Chapter 281 : Chapter 281
Chapter 281. God’s “Response”
Aurora stood quietly to one side, maintaining a compassionate and serene expression, making no attempt to touch upon the old man’s exhaustion.
Time passed, minute by minute, second by second. The candle flame flickered in the draft, stretching their shadows long.
“Aurora.”
The Pope suddenly spoke. His tone had changed completely. There was none of his earlier fury, nor any of the lofty authority he usually carried.
It was extremely hoarse and low, mixed with a tremor that sent a chill down Aurora’s spine.
The Pope turned his chair toward the massive Radiant Cross hanging on the wall. It was a sacred totem forged from Radiant Gold of extremely high purity, and at this moment, it gleamed coldly under the candlelight.
“Do you know why, over these past years, the Holy Church’s methods toward heretics have grown increasingly severe, even to the point of madness?” the Pope asked softly.
Aurora did not answer.
She knew the Pope did not need her answer. He merely needed a listener.
“God has been silent for nearly a hundred years.”
The Pope enunciated each word, his voice so hollow that it seemed to drift out from a grave.
“One hundred years. A full hundred years.”
“No divine grace has descended. No divine revelation has guided us. The entire Holy Church has relied on the sacred relics left behind by our predecessors and increasingly harsh laws to forcibly sustain the crumbling faith of millions of believers.”
The Pope took a deep breath, and his voice was filled with despair that could not be dissolved.
“In other words, the Holy Church’s foundation is actually nothing more than a castle built on sand. It could collapse at any moment.”
Aurora still offered no opinion. At her level, these truths had long since become an unspoken understanding.
“And yet, recently…”
The Pope slowly turned around.
In those aged eyes, which should have shone with wisdom and resolve, there was now only unfathomable confusion and… an unconcealable, extreme terror.
He raised his hands. His withered hands trembled violently in midair, completely beyond his control.
He was like a patient with late-stage Parkinson’s disease, unable even to close his fingers.
“I suddenly became able to hear God’s response.”
Aurora’s heart shook violently.
She abruptly raised her head, and her flawless disguise almost split apart.
God had awakened? If those words were to spread, the entire Astrelia Kingdom—no, the entire world—would be shaken by a tremendous upheaval.
Once the God of Holy Light sent down His will again, the Holy Church’s strength would instantly expand to an unimaginable degree.
This should have been a miracle enough to send every believer of the Holy Church into ecstasy.
But why? Why was there no fanaticism in the Pope’s eyes? Why was there only the bone-deep cold of one falling into an abyss?
“Your Holiness… is that not wonderful news?” Aurora barely managed to steady her voice as she probed cautiously.
The Pope did not look at her. His gaze remained fixed on his trembling hands.
He suddenly clenched his fists, and his knuckles gave off a grating creak.
“Wonderful news?”
The Pope abruptly raised his head, his eyes filled with blood vessels. In a hoarse, despairing voice, he uttered words that would be the deadliest blasphemy to every cleric.
“I prayed to the Lord in the void, and that vast voice responded to me.” The Pope’s lips trembled uncontrollably, and the muscles of his face twisted completely. “But Aurora… I suspect that the existence seated above the Divine Kingdom, the existence that answered me…”
He closed his eyes, and his entire person seemed like an ordinary old man on the verge of death.
“Is not our original Lord at all!”
BOOM!
A clap of thunder exploded outside the window. Pallid lightning lit up the Pope’s ashen face.
…
The rain grew heavier.
Several blocks away from the Holy Land’s outpost, there was a hidden stronghold in the Lower District of the Royal Capital.
CREAK.
With an extremely heavy grinding of hinges, the thick underground hidden door was pushed open by brute force.
Esmeralda, like a drenched black cat, plunged in from the dense night and the curtain of rain. The fireplace in the secret chamber was crackling brightly, and the firelight leaped. Yet the cold, damp chill she carried from the Royal Capital’s dark alleys still lowered the room’s temperature by several degrees.
“Damned awful weather.”
She irritably ran a hand through her wet, short purple hair, flinging off a string of water droplets. Then she casually drew the two bloodthirsty Scarlet Ladies at her waist and tossed them onto the weapon rack beside her with a clang.
Striding to the broad oak table, she grabbed the cup of cold water on it, tilted back her snow-white neck, and gulped down a large mouthful.
SMACK!
A slightly rain-damp hand-drawn parchment was slammed heavily onto the table by her. Water stains instantly spread across it.
“Uncanny. Fucking uncanny.” Esmeralda pulled out a chair and dropped into it with a brash, swaggering sprawl. Her usual expression, as though she was ready to crack a lewd joke at any moment, had vanished completely, and her brows were knotted tightly together.
“Moran, that old fox. His movements are so clean he hardly seems like an official.”
On the other side of the table, Sylvia was dressed in a neat set of home clothes and holding a cup of hot tea. Hearing this, she set down the teacup, and her slender fingertip lightly tapped the parchment.
It was densely covered in coded markings recording all of Moran’s movements over the past several days.
At six in the morning, he woke up on time and personally watered the flowers in the courtyard.
At eight in the morning, he rode in a carriage bearing the Cabinet’s emblem to the Golden Rose Palace for work.
At noon, he ate a standard simple meal in the Cabinet dining hall.
In the afternoon, he met with the heads of various departments and reviewed official documents.
In the evening, he occasionally attended necessary political receptions, but never overdrank.
At ten at night, he turned out the lights and went to sleep on time.
No secret clubs. No suspicious visitors. No mistresses. They could not even find a single gap where he slipped out of surveillance. He was so clean it was infuriating.
“Too clean.” A trace of coldness surfaced in Sylvia’s silver-gray eyes, and her fingertip tapped against the table. Tap. Tap. Tap.
“A powerful minister who secretly manipulates the Cabinet and holds overwhelming influence throughout the court and the realm could never live like an ascetic.”
Esmeralda nodded deeply, grabbing a towel and roughly wiping her hair. “His security looks ordinary on the surface as well. Five Fourth-Tier Knights and one Fifth-Tier accompanying mage. But Your Highness, I’ve been lying low around his manor these past few days, and I have this feeling that as soon as I approach that courtyard, every hair on my back stands on end.”
“My instincts tell me that there is something hidden inside that can take my life. If I dig any deeper, I will absolutely die there. I would not even know how I died.”
Sylvia did not hesitate for even a moment and decisively gave an order.
“Then suspend the surveillance.”
Sylvia turned her head, her gaze brooking no doubt as she stared at Esmeralda. “Since Moran dares to expose his most perfect and most authentic side before everyone, it means he is not afraid of being investigated at all. If we force our way in, we will only end up with our heads bloodied.”
“Leave this matter to Logaris for now.”
At the same time, at the other end of the Royal Capital.
Logaris, who had remained in the Royal Capital for covert operations, had indeed not been idle.
At this moment, a small mountain of books had already piled up on his desk. All of them were materials related to that perfect Prime Minister, Moran.
The most eye-catching among them was a hardcover book published ten years ago: Moran’s semi-autobiographical memoir, 《The Lament of a Small-Town Man》.
Beside the book were also several yellowed, brittle draft papers. They were the original manuscript of an agricultural reform proposal Moran had drafted in his early years, when he had first joined the Cabinet. To obtain these few scraps of paper, Logaris had spent a full five hundred Golden Lion Coins, prying them out of the hands of a ruined bureaucrat addicted to gambling.
He put on specially made insulating gloves, sorted these items one by one, and carefully packed them into a containment case engraved with sealing spellwork.
He intended to collect everything related to Moran and see whether he could use these objects to find a flaw in Moran through divination.