Chapter 124 : A Spectacle That Ruins the Nation~
Chapter 124: A Spectacle That Ruins the Nation~
“Such a pity for Bratt~ He didn’t live to see this grand project fully completed.”
Led by Miwei, Mitia toured the massive church before her — a building that had taken three years of construction yet was barely halfway done.
Miwei pouted upon hearing her words: “If he’d stayed for another three years, he probably still wouldn’t have seen the main cathedral completed… Sometimes I really think you’re crazy, building something like this…”
“You don’t understand… Once it’s completed, perhaps the Holy Light Church will rise to become one of the most prominent churches on the entire continent because of it…”
“Just because of this? A single building?” Miwei looked utterly unconvinced.
“Yes, just because of this! This is my first time indulging in such extravagance to create a monumental wonder~ Ah, my perfect reputation probably won’t survive this.”
Looking at the unfinished structure before her, Mitia recalled its design blueprints. The church itself hadn’t strayed far from the traditional architectural style of this world’s churches, though there were subtle modifications.
For example, to showcase industrial architectural prowess, the sharp spires atop the church were replaced with rounded domes — far more difficult and complex to construct, but also more ornate. Yet, that wasn’t the main point.
If the church were merely this, it wouldn’t take the Seris Federation seven or eight years to complete. The exterior was only the surface.
Inside stood a super organ — fifteen meters tall, with 19,974 pipes ranging from as small as one centimeter to as large as twelve meters, 103 keyboards, and six giant speakers.
All the pipes were made of tin-lead alloy. Rather than saying an organ was built inside a church, it would be more accurate to say that a church was built merely to house this colossal organ~
This world possessed its own musical culture, and the instruments weren’t all that different — it even had pianos, which Anna was quite fond of.
But in the past, music had been the exclusive privilege of nobles. After Mitia launched her anti-noble movement, both the nobles and their “exclusive culture” had been swept into the trash heap together.
Commoners and slaves had no means of receiving any form of musical education — and that was why Bratt had once said they needed to carry out some cultural development.
At present, calling the Seris Federation a “cultural desert” would not be wrong in the slightest~
But would Mitia tolerate that?
Lacking culture? Then she would simply throw money at it — constructing the grandest musical building imaginable to foster cultural confidence, then slowly cultivate and enrich it from there.
“Why use money to fix the problem instead of just learning culture?” one might ask.
The root of it all lay in this super organ.
There was a saying from her past life that described it well: “An organ alone can perform the work of an entire symphony orchestra.” That was no exaggeration.
It wasn’t mystical nonsense — organs literally incorporated elements from numerous instruments: flutes, piccolos, xylophones, gongs, horns, bassoons, and even pianos.
It was a masterpiece of instrumental integration. To build it, Mitia had to cultivate a large group of craftsmen skilled in making all sorts of instruments. Once this giant was completed, other churches would begin constructing their own organs.
She could rely on these trained artisans to open instrument factories across the land, forming a full-fledged industry chain. By offering high salaries to foreign musicians to teach for free, she would turn the so-called “noble privilege” into something affordable for all — fostering a nationwide passion for music.
She had more than enough musical scores and compositions — attracting masters wouldn’t be a problem.
As for why this single structure could elevate the Holy Light Church from a local institution of the Federation to a top-tier church across the continent — it was because the organ was said to produce “the sound closest to that of the gods.”
Anyone who had heard it live would be awestruck to the point of goosebumps. For ordinary people, especially theists, its impact was profoundly spiritual~
Give out a few eggs or something to draw the crowd in for a concert, and after one sweep of that organ’s AOE resonance, it would work far better than countless clergymen preaching until their throats bled.
......
While Mitia was busy constructing her monumental wonder, the Ortu Alliance and the Kingdom of Sekast’s allied forces advanced with unstoppable momentum.
Because the Kingdom of Paria had prioritized foreign expansion over domestic defense, its repeated large-scale battles had all ended in disastrous defeats.
After its border armies were crushed under the joint assault of both nations, Paria could no longer muster enough veterans to form a new grand army.
The training cycle for new recruits was long. The two nations had effectively wiped out Paria’s elite forces — but even more devastating was the smallpox epidemic spreading within Paria’s borders, which brought nearly the entire society to a standstill.
Thus, the allied forces encountered little meaningful resistance afterward.
Several divisions had already advanced near Paria’s Royal Capital, preparing to launch one final large-scale offensive to annihilate the kingdom once and for all.
However, the Ortu Alliance’s logistics suffered due to the bloody massacres committed along their advance, which incited fierce resistance among Paria’s civilians and made their supply lines unstable.
Moreover, the outbreak of smallpox filled them with unease — many soldiers had already been infected and abandoned to die, and morale was plummeting.
Fortunately, the cowpox vaccination technique from the Seris Federation spread to them in time, giving them the means to preserve their fighting strength.
Smallpox had provided the perfect opportunity to completely eradicate the Kingdom of Paria, and the Dwarven Kingdom of Sekast dared not delay, joining the Ortu Alliance in storming the capital.
A brutal siege followed under the towering walls of the Royal Capital. The defenders had no way to retreat, while the dwarves and beastmen of the alliance fought with deep-seated hatred as fuel — resulting in staggering casualties for all three sides.
Yet, as time passed, Paria’s military strength began to rebound. They even managed to repel the allied forces at one point, inflicting heavy losses.
That was because the King of Paria had paid some unimaginable price to secure the aid of the Mitria Diocese from the main continent.
This time, the Church came fully prepared — not just sending a few token troops, but entire formations of Church Mechanized Units landing in force at Paria’s ports.
Several divisional corps disembarked at Coparac Port and Norm Port, with the division landing at Norm Port rapidly cutting off the Ortu Alliance’s supply routes, turning them into an isolated army.
Their combat capabilities were on completely different levels. The Ortu’s dual musket formations couldn’t even scratch the magical shields of the Church’s mechanized units, who even carried steel shields as secondary protection.
Whenever the two sides clashed, the Church’s mechanical soldiers would raise their shields and charge straight through, enduring the Ortu army’s gunfire and cannon fire until they reached the lines — then it turned into a one-sided massacre.
The Dwarves of Sekast fared slightly better. Although their formations were breached in the first clashes, they also succeeded in destroying a few of the Church’s mechanical units.
This made the Church troops more cautious. With Maxim heavy machine guns providing constant suppressive fire, the Church’s mechanized corps shifted tactics to repelling and pushing rather than recklessly charging their lines again.
News of the Dmitria Church’s forces landing soon reached the Seris Federation through the Dwarven Kingdom — confirming Mitia’s earlier suspicions beyond all doubt.
The spread of the smallpox virus to the subcontinent was definitely no coincidence.