Chapter 114 Echo
In the cathedral, the Pope had just finished praying. Two more wrinkles appeared on his forehead.

"Your Majesty, you are looking for me?"

High Priest Leiming pushed the door open and walked in, his face still showing fatigue from the long journey.

“The murmurs in prayer are getting louder and louder.”

The Pope did not directly answer the high priest himself, but seemed to change the subject.

"Indeed, the Lord's will is becoming increasingly obscure."

The high priest naturally took over the topic, and then the Pope changed the subject again.

"How is the Kingdom Parish?"

"Everything is normal. All church departments are functioning normally. There are more and more believers of our Lord. However, the believers are still very hostile to foreign races."

The high priest did not notice that the Pope was observing him carefully.

"hostility?"

The high priest nodded to the Pope and explained.

"Those new believers hate the undead. After all, many of them have lost their new friends to the undead."

The Pope did not respond, so the high priest continued speaking.

"But with the rapid expansion of believers, this hatred is spreading abnormally among all believers. Even old believers who have never dealt with the undead have inexplicably begun to hate the undead. Later, this hatred began to extend to alien races. The grassroots crusaders are very keen on the task of destroying monster nests."

The Pope nodded. This was indeed the case in recent reports. The Crusaders had wasted a lot of resources and manpower in order to eliminate the monsters far away from human settlements.

"However, the goblins are still our allies. Even now, our welfare home's meat porridge still relies on their supply."

The report mentioned two clashes between the goblins, although they were not serious and both sides used fists and feet instead of swords, which only caused a few casualties.

"I'm trying my best to suppress the hostility below. This should just be a reverberation effect. Once the Wind Whisper Kingdom has believers, this reverberation will be greatly eliminated."

The theory that the high priest was exposed to was that believers would form an invisible connection based on their beliefs, thus influencing each other. This influence once made the religious guards of the Sun God Cult share a common hatred and fight endlessly.

The Pope shook his head. He had a general understanding of the situation, which was as serious as he had guessed. He walked to the lectern behind him, and then he heard the voice of the high priest behind him.

"But, Your Majesty, I think we should prepare early. Those goblins may not be our allies next year. If we cut off their pilgrimage at this time, it may give us an extra bargaining chip in the subsequent negotiations."

The Pope paused. It seemed that the situation was more serious than he had guessed. He shook his head and rejected Archbishop Laming's proposal.

"No, the pilgrimage is a separate agreement between us and the goblins, and the Sun God Cult has never broken its promise."

High Priest Leming once fought alongside the goblins, and it seemed that the friendship they had built during the battle was about to disappear under the influence of that, but he himself was not aware of the impact at all.

There are some things in the church that only the Pope knows. Now this phenomenon is not just an echo among believers, it involves the gods that believers believe in.

"The believers influence the gods, and this influence is fed back to the believers through the gods. It's like an echo chamber."

This is the knowledge brought by the dragons. Whenever a god appears, the dragons will contact the high-level officials of the church and bring them some knowledge related to the god. They seem to hope that this will allow the church to exist longer.

"Don't blindly expand the number of believers quickly, as this will bring many unknown consequences." The number of believers in the Sun God Cult has been expanding too quickly recently, more than doubling in a few years, and these people all carry hatred for the dead. In just a few years, the object of this hatred has spread to all alien races.

“Print and distribute this Book of Mercy.”

Of course, the church leaders would not allow this hatred to continue to spread, so they compiled the "Book of Mercy", hoping that this holy book that promotes the relationship between the church and other ethnic groups could alleviate the spread of this hatred.

But it seems that this move is not enough.

"Send those most affected to the front lines to prepare for the attack on the elves."

The high priest looked at the Pope in surprise.

"The elves have retreated into the Enchanted Forest. Many people will die if we attack."

This is the Pope's goal. Eliminating the source of influence should slow down the spread of this unreasonable hatred.

"Also, Archbishop Falaise will take over the diocese in the Kingdom of Valandi. You will go directly to the former Kingdom of Wind Whispering. You need to convert the people in the former Kingdom of Wind Whispering into believers of our Lord as quickly as possible."

Then, we can try to offset this effect by citing another source of influence. The long-term coexistence of the citizens of the Windwhisper Kingdom with alien races like elves should be able to effectively offset the hatred that has spread among the original believers.

"However, our previous expansion of believers has caused dissatisfaction among many kingdoms, and even many new nobles in the Kingdom of Valandi. They believe that we are seizing the power of the royal family and nobles."

A burst of muttering mixed with screams rushed into the Pope's mind, causing him to stagger and almost fall.

An urgent impulse arose in the Pope's heart.

"Don't worry about that. I will go find those kings and nobles myself. As long as the church gives up some benefits, most of them will not care what god their people believe in."

Laming bowed and walked out of the cathedral.

Farui, on the other side, watched the goblins below use the pass to pass through the checkpoints and villages along the way. The attitudes of the clergy and the Skitarii were quite bad, but ordinary people did not seem to have any ill feelings towards the goblins. The goblins even took some time out of their busy schedules to do business with the villagers under the eyes of the Skitarii, allowing the goblins in the caravan to enjoy a few hot meals.

Then they arrived at the original goblin colony.

Statues were unloaded from the vehicles one by one, and they began to clean the statues that had been left there before, and then, after a few prayers, they moved into the houses that had not been demolished.

It seems that the purpose of these houses being left behind was to prepare them for these pilgrims.

The leading goblin did not enter the houses; he walked among the statues, and he felt as if the statues were looking at him, just as his master was looking at him.

This was not his illusion. Farui was indeed looking at the goblin from high in the sky. A white line was connecting to the goblin. The goblins' worship of their master did not fade over time, but became stronger.

The goblin suddenly sensed something and turned to look behind him, where a giant dragon was looking at him.

The dragon was covered in black scales, emitting a metallic luster, and the edges of these black scales were stained with a hint of gold, like a layer of gold edges. Although it was not quite the same as what was recorded, there seemed to be a voice in the goblins' hearts, telling them that the dragon in front of them was their master.

"Owner."

The goblins knelt before the dragon.

(End of this chapter)