Night time.
The gates of the Holy Sanctuary slowly opened up.
Knights in full armor sat on their armored steeds with weapons in hands, riding rhythmically out of the city.
The holy priests and casters that marched together with them were protected by the knights in the middle of their formation.
After a few dozen years, the Divine Church’s army had been mobilized once again.
Under the order of God, they were marching towards the Southern Empire to deal with any situation that might arise.
This event shook the entire world.
The organizations of the world quickly questioned what was going on.
But the Church didn’t have time to explain to them, they could only answer one thing——-
God wanted his divine army to arrive at the Southern Empire as soon as possible!
The Pope brought the Church’s Cardinals as well as a hundred of the Church’s elite troops to go ahead.
They didn’t hesitate to spend precious resources to directly teleport to the vicinity of that destroyed faraway village.
The Southern Empire had already quarantined and sealed off that faraway village from God’s order.
Everything was left as they were while waiting for people of the Divine Church to arrive for investigation.
The small merchants who reported the situation were all being kept in one place.
Even the young boy who escaped death by herding sheep on a nearby mountain was being kept in holding.
“Your Excellency, do you find any fault in my actions?”
The Emperor asked.
His gaze was a bit anxious.
As an Emperor, he was a sovereign with great vision and wits, so he was able to easily arrive at certain conjectures after a bit of thinking.
——-this was the first time in over 20 years that God had actively interfered with mortal matters.
Combined with the explanation of the Church when they started to establish the world-wide information network.
It was said that God ordered the establishment of this information network all over the world in order to find clues of the world’s destruction.
Could the source of the destruction be right here?
Thinking of this, the Southern Empire’s Emperor felt nothing but anxious.
The Pope gave the Emperor a look of consolation and replied: “You have done very well. Even I wouldn’t have been able to do it better than you did if I had been in charge”
The Southern Emperor lightly sighed in relief.
When he was about to ask something else, the Pope stopped him.
The Pope seemed to be listening to something.
After a while, the Pope displayed a strange look on his face.
“Emperor, please turn the care of the lucky survivors over to us” the Pope requested.
“No problem” the Southern Emperor swiftly complied.
The Pope gestured 2 Cardinals behind him to come up and ordered them to bring subordinates to receive these people.
“Everyone, keep in mind to be cautious of any evil creatures that might be hidden within those people. Take away their weapons, set up evil-warding barriers around them, no one is to approach them too closely, do not give them any food, do not even speak to them”
“Understood, Your Holiness!”
The 2 Cardinals bowed and responded.
They brought two groups of knights and quickly left.
The Pope then ordered the rest of the men: “All of you, go into the village and check for any suspicious information. Remember to collect the bodies and take a headcount while cross-referencing with the village records, make sure that no one is missing”
“Understood!”
The remaining Cardinals and knights responded.
The search took 2 days.
The Church’s personnel arrived one group after another.
Following the Church’s request, organizations all over the world sent the best men they had to this place.
With the might of the entire Church, as well as the cooperation of the Southern Empire and various other forces, the entire village was practically turned upside down several times over.
To take an accurate headcount, the knights and hunters conducted tests to verify every piece of bone.
To confirm the reason of death for each creature within the village, the priests didn’t hesitate to utilize Holy Arts.
No suspicious matter could escape their view.
When Gu Qing Shan arrived at the village, a complete and accurate report had been prepared for him to read.
This was the power of his management for the past 20 years——
And the results of it.
Sitting on a high throne, he was seriously reading through every line of the report.
[Every poultry in the village was dead from the evil sacrificial ritual, except a single chicken]
[This chicken was discovered in a secluded location, found to have been eaten completely clean down to the bones, there were clear traces of human teeth crunching on these bones]
[As for population, an issue was noticed during the process of cross-referencing the number of villagers and corpses found in the village]
[Several people were missing]
[None of the people from other places who knew these missing people have met them before or after the incident]
[The only thing we can confirm is that the missing people should have been inside the village during the incident]
[Every organization in the world has been fully mobilized to search for these people]
After reading through everything, Gu Qing Shan fell into thought.
In the room, the Pope, the Southern Emperor, and the Cardinals all held back their breathing in order not to disturb God’s train of thought.
“Where are the surviving merchants and the child?” Gu Qing Shan asked.
“As you’ve ordered, they are temporarily being held in prison. We’ve sent heavily-armed guards to keep watch of them, at the slightest unusual movement, they will be killed without question” the Pope answered.
“Have they been given anything to eat?” Gu Qing Shan continued to ask.
“Not at all” the Pope replied.
Gu Qing Shan then ordered: “Bring those survivors here, I want to take a look at them”
“Understood”
Soon enough.
Those people were led in front of Gu Qing Shan.
Gu Qing Shan watched over them.
The merchants didn’t know who he was, but since he was at the center of all these VIPs, they understood that he must be someone extremely important.
They quickly prostrated themselves and quickly begged for forgiveness.
The child seemed a bit clueless, only after he saw the merchants begging did he also start to beg.
“Have their identities been confirmed?” Gu Qing Shan asked.
“Indeed, we have looked through the records with the Southern Empire, they were indeed native merchants from this area. All of them were born in well-off families, their records of business including items bought and sold, as well as tax records have all been confirmed to have no issues” the Pope replied.
“What about the child?”
“There were also no issues, he is a native”
Gu Qing Shan looked down on them and asked in slight confusion: “Why do they all appear so famished?”
The Pope silently thought:
Wasn’t this your order, why are you asking this now——– wait, could it be the Lord was purposely asking this?
The Pope made a serious expression and replied: “Because these people were fortunate enough to survive the sacrifice. I was afraid that they might have some sort of issues so I did not feed them anything”
“It has already been two days. How could anyone endure that?” Gu Qing Shan sighed.
He told a knight on his side: “Go, give them a portion of our dinner”
“Yes!”
A knight next to him left the room.
Several minutes later.
The knight carried a large pot of steaming hot noodles over and prepared portions for each of them.
“Eat. After you’re done, I will have my men send you home. All of you are lucky survivors of this calamity”
Gu Qing Shan spoke with a sympathetic tone.
Hearing that, the people all sighed in relief.
They haven’t had anything to eat for 2 days straight, so now that they heard that they would be released, they all felt glad and received the bowls of noodles.
The child looked blankly before noticing that the merchants had all taken their own fill, only he was standing there.
The priests and knights around were also looking at him.
The child then ran up and received a bowl of noodles for himself.
This is so good!
The one who made this bowl of noodles must be an expert cook.
While eating, the child silently thought this.
He was still young, and had been left hungry for two days already, so he couldn’t help himself from digging in and ate without reserve.
While they were enjoying themselves, a voice suddenly asked.
“After all the villagers were dead, which one of you ate that chicken?”
The merchants and the child looked up to find that the one who asked the question was the knight next to Gu Qing Shan.
Everyone was staring at them without saying a word.
They understood that they had to answer this question.
“I didn’t eat it”
“Not me”
“We’ve already left the village at the time”
“Not me”
“I was on the mountain”
They all swiftly replied.
For some reason, they noticed that the air in the room had become tense once again.
An aura of murder slowly exuded from the people of the Church.
Except those who were the true people in power, as they all lowered their heads. From their expressions, it seemed they have fallen into some sort of devout state of belief.
At this point, Gu Qing Shan opened his mouth.
“After all the villagers were dead, which one of you ate that chicken?” he asked
This was strange.
Someone had already asked this, yet this VIP was personally asking this same question again.
But the merchants couldn’t not answer.
“I didn’t eat it”
“Not me”
“We’ve already left the village at the time”
“Not me”
“I was on the mountain”
They all repeated their answers.
Gu Qing Shan nodded.
It was completely silent in the room, no one said a single word.
At this point, the boy’s expression suddenly became blank and he replied:
“I ate it”
