Chapter 156: Church Expansion Issues

When Silas woke up, he felt his body was somewhat heavy.

At the same time, he felt something seemingly licking his face.

Vaguely opening his eyes, Silas happened to see the Husky carelessly sprawled on him, sticking out its long tongue and giving him a "face wash."

Silas pushed the Husky away and said with a smile, "Get up, you Husky-pig, you're crushing me so I can't breathe."

The Husky rubbed against Silas's head again, then stood up.

Silas sat up and found himself in some ruins in the city.

"The positioning isn't very accurate!" Silas complained.

When the warship left, the Husky had transformed into ice to protect his body and shot him towards the ground.

The intended target was a location near the edge of the incident, but the current position seemed somewhat far.

Picking up his staff and looking at the surrounding ruined walls, Silas sighed helplessly, "About a third of the entire city has been destroyed, and at least a tenth of the city's residents have died. This cleanup work will keep the Church busy."

"Your Holiness Pope!" Helles's voice came from the distance.

Silas turned his head and happened to see Helles leading Adeline, Luke, and others over.

Behind them were Logan and Marx, the three Night Watchers.

Seeing there were no outsiders, Silas breathed a sigh of relief and, with the Husky, quickly walked over.

When the two groups met, Marx let out a sigh of relief. "You scared me to death. I thought you were really killed by Ron."

Bernice, beside him, hmphed. "How could that be? His Holiness Pope's methods are far beyond your imagination."

Luke carefully sized up Silas at this moment and sighed, "Thank you so much!"

Bobby hurriedly asked, "Where have you been for so long? You missed a good show!"

Logan patted her head and reprimanded, "What good show did he miss? The Lord of Death and Storm was summoned by Silas."

"What!?" The somewhat slow-witted Bobby and Marx looked shocked.

Silas, on this side, didn't deny it and said with a smile, "What else did you think? Do you think Helles and Bernice call me His Holiness Pope for nothing? Although our Evening Bell Church has relatively few members now, we wouldn't be that casual."

The two immediately felt somewhat embarrassed and scratched their heads sheepishly.

Luke, on this side, said with a smile, "Don't worry, it won't be just this many believers from now on."

Then, everyone recounted the situation in the Church of Holy Blood. Silas patted Helles's and Bernice's heads and said with a satisfied expression, "Well done. Truly worthy of being Mist Warriors who have received our Lord's grace!"

The two big girls, whose heads were patted by Silas, were very happy, squinting their eyes with enjoyment.

Marx, beside them, watched as the two previously ferocious Demonesses, who killed without blinking an eye, behaved like two little kittens in front of Silas, and was secretly astonished.

After a simple verification of the situation at that time, several people respectively stated the problems that needed to be solved now.

First was Adeline: "There are now thirty-two people who want to join the Evening Bell Church, but most of them are ordinary people. Do we accept them?"

Next was Logan: "Do you want the Holy Blood Church to know about your existence? If they know, what do you plan to do? If not, then you need to deal with those civilians and clergymen as soon as possible."

Then it was Luke. He said in a low voice, "After the baptism of the Gospel Bell, the ten maddened clergymen in the church have regained their sanity. They yearn to join your command. However, since they are all important criminals or key figures of the Holy Blood Church, if you want to accept them, you must handle the others properly."

Finally, Helles said, "Ron's remaining remnants have been captured. What should we do with them next?"

Faced with this series of problems, Silas did not panic. He calmly and carefully studied these four problems and then discovered that three of the four problems required dealing with the eyewitnesses in the Holy Learning Library.

Thinking of this, he quickly weighed the pros and cons.

"The current structure of the Church is a blank slate. Rashly accepting those ordinary believers can easily lead to problems. In our current situation, we can only be considered a small organization, not a church. Accepting those believers now could easily put ourselves at risk, as most of them on the Church's side are heretics."

"Therefore, ordinary believers cannot be accepted for the time being. However, 'for the time being' doesn't mean 'never.' We can't make a definitive statement yet. After leaving some leeway, we can use the pressure of faith in a real existence to ensure they keep this matter absolutely secret and don't tell anyone."

"Hmm, that's how we'll handle ordinary people."

"As for those clergymen and church personnel, after experiencing such an event, their faith will likely be greatly shaken. Many will probably abandon their faith, and some may join the Church. The policy for ordinary church personnel is the same as for ordinary people. What I need to build now is a secretive, small, and elite organization. After this organizational structure is stable, we can develop downwards. At that time, we can even form the current people into a high-ranking management agency, thus completely isolating heretics from ordinary people."

"As for clergymen, if they are willing to join, then they are warmly welcomed. If not, then bring out the great deity. I don't believe that a deity who has just performed a miracle can't intimidate you mortals!"

Thinking of this, Silas patted his body, put on a new mask, and said, "Let's go and talk to them."

Everyone knew Silas wanted to hide his identity, so they didn't say much. The group quickly returned to the scene of the incident to meet with the people who were anxiously waiting there.

Returning to the edge of the Holy Learning Library, they could see everyone sitting there quietly waiting. Beside them, four or five people were trussed up and thrown to the edge, including the obese middle-aged man who had luckily escaped earlier.

And what surprised Silas more was that Clausen was sitting there calmly, neither running nor trying to save his companion, the obese middle-aged man.

Seeing Silas return, everyone hurriedly stood up, and dozens of pairs of eyes instantly fell on Silas.

"Allow me to introduce. This is the Pope of our Evening Bell Church, our Lord's apostle in the mortal world, the leader who summoned our Lord in times of despair," Helles announced loudly.

Hearing this, everyone hurriedly bowed to Silas. "Greetings, Your Holiness Pope!"

Silas slightly raised his hand and, using the Mantra of Serenity, said, "I have already heard the wishes of all believers just now and have reported your devout faith to our Lord. Our Lord is very satisfied."

Everyone was filled with joy upon hearing this.

But then Silas changed the subject. "Our Lord is a true deity. You should have already felt His mercy. It is precisely because of this that we temporarily cannot accept your faith in our Lord."

"Why!?" For a moment, there was some commotion in the crowd, and they began to whisper and discuss among themselves.

They clearly felt their faith, so why was it being rejected?

People couldn't understand it for a moment.