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

The city gave her a strange feeling. If she had to use a metaphor, it was the incongruity of "sacred and filthy" fused together, or like a bowl of milk and cereal mixed with excrement.

Elena wasn't quite sure what religion had become, but she knew that St. Petersburg was no longer part of the United Nations and had long been a religious holy site for other countries.

In other words, is this the belief of a country outside the United Nations?

Elena frowned. This was especially true after seeing the scene in which countless skeletal angels roamed freely in the sky above St. Petersburg, making incomprehensible singing sounds with their jaws clicking.

"Question: What religion's King of Wrath is this? He's not a god we know from records... But then again, aside from the [Conceptual God], other gods are just beings with greater individual strength. Some gods aren't even as powerful as Titan demons... The only question is, is he our enemy?"

The synthetic doll tilted its head, and Yang Hao's face flashed in its eyes unconsciously.

Whether the other party is an enemy or not, let's ask them when we have a formal meeting on the 15th.

Right now... it would be better to focus on rebuilding the city.

Elena left the roof of the Great Library, and in the distance, she saw a thriving scene unfolding in the rebuilt Eden.

The industrial zone is being rebuilt, and many production lines have to be temporarily suspended due to the lack of raw materials. However, once sufficient materials are acquired through future trade, they will be able to quickly produce all the resources that Eden needs.

The construction of the living quarters is of paramount importance—after all, the last 400 seeds need a good ecological environment to survive. They need nutritious food, adequate care, and, more importantly, suitable mates to help increase Eden's population.

In order to attract future immigrants, the construction of residential areas will inevitably be one of the key focuses of Eden's reconstruction... But no matter how important it is, the city defense system on the edge of the floating island has become Eden's top priority reconstruction target.

Following the standards of the obelisk colossi, each section of the city wall would need to be equipped with a colossus weapon for emergencies. Even so, the floating continent still has many blind spots in terms of firing directions—perhaps the entire shape of the floating continent needs to be redesigned, referencing the structure of the rhomboid fortress outside Constantinople?

In addition, there is the Demon Mine, which stores a large number of demon corpses...

With the help of Elena and the magical doll, the reconstruction of the Kingdom of Eden is progressing steadily and positively.

It was during this rare period of peace that, in the mountains outside Shkur village, the underground shrine known as the "Refuge" in Theresa's former residence had long been lowered into a cave hundreds of meters below the surface by the last princess's order, never to see the light of day again.

The shrine has lost its statues and its most important sacred book; all that remains are an inexhaustible supply of candles and the classical books used to teach the young Theresa.

But in this underground chamber where there should be no life, a woman emitting a faint silvery-white light sat on the table of the shrine, lost in thought.

If Theresa were here, she would probably be astonished that the woman before her looked exactly like her. But for this woman radiating a faint glow, it would be a big problem if she looked too different from Theresa.

"Finally... after barely managing to regain some of my power, I can finally wake up from this nightmare..."

The woman sighed. She had the exact same face as Teresa, the same long, silver-white hair, the same nun's habit and figure—except her eyes were black. This was a sign that her power had not yet fully recovered.

"That child is really... She complains every day that I can't give her more power, but the prerequisite for giving her more power is that she gets out of this place first..."

The woman smiled bitterly. While she was asleep, she had received pleas from Theresa more than once—Theresa begged her to give her more power while spewing insults, but the problem was... even if she wanted to give power, she would have to wake up from her slumber first, right?

She's awake now, but the problem is, in this kind of place, she can't give Teresa any power.

Ultimately, she is still just a weakened god. Only a tiny fraction of her power has been restored; Heaven remains occupied by the traitors of yesteryear; and even in the application of divine power, she is only slightly stronger than Tirissa. Overall, she is now merely a relatively powerful mortal, nothing more.

Wanting to return to her former position, wanting to continue bringing peace and happiness to the world, wanting to continue being a pillar of support for everyone who hopes to live a better life through their own efforts... she still needs to regain her power. But before regaining her power, she must first find a way to leave the underground...

But the problem is—she's just a slightly more powerful mortal now. Far from the believers, far from the saint, and considering her weakened state upon awakening, like a famine refugee... she simply can't leave this place.

Ugh!

I can only accumulate some power before I can send a dream to my stupid, adorable little believer who likes to insult me ​​all day long.

The woman sighed and jumped down from the altar. Before her slender, soft white feet touched the cold ground, white boots were slipped on. Although it wasn't the first time she had appeared in reality in female form, the fantasies the believers in the United Nations had about her still left her both amused and exasperated.

"What's with these strange stockings that need straps to be put on? The boots are fine... but this nun's habit... it's making it hard to breathe, and my chest feels tight... Sigh. My poor child, can't she even afford to change into new clothes while on missionary work? I feel bad for her..."

The woman was annoyed by her strange attire. But as she was fretting, she turned and looked toward the location of St. Petersburg.

St. Petersburg, the holy city of the Bayern people, is also a paradise for women.

That city wasn't just a simple religious holy site... it was the place where the souls of every Bayern resident would go after death for reincarnation. Or rather, it was the place where every person with a heart full of faith and light would go after death.

The woman once sat in heaven, praying for every person who died unjustly, helping them to be reborn, and offering a final peace and hope to the brave and the destitute before their reincarnation.

But now, Heaven was betrayed thousands of years ago. The betrayer was a mortal named Constantine—a baptized believer from a barbaric southern tribe, a usurper, a... madman who would betray everything for a higher position.

"The blasphemers desecrate the corpses of the ancestors of Bayern...the blasphemers desecrate the corpses of their own believers, and even their own children and ancestors."

Everything was for the sake of becoming "a superior person"... and he's been fanatically pursuing this goal to this day. In a sense, he's a determined fanatic.

The woman muttered to herself, then turned and jumped to another table, before pulling out Theresa's childhood diary from deep within the bookshelf.

"In order to seize my power, every Holy Maiden of the Church of Light learns the oldest manual—which is essentially taking it directly from me, at most adding 'God' after 'Light'—and then, based on this faith, extracts the power from me, transforms it through another scripture of the cult leader's class, ultimately making it her own power..."

To achieve all these goals, brainwashing and ignorance are inevitable. Because he clearly understands that if people can live better lives through their own efforts, then there will be no need for faith in God—but aren't we, as deities, here to enable mortals to live happy lives without our help? Our process of absorbing faith is merely to make believers' lives better and better...

But his process of absorbing faith was actually aimed at improving his own life...

No wonder I hate him so much. Betrayal is a minor matter, but the fundamental difference in our ideologies... that's the source of my resentment.

In ancient times, the doctrine of "Light" was not to make believers believe in themselves, but to enable their believers to eventually become happy people who could live better and better lives even without believing in themselves.

Although she couldn't achieve her ultimate goal for various reasons, for Guangming at that time, for her, who was born from the vague concept of all life "hoping for a better life," it was enough that she was trying to move in that direction.

The doctrine of "Light" at that time was dedicated to educating the ignorant masses, turning barbarians into civilized people, and then transforming them from believers into good citizens who strive for their own future.

The reason why the doctrine of "Light" became the state religion of Bayezid was not because they had countless gold buried in their warehouses where rats could starve, but because its doctrine was what everyone yearned for and what Bayezid hoped to receive in education.

But now... what has Constantine, the one who usurped her power and heaven, done?

Brainwashing the masses, allowing believers to remain ignorant and kill each other, even desecrating the corpses of the dead at all costs, and draining the last souls of each dead person... is a pathetic existence that is more foolish, arrogant, and pitiful than the devil.

The woman harbored a deep resentment towards him. Not resentment for his betrayal, but resentment for his stupidity, his brainwashing tactics, and his deception.

But... perhaps Constantine's good days are over.

The important premise for the manifestation of [Light] here is that [God of Light] has lost most of his power—but thinking about it carefully, it makes sense. How many poor people have died in the waves of chaos caused by God of Light?

The God of Light is like a madman who, in order to fill his stomach, starts cutting off pieces of his own flesh...

He is courting his own destruction. Although he is still very powerful now, he is indeed courting his own destruction.

The woman sighed.

Looking at Teresa's childhood diary in my hand.

She felt she might have to use her child's past embarrassing incidents as leverage to get Theresa to come and help her...

Chapter 5: The God of Light and the Demons, and the Fleet of Ysgard—8K

......

at the same time.

In the parishes of the Roman Empire.

Now, the living dead have surrounded the places where the new and old religions are located.

They haven't forgotten the fact that they are heretics to each other. Even though they themselves are in grave danger, the Old Church hopes to use the power of the living dead to destroy the Protestant Church first.

Under the command of Peter the Elder, countless Old Church soldiers, braving their fear, mounted their horses and led wave after wave of the undead towards the Protestant territory. Although the Protestants had dug extensive trenches over three meters deep around their controlled area as a precaution, and reinforced their position with the excavated soil, the increasing number of undead dying in the trenches, and the undead treading on the corpses beneath their feet, were beginning to show signs of breaking through the barrier...

Cecilia did not sit idly by. With the help of her friend, the Night Witch, she organized a cavalry composed of ascetics to turn the tables and lure the enemy into a trap. Under the ascetics' powerful divine magic, the old cult's cavalry crumbled at the first encounter, having no chance to contend with the ascetics.

But the problem is-

“We have far too few horses compared to the Old Church… Of course, part of the reason is that Cecilia, you chose a location that is considered poor even in the parish—but fortunately, the terrain here is higher and the farmland can be cultivated normally.”

The Night Witch spoke, simultaneously writing something down in her magic book. She had become Cecilia's confidante; after all, besides her, the entire Protestant cult lacked anyone else with military command skills...

Even so, the witch didn't have the ability to conjure an army out of thin air. Especially since the impoverished place Cecilia chose, aside from being arable, having high ground, a water source flowing downhill, and a well on the high ground, it was practically worthless...

In this situation, the Protestants were outnumbered by horses. Although the trained nuns could exert greater strength to guide the undead towards the Old Church's location, the Old Church could use its superior number of horses and men to continuously lead the undead to the Protestants in batches.

In this back-and-forth exchange, the nuns eventually realized that if they went out again, they might not be able to return to camp... So in the end, Cecilia had no choice but to give up and instead set up crossbowmen and watchtowers on various high grounds, ordering them to shoot directly at the Old Church members they saw, using a passive defensive posture to reduce the number of Old Church cavalry soldiers.

It's hard to say what effect this will have, but at least after about ten days of effort, the number of times the old church has come to harass us is decreasing.

Although the number of undead in the surrounding area is rising daily, Cecilia, having decided to ignore the provocations of the Old Cult, has found a way to deal with the undead...

“That’s why we have to use divine magic to deal with the undead.” Cecilia sighed, standing in front of the trench, looking down at the wave of countless heads below. “We have to prepare for the decomposition of the corpses later—for now they’re devouring every fallen comrade, so the problem of decomposition hasn’t arisen yet... but in the future, the rotting corpses will definitely become a problem we have to face.”

"Although I am good at large-scale strategic night magic, I can also use fire magic and the like."

"...We'll see when the time comes. I...have to use divine magic to solve the problem. After all, we lack magic, manpower, and materials, but the one thing we have plenty of is divine power."

"Solve it with the [Light Gun]? But there are too many of them."

Priscilla was at least aware of the offensive divine spells within the divine magic system.

But to deal with such a massive mountain of corpses using only the [Light Lance], which is designed for large or single targets? Cecilia, have you been underground for too long?

Faced with the Night Witch's confusion, the Saintess simply sighed.

“To be precise, this is a divine spell I created myself.” She shook her head as she explained, her hands glowing with a silvery-white light: “...I imagined divine power spreading like flames, imagining it burning flesh and armor...In the end, I still couldn’t bring myself to use such a divine spell on unarmed civilians—but at least I could try to use it to sever the connection between these living dead and the God of Light.”

"Oh?"

"...The Light God's [Golden Mist] is clearly the culprit that turns people into the living dead. If we can directly sever their connection with the Light God, then naturally, the out-of-control corpses will lose their ability to move... I can't take their souls back from the Light God, and besides, if we really let them come back, it would only be another hell for them."

"Oh? Is it unstable?" The witch shrugged. "It's prone to stopping spreading after burning a portion of it?"

"That's it."

The saint gently tossed out the white light in her hand. As the silvery-white light began to burn and spread across the heads of the undead, some of them visibly lost their ability to move. Their bodies looked no different from before, but in the saint's eyes, the divine power that was faintly flowing towards St. Petersburg was burned away.

Although the divine power provided by a single undead is very small, the more undead there are, the more divine power the God of Light can receive.

In this situation, if Cecilia were to eliminate the undead, the God of Light would ultimately receive no divine power whatsoever... What the God of Light would do due to the reduced divine power is one thing, but the fact that Cecilia must deal with the undead is another matter entirely.

As more and more corpses lost their ability to move under the silvery-white light of "burning," finally collapsing motionless to the ground, Cecilia nodded to the witch:

"It's your turn."

"Yes Yes Yes."

The witch casually tossed a ball of fire onto the motionless corpses. Amidst the pungent aroma of burning flesh, the bodies began to incinerate under the intense heat, eventually forming plumes of black smoke that rose into the sky. The smoke drifted through the air, and in the blink of an eye, as the silvery light vanished, layer upon layer of dark clouds rolled in from the heavens...

"Spring is rainy—which is a major reason why we can't just burn everything down in one go." The witch scoffed at the change in weather.

"More importantly, the black smoke from burning corpses could plunge our territory into chaos... not just the smell, but also the pollution and stress from the smoke... sigh. Is the only solution to deal with it in stages?" The saintess, however, was concerned about the farmers under her command.

"Then we probably won't be able to do anything until August, except farming."

"But on the other hand, even Peter the Great could not do anything."

Aside from minor disagreements, they could generally reach a consensus. And frankly speaking, the undead population in the parish was indeed a problem that a saintess and a great mage couldn't handle alone...

They could only stand there, watching as the corpses scorched by the flames below were gradually trampled by new undead... Then, with the first drop of rain falling from the sky, and with the interference of the spring rain, the witch's first fire was finally put to an end.

Night. In the darkness, the Protestant-controlled area was once again harassed by the Old Church—but this time, the Old Church clergy attempted to use divine magic to breach the walls of the moat, rather than simply luring the undead over.