Rights and Desire

The Church of Dawn's vastness and bloat meant that even the Pope on Holy Mountain found it difficult to know exactly how many clergymen there were.

Or what responsibilities these clergymen held.

Yet all authority ultimately revolved around the Pope and the ten Cardinal Archbishops.

Under normal circumstances, the Pope's orders naturally could not bypass those ten Cardinal Archbishops. They were all supporters of the Pope, and the Pope controlled all the faith of the Church of Dawn. His authority was naturally unmatched.

However, there was now a problem. Three of the Church's ten Cardinal Archbishops had died.

Cardinal Archbishop Arnold, who had served as the vessel for divine descent on the battlefield of Nantes Kingdom not long ago; Cardinal Archbishop Ta Walter, who had died in a conspiracy during an earlier war.

And Cardinal Archbishop Zachariah, who had died in Holy Mountain's judgment.

None of the three Cardinal Archbishops had died normal deaths. This meant that new Cardinal Archbishops could not immediately be selected after their deaths, and the dead Cardinal Archbishops represented far more than merely three out of ten.

They represented three-tenths of the Church of Dawn's authority. Beneath the three Cardinal Archbishops were countless Archbishops, Bishops, priests, officiants, believers, and clergymen.

Even the Pope could neither count nor sort them all out.

And now, defeat in the war, traitors to the faith within the Church, and all the troubles caused by the conflicts following the Cardinal Archbishops' deaths had left the entire Church overwhelmed.

It had been many years since they had suffered such a blow and disaster. No one knew what to do under these circumstances, and His Holiness the Pope on Holy Mountain had not given the Church a powerful reassurance either.

As a result, many clergymen began their own frenzied campaigns of faith