Chapter Fifty-Four: Dark Divine System!
After a night of chaos, Talon City quickly returned to calm.
However, compared to the past, the city had a slightly different atmosphere; the originally lazy guards were gone, many nobles’ mansions had been raided, and there were several new faces on the city streets and walls, while the city guard squad clearly had an air of sternness!
With the support of Modo City, the half-elven noble Torano quickly established his foothold in Talon City. He was a very clever half-elf, and to prove his worth to Modo City, he ruthlessly targeted over thirty percent of the nobles in Talon City. But that wasn’t all; after securing the lordship, he soon judged other nobles guilty as well, but instead of exterminating their families, they were required to pay a sum of wealth to redeem themselves. With bloody lessons fresh in their minds, other nobles hurriedly spent money to mitigate their disasters, and Torano seized several million Gind from this move, with over seventy percent of it sent to Modo City.
There was no doubt about it!
Torano was a very clever guy, and his actions quickly gained the support of the various strata of Modo City. The officials of Modo City even proposed finding ways for him to inherit the original lord’s title of earl.
After a night of turmoil subsided, a new temple serving Soren appeared in the temple district of Talon City, and in the central square of Modo City, a new temple was also constructed in a designated area behind the original Grand Temple.
This was the temple serving the Goddess of Torment – Lav.
As a subordinate deity of Soren, it was necessary to leave space for all of his subordinate deities in the gigantic temple he was constructing.
Similarly, a portion of the followers of the Goddess of Torment, Lav, were incorporated into the Tribunal and the Arbitration Department within the Soren Church. The followers of Lav excelled at torture and interrogation, making such subordinate deities very useful; a cold and ruthless deity would undoubtedly have a group of cold and ruthless zealots beneath them, and these people could help Soren manage many underhanded and unspeakable matters.
According to divine contracts, the Goddess of Torment, Lav, as a subordinate deity of Soren, had the right to attract believers within the scope of Soren’s faith, but both her church and she herself were required to obey Soren’s commands when necessary. At the same time, during large ceremonial celebrations held at Soren’s church, Lav had the right to enjoy the shared faith, meaning such ceremonies also had to offer sacrifices to her, albeit at a far lesser scale than to Soren. Likewise, if Lav wished to hold a ceremonial celebration, Soren’s divine position must also be included; her followers had to pay respect to Soren before their prayers. Talon City remained the core area for the spread of the faith of the Goddess of Torment, but the two deities’ faiths merged together; this was a rudimentary form of a divine system, and as the divine system expanded in the future, many things would need to be added, including large-scale ceremonies.
One thing was undoubtedly clear!
After killing the Goddess of Toxicity and subjugating the Goddess of Torment, Soren was recognized by the gods as a member of the “Dark Divine System.”
The original Dark Divine System consisted of the Three Death Deities.
Soren was now seen as a new member of the Three Death Deities by the gods, but unlike the past members, after killing the Goddess of Toxicity, the first to congratulate him and present a gift was the Agricultural Goddess.
Surprisingly,
After Soren killed the Goddess of Toxicity, the Agricultural Goddess’s church actually sent a generous gift to Modo City.
A batch of new improved seeds, including wheat, barley, potatoes, corn, and other crops, along with the new planting and irrigation methods recently researched by the Agricultural Church.
It is well-known that the Earth Goddess despised the Goddess of Toxicity, and the Agricultural Goddess also hated her; on the very day the Goddess of Toxicity, Talona, descended into the mortal realm, she released a terrible plague that not only killed many living beings but also destroyed vast forests due to the epidemic.
The Goddess of Toxicity had many enemies.
Although Soren was a deity of the Evil Faction, after killing Talona, he seemed to have gained quite a bit of goodwill.
However,
Also due to subjugating the Goddess of Torment, Soren was officially regarded as one of the dark deities, and many benevolent faction gods held strong suspicions towards him.
…
Talon City returned to calm within just three days.
With Modo City’s influence over this city, many changes quickly occurred here.
The most obvious point was salted fish!
This was no joke; within just a few days, Talon City became the largest salted fish market in the central region of the continent. Due to the Saint’s Cataclysm, the entire continental region’s food supplies had become tight. When Modo City secretly gained control over Talon City, the city hall officials’ first thought was to use it to dispose of the mountain of salted fish pushed by Modo City.
Modo City’s catches were incredibly abundant!
To exaggerate a bit, in Modo City, the price of vegetables was about twice that of preserved salted fish, which gives an idea of how much salted fish was piled up in Modo City.
The dumping of supplies quickly affected Talon City.
Expensive fish were not very sellable; tuna, sturgeon, and eel were mainly found in other regions, while Modo City dumped salted shark and whale near Talon City. The weights of these large fish were staggering, and with proximity to the sea, finding salt was not a problem. The price of salted fish dumped by Modo City was only about 1.5 times that of grain, almost sold at the price of salt from the past. As a result, it was quickly snatched up by the lower-class civilians, and almost all the civilians in Talon City didn’t have to worry about lacking salt and fish for the next year. Cunning merchants also quickly recognized the business opportunity, and they rushed to purchase salted fish from Talon City to sell to other places. This was essentially akin to trading salt; Modo City’s alchemy technology significantly boosted the production of salt, and in order to quickly convert it into wealth, Soren sold off his abundant fish catches at almost half price.
In the continental region, most salt was produced through salt mines; Soren’s plan was to use this as a financial resource while consuming the mountains of fish catches.
No way around it.
The catches from the Overseas Islands were too abundant, and hunting a few whales and sharks near Modo Island was incredibly easy.
This semi-subsidized trade quickly raised Modo City’s reputation in Talon City, and once the civilians here began to be influenced by Modo City, Soren immediately began his next plan.
That was population.
Civilians, craftsmen, farmers, etc., Modo City needed a large amount of outside population for construction. The Saint’s Cataclysm had led to material shortages, and many refugees were already displaced, while Modo City’s task was to absorb this population and transport them to Modo Harbor via floating airships, sending them to the twelve rapidly expanding towns.
According to Soren’s calculations,
To fill these twelve large towns, with around ten thousand people per town, there was at least a shortage of eighty thousand people!
…
(PS: There will be one more update.) (To be continued ~^~)
