As the intense war wore on, both churches did not waste time idling around. They were still very busy going around preaching and spreading their teachings.
Because the higher-ups were all occupied with fighting the war, the Church of the God of Knowledge was currently without a leader. The Church of the Void Mask had deployed quite a number of higher-ups to help overlook the situation, and they were also tasked in bringing in a tremendous amount of money.
Sui Xiong had already made up his mind that, at most, he would throw in as much money as required. No matter what, he had to render enough support to win this battle of belief.
The Church of the God of Aristocracy also received support from the various churches under the command of the human gods, so it did not lack manpower or capital. Their job of preaching was, likewise, not affected by the ongoing war and continued to be carried out in an orderly manner.
Although the more accessible areas where they could conveniently carry out their preaching had all been “carved up” and taken into account, there remained some bordering areas, as well as those areas that had a very deep belief in gods, like the God of Spellcaster and the Master of Mystery, that were still worth fighting for.
Although… the inhabitants on the bordering areas had always complied to a very primitive attitude, where they would “submit themselves to anyone who could feed them,” whereas those living in areas with a strong belief would never change their attitude because the God of Spellcaster had fallen or because the Master of Mystery had surrendered and was captured. But the tons and tons of money, as well as the manpower invested would nonetheless always work to produce some visible effect.
In general, the Church of the God of Aristocracy had a slight advantage. After all, they had a profound background. Without needing to mention any other aspects, just the number of missionaries they could mobilize was already much more than what the Church of the God of Knowledge could send out.
It was always a good thing to have a large pool of human resource.
Watching the situation, the God of Aristocracy could not help smiling discreetly. If this went on, regardless of what the outcome of this battle of churches would be, she would still be the winner.
If the battle were to go on for another two to three months, where everything had settled down, no one would ever be able to stop her from progressing up the level of ranks.
But her happiness was short-lived, for a few days later, the World’s Origin slightly trembled and sent a piece of news to the world. This message was considered neither major nor minor.
Wall, the God of Knowledge, had obtained four priesthoods, namely, “Classics,””Library,””Scholar,” and “Culture.” He made tremendous progress as a deity and had just stepped up to a mid-level Divine Power. Within the mid-level Divine Powers, he was also one of those with a higher level of Divine Power.
Without a doubt, these four priesthoods were left behind by the few fallen gods from the Mystery God System. The Human God System had long since allocated these priesthoods to certain people, but they had been kept busy until now. And though they were more certain about the priesthood of a “Mage,” they were still figuring out that of the “Scholar.” Though they also wanted the other priesthoods, they were unable to obtain them for the time being.
At the start of the war, the Master of Mystery had been very absolute. Every fallen god from the Mystery God System had to destroy his priesthood upon death so that their enemies could not take advantage of the situation. And so, the human gods who had intended to plunder the priesthoods during this war failed to achieve their most important goal. The Master of Mystery was currently imprisoned and had been quarantined from any support in terms of belief from his followers. He would also be stripped of his priesthood sooner or later, but the resulting benefits could still fall into the hands of others, and this made the human gods very unhappy.
But… no matter how unhappy they were, it was already too late.
“Honestly, there’s nothing we should worry about regarding this,” said the God of Heroes when they were all in the sacred, solemn palace. “The God of Knowledge originally had an advantage in these areas, and a great advantage to speak of. In truth, we are unable to compete against him; that is a given.”
The human gods nodded slightly in agreement.
Though they might also have all kinds of feelings, they would never let their emotions dictate their behavior, even though they advanced to such a level. They were naturally able to view things from a calmer and objective standpoint without making the mistake of “I know, but I won’t admit it.”
When the God of Knowledge had just been sealed as a god, the Master of Mystery felt pressurized, so much so that an intense conflict had once erupted between the two sides. The Master of Mystery saw his chance of seizing the four priesthoods with the defeat of the Master of Mystery, thus promoting the ascension of his deity status. This was a matter, of course.
“In fact… I’m more worried about another matter,” the God of Aristocracy said with a frown. “Do you all remember? Back then, when the God of Knowledge had just been sealed as a god, there had been signs of instability in the priesthood of the Master of Mystery…”
The human gods were quick to understand what the God of Aristocracy meant to say.
The priesthood of the Master of Mystery was amazing. Back then, he was called the “God of Wisdom and Magic,” meaning to say that his core priesthoods were “Wisdom” and “Magic.” However, after he was defeated and captured this time around, the human gods were surprised to discover that his priesthood was neither Wisdom nor Magic. It was a mixture of Wisdom, Magic, and several kinds of priesthoods blended together. That was how the priesthood of “Mystery” came about.
This priesthood was so profound that it was inexplicable. The human gods could not even understand it, let alone expropriate it from the Master of Mystery to give it to their own brothers.
So they could only imprison the Master of Mystery first, then slowly think of a solution. But exactly what was going on? How did the Master of Mystery accomplish this? That priesthood of his… what kind of state was it in?
Upon learning about this, the leader of the human gods, the God of Light, Wuther Rang, had carefully examined this matter and since then, he had retreated to his palace where he isolated himself to mediate. Up till now, he had yet to step out of seclusion. Due to the loss of his command, the human gods hesitated about who they should be supporting in this fight of belief, the God of Aristocracy or the God of Knowledge. They did not dare to make a big fuss about things.
They were not particularly afraid of the Void Mask, but if things were blown out of proportion and both sides were to fight, that would disrupt His Majesty’s thinking and research, and that would be terrible!
Just thinking about it was enough to make one see how terrifying this situation actually was!
“The priesthood of the Master of Mystery has indeed shown signs of instability before,” the God of Protection said, “but since then, I have never heard of such a situation recurring anymore.”
The God of Aristocracy nodded and said, “We have always thought that it was the God of Knowledge who took the initiative to limit the development of his divinity in order to avoid the outbreak of intense conflict between both sides. But from how it seems now, that may not be so.”
She looked around, and her gaze swept through every comrade present; then she said, “Maybe the God of Knowledge has always been enhancing his possession of knowledge in the field of ‘Wisdom,’ and maybe, his ultimate goal was to completely break down this priesthood and split up the parts pertaining to learning and thinking from the parts pertaining to intuition and inspiration. Then he could thoroughly master the former.”
“At that time, we had thought so too. But later on, we felt that he was only temporarily putting this task on hold. But seeing how he managed to master four priesthoods within such a short time, perhaps we have made things seem much better than they actually were…”
The human gods frowned. They were secretly feeling distressed.
If the God of Knowledge had truly been putting in so much effort on researching this area, then even if the human gods had eventually succeeded in stripping the Master of Mystery of his priesthood and breaking it down into the different components, a large part of it would still go to the God of Knowledge.
At that point in time, by making good use of this opportunity, the God of Knowledge might directly shoot up to becoming a great Divine Power.
“Maybe… we should also combine our priesthoods?” the God of Protection whispered to himself after a while.
“What do you say… What’s His Majesty thinking of?” the God of Diplomacy suddenly asked. “Could it be that he is also considering this approach?”
“This is a very good idea, indeed. Blending one’s priesthood into a form where no one else but yourself could understand—naturally, you wouldn’t need to worry that it will be snatched away from you,” said the God of Heroes. “But how did the Master of Mystery manage to do that?”
No one could answer as everyone was also feeling confused…