In an office inside the Sunflare Sect's cathedral in Adlock's inner city, brightly lit and hung with banners bearing abstract sun symbols, Aikoff Gibran, the Radiance Bishop of the Adlock Diocese, was reviewing the intelligence dossiers submitted by his subordinate priests concerning the Thunder Apostle and the Silver Witch Church.
Within the Sunflare Sect, below the Sect Leader and the Seven-Priest Council were the Radiance Bishops stationed in the various city-states of the Free Alliance. Normally, those holding this post were at least High Mages, or divinely favored individuals who had received Gifts from the gods and could rival High Mages.
However, Adlock was the Adventurer Capital, with an enormous flow of people passing through. This made missionary work less profitable, and the Radiance Bishop assigned here was correspondingly among the weaker sort. Aikoff himself was merely an Intermediate Mage with just over 3,000 Mana Points.
After reading the intelligence dossier, Aikoff could not help but furrow his brows, sensing a trace of danger.
On the Eastern Continent, the birth and destruction of new sects were commonplace. Only churches truly protected by gods could develop over the long term—after all, if one wanted to earn the devout faith of believers, one had to display divine miracles.
Thus, under ordinary circumstances, Aikoff, a dignified Radiance Bishop of the Sunflare Sect, would not have cared about a newly established sect.
But if this new sect claimed to have a divinely favored individual and Gifts bestowed by a god, the situation would be entirely different. Whether it was true or false, as long as the common people believed it, it would inevitably take away believers who should have belonged to the Sunflare Sect.
More importantly, according to the investigation, the power possessed by this Thunder Apostle was highly likely to have truly come