Under the eaves, Gloria rested one hand against the dark brown lacquered wooden doorframe.
"Come in."
Maintaining her aloof demeanor as a senior student, she casually ushered the two inside.
The moment the door clicked shut, Gloria hurried to Sigrid's side with open worry, her teary eyes looking as though she had missed her for ages.
Such a practiced change of expression made Lanqi feel that she was indeed raised by Sigrid.
"Lord Bishop, are you all right?"
"Not great, but Askesan suffered just as badly," Sigrid answered curtly. She hid nothing from Gloria; as martial artists sharing the same lineage, Gloria was surely well aware of her current state of aura.
Gloria glanced in astonishment between Sigrid and the Holy Son.
Though the bishop had not yet detailed where the two of them had gone over the past month or so, these few words alone were an overwhelming explosion of information to her.
Upon reaching the living room, Gloria invited Sigrid and Lanqi to sit on the sofa while she stood aside like an attendant.
Sigrid sat down gracefully on the couch, maintaining her habitual lazy yet domineering posture, and Lanqi naturally took a seat beside her on the very same sofa.
Seeing this, Gloria started to say something, but abruptly bit back her words.
Although no Cardinal's Holy Son or Saintess had ever acted so brazenly as to sit on equal footing with their bishop, Gloria realized that as a student, she had no business telling the Headmaster what to do either.
Afterward, with the well-mannered etiquette of a retainer, Gloria went over to draw shut the living room's heavy, dark floor-to-ceiling curtains. When she turned back, she could no longer conceal the anxiety and distress in her eyes.
"Lord Bishop, you're finally back."
The spacious living room became a private enclave for the three of them. A sound-dampening magic apparatus sealed off the bustling noise from outside, providing a quiet backdrop for their conversation.
"What happened?" Sigrid asked, furrowing her brows in confusion. While she and the Holy Son had indeed been away for a long time, the Imperial Capital currently appeared largely peaceful.
"During the month and more you were away, numerous upheavals broke out in the south of Protos." Gloria sat down on the opposite sofa, her complexion noticeably pale. "The Imperial military has filed charges against you. They suspect you carried out a large-scale massacre in the north, and brutally slaughtered many imperial citizens along your escape route."
Gloria also retrieved a summary of the intelligence and information she had gathered from the Domination branch over this period from the compartment beneath the coffee table.
Aside from various pieces of investigative evidence and obvious traces of combat left by the Bishop of Domination provided by the northern provinces, there were even fragmented recordings from video crystals.
Judging by these images, no matter how one looked at it, it seemed the Bishop of Domination had been destroying towns and slaughtering citizens, while the Bishop of Extinction fought desperately on defense to protect the city.
"Currently, there is all kinds of evidence proving that you, Lord Bishop of Domination, went to the Northern Border Province, tracked down Askesan in a city-state, and waged a battle that can only be described as a massacre, completely disregarding the safety of the residents," Gloria added, her face pale.
The enmity between the Bishop of Domination and the Bishop of Extinction was common knowledge, but this was the first time they had clashed so recklessly inside an imperial city-state.
Since the Northern Border Front was stationed by Askesan, people assumed Sigrid had deliberately sought him out to start this massive conflict.
Consequently, every sub-branch of the Domination branch across the Protos Empire was now overwhelmed with trouble.
The Resurrection Church already had an abysmal reputation. If there was a chance to condemn the Resurrection Church under this pretext, many high-ranking imperial officials and nobles would not let it slip by.
As the saying goes, when a wall totters, everyone gives it a shove; once a breach opened, even their enemies' enemies swarmed in.
The Domination branch clerics in the south, who had finally begun to gain some acceptance, were once again subjected to unprecedented ostracization, with talk of expulsion already brewing. Having committed to a path of shared prosperity with local residents, the Domination clerics could no longer take a hardline stance against them.
Losing trust was the single most lethal blow to their direction of development.
"Askesan..." Sigrid leafed through the daily news reports from that period, her expression turning increasingly grim and icy.
Immediately after that battle, Askesan had likely contacted the Imperial Capital to twist the truth, cutting off all her paths of retreat and even seeking to wipe the Domination branch completely out of existence.
Had she and the Holy Son been captured in the north by the Extinction Branch, Askesan's next move would probably have been to deploy all his main forces south to hunt down the Domination branch's clerics.
"There are also many operatives from the Extinction Branch or other factions who disguised themselves as our clerics to deliberately harm residents, or disguised themselves as residents to stir up trouble and provoke clashes. In short, many places took the bait, giving them the chance to smear our Domination branch clerics relentlessly. We even lost many comrades." Gloria's expression was bitter and resentful, yet she could only speak with helplessness.
Although the Empire itself still needed time to judge and verify the truth, the imperial populace had no such requirement—public opinion was everything they saw.
With the Extinction Branch fanning the flames, the pressure had crashed down like a flash flood and tsunami.
Even knowing full well that this was a war of public opinion orchestrated by the Extinction Branch, with the targeted Bishop of Domination herself absent, the clerics of the Domination branch could hardly strike back. They could only try their best to keep things from worsening while praying for their bishop to return soon.
Gloria knew the bishop was not someone who would impulsively slaughter innocents in a city-state with Askesan. But now that matters had reached this point, even if the truth was that Askesan had conspired against them, they had no way to clear their names.
Sigrid set down the pages in her hands. The stillness in her eyes seemed to mask an unprecedented rage, and the murderous aura radiating from her chilled Gloria to the bone.
Even though the bishop's aura was visibly weaker than Gloria's at the moment, when faced with that tempered, unyielding willpower alone, Gloria always felt like a little girl before her.
"Don't worry, Side. I'm here."
Lanqi's gentle voice soaked into Sigrid's turbulent thoughts.
She looked at Lanqi in surprise, the murderous intent around her dissipating in an instant.
Lanqi's expression remained as calm and gentle as ever. He nodded at her, instantly bringing her an unbidden sense of reassurance.
Those calm emerald eyes possessed an utterly dependable quality, making her feel that as long as this man was by her side, every trouble could be resolved.
"If Askesan thinks the advantage is his, isn't that for the best?" Lanqi leaned back against the sofa with a natural, disarming smile, as though he and Askesan were rushing eagerly into each other's arms.
"...You wouldn't happen to be worried that Askesan won't dare come to the Imperial Capital a week from now for the vote, would you?" Sigrid narrowed her eyes at him.
In that prior three-way clash in the north where everyone suffered, neither the Bishop of Extinction, Askesan, nor the black-robed figure had discerned the true identity of the Holy Son of Domination.
Under normal circumstances, until recently, the Resurrection Church's Holy Sons and Saintesses were figures who operated in the shadows; their true societal identities would never be too conspicuous, so they couldn't possibly wield much influence within the Empire.
Originally, this was meant to be an absolutely neutral ground that leaned neither toward Extinction, Domination, nor Mourning.
Yet there was one thing Askesan had never imagined even in his wildest dreams—
This Holy Son of Domination was none other than the sensational, talked-about figure in Herrom right now: Luoqi McCarthy.
Chapter 366