(The chapter number in the title of Chapter 1170 was incorrect!)
It had been more than five hundred years since the Church's last failed attack on the Kunsa Realm.
A full five hundred years.
During that time, the Black Church had settled down, concentrating its resources on developing technology while also frantically expanding its fleets.
Now, the Crusader Army alone, as its main force, had more than a hundred legions, while the subordinate believer armies serving as auxiliaries were even more numerous.
However, technological progress had not been particularly significant.
Influenced by Church civilization, nearly everyone's thinking was constrained to the utmost extent, causing technological research and development to proceed at an extremely slow pace.
In this regard, the Black and White Church, from which both the Black Church and White Church had originated, had done much better.
Unlike those two, as mentioned before, the Black and White Church belonged to an imperial civilization known as the Xilbeila Empire.
Within that civilization, although the Black and White Church was powerful, it merely served as a state religion.
It was not that the Black and White Church lacked the ability to replace the imperial family; it simply had no desire to do so.
Because it understood clearly that once it replaced the imperial family and turned everyone in the civilization into believers, faith would shackle their minds, and technological development would come to an end.
Thus, the Black and White Church and the Xilbeila Empire's imperial family reached an understanding.
All of the Empire's technological archives were opened to the Church, and the Empire fully supplied the military equipment the Church required. In return, the Church would not interfere with the imperial family's rule over the Empire, nor would it force ordinary imperial citizens to believe in the Lord of Darkness.