Published: March 12, 2025
CHAPTER 227: The Strength of the Church of Light
Zhao Hai, Laura, Galen, and Kun Zheng sat quietly in the living room of the villa, listening to Lindsay Beck's report about the Church of Light.
After Zhao Hai had dealt with the items belonging to the cardinals, he asked a few of them about the Church of Light. As expected, Lindsay Beck was the one who knew the most detailed information, so Zhao Hai kept Lindsay Beck around and called Galen and the others back to let Lindsay Beck share what he knew about the Church of Light.
The Church of Light was even more powerful than Zhao Hai and the others had imagined. Currently, dozens of kingdoms, big and small, were under their control, and among the nobility of the major empires, quite a few had connections with the Church of Light, becoming knights of faith or elders of the Church.
Unfortunately, Lindsay Beck was only a cardinal himself. Although he had a cardinal father, he couldn't know too much. He only knew about a portion of the archdukes or great nobles who had joined the Church; he didn’t know anything beyond that.
Besides these great nobles, Lindsay Beck also knew of several mercenary groups and mid-sized merchant caravans that were associated with the Church of Light, with a few mercenary groups and caravans even under his management.
Beyond these, Lindsay Beck's knowledge was limited, but even so, Zhao Hai and the others benefited significantly and gained a more intuitive understanding of the Church of Light's strength.
The Church of Light was incredibly powerful. Previously, when Zhao Hai heard that the dark mage alliance had more than ten thousand dark mages, he thought that their strength was impressive. However, compared to the Church of Light, they fell far short.
The Church of Light's strategy of recruiting great nobles as knights of faith and elders was truly clever. This way, they brought those powerful nobles and archdukes onto their ship; whenever the Church had an issue, these nobles would naturally lend a hand. One should not underestimate the influence of these people. Even if they did not help openly, a mere word from them would prompt the small nobles who fawned over them to take care of matters promptly.
It was precisely because of this that the Church of Light has developed so quickly over the years. Furthermore, the Church not only recruited these great nobles but also integrated its own power development, tightly binding these great nobles to their war chariot using various interests.
Thanks to the help of these great nobles, the human populace on the continent was so hostile toward dark mages, resulting in the dark mage alliance being isolated by everyone in a short period.
In comparison to the Church of Light, the dark mage alliance was significantly weaker. Maru did not mention how many nobles had joined the dark mage alliance, which was clearly a weakness of theirs.
One must understand that the continent was still ruled by those nobles, and their attitudes would affect the common people under their rule. Once the common people developed a preconceived notion, it would be very hard to change their minds.
The greatest shortcoming of the dark mage alliance compared to the Church of Light was that dark mages had never had a unified command, while the Church of Light was almost the base camp for light mages. All light mages were members of the Church, giving them unified command, making their actions much more directed, unlike the dark mages who were like scattered sand.
Now that the dark mage alliance had been established, it was still too loose. Achieving the same level of cohesion as the Church of Light was virtually impossible.
However, Zhao Hai did not believe that dark mages would be easily suppressed by the Church of Light. The dark mage alliance was a loose organization with great freedom, which allowed them to thrive in various ways. If the Church of Light was like the sun at noon, then the dark mage alliance was like a cloud in the night sky. In places where the sun didn't shine, there would always be space for them to survive.