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

"While I am the only one capable of handling extremely long-distance communication, please don't worry about short-distance communication..."

"So, what obligations does the Black Dragon have to fulfill in the Elf Kingdom...?"

"obligation?!"

Nia stared at Yang Hao in astonishment: You want me, an Isgardian, to fulfill the obligations of the Elven Kingdom?

Yang Hao then revealed an extremely innocent expression: "The elves value etiquette and tradition. The complexity of these aspects is like an obligation to outsiders—only those who respect their etiquette and tradition are qualified to stay in the Elf Forest, so it is reasonable for me to call it an obligation."

"...Please explain these things beforehand...In short, if it's just about respecting tradition and etiquette, I will try my best to comply...If everything is fine, may I sign it?"

"Not yet. We need to discuss tariffs for commercial transactions..."

.....

Nia had to admit that Yang Hao was extremely difficult to deal with.

[Tariffs] - Did he even consider this aspect?

Black Dragon smiled bitterly to himself: After all, dumping cheap products into colonies to plunder resources while restricting their development was indeed a strategic move in Isgard's plan... and dumping products into neighboring countries was also normal commercial competition...

She hadn't expected that Yang Hao had considered this aspect as well, planning to directly restrict the flow of Isgard goods into the Elf Kingdom by increasing tariffs...

How could someone like that...someone with such talent, possibly appear on your continent of Elusia?!

For a fleeting moment, Heilong genuinely considered tying Yang Hao up on the spot.

She is not afraid of magic, and as the strongest black dragon, her scales are enough to withstand most arrow attacks.

As long as things don't repeat themselves like that time at sea when she was targeted by a crossbow at point-blank range, she's confident she can simply abduct Yang Hao and leave by boat on the spot...

However, reason ultimately forced her to calm down.

Looking at the small contract in front of her, and realizing that they might be discussing until dawn the next day, she suddenly felt a wave of exhaustion wash over her.

...........

Late at night, on the other side, in the Hanging Gardens of Fingel.

An old ranger who had rushed back from the front lines was reporting to Finn and the masters the shocking events that had occurred in the parish—for some reason, Theresa was also present in this occasion that was originally reserved for elves, and was even sitting next to Finn.

This made the old elves take a second look at Theresa. They knew Theresa was the Purple Princess and the Regent's lover, but they never imagined her relationship with Finn had become so intimate...

In short—when the old ranger reported that the parish's Redemption Army's rations were actually the corpses of their own people, all the elves showed a warm expression.

Even the demons of the Demonic Calamity wouldn't stoop to cannibalism; how could the humans of the Roman Empire's diocese dare to do such a thing?!

Anger, anger! The elves were furious that the Roman Empire had disgraced humanity... yet they were also wary.

"We must admit that we are facing a formidable enemy who, though physically weak, is more demonic than any demon in spirit and will."

An old elf who had participated in the war against the demons said solemnly.

"The parish's control over its believers has exceeded our imagination. They control people with addictive substances, and it is well known that addictive substances give people a strong will to become addicted—although it is temporary. But for those who are injured and then eaten, what is wrong with this temporary will?"

"These fanatics..."

"We must find a way to combat the fanatics! Our old tactics are no longer working..."

"Can we poison the corpse?"

"Idiots! The addictive substances they're consuming are toxic!"

......

Chirp, chirp, chirp.

The old elves were having a heated discussion about how to deal with the parish fanatics.

Under Yang Hao's leadership, the Elf Council is no longer as outdated as it used to be.

While many old fogies still can't come up with anything new on their own, at least they're willing to accept new things. And the best indication of this willingness is that they've started thinking about "how to use new things to deal with humanity."

Undoubtedly, the Japa 1404 was highly anticipated—as a basic rifle that could be continuously improved, it theoretically possessed the ability to kill unsuspecting or underestimating priests at extremely long distances in the blink of an eye.

Unlike the slow-moving arrows fired from a longbow, the bullets fired from the Japa 1404 were incredibly fast—a priest could see the angle of the arrow's flight, but the bullet head was less than two fingers wide. Even elves had difficulty catching them, let alone humans.

But the pastors are deeply embedded among the believers, and after killing a few, the remaining believers will undoubtedly try their best to strengthen their protection. This brings us back to the original question: how to deal with the large army of believers protected by the pastors before eliminating the pastors themselves?

The priests of the Church of Light possess a low-level shield spell. Although these shields are incredibly fragile when evenly distributed among each believer, they are sufficient for fulfilling the role of a meat shield.

This made the priests of the Church of Light particularly difficult to deal with, and the elven masters couldn't come up with a good solution for a while.

While the elves were agonizing over their troubles, the nun sitting next to Fen, who had been making prayer gestures, rose expressionlessly and took a step forward:

"The solution to this problem is very simple—everyone. As the Church of Light, which has usurped the power of my Lord, their divine magic lacks the crucial [healing] divine magic."

The nun's words silenced the elves.

She had more authority to speak than anyone else present. This was because she was currently the only clergy member in the Elven Kingdom, and she adhered to the doctrine of "Light" from the time of the Bayrjan Empire.

"In a sense, we don't actually need to pursue killing those soldiers—creating enough wounded people will give the Church of Light a headache in dealing with them. After all, they have a limited number of slaughterhouses. Even if they slaughtered 30,000 pigs, it would take dozens of days, let alone tens of thousands of wounded soldiers."

Secondly, even when surrounded by believers, priests are not invincible. Have you all forgotten? During the War of the Demons, many priests sent by my homeland died while protected by believers. The number of believers then was no less than the current expeditionary force of the Church of Light, yet the demons still found a way to deal with us.”

At this point, the nun paused for a moment, scanning the elves' eyes with her greyish-white gaze.

"...That was the trick the demonic calamity found after experiencing countless deaths—to simultaneously use both [surface] and [point] attacks to kill both the believer and the priest. At the same time."

She said it was the devil's experience.

She added that since the Roman Empire is even worse than the demons, it is only reasonable for us to learn from their experience.

After all, this is also part of the reform.

Chapter Three: Magic, Divine Arts, Alliances, and Astonishing Facts

Thousands of years ago, when the Bayerzans Empire was still in existence, the Bayerzans Empire, together with the elves, established a defensive line at the northern edge of the forest to deal with the demonic calamity, and fought a life-and-death battle against the demons from another world.

At that time, the Elf Forest covered the entire Demon Forest, and the territory of the Bayrzans Empire stretched from the depths of the forest to the southern coast and even further south to the islands. But the demons were, after all, intelligent beings from another world, and they were not to be trifled with.

They are very powerful.

In the early stages, even the incredibly powerful Demonic Calamity Demons did not have an easy time invading Elusia.

On one hand, it was due to the indomitable fighting spirit of both elves and humans. The young soldiers of Bayez would even sacrifice their lives and corpses to prevent towering demons from trampling the forest floor and polluting the ground, while the elves would fight alongside their allies at all costs, sacrificing their lives just to create a perfect opportunity for Bayez's war machine to deliver a decisive blow.

On the other hand, and most crucially, were the equally fearless priests of light and their protectors. The priests and protectors used divine magic to eliminate elite demons and employed various buffing spells to protect their comrades. With this shift in power, the demons' attack gradually crumbled.

Demons are not afraid of death. But for the elves and humans of that time, they were even less afraid of death.

Amidst layers upon layers of corpses, the mountains were split apart by demons, and countless fissures appeared on the northern earth. Further north, a demon known as the "Cataclysm of Ice" plunged the entire northern part of the continent into perpetual zero degrees and blizzards.

But the demons of that time never breached the defenses of Bayrzans and the elves. Never. The corpses of humans and elves piled up to fill the cracks in the earth, and blood and flames burned the entire land red. Although it was impossible to restore the land, which had been permanently frozen, at least after the [Cataclysm of Ice] was completely dead, the land of ice and snow would never spread south again.

The demons pushed forward with all their might, while humans and elves advanced just as frantically. Everywhere they went, countless human and elven corpses were left behind, and upon these corpses, inevitably, lay the remains and flesh of demons.

Even demons couldn't withstand such damage. They retreated. After returning to the starting point of the demonic calamity, known as the Great Rift, they pondered how to break through the enemy's defenses and how to eliminate one side first.

The lands of the elves are also a natural poison to the demons. Therefore, they chose to deal with the Bayerzans Empire, with its long borders, first. And to deal with Bayerzans, they had to deal with its priesthood.

Whether it's a conceptual god like "Light," a god of faith, or a usurper—as long as clergy are based on a god, they all share a common characteristic.

The more believers a pastor has, the greater his or her influence.

The greater the pastor's power, the stronger the protection he/she provides to believers.

This troubled the demons at the time. After all, compared to priests, mages, although able to unleash powerful spells one after another through the cycle of magic, could not be as versatile as priests when there were many of them.

How can we fight against the priesthood? How can we break free from these shackles?

After countless hours of deep thought... a demon later known as the "Cleric Slayer" seemed to have an idea.

The pastor appears to be almost invincible among believers.

However, he was unable to simultaneously and perfectly unleash two divine spells! This is a common trait among clergy!

They draw divine power from believers and use that power to unleash divine magic!

But priests can only have two channels at a time! They cannot cast multiple spells simultaneously like magicians; at most, they can reserve one divine spell within themselves.

in other words.

He had to choose between protecting himself and protecting his comrades.

Either focus on protecting yourself—and then watch helplessly as your companions are killed. Believers are key to a priest's ability to cast divine spells, and once believers begin to die, the priest's power diminishes with each death, until finally, he is killed by a demon while unable to cast spells.

A pastor who has lost his followers is like a lamb to the slaughter, utterly useless.

They either focus on protecting their comrades and watch helplessly as they are precisely targeted and killed. That's even better—because the moment the priest dies, the apology army centered around him collapses instantly. Those apology soldiers may be highly trained, but ultimately, their greatest use is providing divine power to the priest!

[The apostles without their priests are like ants on the ground. They might cause some trouble with the demonic invasion, but frankly, without priests, they are nothing in the eyes of the demons.]

Alternatively, they could try to exert their efforts together, only to be simultaneously overwhelmed by demonic power exceeding the threshold. In that case, they would die together, without distinction of who came first or last.

thus...

"The demons devised a 'surface and point' tactic specifically targeting the clergy. Using this tactic, they breached the defenses of the Bayern Empire in a short time and stormed our major cities before the elves could arrive as reinforcements. Forced to act to prevent the demons from abandoning their allies and causing even greater disruption to the world, Constantine XII decided to drag the demons underground, along with all our people and cities."

It was around that time that the barbarians we were protecting in the rear attacked our city—St. Petersburg, having been attacked and massacred by the barbarians, stopped sinking after descending less than 50 floors. I don't know whether the demons inside St. Petersburg were ever truly cleansed, but that's not the focus of our discussion.

The key point is that the "area and point tactics" developed by the demons during the last calamity were a complete death sentence for priests. We can learn to utilize this tactic, and if nothing unexpected happens, we can also use it against the army of the Cult of Light.

After saying that, Theresa coughed twice. She took the sweet juice that China handed her, drank it all in one gulp, and then sat back down in her seat.

The old elves exchanged bewildered glances. After all, they hadn't understood why the Bayern Empire's defenses had collapsed so quickly—but after learning the truth, their eyes filled with even more guilt as they looked at the purple-clad princess at the end.

An elderly elf, leaning on a cane, rose and bowed to the princess in purple:

"I apologize, Princess Purple. We couldn't arrive in time back then..."

"No, you don't need to apologize for this. To be frank, if the elves had been there, there would probably be another entry in my parents' handbook—that the elves, as brothers, chose to die with Bayerbanes. Besides, I don't really have any feelings for Bayerbanes. After all, thousands of years have passed, that empire is long gone, and I don't care much anymore. Please treat me as a nun and deal with the important matters at hand first."

Mother Teresa's shrug only made the elves feel more ashamed. But as she said, what was more important now was the feasibility of the "area and point tactics."

But after all, everyone has their own area of ​​expertise—not to mention that the elves are powerful mages, they genuinely don't know much about the clergy system.

Therefore, Teresa, seeing the noisy old elves, could only stand up again under Fen's watchful gaze and personally introduce the system of divine magic to them.

In this world, magic and divine arts are two completely different systems.

From a mage's perspective, their spellcasting is cyclical and geographically limited. After a spell is cast, the nature of the magic changes, creating a "base" that facilitates the casting of another spell.

Of the four types of spells, casting a fire spell makes it easier to cast earth spells. After an earth spell is cast, a wood spell follows. And after a wood spell comes a water spell.

The essence of basic magic lies in the cyclical interaction between the four major spells—and for mages, their ability to unleash stronger magic depends on their accumulated magic power and the local magic reserves. The best way to prevent mages from casting spells is to directly influence the magic circulation of the entire region, turning the magic power into "magical residue," which is almost unusable by mages.