining nobles could only make excuses, saying that they didn't actually have many soldiers, at most only temporarily drawn miners—if you trust the miners' fighting ability, then don't blame us for leaving first if the defense line is breached later.

...And so, the nobles started arguing again. They argued endlessly, no one willing to give up their own interests for others, and more importantly, everyone present shared the same thought: to preemptively attack the one who had contributed the most and was the weakest, to devour him and suck his bones.

In this situation, it would be more realistic to expect the nobles to actually work towards the same goal than to hope that Prince Garsen would one day rise up and become a qualified emperor.

The nobles were making a ruckus, while the undead were slowly wandering around their location.

Occasionally, undead would cross the mountains, but many more, having lost the guidance of the River of Smog, became the dead who remained in place, lost in thought.

It seemed that as long as they were not disturbed, the undead were safe—but in reality, the Alese knew very well that this was just the calm before the storm.

“We must redeploy our troops to the safer areas surrounding the capital… We must rely on the city walls for defense, and we must ensure the safety of our supply lines: those undead are not simply standing there in a daze, they are actually… actually waiting for the weather to get warmer.”

"The day the weather turned warm?"

"To be precise, we are waiting for the central Roman region to be rainy and foggy."

Alessar's scout swallowed hard.

"These undead will follow [sounds] or [water mist]... Our reconnaissance team previously tried to lure them into the mountains and found that as long as [noise] is made, the vast majority of undead will move towards the direction of the sound."

In this situation, if we artificially pave a path for them with water, they will travel along the waterway more precisely and eventually reach the location where we placed the bait.

More importantly, the northern part of the Roman Empire's central region will not receive rainfall in the short term due to the obstruction of mountains, while the rainy season is just around the corner for the southern part of the Roman Empire's central region...

Once rain and thunderstorms occur in the south, these undead will inevitably follow the sounds southwards, leaving the arid north. If they actually do that... it would take us over a decade to slaughter millions of pigs, let alone millions of undead who have already lost all sense of morale.

The scout's warning silenced Commander Alesse for a long while.

After all, just as the scouts said, if millions of undead really did move south, it would be a catastrophic disaster for all the towns in the south that were not protected by city walls.

More importantly, although these living dead are just as easy to kill as ordinary humans, and they seem to suffer from malnutrition due to not eating meat, and gradually lose vitality due to excessive blood loss—they have no morale whatsoever, and are living corpses that have completely lost their ability to think.

An army of several million men with no morale whatsoever, even if they were simply brute force their way in, could destroy the main force of the regular armies of most countries... Commander Alesser looked at his army, which had been reduced to less than 6 men, gave a bitter laugh, and finally chose to accept the scout's advice.

He ordered his soldiers to abandon all field positions dug towards Drake Harbor and the coastal area, and everyone immediately took supplies to the capital to await orders.

The Aresians also had to prepare to face the undead. Meanwhile, in Gaparia of the United Kingdom, Yang Hao and his companions received big news from the parish.

Everyone looked at each other, and Yang Hao, after taking a sip of the elf's juice, handed the information to Finn across the table for a careful look. Then, he spoke with considerable difficulty:

"The Corpse-Giving Divine Art is indeed a miraculous thing... and this time, it seems that the corpses no longer need the [Priest] to control them?"

The elven ranger who brought the intelligence nodded:

"There were no priests on site, but those 'living dead' seemed very fragile—they could die from various injuries or starvation just like normal humans. They were more like soulless shells than living corpses."

"Regardless of which one, these demoralized corpses are the most difficult enemies to deal with at this stage... Alright, you can go now—have Arthur and Joseph come over here... I need to ask them how far the research on those area-of-effect weapons has progressed."

Recently, in order to fight against the barbarians in the north, Yang Hao ordered Arthur and Joseph, who had finished their vacation, to research a variant of the howitzer Golem. He also ordered them to research a wheeled cannon that could be pulled by people or oxen and could be assembled and disassembled. More importantly, he ordered them to research cheap area-of-effect shells instead of the ridiculously expensive gold-plated shells.

He wasn't entirely sure how well their work was progressing, but it was foreseeable that the United Nations would need these weapons in the near future...

After the elf left, Fin sighed, saying that it was the first time she had ever encountered a god of light who didn't care about the lives of his followers. But then she thought, if the undead could also provide faith, it might actually be a clever move by the god of light.

"After turning those who don't believe in themselves into corpses through the smog, they are then made to provide divine power... Then, these undead can convert others into followers of the God of Light after killing them..."

I'm at a loss for words. I really don't want to deal with this weird and disgusting ability... but luckily, their bodies are fragile, just as easy to handle as they were in life.

“What I’m actually more worried about is whether they will take advantage of our development to send the smog over to us as well... But according to the report, the smog seems to be deliberately guided forward... so we should also have the opportunity to guide it in return.”

"What do you intend to do, Your Majesty the Regent?"

"Let's see what Arthur and the others have found out first. And to be honest... the Isgardians are about to log in too. Logging in at this crucial moment won't be good for anyone."

The entire continent of Elusia was in complete chaos. The United Nations needed to fight off the southward-moving barbarians, at least to inflict significant damage, and then launch an attack on the Roman Empire for minerals.

Issugard is also going to attack the Roman Empire, and barring any unforeseen circumstances, they will be heavily reliant on supplies from the United Nations in the short term.

Within the Roman Empire, the smog storm caused by the parishes and the millions of undead temporarily united but were still fighting amongst themselves. However, even under these circumstances, Garsen showed no intention of stepping forward to take control of the situation.

Meanwhile, the parish at the heart of all this is still waging civil war over the so-called "holy war"...

Yang Hao was at a loss for words—chaos, utter chaos... He couldn't think of anything more chaotic. Fortunately, the United Nations was currently very stable, which was the only good thing in such turbulent times...

...He and Finn waited patiently. Since what happened on their wedding day, the distance between him and Finn seemed to be growing increasingly delicate.

He always recalled their wedding night, when he made Theresa cry and afterwards she insisted that he marry Finn. Although he really wanted to ask if they had secretly made some kind of agreement, he gave up the idea because Theresa seemed determined to keep their little secret.

To be honest, national leaders should indeed set an example... Yang Hao finally understood why the old elves had objected: he hadn't given Finn a definite answer...

Sigh! It's fair to say that she had no choice but to walk this path. But Teresa has grown to this point... This makes Yang Hao very gratified, but also worried that Teresa might become increasingly unfamiliar.

...He drifted off into thought, staring at the juice in front of Fen. Fen was equally bewildered. Though she'd said things like, "Maybe we should just get intimate sometime when we're alone," the petite sprite instinctively felt timid when given the chance...

What should she do? Should she say something now? Or should she take the initiative?

The little elf tried to recall Teresa's every move that night, but she quickly gave up: Teresa and Yang Hao's night wasn't flirting anymore; they were like an old married couple. How could their experience be applied to this situation?

(What... this kind of first-love vibe with its [elegant swearing in Gaparia]... sigh, what's wrong with me?)

Fen muttered to herself, just as she was hesitating whether she should move to sit next to him... there was a knock on the conference room door.

"Your Majesties, we have arrived."

Entering were Arthur, emaciated as a skeleton, and Joseph, who inexplicably looked remarkably energetic. Yang Hao and Finn, seeing Arthur's trembling gait, finally couldn't bear it any longer and asked a question:

"...Arthur? Aren't you really...going to rest?"

Arthur shook his head and said that if Yang Hao really cared, then he shouldn't give him a long vacation.

He was genuinely scared.

After enduring a miserable long holiday, this most dissolute man was now trembling at the sight of women.

He even had the urge to castrate himself, but upon closer reflection, he realized that even if he castrated his third leg, it would still grow back using elven magic, so he could only be afraid.

"...All I can say is, good luck."