Gray Fort Empire, Temple of War.

The Pope of the Gray Fort Empire's Church of War sat on a massive chair made of countless swords, with fierce flames burning in front of him. The firelight reflected off his aged face, making him look especially sinister.

Everyone else around him stared at the Pope intently, even deliberately keeping their breathing quiet.

"Someone is challenging the authority of the god, attempting to corrupt the Lord's lands. Half the territory of the Teylir Emirates has been completely converted into another god's domain."

The War Pope's voice was long and anxious. "We are now the god's largest faith organization in the mortal realm..."

As he spoke, metal clanging sounds rang out in the temple, and the flames started getting unstable. The scorching heat made everyone present breathe a bit heavier.

"Your Holiness, who dares challenge the god's authority? And what should we do?" An archbishop took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down.

"The god needs a war, a long war, a war that can change the entire continent's landscape... We need more nations, more races, more beings to join this war... We must prepare ourselves to defend the god's glory... The god is with us... We must drag everything into the quagmire of war..."

The War Pope spoke to all the Church of War leadership present like he was in a trance, but his words sounded incredibly loud in everyone's ears, shaking their very souls.

"Your Holiness, guarding the god's domain and crushing anyone who dares peek at the god's authority—that's what we Children of War should do..."

An archbishop stood up, took a deep breath to suppress his emotions. As high-level Church of War leadership, with one foot already in the legendary tier, he could barely resist the Pope's trance-inducing words and speak his own thoughts.

"Just get to your 'but.'" The War Pope cut him off directly, using a voice both authoritative and low.

No matter how flowery the guy's opening was, the words after "but" were what really mattered.

The message from the God of War had already made him incredibly anxious. He had zero interest in continuing to listen to this guy ramble on.

"Your Holiness! Without a doubt, what can influence a deity is nothing other than the recently rising Church of Technology. They've already occupied all the lands east of Red Leaf Forest in the Teylir Emirates. According to our clergy's investigation, everyone in that area has started converting to believe in the God of Technology. But we're even using products from the God of Technology ourselves... Anyway, directly purifying the God of Technology isn't realistic. At most we can try to take down the coverage area of the Church of Technology, make his believers..."

Before the archbishop could finish, the War Pope interrupted again. "Believers of other faiths are also children of the god. We welcome anyone's conversion, whether they were once believers of the God of Technology or anyone else—they can all become the god's children... Also, we are mortals. Mortals cannot possibly touch deities. We're not targeting the God of Technology, and we don't have the ability to target the God of Technology. We're just trying to purify those mortals using the God of Technology's name!"

"The God of Technology is a great deity. His Magic Internet and his Magic Conductors are accelerating the outbreak of war. He should be a friend of the God of War, not an enemy! All we need to do is make more people become believers of the God of War, plunge more places into war..."

The bishops and archbishops present all felt like His Holiness was talking complete nonsense. Everyone knew the current situation, how much the God of War hated the God of Technology. They prayed every day—how could they not sense it?

But they could understand.

After all, this was a deity they were talking about!

The closer you got to deities, the more you understood how terrifying they were.

As the highest believers of the God of War, they deeply knew just how terrifying deities were... what kind of existence they were!

How could they dare do anything to a deity?

Comparatively, having them follow the god's will to start a war, to target some so-called "believers," and supposedly believers without any divine arts at that—well, that didn't seem quite so difficult!

"Strengthening our power, strengthening the god's power—that's what we should do. However, the Gray Fort Empire's emperor doesn't want to start a war right now. We need to use lots of money to 'guide' things, and our warriors also need lots of money to buy excellent equipment to fight those evil beings. They have tons of Magic Conductor weapons."

At this point, someone in armor stood up. He was the head of the Disciplinary Hall, with status equal to an archbishop. Even the archbishops had to give him face, because he could determine whether most people in the church were guilty or not.

"Your Holiness, that's exactly right. Starting a war will definitely require huge expenses, especially a prolonged war..."

"Worldly money can never hold back the god's steps." The War Pope's breathing got a bit rapid, like he was pretty unhappy. "You can urge the lords and knights to donate more of their family wealth, urge the wealthy farmers and free citizens to donate more grain to us. I think that way they'll definitely get more peace."

"Besides that, we can make those faithless ones abandoned by false gods pay a redemption fee and convert to our god! They believed in the wrong faith, which is why they'll be in danger from the coming war, right? They need the God of War's protection!"

"If necessary, we can define the Church of Blood as heretics. Their methods are too strange, and they're always competing with us for the faith generated during war."

"Your Holiness, but if the redemption fee is set too high, many people simply can't pay it. If it's set too low, the rich will only pay a tiny portion." A bishop asked somewhat confused, but got a bunch of eye-rolls from everyone around him.

"Are you dumb? Just base it on how much property they have, wouldn't that work? Every heretic needs to pay half their wealth as a redemption fee. If they're unwilling, they need to go through the trial by flames of war. If they survive, it proves they're someone our god is willing to protect."

"Good, execute it that way." The War Pope murmured, "May the God of War bless all people in the world!"

"May the God of War bless all people in the world!"

After the Pope left, the atmosphere in the temple immediately relaxed a lot. The Church of War leadership started discussing how to specifically operate this, and at the same time, quite a few of them started thinking about how to use this opportunity to gain enough benefits for their own families.

War, the church—both were huge opportunities!

"Oh, and temporarily don't make big moves in the Gray Fort Empire! Focus targets on surrounding nations and the Kingdom of Dawn..."

Far away in the divine realm, Ren had no idea that his prediction had succeeded once again.

Viscount Roster and the others didn't know either.

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