As the Snow Kingdom's only religious authority, the Ancestral Rite Society had historically faced challenges from outside churches, including the True God Church and several short-lived minor sects. Yet none of those organizations had ever posed a real threat to the Ancestral Rite Society before fading away on their own. Thus, the Ancestral Rite Society had never imagined that one day it would face a genuine challenger, much less that behind that challenger might stand its own deity—what did Her Highness mean by this?!
But regardless of what it meant, when the shamans of the Ancestral Rite Society witnessed that scene during the Snow Emperor Festival, they nearly fainted on the spot.
Once they recovered, the shamans naturally comforted themselves first, believing the deity would not reject them and that there must be some deeper meaning behind it. Then came the matter of preserving their power—they later sought instructions from the High Prophet Esviya, and since Esviya wanted them to compete freely, then compete they would.
However, even though they believed they had taken the matter with utmost seriousness, the severity of the situation still exceeded the expectations of the upper ranks of the four great clans.
As early as October, through factors such as the Snow Witch, faith in the Silver Witch had already spread through the holy icons distributed by the "Snow Witch" in the large settlements along the border between the Snow Kingdom and Cold Mountain.
Among the believers who had received holy icons, many later traveled thousands of miles to Ice Stone Valley, where they met Sara, the Silver Witch Church's only priest in the Snow Kingdom, and obtained the church's doctrine from her. Since there was only one original handwritten copy, they had to stay and copy it by hand, but that did nothing to