Unknown Knight

“In fact, the Divine Religion did not deceive you, Velen. It’s just that when the leader of the Divine Religion was passed to Pope Prius, the Divine Religion’s inheritance ran into problems because the Divine Religion uprising failed at that time.

Later, after consultation among the five elders at the time, in order to ensure that the inheritance of the religion would not be cut off, they had no choice but to formulate a plan for the inheritance of the carrier... "

Although the Fifth Elder spoke weakly, his thoughts were clear and his logic was well-organized. With his slow narration, Velen, James and others gradually gained a general understanding of the so-called bearing capacity.

It turns out that this so-called inheritance is not a completely superstitious fabrication. The early inheritance of the Pope was carried out with a thing called a "chip". If X was awake, he would definitely shout "Fuck", it turns out that this Dark Cult is also related to time travel!

For the purpose of so-called inheritance, the Church of God will train many talented prospective popes in advance. These prospective popes have been familiar with the Church of God's doctrinal classics and the life records of previous popes since childhood, and they have to perform the so-called blessing ceremony every day.

If Aix is ​​sober, he will see this blessing ceremony as a brainwashing activity. The specific operation is to recite prayers to the statue of the first Pope at fixed times in the morning and evening every day.

The content of the prayer is nothing more than some verbal self-suggestions, reminding every prospective pope that he was born to inherit the soul of the previous pope, and that this inheritance is great, sacred, and God's will cannot be violated.

After years of repeated brainwashing operations and the frequent education and indoctrination by the elders, coupled with the supreme respect and honor that one will receive after becoming a pope, every prospective pope will self-exonerate and deceive himself even if he has doubts in his heart.

When the old pope is about to die, the new pope will perform a sacred initiation ceremony under the auspices of the elders. After a series of ceremonies, the soul will be carried. After the prospective pope wakes up from the ceremony, he will officially become the new pope.

In fact, this was just a measure set by the first Pope and the five elders for the inheritance of the Dark God Cult. Some of these measures were not known to the subsequent Popes, and were only passed down from generation to generation among the five elders.

For example, before the initiation ceremony, the elders would give the new and old popes a special medicine to put them in an anesthetic coma, and then put them both on an intelligent instrument, which would take out the chip from the old pope and implant it in the new pope.

This chip is not so magical that it can store a person's soul. It is just a high-tech storage chip that can be powered only by the body's own bioenergy.

The recipient of the implant can call up the memories stored in it at any time, just like memory. This makes the new pope feel as if the soul of the previous pope has really been infused into his body, but in fact it is just an illusion.

Originally, there would have been no problem with the continuation of this inheritance, but when it was passed to Pope Prius, the new Pope believed that the Karad Empire was weakening and the people were very dissatisfied with the rule of the upper echelons of the empire. It was a good time to fulfill the long-cherished wish of the first pope.

So he led his core followers deep into the empire and established a stronghold in the mountainous area near Aaron, hoping to overthrow the Karad Empire and establish a new empire that combined politics and religion.

The reality turned out to be very harsh. After decades of preaching, Pope Prius, who thought he had a strong popular base, was still defeated by the aristocratic armed forces that rose up in the Bayostad Uprising. Even he himself disappeared.

After years of searching by the surviving believers, they only found the remains of Pope Prius that had been almost completely eaten by wild beasts, and the memory chip was also damaged, making it impossible to pass on the initiation ceremony.

For the sake of the inheritance of the Divine Religion, the five elders decided that since the initiation ceremony was instructed by the first Pope and was fully controlled by the five elders, and outsiders were unaware of the inside details, they might as well just hold the entire Xibe's initiation ceremony to maintain the inheritance of the Divine Religion first.

So the five elders performed a self-deceiving initiation ceremony on the Island of If, which had become a secret base. They first found a man who looked similar to Prius to pretend to be the Pope, and then secretly performed initiation ceremonies on several prospective popes.

Except for skipping the step of chip implantation, after going through all other procedures, the elders took control of these "Popes" who thought they had inherited the throne and isolated them in different courtyards on the island.

After a period of investigation and repeated evaluation of the degree of brainwashing of these "Popes", the five elders finally voted to select the most successfully brainwashed successor Pope. The other candidate Popes who were not selected were secretly eliminated.

This arbitrary operation gave the five elders the power to depose and enthrone or even kill the Pope. From then on, the power of the religion was actually transferred from the hands of the Pope to the hands of the five elders without their knowledge.

Perhaps because of a guilty conscience, the five elders requested that the title of Pope be abolished, saying that the Church of God was rejected by the nobles of the continent, and in order to cover up the truth, they changed the title of the new nominal leader to "Bearer". This title is very vivid, but it seems to have lost its former sacred glory.

However, the selection of this type of carrier requires a prerequisite, which is that a lot of prepared carriers are needed.

The sources of these carriers are generally two aspects. One is recommended by the five elders or carriers of the religion. Except for some special cases, young teenagers are preferred.

The other way is to buy them from slave traders, and they cannot be bought from local slave traders. Once this gets out, it will affect the image of the religion and be detrimental to missionary work.

They could only buy from Nord pirates who had little interaction with the locals, and they had to be trustworthy people, so the Cult supported the Nord slave trader Ramon, and he became the long-term slave supplier of the Dark Cult.

Moreover, the training of carriers is still a huge expense. Not only does it require a large number of children to be screened, but once selected as carriers, they have to be isolated and trained on the island. Not only do they need good food and clothing, but they also need specialized personnel to serve and teach them, all of which require a large amount of continuous financial expenditure.

In order to ensure that the inheritance is not cut off, the new carrier must start training after taking over. Some people have reached the maximum age limit for the successor, while the current carrier is still alive and well, so they have to be treated as "waste". This is why James discovered a large number of skeletons in the bay.

Supporting such a group of well-fed reserve forces all year round has placed a huge financial burden on the Divine Religion, and has even affected the development of the Divine Religion's various affairs, making the Divine Religion's already not optimistic financial situation worse.