Gospel of Blood

“Astrid…”

Looking at the angry girl, the Northern warrior sighed slightly.

“This decision was made through a unanimous vote among all the tribes.”

“The Archduke intends to completely unify the North, relocate the population to settle and cultivate the inland, and will not allow tribes like ours to continue existing.”

“If we refuse to submit, what awaits us… is military suppression.”

“The Archduke has already unified the northern inland. His army is not something our tribal warriors can contend with.

At that time, our fate will no longer be in our hands.”

The girl stubbornly lifted her head.

“Then we will continue to migrate northward!”

“Our ancestors, to escape the chaos, migrated from the south to the north. To maintain their honor and faith, they came to the sea from the mainland.”

“We yearn for freedom; we pursue battle. Even now, we can continue to migrate, just like our forebears, to find a new home!”

Hearing the girl’s words, the Northern warrior’s expression grew complex, and he sighed deeply.

“Migrate? Where can we migrate to now?”

“Our ancestors moved from the fertile south to the barren north, from lush grasslands and forests to harsh straits. We have reached the world’s end, there is nowhere else for us to go…”

“All the religious orders view us as heretics, even our old allies, the Howritz, have parted ways with us… From the moment our ancestors lost the Lord’s protection and refused to submit to other Gods, there has been no place for us in this world.”

“Then we will head south! We will sail to Yunette! Like our ancestors, like the Romans in history, we will go to Starfall and Crescent to find a new home!”

The girl insisted stubbornly.

The Northern warrior smiled bitterly.

“Astrid, do you know why the descendants of us Northern pirates gradually gave up on venturing south and turned to hunting sea monsters instead?”

He sighed lightly and shook his head.

“Because times… have changed.”

The girl fell silent.

She bit her lip, her eyes glistening with tears, her expression full of unwillingness.

“Then… must we bow to the Grand Duchy?”

“They want us to submit just to make us their vassals and labor force for cultivating the northern forests. They don’t even want the elderly, sick, and weak in our tribes!”

“They only want the able-bodied. Submitting to them means abandoning our tribesmen. Without the protection of warriors, how will the weak survive in these straits?”

“Our Free Tribe Alliance respects our elders the most. Does this mean we have to abandon even our last tradition and leave behind our closest loved ones?”

Hearing the girl’s words, the Northern warrior also fell silent.

After a long time, he finally spoke.

“In this world, nothing is entirely as we wish. I have already consulted the elders. For the future of the tribe, they are willing to stay.”

“Northern people have never feared sacrifice, and our Free Tribe Alliance is the same. For the tribe, they are willing to make choices, and this is their battle.”

The girl shook her head, insisting,

“Father, this is wrong! This is a betrayal of the tribe! Our Free Tribe Alliance has never feared battle, but we hate betrayal!”

“If we abandon our loved ones and our faith, what will we have left? We will only be continuously consumed and assimilated by the Isaac people. We will gradually forget ourselves, forget our roots…”

The Northern warrior paused for a moment, then said,

“Yes… but, so what?”

“At least our people will survive. At least our children will have a new place to stand.”

With that, his expression grew stern, and he said,

“Astrid, let me tell you the truth: the sea has been changing since three years ago.”

“In recent years, sea monsters have become increasingly powerful and restless, with more and more extraordinary power pollution. Hunting sea monsters has become increasingly difficult…”

“If not for the protection of the temples, even our village would have long been attacked by monster tides.”

“Have you not noticed that our hunting yields have been decreasing while casualties have been increasing each time we go to sea?”

“We are not like other tribal alliances that can draw power from totems of faith and receive immediate divine aid when injured. When our people are attacked by sea monsters and suffer from the pollution of extraordinary power, they can only rely on their willpower and extraordinary strength to fight against it… Our alliance is strong, but we can only rely on ourselves.”

“Even without the Archduke’s ultimatum, staying here would only slowly drain the lives of our people. We must make a choice.”

The warrior paused slightly, his expression complex, and said,

“Astrid… it is not we who have abandoned faith and honor, but faith… abandoned us when our ancestors migrated.”

Hearing the warrior’s words, the girl’s eyes widened slightly. She bit her lip, shaking her head while stepping back.

“No… I cannot accept this choice!”

“There must be another way, there must be another way!”

Saying this, she turned and ran into the distance.

“Astrid!”

The Northern warrior called out, but the girl… had already run far away.

Their voices gradually faded, and the scene grew a bit blurry.

Charlotte knew that it was almost time for her “descended gaze” to end.

“Free Tribe Alliance? Could it be… they are truly descendants of the Free City-States?”

“Do they worship… me as their ‘Savior’?”

Reflecting on the previous conversation between the two, Charlotte pondered.

Her feelings about the predicament of the Free Tribe Alliance were mixed, filled with a sense of melancholy.

Myria is ultimately a continent with Gods. Even the origin of extraordinary power comes from the Gods. Without the protection of the Gods, it is very difficult for mortals to survive.

Without advanced productivity, they will eventually be eliminated by history. On Myria, “advanced productivity” partly refers to the protection of the Gods and partly to the rapidly developing magical and alchemical technologies in recent years.

The Free Tribe Alliance has neither, so their fate can only be gradual extinction.

However, now that Charlotte had “discovered” them, she couldn’t just ignore them.

No matter what, these people were already registered with her. Even though they hadn’t formally joined her faith network and become her “flock”, they were still marked by her.

However…

“I didn’t leave a divine symbol during my second time travel. How did they establish such a tenuous connection with my faith?”

“The warrior who seemed to be the tribal leader mentioned the ‘temple.’ Could it be related to this?”

Charlotte was curious.

Sensing the weakening connection, she increased her divine power output, trying to maintain her “gaze” a bit longer, while also attempting to communicate directly with these believers.

However, Charlotte failed.

She was surprised to find that while she could project her gaze, see the scene, and hear the voices, she couldn’t convey her own voice.

Additionally, she couldn’t descend her power.

She knew the reason: these believers were not within her faith network.

However, after casting her gaze upon them, she could indeed sense a familiar and affectionate aura around them.

“It must be something related to me that they are worshipping, which allowed them to establish a connection with my faith. But… this object hasn’t received my power or established a complete link with me, so it hasn’t entered my faith network.”

Recalling some knowledge about Gods she read in the elven tomes in the central tower during her second time travel, Charlotte made a judgment.

To become a believer, there must be an object of worship, which is also the core of maintaining the faith network.

This core can be a holy symbol, a statue, or a relic…

And these cores of faith are connected to the Gods, ultimately forming the God’s faith network.

Thinking of this, Charlotte continued to increase her divine power output, simultaneously following the vague sense of familiarity.

In the next moment, her vision changed again.

She saw a majestic and solemn temple.

The temple’s design was quite familiar, it was the Ancient Temple, but… unlike those buried underground, this Ancient Temple was located in a magnificent canyon.

Inside the temple, on the altar, there was a small statue.

Below the statue, several Northern priests were murmuring prayers.

“Faceless… Statue…”

Seeing the statue, Charlotte was stunned and then suddenly understood.

The Faceless Statue!

There was an Ancient Temple in this canyon, housing a Faceless Statue!

No wonder these people were deemed her believers. It was not only because they worshipped the “Savior”, but also because their worship target was the Faceless Statue created by the True Ancestor of Blood!

The surprise came so suddenly that Charlotte hadn’t expected such an incidental discovery during her curiosity.

“So this is their object of worship? So… they built a masterless faith network with the Faceless Statue as the core.”

This is like a local area network.

If Charlotte’s faith network is the internet, then the network established by these believers with the Faceless Statue as the core is a local area network.

However, this local area network is not entirely disconnected from the internet.

Obviously, if Charlotte could gain control of this Faceless Statue, she could fully “incorporate” these believers.

Charlotte thought for a moment, planning to try to establish a connection with the Faceless Statue, and… unsurprisingly, she failed.

Unlike the believers from the Nightshade Cult, these Northern tribesmen, though also her believers, had not established a complete connection with Charlotte.

In this situation, Charlotte couldn’t project her power through them, and naturally couldn’t communicate with the Faceless Statue through them.

Charlotte carefully sensed the coordinates of the temple.

Phew… it was quite far.

If she burst her divine power, she could travel back and forth within a day or two with her Legendary level strength, but considering the consumption of divine power, it didn’t seem necessary.

Because… she had a better option.

“It seems… it’s time for Sebastian to act.”

Charlotte murmured.