If power made the cities endlessly quarrel and wrangle with one another, then absolute strength made them stop fighting.
At least, on the surface, that was the case.
When news spread that the [Proxy] had returned to the city, the civilians and Transcendents who had been unsettled by the [Cup] seemed to have swallowed a reassuring pill and finally relaxed.
"As long as the Proxy is here, everything will be fine."
That was the mindset of a considerable number of ordinary Transcendents. To them, "gods" were an intangible concept. The [Proxy] was the god they could actually reach—the god truly protecting them.
With the [Proxy] present, the cities quickly reached a consensus. They would first purge the [Cup] within their own cities, then launch a full assault on Lotus City. There was no need for negotiation. They would simply wipe them out.
Thus, in the days that followed, believers constantly fled from their respective cities to Lotus City. Lotus City's barrier offered no resistance to the [Cup], so believers could enter it easily. After noticing this, the other cities had also tried attaching certain things to fleeing believers and having them bring them into Lotus City. However, the believers overseeing Lotus City were no fools. Naturally, they had considered that possibility.
Most of the time, they could promptly discover the little items carried by some believers, though there were occasional oversights. There would have been no such oversights if the Archbishop had been there, but unfortunately, Xu Zhi was slacking off.
She did not care much about the state of this world. She only wanted them to beat each other's brains out.
Thus, while the outside world purged their own cities, they also obtained some information about Lotus City. For instance, through certain little tricks, they confirmed that there was