"Seven Days has already begun to collapse. Sky City will probably fall soon too, won't it?"
"Mm."
"The four quarters and seven gates have begun to fall. Bringing in Superior Virtue was truly a brilliant move. Once the believers began to sever their ties with faith, the situation became difficult to control."
"I know."
"Ai Kongzuo is dead too." Guang Wen gazed at the flames rising from the distant city and sighed softly. "In the end, he did not even get a single bite to eat. How pitiful."
"..."
Thus, the Pope fell silent and said no more.
His somewhat aged face was covered in wrinkles and sunburn scars. At that moment, like stone, it reflected the approaching firelight.
There was no fear, no anger, and even less wavering.
He merely watched.
The skyscrapers collapse inch by inch...
"Come to think of it, I have always been curious about one thing."
Leaning lazily against a pillar, Guang Wen suddenly asked, "Ai Kongzuo was your adjutant, wasn't he?
Back when you were in the military, you personally promoted him and placed great hopes in him, raising him entirely as though he were your heir. Yet in the end, he died at his hands... and your family was all killed in the coup as well, right?"
The Pope did not answer, neither yes nor no.
"Whatever the hidden circumstances were, he clearly betrayed you, didn't he? Why keep him around?" Guang Wen laughed. "And why regret it?"
"Regret? There is no regret."
The Pope slightly shook his head, still indifferent. "As for betrayal... it was merely betrayal. Nothing unusual. Poverty, plague, hunger, and suffering—there was simply too much
of it.
Every Puna Bantu person lived in that sort of hell. Nothing they did would be strange.
He was merely..."
The Pope paused,