Nothing came without a price.
Without exception.
For this pope, the small room in God's Might Prison was the price he had to pay. Since ancient times, among all the gods of the Western pantheon, how many mortals had toyed with the gods and walked away unscathed?
Half-blooded demigods didn't count. He meant pure mortals.
Sisyphus?
So what if that fellow had been a king? What had his ultimate fate been? He pushed a boulder toward the mountaintop every day, only for it to roll back down just before reaching the summit. Over and over, forever without end.
By comparison,
Lake suddenly felt, for no apparent reason, that he had been extraordinarily merciful.
Soon,
John and Holy Angel Sobiah left.
Keisha, sitting nearby, frowned. "Humanity's desires are too powerful. What if the next one is the same?"
Lake chuckled. "Then we'll find an opportunity to carry out a righteous judgment."
In truth, Lake was also making use of the Vatican. There was little fundamental difference between what he was doing and what Heaven had done. Once the Vatican completed its revision of the Bible, when the faith flowed back to the Heavenly Court of Light, the Vatican would be the place closest to the Heavenly Court for humanity. But to the Heavenly Court of Light, the Vatican would have become dispensable.
When the time came, they could simply replace the Vatican as well.
However...
Lake smiled. "The chances of that happening should be very low now. As long as the new pope doesn't get carried away, he'll know who granted him his authority."
If all else failed,
Once he had another daughter in the future, he could make some arrangements. By then, he would have several planets under his control, and the faith of the Heavenly Court of Light would