Throne of Magical Arcana
chapter-353

As the Church's most recent strategic center, the kingdom of Holm had assembled four legendary knights, and seven to eight gold knights, which had way surpassed the power that the Church would usually lay in an area as, for example, the Duchy of Violet. Therefore, even when changing the shifts, there were still three red-robed cardinals in the retreat room.

The three cardinals looked up at the same time when hearing someone knocking at the door. One of them stood up and walked to it.

"Is it from our person in the Congress?" This red-robed cardinal had a very lean face, with blue deep eyes.

Taking out a letter, the night watcher answered respectfully, "Yes, Your Excellency."

Taking over the letter, Andrade crossed in front of his chest, "God bless you."

"Only truth lives forever!" said and night watcher in a solemn way and then turned around and left.

"Andrade, what is it about? Shall we report it to the grand cardinal?" asked a red-robed cardinal in a very concerned way.

To figure it out what the letter was about, Andrade flipped the envelope and checked the keywords on the other side. Due to the few great shocks that overwhelmed them in the past, the Church had asked their spies in the Congress to leave the keywords suggesting the theme of the information on the back of the envelop where the letter lay in, especially with those that were possibly able to shake the doctrine and the fundamental theories of theology, thus the grand cardinals and red-robed cardinals could be more mentally prepared for most of the great shocks. Last time, even the leader of the ascetics, Varantine, was injured because of the sudden, unexpected cognition shift.

"Saint, new particle, shakable, atom theory."

These were the four words in Andrade's deep eyes.

The first word stood for the importance level of the intelligence. The most confidential and important level was Archangel, then Angel, and then Saint was the third class. A piece of third class intelligence was still regarded as being important and it must be sent only to a grand cardinal immediately.

Andrade's eyes squinted slightly and answered as if nothing unusual ever happened, "Pious follower level. It's about the Congress's routine."

"Then you can take care of it," said another red-robed without any doubt.

After all, if a red-robed cardinal had abandoned his or her belief, the only ending for the cardinal would be death brought by the holy light.

In the retreat room, the three desks formed a triangle. Sitting behind his own table, Andrade started to read the letter undisturbedly like he was just reading a common piece of information. And then he wrote it down, "Because of the conflict between the periodicity among the elements and atom theory, many senior-rank arcanists have started to reflect on atom theory, but no solid findings have been discovered yet."

Then some more pieces of intelligence were sent here into the retreat room. Each of the three red-robed cardinals handled some and developed them into the reports.

When it was close to ten, the bishop responsible for giving out the information came into the room and took away the reports.

Later, at ten thirty, the reports were sent to the different ranks.

In the quiet retreat room, the three cardinals started to exchange what they had read to put them together. At eleven thirty, the joint report should be in the hand of Philibell, the grand cardinal, and Vaharall, the leader of the inquisition.

Andrade squinted his eyes, smiling, but did not say anything.

Cannon was the doctrine, the words of God, the gospel for the followers, which was vaguer and of greater metaphysics value, while Theology was the interpretation of Cannon, which involved more detailed discussion in all the fields.

...

Cardinal Abidal had always been respecting the updated theology by the Pope, as he was clearly aware of the fact that, without the Pope's contribution, his own intelligence could have never pushed him this far to let him become a level five bishop at the age of thirty-five, and now he was in charge of the biggest abbey in the entire district.

"This is the giving of the almighty Lord, to the Lords's most pious followers. The speaker of the Lord under his holy light has brought us the truth." Abidal prayed every day, "Greed and timidity blind us to lead us to ingratitude, though gratitude was the most precious value of human beings. Your kingdom come. Your will be done in earth, as it is in heaven…"

At the end of the prayer, Abidal crossed in front of his chest and said in a low voice with his eyes closed, "Only truth lives forever."

When opening his eyes, Abidal saw that the young pastor was waiting for him respectfully and holding some intelligence documents. Abidal nodded to let him in.

"Anything important?" Abidal asked casually.

"Not really," answered the young pastor full of respect.

Abidal nodded slightly and started to read. He read rather fast, having approached the end of the report in a short time. He looked rather serious and he was very stern when it came to teaching Theology, thus many pastors in training secretly called him the demon angel. However, right now there was great fear on this face as if the cardinal had fallen into the hell and found out that something had turned him into a real demon!

"About… one in two thousand…" he murmured. His voice sounded very hoarse like sandpapers rubbing against each other.

"The divinity of atoms… the foundation of Theology… have been destroyed by His Almighty…"

The young pastors did not leave, waiting for further orders from the cardinal.

After a while, the young pastor felt that the room was getting hot, and some vague sounds came out from Abidal's throat.

The young pastor hurriedly looked up, and he saw the scene that he could never forget in his whole lif.

Abidal's face was written with great fear and loss. Then, a beam of pure and holy light burst out from his body and devoured the shocked face.

The small pieces of light were everywhere in the room. The young pastor failed to make a sound.

Under the bright light in the afternoon from outside of the window, the holy light seemingly had been dyed with touches of scarlet.

Abidal was not alone here in the parish of Holm. Other several bishops who were rather devout were also devoured by the holy light. As the report was sent out after the Church's verification, no one ever felt suspicious before opening it.

As for another twenty bishops, although they were lucky enough to have their lives spared, they had started to doubt the doctrine and theology, thus it was going to be very difficult for them to go any further with their divine power.

...

At noon, in the Radiance Church.

When Philibell was about to pray, he heard the scurried footsteps outside of the door from the red-robed cardinals.

"What happened?" asked Philibell, having a bad foreboding.

The red-robed cardinal was still in panic and answered a bit confusedly, "Sir… six bishops have been devoured by the holy light… twenty-three have been severely injured. Also, a red-robbed cardinal, Vily, was also injured in his belief."

"Devoured by the holy light? Injured in belief? What did they see? They shouldn't get the access to the newspapers," Philibell asked coldly.

"It wasn't the newspaper… It was the intelligence." The red-robed was also in a great shock and his utterance was not organized at all, "A new particle has been found, inside of an atom…"

"What?!" Philibell could not believe his ears.

...

It did not take the inquisition long to figure out that Andrade was the one who did this.

In the interrogation room sat Andrade and Vaharall, the Adjudicator, while Philibell and Varantine were standing beside the glass, observing what was going on inside of the room.

"When… When did you give yourself up to the Congress?" Vaharall was furious, but also, at the same time, he felt curious. He wondered why Andrade could still use divine spells.

The smile on Andrade's face was rather pure and calm, "I don't have anything to do with the Congress. The pope, using the Congress's theory to alter the theology, is the biggest defiler! He is messing with the divinity of the power, and showing no respect to the Lord. Again and again, the Congress juggled us between their hands! We shall abandon the theology of this kind!"

Outside of the interrogation room, Varantine's eyes squinted and he said to Philibell, "Since when the power of this kind of radical conservative has risen again?"

"When facing the Congress directly, and facing the great shifts over and over again, there are some of us who would start to doubt the necessity of reforming theology."

While in the room, Vaharall roared, "So that's why you decided to kill the bishops, your siblings! What do they have to do with your so-called piety?!"

"Anyone who got severely injured by the experiment is the defiler, as they had completely given themselves up to the profanity! Killing them is my best way to show my piety to the Lord!" said Andrade with no fear. "Burn me down to ashes, Your Excellency, Vaharall! I shall ascend into Mountain Paradise in the fire!"

...

In the headquarter office of the Congress.

Atlant Forman, the Eye of Curse, grinned to Douglas, "It is true that we cannot force the pastors to do things that conflict with their fundamental belief, but what if they have already let the seed of doubt grow? We find the holes in their mind, and then we make the most use of them. I call this the ultimate application of Illusion."

Atlant opened his eyes. In his black pupils, there were creepy shadows and figures.

"As long as one can think, one can never avoid being affected by Illusion!"