Secret: The undead do not die in the fire

"It's very simple."

Groselle brought out the speech he had prepared earlier and said seriously:
"As long as you believe in other beings."

At first glance, it sounds reasonable—

The Lord of the Silver City faith killed the giant king, so the giants cannot let you leave.

But if the City of Silver adopts a new faith, the giants will have no reason to stop you.

It sounds simple and it is simple to do.

But these words have completely different meanings to different people.

For ordinary believers, their faith in God is far from firm, so it is reasonable for them to change their faith in exchange for a chance to survive.

But for devout believers, they will regard this as an insult to their beliefs and will fight to the death regardless of the consequences.

And which one does Silver City belong to?

They have been in the dark, God-forsaken land for thousands of years, and their faith has never changed. Such faith can definitely be called pious!

However, when the members of the exploration team heard the giant's conditions, they did not show any extreme behavior, and even a hint of hope reappeared in their eyes. If they could leave just by changing their beliefs, what was there against agreeing to it?
Yes, the Silver City does believe in the Lord, and has not changed for thousands of years. But this is not because their faith is so devout, but simply because they have no other choice!

In the dark, god-forsaken land, the only god they knew of was the ancient sun god!
But for thousands of years, the Lord they believed in never saved them!

If there was a new god who could save them, most people in Silver City would definitely change their beliefs without hesitation—such as Derrick and Lovia!

For Derrick, it was the Fool who saved him when he was most desperate, and it was the Fool who brought him new hope, so he would only believe in Mr. Fool.

As for Lovia, the 'Ancient Sun God' could not save the City of Silver, so she chose the True Creator - she didn't know whether the True Creator was really the incarnation of the 'Ancient Sun God', but at least the 'True Creator' would occasionally respond to her prayers.

This alone makes him countless times stronger than the 'Ancient Sun God'.

They were like this, and so were the rest of the people in Silver City, even the Chief was no exception. If Colin's faith was truly devout enough, how could he allow heretics like Derrick and Lovia to exist?
He tacitly accepted Derrick and Lovia's belief in other beings, and also tacitly tolerated some of their outrageous behaviors, because Colin hoped that the existence behind them could save the City of Silver!

Under the nervous and expectant gazes of the other members of the exploration team, Colin was silent for two seconds and slowly asked:
"What kind of existence?"

The gray-blue-skinned giant stared at them with his single vertical eye and spoke slowly:

"'Fool'."

Derrick almost couldn't hold it in. Although he had guessed it in his heart, when Groselle said the word "fool" himself, Derrick couldn't help but be secretly shocked - he was worthy of being called Mr. Fool.

Colin Iliad calmly cast his gaze towards Derrick. He knew The Fool.

Because the ceremony for his advancement to Sequence 3 requires the blessing of a 'god'.

Of course, angels can achieve the same effect, but there are no angels in the City of Silver, and the gods they believe in have never responded to their prayers.

Therefore, he could only seek help from other gods.

The only people in Silver City who have established connections with other gods are Derrick and Lovia.

Although he was skeptical about the gods they both believed in, the 'True Creator' that Lovia believed in was obviously darker and more corrupt, and posed a considerable threat to the City of Silver.

The being that Derrick believed in even gave Derrick the path of the Singer, which represented light.

When light and darkness are presented before us at the same time, any normal person would tend to choose light.

The same thing happened to Colin.

He chose to pray to the 'Fool' as Derrick called him during the promotion ceremony, and was even prepared to make sacrifices for it.

But the 'Fool' did nothing, He simply gave His blessing and then disappeared.

Otherwise, Colin would not have dared to allow another elder of the Six-Man Council, White Hillmon, to advance to Sequence 3 in the same way.

That's the truth.

The moment he chose The Fool, he had already decided on the faith of the City of Silver.

But now, the giant named Groselle also believed in The Fool, and even told them without hesitation that only by believing in The Fool could they leave the God-forsaken Land.

This surprised Colin, but he also felt that it all seemed reasonable.

After all, he had met Groselle in the Afternoon Town camp, and from his subsequent probing of Derrick and Lovia, he learned that Derrick responded to the names of Groselle and Yu Jin, which meant that he actually knew the two outsiders - even if he tried his best to hide it, Derrick was obviously not the kind of person who was good at acting.

Derrick was born and raised in Silver City. Even when he went out to explore, Colin was always watching him. The only way for him to establish contact with outsiders was through the "Fool".

The reason why they knew each other was obviously because they both believed in the 'Fool'...

Many thoughts flashed through Colin Iliad's mind. He looked up at the gray-blue-skinned giant and said solemnly:
"We are the followers of The Fool."

Groselle was stunned for a moment, and scratched his head. He was at a loss for what to do.

Shouldn't the script flow be that he tells Mr. Fool his name, and then you recite it?
Colin saw Groselle's expression and knew that he had doubts. He immediately recited devoutly in Giant language:
"The Fool who does not belong to this era, the mysterious master above the gray fog, the yellow and black king who controls good luck..."

After reciting the honorific name of The Fool, Colin looked up at Groselle again and asked:
"Can we leave?"

"Ah? Is that okay?"

Groselle scratched his head. I don’t know!

Is there something wrong with this script?
“Is there something wrong with this script?”

Above the gray fog, Klein the Fool, who was sitting at the head of the bronze table, had a headache.

Groselle was his believer, so he specifically asked Groselle to pray when the Silver City exploration team entered the Giant King's Court, and then used the corresponding crimson star and the 'Sea God's Scepter' to expand the field of vision to a certain distance around him so that he could watch the 'live broadcast'.

The only problem is that this method of "seeing" by praying for light points cannot be maintained for too long.

This had nothing to do with his spirituality. This connection would fade away on its own and could only last for three quarters of an hour at most. Of course, in Klein's imagination, three quarters of an hour was actually more than enough.

After all, Klein didn't intend to let Groselle and the Silver City Exploration Team come into conflict. He just needed to spread his honorable name.

In the original plan, Groselle should have proposed the requirement that "only those who believe in the Fool can leave", and then the people of Silver City would compromise after a brief inner struggle, and then return to Silver City to promote the faith of the "Fool".

But he didn't expect that the Chief of Silver City would not play by the rules and directly admit his belief in The Fool.

This was completely beyond Klein's expectations, because the only thing he had done for this Chief was to provide him with a certain "blessing" at the ceremony of his promotion to Sequence 3 last week, and that was all.

He had never expected that the other party would believe in him so easily, and he had never expected that he would so openly admit his "belief" in front of the residents of Silver City who had always believed in the "Sun God"!
Klein could understand the Silver City Chief's urgency to leave the God-Forsaken Land, but his actions still disrupted Klein's plans.

The reason why Klein did this was not because he intended to make things difficult for the City of Silver, but mainly because he had no choice.

He needed the miracle of the City of Silver leaving the God-Forsaken Land to become a Sequence 2 angel. In other words, he needed enough anchors!

In fact, no matter which extraordinary path one takes, the higher the sequence, the more serious the tendency towards madness and inhumanity, which will gradually transcend one's own human nature, and one must rely on external anchors to help maintain adequate balance.

Normally, at Sequence 4 and Sequence 3, this situation is not so obvious, but at the angel level, even if there are enough anchors to "fix" it, it will occasionally fall into a dark, negative, and mutated state, and must be endured and fought alone, waiting for relief.

It's like a sacred and solemn existence. Normally, it seems that there is nothing wrong with it. It can respond to your prayers, chat with you normally, and even make a few jokes. But at certain times, it can only hide in a dark room, hide in the shadows, tear off the surface skin, revealing the sinister side, and showing all kinds of signs of madness!
At Sequence 3, one is already a deity in some sense, and can respond to prayers within a certain range, which requires a certain anchor. However, since one is not at the level of an angel, the anchor does not necessarily have to be a believer, and can be replaced by other things, such as those distinct, mystical marks in life.

And that's what Klein did. The reason why he is in good mental state now, without split personality, and has not become uncontrollably cold and terrible, is because the mark of the "ancient scholar" in history is his anchor.

But just because Sequence 3 angels can do it, doesn’t mean Sequence 2 angels can do it too.

Sequence 2 angels cannot take shortcuts; their 'anchor point' must be enough believers.

This is also why gods need to preach. Believers are the anchors of gods. A believer is an anchor point. In this respect, there is no essential difference between a noble and a pauper. No one is more noble and no one is lower.

In terms of numbers, the seven major orthodox churches have tens of millions of believers!
Even if we only look at the "evil gods" believed in by those secret organizations, their followers number at least in the tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands.

In order to ensure that he would not lose control during the promotion to Sequence 2, Klein must have enough anchors before the promotion.

But it was impossible for him to preach extensively in the Northern Continent. Firstly, he did not have the ability, and secondly, he did not have the time.

The people of the Northern Continent all knew that they could not believe in evil gods casually, especially those evil gods that appeared out of nowhere. If they wanted to openly develop believers in the Northern Continent, they would definitely spend a lot of time and energy - and this required the spread of faith in an organized and premeditated manner.

But Klein lacked the necessary conditions. He was alone and could not preach on a large scale.

Of course, he could also mobilize other members of the Tarot Club to help with the mission, but this would be completely missing the point.

Doing so would not necessarily have much effect, and would inevitably expose the fact that Miss Justice and her friends believed in The Fool, making it difficult for them to gain a foothold in their original church and faith.

of course.

Klein could also choose another path - that is to give up using believers as an anchor and instead use the First Fire as an anchor.

This is what Groselle did, so even if he didn’t have any believers, he could still be promoted to a Sequence 2 angel.

But this path is also not feasible.

Groselle could do this because his limit was Sequence 2, and Yu Jin did not expect him to become a god.

So he was given maximum convenience.

But Klein is different. He is a man destined to ascend the throne of Sequence 0 and become a god!

If one wants to become a god, one must follow all the traditional steps.

Among all these, using believers as an anchor is undoubtedly crucial.

The question now is, does Klein have enough anchor points?

"Is my current 'anchor' sufficient?"

Klein murmured in a low voice, feeling somewhat unsure.

In theory, he actually has quite a few anchors - all members of the Tarot Club can be considered his followers. Although the number is a bit small, and most of them are not fanatics, they are at least moderately devout.

In addition to these, he has three main sources of believers.

The first part consists of those scattered and ignorant young people.

This group of believers originated from the Aurora Society's behavior of spreading the name of "The Fool".

The Aurora Society's original intention was to use this to find the followers of The Fool, but it backfired.

The widespread spread of the name of The Fool has led many ignorant young people who seek to be different to choose to pray to The Fool.

Of course, Klein had never responded to their prayers, so these people could only be considered shallow believers, and it was hard to say how much of a role they could play.

The second part is the followers of the 'Sea God' Kalvetuwa, which is also the largest part.

These believers have always believed in the so-called 'Sea God', but 'Sea God' is now Klein's vest.

Therefore, these people can be considered as Klein's followers, and to some extent, they can also be considered as The Fool's followers.

And the third part comes from the family of Abraham.

Mr. Men personally came forward to mobilize the entire Abraham family to believe in The Fool. His appeal is indeed strong.

So even though the time was still short, the members of Abraham's family were extremely devout in their belief in the 'Fool' - although they were still not fanatics, there were quite a few devout believers among them.

The total number of "believers" in these three groups is at least tens of thousands.

But Klein still felt a little unsafe, otherwise he wouldn't have needed to develop the City of Silver into his own believers.

Therefore, when Colin made the request, Klein felt a little conflicted.