Chapter Thirteen: The Eve of Calamity
So, the process of “revealing the truth” definitely doesn’t involve calling everyone in for a straightforward meeting and saying, “Yes, yes indeed, we’re conducting human experiments—it was me! But we can’t help it; the Mother God needs to break free, and whatever you have to say is now moot. We have to continue and speed things up. So, if you could lend a hand, that would be great. Otherwise, well, we’re all going to be in big trouble!”
It can’t possibly be that simple.
In fact, from what I gleaned from the Commander of the Knights, through his perspective of the situation at the time, it was probably another internal Church mess, a bloody storm completely unknown to the outside world.
This was also the primary cause of the severe rift currently plaguing the Church.
“Especially for families like mine, which have served the Church for over a hundred years. My forebears were the most devoted followers of the Deity. To them, ‘the will of God’ has always been above all—above even Pope Angel. Just imagine if you suddenly told them that their former faith is now the most terrifying enemy… well…”
Let’s just say, that kind of news would be akin to handing them a d*ath sentence.
The Commander and his father were among the most distinguished individuals summoned back to the Holy City last August. Before that, several of his father’s close friends—prominent figures in the Church, such as the Archbishop and the Commander of the Second Knights—had reportedly already been invited to the Temple Church.
At that time, they had no clue about what was really going on. They went there out of indignation, hoping that, during their audience with the Pope, they could get to the bottom of the mysterious money flow from the Currency Exchange and verify whether the rumors about “human experiments” were true. Most of them shared the same anxious sentiment.
Meanwhile, some were also there due to the explosion incident involving a local media outlet. Perhaps they had relatives who died there—or maybe it affected their interests, and they wanted to negotiate a solution.
The Commander’s father became the leader of that group. Before their meeting with the Pope, they had held multiple discussions, even going so far as to propose censure for the current Pope’s ridiculous governance, which had led to a series of serious upheavals and an immense drop in the Church’s reputation in the eyes of the populace.
However, during those days, through early contact with the Temple Church, the Commander and his father began to notice numerous oddities. They observed the Council’s unyielding and almost fundamentally unreasonable attitude on this matter—what can only be described as unprecedented stubbornness. His father tried to get in touch with those close friends who had already met the Pope, to confirm and unify their stance, but the results fell into two categories:
Either they suddenly changed their tune, or they became completely unreachable.
Days later, it seemed like even some of the hardliners who had previously been shouting “We want the truth!” started to flip-flop overnight. The rapid and obvious shift felt as if they had swapped personalities. Before long, some of them began to just up and vanish from the Holy City.
“Either persuaded or purged. This kind of unreasonable behavior is like digging their own grave. In the history of the Church, no Pope has dared to be so thorough or blatant.”
As if recalling the emotions from that time, the Commander said, a hint of anger in his tone, “It’s akin to tyrannical methods. Without the checks from Saint George, I didn’t expect things to spiral so far out of control. Who would still support such a reckless and indifferent Pope? Does he truly not fear the judgment of the owls…?”
He paused.
“Before the day of the meeting arrived, I kept thinking that even in hindsight, it turned out to be just as I suspected.”
The extreme measures led to the Church’s complete fragmentation. Saint George was blatantly rescued from the so-called “infernal prison where even demons cannot escape,” while within the Temple Church, including the Council, no one had yet held anyone accountable for it. The Second and Sixth Knights executed the new tax laws with apathy while opportunistically raking in profits in Silgaya. The Knowledge Association, initially representing “the voice of the people,” had devolved into a blatant scoundrel organization…
Even for someone like me, who considers himself an “outsider” traipsing through Silgaya, it became glaringly obvious.
The Holy Church is truly heading down a dark path.
“But when I finally met Pope Angel after that night, I gradually began to understand the tremendous pressure he was under and the heavy burdens he was carrying, and what we demanded as ‘truth’ was a far more brutal and horrifying reality than we could comprehend.”
In a daze, the Commander remarked, “I finally understand why he acts like a tyrant, yet still has people like Cardinal Michel, Cardinal Elena, and even some members of the Owls who tolerate and support his reckless behavior.”
That night, the Commander and his father met with Pope Angel privately.
Upon meeting, it was said that the Pope had just returned from deep within the underground prison. When he sat across from the Commander, he looked as if he had just been fished out of water—his cleric robes soaked with sweat, hair disheveled, and his face an unusual shade of pale and fatigued, eyes shut as if he needed extra time to gather himself.
Then, he cut straight to the chase, wasting no time, slowly spooning out the grim truth to the Commander and his father.
“You must understand now, right?”
The Commander shot back at me, “What exactly do we mean by ‘calamity’…”
The tribe of Gidales, the very first to bless humanity during the Time of Divine Presence and revered in later generations as the “Mother God of Abundance,” was imprisoned in the depths of the Holy City, using the power of the “ancient deities” since before the Church was even established.
The reason remains unknown—at least in the Commander’s eyes, it genuinely is.
This matter is absent from both the Apocalypse and the historical records penned by the Church. In almost all clergymen’s minds, the deities have long gone to realms humanity cannot access, leaving behind these pious followers to manage worldly affairs and occasionally relay “God’s will” through successive Popes.
But when this truth unfolded from the Pope’s lips, the first reaction of the Commander and his father was disbelief; they couldn’t accept it.
But—
“That night, the Pope took us to the place where the remains were stored…”
At this point, the Commander’s speech became less clear, and his reasoning noticeably faltered.
He didn’t explain exactly what he saw but instead murmured after a long silence, “We couldn’t even dare to approach… we simply… couldn’t get close… just from afar, miles away… we could feel that overwhelming… smell of d*ath… the chaos…”
And that scent would, on an uncertain day in the future—perhaps a few months from now or even tomorrow—break free from its seal with a mad intent to destroy the world.
“The Holy Wall…”
“The Pope told me that the chaotic, filthy, terrifying power would spread with the gradual collapse of the Chain of Divine Lock, and that will first concentrate in the deathly aura surrounding Cartelgarin… and now the Abyss Mud there has become unbearable for the Holy Wall…”
“The will birthed from the Fire Seed may well give rise to the most terrifying monster in history… which will soon be reborn in Cartelgarin, just as the Abyss originally did. The impending calamity will be unstoppable, starting from that forsaken land and sweeping across the entire Western Continent…”
Why not start from the Holy City?
I didn’t directly ask the Commander that nagging question; I understood I wouldn’t get any answers from him.
The Gidales species… even now, I doubt anyone truly understands it.
This terrible, unacceptable news that left all clergymen in disbelief was ultimately brought back to the family head by the Commander and his father. However, before that, they had already signed an agreement with the Pope: no matter what their family decided in the end—whether to help the Pope resist the threat from the “deities” or to remain neutral because they couldn’t accept the cruelty of “experiments”—they could no longer mention any details about the “calamity” to unknowing clergymen.
Otherwise, they would be charged with heresy.
In the months that followed, countless clergymen, along with their families, were charged with heresy.
And many believers…
Gradually began to gather in Silgaya, converging at that historic silent fortress. Those clergymen endorsed Pope Angel’s actions and decided to go all in, participating in the resource-starved “Fate Project” Phase Four.
The current Commander of the Fourth Knights is one of those individuals.
Even though his family, his ancestors, ultimately could not convince themselves to accept the Church’s “imprisonment” of deities or fully realize the true nature of the “calamity,” they didn’t wish to be enemies of the “gods,” nor did they want to take part in those insane human experiments.
Yet, they didn’t stop the Commander’s personal decision.
And this “truth” being unveiled was naturally only directed at the Commander or his family, among the higher-ups with influence and reputation in the Church.
After aligning with those clergymen who understood and were willing to lend assistance, the Temple Council had to draft new taxation proposals for various nations to procure as much gold as possible in the shortest time frame for Phase Four experiments. That, too, was something I witnessed on my journey from Silgaya, including the Church’s intervention in the Valen royal internal conflict—ultimately rooted in this matter.
They needed money, a lot of it.
What I could gather from the Commander was about all I could figure out.
