Chapter 459 - 422: Beneath the Feast

Chapter 459: Chapter 422: Beneath the Feast

Zelheim’s signature morning fog had yet to dissipate, and a layer of white frost, like ground glass, coated the terrace of Silent Villa.

Velin had just poured himself a cup of hot tea when he heard steady footsteps behind him. He didn’t turn around, simply grabbing another cup, pouring tea into it, and pushing it across the table.

"You’re here early, Your Highness."

Prince Willandar emerged from the shadows of the French windows. His signature brown trench coat was damp with morning dew, a clear sign he had been walking through the fog for a long time. The expression on the normally serious and profound prince’s face was now exceptionally lively—a mixture of confusion, shock, and an odd look of someone trying desperately to suppress a laugh.

"Early?" The Prince slapped the roll of parchment in his hand onto the table, his tone tinged with resigned amusement.

"Thanks to you, Count Velin. The poor sod in charge of the city guard knelt outside my study for two full hours. He didn’t dare disturb the Imperial Chancellor, nor did he want to face the Noble Council, so he came running to me with a long face, begging to borrow some of my private soldiers for courage. He said the entire Lower City District was like a ’Parade of a Hundred Ghosts’ last night."

Velin lifted his teacup, gently blew on the surface, and asked with feigned ignorance, "Oh? It seems the Royal Capital’s security does indeed need to be strengthened."

"Stop playing dumb." Willandar pulled out a chair and sat, tapping the stack of reports. The corners of his mouth finally curved into a smile he couldn’t suppress. "Just look at these reports. To shift the blame, that fellow wrote up these accounts to be more exciting than a bard’s tale—’An angel statue in Copper Hammer Lane knocked on a widow’s door in the middle of the night to ask for a drink of water,’ ’A homeless man in the dock district was extorted by his own shadow,’ and the most absurd one is this..."

The Prince picked up the top sheet of paper and read, "’A Cardinal’s bastard son turned into a spider and wrote the Pope’s scandals on the wall with webbing.’ Velin, your imagination truly is... eye-opening."

"Information needs a vessel, and the more terrifying and absurd it is, the better it spreads." Velin put down his teacup, his expression calm. "If you just dryly reveal the truth, no one will believe it. But if you tell them that the old man next door has turned into a man-eating monster, they’ll immediately go home, lock their doors and windows, and pour their household’s Holy Water down the drain."

Willandar looked at the young man before him, the surprise in his eyes gradually turning to deep thought.

"Before last night, I thought you just wanted to create a bit of chaos." The Prince sighed, picking up his hot tea and taking a sip to ward off the chill in his bones.

"But this morning’s intelligence has forced me to reassess your methods. In one night, rumors have spread throughout the entire city. Twenty districts were ’haunted’ simultaneously, and the source of every ’ghost story’ subtly points back to the Church."

The Prince set down his teacup, his gaze turning sharp. It was the scrutinizing look of a superior, but now it held a new layer of admiration.

"What surprises me even more is that the city guard was out all night and didn’t catch a single ’ghost.’"

Willandar leaned forward, his fingers tapping lightly on the tabletop. "This isn’t something that can be achieved with just a few rumors. Velin, you have a network that covers the entire underbelly of the Royal Capital. Beggars, thieves, prostitutes, artisans... they’ve seeped into every corner of the city, unstoppable as mercury."

"They have a name. The True Origin Association," Velin said lightly. "A group of people who believe Divine Power flows within everyone. I just gave them a direction."

"The True Origin Association..." The Prince mulled over the name, then nodded gravely. "This power is terrifying. The Church has been high and mighty for too long. They don’t see the dirt beneath their feet, but you’ve turned that very dirt into their grave."

At this, Willandar took a deep breath, his expression turning serious.

He pulled a sealed document from an inner pocket of his trench coat and pushed it in front of Velin.

"I’ve considered the deeper cooperation you proposed." The Prince looked Velin in the eye, his tone firm. "Since you can throw the high-and-mighty Holy Radiance Church into such a panic, then... I believe you have the power to change the very structure of this country."

"Starting today, in the West City District and the four districts under the direct jurisdiction of the garrison, the patrols will suffer from ’night blindness.’"

He looked directly at Velin and said, word by word, "You can let your ’True Origin Association’ take root in these places, and even... spread your doctrine. As long as you don’t incite large-scale riots, I will tacitly approve your existence. You want ’soil,’ I’ll give you ’soil.’"

For any member of the Imperial royal family, this was an extremely dangerous decision—to condone the preaching of heresy was tantamount to betraying the state religion. But this was exactly what Velin wanted.

Velin’s smile widened. "A wise choice, Your Highness. You will find this to be a very profitable deal."

Just as the two reached a tacit understanding, a soft knock sounded on the study door.

After receiving permission, a butler entered, walked directly to Prince Willandar’s side, and presented an exquisitely crafted, gilt-edged invitation with both hands.

"Your Highness, this was just sent over from your residence by express courier," the butler explained in a low voice. "A messenger from the Church originally delivered it to the Prince’s estate, specifying it was for your eyes only. Since you are temporarily residing at the villa these past few days, the steward at the estate had it sent here immediately."

Willandar reached out and took the heavy invitation. At the seal, the bright red wax was stamped with the Holy Radiance Church’s sun insignia and currently emitted a cloyingly sweet, perfumed scent.

Willandar broke the seal and glanced at the contents, his previously relaxed expression gradually growing solemn. He closed the invitation, his brow furrowed, and a hint of worry entered his eyes as he looked at Velin.

"A clever move, Velin," the Prince said in a low voice. "In a few days, it will be Saint’s Prayer Day. That’s the largest public event in the Royal Capital, and it’s always been the Church’s most important image-building project of the year."

Willandar paused, his gaze sweeping over the signature on the invitation, and his tone grew exceptionally grave. "Bishop Feno has clearly been pushed into a corner by your stories. To salvage the Church’s precarious reputation, he’s upgrading the original ceremony and has announced he will host the grandest ’Saint Sinclaire Charity Dinner’ the Royal Capital has ever seen. He’s planning to use real gold, silver, and grain to simply buy back the hearts of the people."

Willandar stood up and paced around the room a few steps, his tone serious. "The panic you’ve created is effective, but once those poor people have full stomachs and feel the Church’s ’benevolence,’ the ghost stories you’ve spread will fall apart on their own. This is an overt plot. How do you plan to counter it?"

"Counter it?" Velin chuckled, rising to his feet. He plucked the invitation from the Prince’s hand with two fingers, studying it as if it were a death notice. "Why would I want to counter it? I should even thank them for so thoughtfully building their own execution ground."

He turned to Willandar, a dangerous glint in his eyes. "Now that our cooperation is established, why don’t we go and enjoy... the last supper, tonight?"

Velin pulled a thumb-sized metal tube from his clothes.

The body of the tube was fashioned from some kind of unknown crystal, covered in intricate Runes. Through the crystal, one could see it was half-full of a colorless liquid that glowed faintly.

"What is this?" the Prince asked.

Velin swirled the metal tube. The liquid inside coated the walls, as viscous as honey. "A secret weapon. When it comes to dealing with the Church, this thing works every time."

"You intend to... at the dinner?"

"Since Cardinal Moros wants to bestow a blessing in public," Velin said, slipping the metal tube back into his sleeve, "then we’ll just make the ’blessing’ he bestows a little more... lively."

...

「Dusk. Zelheim’s Central Square.」

The setting sun was the color of blood, dyeing the massive circular plaza a deep crimson.

Thousands of long tables were arranged in a fan shape, covered with white tablecloths and laden with roast goose, cured meats, white bread, and barrels of ale. The aroma of food filled the air, forming a bizarre mixture with the stench of decay drifting over from the Lower City District.

The square was a sea of people.

The citizens, many of whom hadn’t had a full meal in days, were crowded outside the barriers, staring longingly at the food on the tables. Their Adam’s apples bobbed up and down, and the sound of their gulping was a continuous chorus.

But no one dared to cross the line.

Several hundred fully armed Templar Knights, holding long halberds, formed a silver wall that kept the crowd at bay. And on the high platform in the center of the square, Cardinal Moros, clad in red robes, sat upon a gilded throne, looking down on the masses with a benevolent gaze.

"Did you hear?" a man in ragged clothes whispered to the person next to him. "This meat... it’s not clean."

"What nonsense are you spouting!" the person next to him snapped, glaring, though his eyes couldn’t help but dart toward the roast goose. "This is a gift from the Church. How could it not be clean?"

"Heh, are you really that stupid, or are you just pretending?" the man sneered, revealing a set of yellow teeth. "The ’Holy Water’ a few days ago was also a gift from the Church, and what happened then? Hasn’t the rumor been going around that after some people drank it, their bellies swelled up like balls, and at night, their stomachs would explode, and crawling out would be a swarm of..."

"Shut up!"

Several people nearby went pale and instinctively clutched their stomachs.

Fear spread through the crowd like a plague.

Although hunger burned in their stomachs, the fear of "worms growing inside them" made many people’s gazes on the food turn to suspicion and uncertainty.

Just then, a horn blast sounded from the high platform.

"WHOOOOM—"

The deep, mournful blast of the horn drowned out the noise of the crowd.

Cardinal Moros slowly rose to his feet. He spread his arms, and his wide, red robes billowed in the evening wind, making him look like a giant vampire bat.

"My lost lambs."

His voice, amplified by a Divine Art, echoed across the square, filled with holy authority.

"I know that recently, some malicious and evil rumors have been spreading through our city. They are the whispers of the devil, the lies of heretics! They are jealous of the Lord’s grace and seek to sever our connection to the light."

Moros’s voice suddenly rose.

"But the Lord is merciful! He has bestowed this feast upon you to show the world that as long as you hold faith in your hearts, there is no hunger, no sickness, and certainly none of those absurd monsters!"

"Now, to prove the Lord’s glory, I shall personally consecrate this wine!"

As his voice faded, several attendants walked onto the high platform, carrying enormous golden goblets and flagons of wine.

Below the platform was an extravagant feast, one that would surely be recorded in the annals of Zelheim.

For this "Saint Sinclaire Dinner," which was designed to crush the rumors, the Church had emptied a significant portion of its Holy Vault.

As far as the eye could see, the entire Central Square was illuminated by thousands of magical lamps, making it as bright as day.