Dawn sunlight once again shone upon the land of Trier, but unlike the prosperity of a few days ago, Trier now seemed shrouded in an oppressive atmosphere.
The stock exchange and shopping malls, which normally opened early in the morning, remained closed, because the two most important notaries would not arrive for another two hours.
However, this had little to do with the residents of the factory district. As usual, they climbed out of bed and made their way to work, scanning the streetlamps on both sides of the road for any Church of the Sun clergy hanging upside down from them.
Although quite a few people in Intis believed in the Eternal Blazing Sun, even devout followers of the Eternal Blazing Sun had little sympathy for the clergy hanging from streetlamps. After all, they were the lowest class in the city, the people least able to afford food. They were not qualified to pity priests who stood so far above them.
Not to mention that the vast majority of workers were followers of the Machinery Church.
In just a few days, the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun had already lost dozens of Low Sequence Beyonders, nearly one-fifth of the permanent staff at Holy Light Cathedral.
The enemy seemed able to precisely determine the locations of the Church's upper ranks. Patrol teams secretly protected by mid- and high-sequence Beyonders were never harmed, leading people to suspect that there was a traitor within the Church.
But after every insider underwent notarization before a Holy Relic, they could only reluctantly accept that this was not the work of an informant. Instead, they reduced the number of patrol teams while increasing the number of people in each, leaving many corners of Trier difficult to cover.
Although the Church did not lack Low