The Path to Lordship Begins in the North

To be honest, Linde originally wanted Sean to continue managing the Valley, since it was originally Sean's fiefdom, and Sean had managed it quite well.

After careful consideration, Linde decided to continue putting Sean in charge of railway transportation. After all, while the valley was important, putting Sean in that position would be a demotion.

Moreover, this arrangement could easily cause some unnecessary misunderstandings, so Linde ultimately allowed Laurie to temporarily exercise military control over the valley.

Having just returned to his gray-collar job, Linde still had a lot to deal with, but he first arranged a meeting between Tia and Lantern Dream.

When Bernice saw the throbbing black flesh, she exclaimed, "Goddess above, what blasphemy this is!"

Although she really wanted to touch it with her fingers, Bernice resisted the urge in the end.

Tia, curious, asked from the side, "So? Can you figure out what this thing is?"

Looking at the black chunk of meat, Tia couldn't even eat her snacks anymore; she just wanted to figure out what it was as soon as possible.

"Without a doubt, this is a piece of the flesh and blood of an Outer God."

Bernice kept circling the black flesh and blood, observing it closely.

Linde was not surprised by this conclusion. When he saw those monsters, he had already made a guess. Although their actual appearance was different from the Outer Gods that Linde knew from his previous life, their appearance was the same abstract.

However, Lind was also curious about how Bernice was so certain, so he asked, "What evidence do you have?"

"No."

Bernice shook her head and replied, "But both the piece of flesh in front of us and the monster features you described match up to some extent with early religious texts and myths; many details are consistent."

Bernice glanced at Tia and said, "Just like the records of the elves, the details recorded in the early texts of each religion are pieced together to form a complete image of the Outer God. I must say, the records of these false gods are still somewhat useful."

Upon hearing this, Tia's expression immediately turned quite ugly, but after glancing at Lind beside her, she suppressed her anger and asked rationally, "Then why can the records of the false gods you mentioned record the images of these Outer Gods? Now this lump of flesh and the demon monster have proven the existence of Outer Gods. Does that mean that all the gods except for Outer Gods and Goddesses are fake?"

Faced with this question, Bernice merely smiled with a hint of sarcasm, her expression as if she were looking at an ignorant person and disdaining to explain.

Linde had no choice but to step in and smooth things over, saying, "Alright, let's talk about Outer Gods instead, and put other religions aside for now."

Linde sighed helplessly. Even in his previous life, matters involving religion were extremely troublesome. Many wars, large and small, throughout history were fought because of religion or under the guise of religion.

Not to mention that there really is a God in this world.

However, after glancing at Bernice's haughty and superior expression, Lind understood why the Lantern Dream had been cut off by the current Vatican.

Bernice still respected, or rather feared, Lind, so after Lind stepped in to smooth things over, Bernice immediately steered the conversation back on track. However, before that, Bernice said meaningfully, "The fact that God is fake does not mean that God does not exist."

Then, Bernice looked at the black mass of flesh and said, "But to be honest, we never expected that we would actually see the Outer Gods in person."

Bernice began to give Tia a brief introduction to what the Outer Gods were. Of course, compared to her introduction to Lind, Bernice deliberately concealed many details, or rather, she simply disdained to reveal them.

This black lump of flesh is quite blasphemous to anyone with faith, because even the Outer Gods, who are villains in mythological texts and are defeated by gods in various texts, are not denied to be gods. Even if they are considered inferior to gods in the texts, they are still gods of the same rank as the gods they believe in.

This creature, which should have only existed in mythology, is now being presented in real life before everyone's eyes.

After listening to Bernice's explanation, Tia looked at the black mass of flesh in front of her, her expression filled with awe and fear. She also understood why Bernice had shouted "blasphemy" at the beginning.

That was the flesh and blood of God. Would the God I believe in have his flesh and blood cut off like that?

"Is the Outer God, the demon god worshipped by the demon god, still alive?"

Tia continued asking questions while watching the pulsating chunks of meat.

Bernice glanced at Lind, and after confirming that Lind also wanted a specific explanation, she replied, "According to the various religious scriptures we have, there should be no living Outer Gods in this world. If the scriptures are correct, then the Demon God on the Demon Race's side cannot be a living god."

But Bernice then added, "But there's still so much we don't understand about these gods. For them, death might just be a state, not an end."

Linde stroked his chin and recalled, "According to what the demons said on the battlefield, they called these things holy remains, or the flesh and blood of demon gods, which means that their demon god should indeed be dead."

"The demons unearthed the Outer God in the Eternal Frozen Land and discovered that the Outer God's flesh and blood had a certain effect, which could transform the demons into monsters similar to the Outer God. Therefore, the demons worshipped the Outer God as their own god."

Linde continued, "Most monsters lack self-awareness and can only be controlled by one or more monsters with self-awareness. How a monster can have self-awareness is still unclear."

Although Linde had wiped out all the demons, he didn't think those demons who were thrown onto the battlefield to do odd jobs knew anything. The real experimental personnel were definitely still hiding behind the demons.

"Moreover, from the perspective of the battlefield, these so-called Outer God flesh and blood are deadly to humans. We don't know what will happen to people after they eat these black chunks of flesh, but the black blood will corrode humans and turn them into monsters covered in silt."

In its final form, it resembles the slime monster from the RPG game Linde loved in his previous life.

However, the monster design in this otome game world does not include this classic slime element.

Linde felt that these corrupted humans would not simply become sacrifices for those monsters to heal their wounds in the end.

Tia kept recording and processing the information she had received that day. Although these were all based on speculation, the only truly accurate intelligence was the part that Linde had obtained from the battlefield. However, for the elves, who had a long history, having this intelligence allowed them to search for similar information in historical records.

Finally, Tia looked at the black mass of flesh that didn't seem dead at all, still twitching, and asked, "If death is just a state for a god, then will that demon god of the demon race be resurrected?"