Chapter 326: The Second Link

At the foot of the lamppost at the head of the square, Emperor Valcourt and the twenty-two high officials of the Royal Council were still kneeling on the cold stone floor, and no one dared to raise their heads to look straight at Kaelen and Sane.

Behind the royal court’s formation, in the first wooden prison cart, Baron Harlan Voss and butler Pym were hugging each other tightly, trembling like wet dogs.

Voss had just woken up from a fainting spell at the Petition Manor when the Emperor’s Royal Guards rushed in and tied him up like a pig, shoved him into a prison cart, and transported him here. Seeing fourteen powerful and high-ranking Cardinals of the Church of Light hanging upside down by vines from the Temple rafters, while the Pope, praised as the representative of the God on earth, had stopped breathing and gone stiff at the foot of the steps since when, he was terrified to the point his teeth chattered against each other, and even his cries were choked in his throat.

Kaelen looked down at the Emperor kneeling before him, his calm voice ringing out:

"Your Majesty, please stand up. My mate and I have no interest in sitting on your throne, let alone having free time to do the job of managing this kingdom for you."

Emperor Valcourt heard that and breathed a sigh of relief in his heart, but still only dared to bow his back and stand up, not daring to stand up straight:

"Many thanks to the two Supremes for your leniency! From now on, whatever orders issued from Lyra city, the Cathalan Royal Family absolutely will not dare to disobey half a word!"

"No need for empty promises with me." Kaelen crossed his arms, his gaze sweeping over the bald high officials behind the Emperor: "If you want to keep the throne of your Valcourt family, do your job properly yourselves. From today on, the Church of Light is officially eradicated from this kingdom. All land, assets, and hoarded gold and silver under that Temple basement are confiscated entirely."

He pointed at Count Aldric Thorne standing right behind the Emperor:

"Seal Keeper Thorne, you are the person who knows the kingdom’s ledgers best. All the confiscated assets from the Church, along with the fortunes of those who colluded with them like Duke Alban, I entrust to you to inventory publicly. Half of that money will be used to compensate the citizens who were robbed by the Church and aristocrats, the other half will be used to open free schools, medical stations, and courts in all provinces of the kingdom strictly according to the standards of Lyra city."

Count Thorne hurriedly bowed low accepting the order: "I pledge my life guaranteeing to inventory every single coin clearly, pasting a public board before all citizens, absolutely not letting a single dime be lost!"

"And what about these people?" The Emperor pointed at the fourteen Cardinals hanging upside down on the rafters along with the prison cart holding Baron Voss: "May I ask if the two Sirs’ intention is to execute them on the spot or..."

Hearing the two words "execute," the Cardinals and Baron Voss simultaneously shrieked in terror, their tears and snot streaming down.

"Killing them is too easy for them." Sane standing beside Kaelen coldly opened his mouth, his long, narrow purple eyes glancing at the crowd like looking at a pile of trash: "Strip them bare of their titles and assets, including that Duke Alban hiding in the Southern territory. Then put them all in cangues, and escort them to the canal digging and road building construction sites on the Southern border for lifelong hard labor reformation. How many years they have sucked the blood of the citizens, make them use their own labor to pay the debt until they die."

"Yes, yes! I will order people to execute immediately!" The Emperor nodded continuously, then timidly asked further: "And about the Lyra Covenant code of laws... I ask permission to order people to copy it and promulgate it as the national law of the entire Cathalan Kingdom right this month."

"That matter you just discuss with the staff delegation that Lyra City Hall is about to send up here." Kaelen waved his hand saying: "In a few days, Mr. Hollis will send several hundred Covenant summaries along with a team of trained petty clerks, accountants, and court clerks from Lyra city up to the Royal Capital to guide you in reforming the Petition Manor and the departments. Whoever learns the new working method is kept for use, whoever still keeps the habit of taking bribes, bullying innocent citizens, or racial discrimination like before, just throw them straight to the border forts in Ironvale land for me."

The twenty-two high officials hearing Ironvale land mentioned felt their spines turn completely cold again, shouting in unison "Obey the order!" echoing across the square.

Finishing settling all matters in the Royal Capital, Kaelen and Sane also completely didn’t bother lingering any longer.

Before leaving, Kaelen conveniently swung a green divine power stream down into the Church of Light’s basement. The giant underground tree roots immediately wrapped tightly around the ten-zhang tall fake statue in the basement, crushing the stone pedestal that had been used as a funnel to suck faith for the God of Decay for the past three hundred years, thoroughly cutting off the parasitic underground vein branch right beneath the Cathalan Royal Capital.

Right at the moment the stone pedestal in the basement shattered into pieces, high up in the sky beyond the cloud layer echoed an angry but completely powerless growl.

Sane looked up at the sky, smirked, then grabbed Kaelen’s hand and stepped into the spatial rift to return to Lyra city.

That night, in the office room on the highest floor of the Lyra City Hall, Kaelen and Sane sat facing each other at the round table.

At this time, Second Prince Lucien in the guesthouse had also received the express secret letter sent down from the Royal Capital. Knowing the news his royal father had personally led the whole royal court out to the square kneeling down submitting, even abolishing the Church of Light and applying the Lyra Covenant nationwide, the Second Prince breathed a sigh of relief while rejoicing to the point of almost crying, immediately asking for permission to stay in Lyra for another period of time to study the management procedure with Ivy and Brian’s kids.

No longer bothered by the trivial troubles from the Cathalan Royal Family, Kaelen finally had time to calm his mind checking the condition of his body again.

Thanks to fully subduing the faith of the Cathalan Kingdom, Fenmoor land, and Ironvale land, the first link in the Orbit, Nature, along with the third link, War, had been initially lit up in the Southern region of the Great World.

The strength seal on Kaelen and Sane currently had been undone about two-tenths. Although still a very long way from the peak period, compared to when newly waking up in the ruined stone statue fourteen months ago, they were already hundreds of times stronger.

Right at this moment, the Star Iron communication bracelet on Kaelen’s wrist suddenly heated up, emitting blue light rays continuously.

"It’s a signal from the kids!" Kaelen’s eyes lit up.

Sane immediately reached out his hand placing it on the bracelet face, transmitting a Purple Lightning divine power stream inside to stabilize the spatial frequency.

Buzz!

A three-dimensional light screen about half a meter wide immediately popped open right in the middle of the office room.

At the other end of the line, in the central control room at the Crimson tribe on the Beastman Continent, all seven brothers of the Edward family were fully present.

"Papa! Daddy! The image has shown up!"

Ignis with blazing red hair cheered first, his face with a dimple on the right cheek filled with excitement:

"This afternoon we felt the spatial barrier between the two worlds suddenly thinning by a large patch! Eldest brother, second brother, and I tried using energy stones to activate the broadcasting station, and unexpectedly managed to connect even the image over to your place for real!"

Beside Ignis, Orion with golden blonde hair and a face exactly identical to his older twin brother was crossing his arms before his chest, his eyebrows tightly knitted in an extremely grumpy look:

"Papa, Daddy, you two quickly explain to me what is going on with the worship statues over there?! I am a dignified God of Light, why have all my statues in the churches over there been smashed and turned into your statues by you two?! The faith transmitting back to me is indeed a lot, but it’s all accompanied by praying words begging for water spinach and eradicating rats, what does that mean?! I am not the Harvest God!"

Kaelen looked at the ruffled appearance of his sixth son and could not hold back bursting into laughter aloud:

"Those statues were originally set up by the fake Church crowd to gather faith to feed the God of Decay. Your Papa and Daddy conveniently modified them a bit to cut off that guy’s food supply. You sitting idly at home even got to share the faith eating your belly full, what are you still being picky about there?"

"But it ruins my image very much!" Orion pouted mumbling, however his slightly red ear rims betrayed the fact that he was actually very satisfied with the warm faith power stream he had just received.

At this time, youngest son Sunlight, standing beside fourth brother Oliver, also squeezed his face in front of the screen. He had removed the fat pug dog disguise layer he still used to hide from beastmen coming to propose marriage in the tribe, exposing an exquisite face beautiful to the point of blinding people:

"Papa, Daddy, over here we have helped all the tribes on the Beastman Continent stabilize the independent rules. When will you two welcome us over there to play?"

The smile on Kaelen’s face softened. He swept a glance over all seven of his grown-up sons, then turned looking at Edward and Finnick standing at the central position:

"The situation over this side is a bit more complex than we calculated. The God of Decay has planted a giant parasitic underground root network across the entire Great World to tightly lock the remaining six links in the Orbit of the Eight Deities. With the spatial rift we just managed to open at this moment, the world rules still do not permit all seven of you brothers to come over at once."

Hearing that, Edward’s handsome face under the silver-white hair became visibly serious. He nodded saying:

"I understand. Earlier when probing the spatial rift with Ryder, I also discovered the Great World’s repelling force against high-level divine power is still very strong. If all of us push over in one turn, the spatial rift will immediately collapse, and might even alert the God of Decay causing him to detonate the underground vein network."

"Exactly so." Sane nodded praising his eldest son’s sharpness: "To thoroughly pull its parasitic root network without making this continent collapse, we mandatorily must clear every single link one by one exactly following the Orbit order. Currently, your Papa’s Nature has had the first foothold, the next link needing to be unlocked immediately is Life."

The gazes of everyone in the control room immediately converged on the third son, Finnick.

Finnick still maintained his usual calm and composed expression. On his shoulder, Blood Wood Elf Chloe transformed into a dark red vine swaying gently as if responding.

"I am ready, Papa, Daddy." Finnick answered in a deep voice: "My Life origin power over this side has been completely restored, as long as eldest brother and second brother fix the coordinates, I alone bringing Chloe can completely pass through the current spatial rift without causing rule shockwaves."

Kaelen nodded slightly, but in his heart suddenly remembered a matter.

He remembered Cynthia, the wife carrying Elf blood of Mayor Elric right in this Lyra city, as well as the secretary girl Ivy he had rescued from the ashes at age six.

"Finnick, before you come over here you must prepare your mind first." Kaelen said with a serious face: "In this Great World, the source of the God of Life is currently being extremely severely injured. The Elf clan, the race once created and blessed by you to look after the World Tree and the life flow in the past, currently has almost disappeared from the ground. The remaining people if not hiding in the dead forest region in the North are being hunted by the human traffickers in the East coast cities and across the sea bay to harvest blood making immortality medicine for the aristocrats!"

Just hearing about the race created and protected by his own hands in the past being hunted to harvest blood, Finnick’s normally cold, ripple-less eyes immediately flashed a bone-chillingly cold, sharp light.

Blood Wood Elf Chloe’s vine on his shoulder also stood erect, radiating a blood-red killing intent!

"I know." Finnick’s voice was freezing cold like winter snow: "Edward, Ryder, open the gate. I am going over there right now!"

Edward and Ryder looked at each other, nodding simultaneously.

Although unable to open a giant teleportation gate connecting the two worlds yet, but with the coordination between Destiny God Edward, Ryder’s Space, along with the reception from this end by Sane and Kaelen, a spatial rift just enough for one person to step through would soon be established right tonight!