Thunder's Curtain Call

Once the momentum had built, the rest became very simple.

The moment the War God's Openly Declared Death took effect, the entire War God Church instantly crumbled.

The War God's followers launched their final charge against the Rowling Empire.

He could not understand.

The Lord of Thunder utterly could not understand the situation before him.

Why had things turned out like this?

Clearly, I had been winning, winning, winning all along—so why was my territory shrinking more and more?

Most crucially, as the war between the War God and Thunder entered a grueling war of attrition, the Lord of Thunder suddenly noticed a problem:

Why were there fewer and fewer of my followers?

That was not right! The numbers did not add up!

Even if the Dawn Legion from the east had devoured vast swaths of his land, his followers should not have been dwindling so rapidly.

His casual believers were changing their faith.

His fanatics were dying.

The Lord of Thunder suddenly realized that the church which should have been most loyal to him no longer had many true followers of his.

Those few devout believers were vanishing from the battlefield against the War God's followers at a visible rate.

The Lord of Thunder was not stupid. He had merely been deceived.

"You betrayed me."

The Lord of Thunder understood it all.

Only that could explain the current situation.

Occupying the position of Pope, guiding new believers to worship oneself rather than the god, and using political maneuvering to reshape the church's internal structure of faith.

In the end, the Pope could replace the church's blood from within, twisting what had once been a god's church into his own church.

Finally, he could rebel against the god and take the god's place.

Such things had actually happened more than