"How on earth were we defeated?"
The atmosphere was heavy within the great hall of the cathedral in Havenwright. Dozens of captains of the Holy Knights, as well as the few bishops that remained in the entire country were standing here. They listened to Grant's question and looked at each other. However, not a single person could give him an answer.
Compared with the usual sight, there were not many people in the spacious great hall of the cathedral. Looking at them brought about a feeling of indescribable desolation. Grant swept his eyes through the crowd, and his expression... did not seem angry, ruthless or fierce. Rather, there was a faint hint of exhaustion in his tone of voice.
"Why are you not speaking? God is still watching us, or have you already forsaken the faith in your hearts?"
Hearing that, a few bishops hurriedly shook their heads. "Not that... We were just thinking."
"Then what have you thought of?"
"We..." The bishops hesitated for a while. Finally, one of the oldest opened his mouth to speak. "We think that the main reason why the military campaign failed this time was because of that devil troop laying low for the ambush in the city. Before they'd rushed out, we clearly had the upper hand."
Although it could be said that he was the oldest, the sad thing was that he looked to be in his early forties only.
"That army troop?" Hearing that, Grant gave a cold snort. "An army troop of only a thousand plus men was able to beat you up so badly that you got disorientated?"
"This... That was definitely not an ordinary army troop! They are definitely not commoners!" The bishop was stuck for words for a few moments, before answering immediately, "how could commoners fly up into the sky, and butcher so many of our fellow priests so easily? They must be the manifestation of demons, running out from hell to cause chaos in the midst of mankind once more!"
As he spoke, he could not help but silently disagree with himself in his heart.
What else could it be other than that? They could not say... that the main reason they had lost this battle was because Your Highness the Pope had not been able to defeat that water ball devil. Could they?
This thought was in every mind. Only, no one dared to voice it out.
"How was it that you have not received any news at all about the Black Nightmare Army wielding such powers?" Grant did not seem to have the intention of stopping, however. He continued speaking, "How did this troop come about? When did they join the Black Nightmare Army? What is their weakness? Where is the person in charge of collecting intelligence?"
The bishop hesitated for a moment, before saying, "Bishop Carlos, who had been in charge of intelligence... was killed in battle."
Grant had nothing to say to that.
The entire great hall was plunged into a dead silence. Everyone quietly looked at the floor, as though there was some astonishing secret on it that would be able to save the Church.
During this deathly stillness, as time dragged on extremely slowly, a Holy Knight finally pushed through the great doors and ran in from the outside, breaking the silence in the great hall. Everyone turned their heads. Grant lifted his eyes as well, to look at the panicking Holy Knight. He frowned and asked, "What is it?"
"Your Highness the Pope, the Black Nightmare Army is spreading news outside again, saying... Saying..." the Holy Knight took a few huge gulps of air continuously, before speaking, "After six days, they are going to hold a real funeral for the deceased King. The people spreading the news are also saying that by then, everyone will have the opportunity to pay their respects to the remains of the King. They will display the wounds on the body, so that the real cause of His Majesty the King's death would be revealed!"
By the time he had finished, the great hall descended once more into a deathly silence. The atmosphere was even more frightening than before.
The expressions of the people in the hall changed, tending towards looking rather ugly once more.
At the same time.
"This idea of reorganizing a funeral, is it really not going to infuriate the Church?" In the city of Worchester, Frank, who was helping out by moving the coffin to be used for the burial, could not help but turn his head and ask in a small voice, "There are so few people in the city now, if the Church gets forced into a panic and come attacking once more, we might not be able to fend them off!"
Joanna answered unconsciously, "What are you scared of? If they come again, we'll fight again. We'll fight until they dare not make a sound."
"This..."
Lara shook her head as she finished carving out the final line on the coffin. She straightened her body and opened his mouth to say, "It's a secret that the students have returned, and we've already checked out and eliminated the spies in the city a long time ago. What can the Church know? Right now, at this time, they must be hiding in the Church pushing the blame around, why would they dare come?"
"I know, but..." Speaking until here, Frank turned his head and pointed at a few busy mages on the side without saying a word, revealing an uncertain expression.
Those few 'mages' he was pointing at, were wearing black magical robe uniforms, as well as extremely exaggerated sorcerer's hats that covered up half their faces... In short, every one of them presented the most typical image of a mysterious mage that existed in the impressions of a commoner.
However, as Frank and the others knew, these people were Black Nightmare Army soldiers in disguise.
After huge batches of students, as well as some teachers, had left with Varys, Worchester had been plunged into a situation where they had an extremely empty internal defense. Thus, Benjamin had racked his brain and had come up with the idea of picking a few hundred people from the remaining soldiers of the Black Nightmare Army to disguise themselves like mages, mingling with the real mages that had been left behind.
Therefore, this was how such a sight before their eyes came to be.
"Who would know if they are real or fake if one doesn't come closer and sense it?" Joanna did not care, however, and casually replied, "I think this is a rather good idea. Those priests have always been shifty and suspicious anyway, it's very easy to intimidate them."
"Alright..."
Frank nodded at last. Although he still felt somewhat uneasy, he would not think too much about it since everyone had said as such.
Preparation of the coffin, gathering of the guard of honor, planning the burial ground... A state funeral was not an easy thing to organize. There was not much manpower available from the Black Nightmare Army now; both soldiers and mages had dived into nervous preparation work. In addition, there was the great demand of items caused by the funeral, which caused various shops that had previously been closed to be back in business subsequently. People were bustling about the streets everywhere, and Worchester, which had been rendered somewhat bleak previously due to the war, was slowly coming back to life.
Benjamin stood at the door of the city hall and watched the crowds as they moved past him. He could not help but nod.
"Can I be considered to be relying on macro adjustments, stimulating internal demand and facilitating the recovery of Worchester's economy?"
The System was speechless for quite some time, before it spoke, "I'm sorry, I'm disgusted by your vanity, I need to check the CPU quickly. Please don't talk to me within the next twelve hours, in case I self-destruct on the spot."
"Up to you..." Benjamin shrugged and did not say much.
He was in a rather good mood now, so he could not be bothered to nitpick with the System. After all, after they had fought the Church off, the entire Kingdom of Helius suddenly had confidence in them. Within the span of a few days, Worchester had welcomed huge numbers of visiting merchants who wished to establish good connections with them. They had sponsored a lot of armor and horses; there were those who directly gifted them money as well.
Furthermore, as this was a commercial metropolis, the trade activity that had been cut off due to war had been recovering slowly. Just within these few days, Benjamin had even received a huge amount of taxes!
He had not imagined that, although the battle had caused both sides to suffer heavy losses, the follow-up effects had been unexpectedly good.