Thankfully, Erwin was able to react very quickly, and he immediately cast an ice-attribute spell to seal the drops of tears in a vial of ice.

Looking at the clear droplets of tears, he couldn't help but wonder if something had happened to Lana.

At this moment, Christine just so happened to emerge from the cabin, and looking at the troubled expression on Erwin's face, she couldn't help but ask, "What's up? Did something happen, Brother Erwin? Are things not going smoothly for Brother Georgina and the others?"

Erwin shook his head in response. "They only set off not too long ago, so they should've only just arrived near Tellier."

"Then why do you look so concerned?" Christine asked with a curious expression.

"I'm not sure of that myself. I was in a pretty good mood, but all of a sudden, I began to feel very anxious and on edge," Erwin replied with tightly furrowed brows. "I feel like something bad has happened, but I don't know exactly what."

"Oh, I see. It must have something to do with that red-haired woman," Christine said with an enlightened expression.

"How do you know that?" Erwin asked as he turned to Christine with a surprised expression.

Christine offered no reply, merely pointing at the vial of ice that Erwin was holding in his hand.

"What about it?" Erwin was still rather perplexed. After all, it wasn't like Christine knew what the vial contained.

"You've been staring at it a lot, so it must have something to do with a woman. Sister Onean is right here in Zans, so there's no need for you to look at one of her belongings to think about her," Christine said with an amused smile. "With that in mind, it can only be something that belongs to the red-haired woman."

Erwin nodded in response as he forced a smile onto his own face, and it was clear that his mood hadn't improved at all.

Christine could see that Erwin was still quite down in the dumps, so she consoled, "Don't worry so much, Brother Erwin. I caught a glimpse of her from afar back in Sarus, and I could immediately tell that she's someone who's blessed by the hands of fortune. Don't worry, she'll definitely be fine."

"You're telling me you can do fortune telling?" Erwin asked with a wry smile, clearly rather skeptical about what Christine had just said.

"What? You don't believe me?" Christine asked with a provocative smile.

"I do, I believe whatever you say," Erwin placated half-heartedly.

"You're clearly just saying that to appease me!" Christine said with a displeased pout. "How about we make a bet?"

"A bet? What do you want to bet?"

"We'll bet on whether the woman you're thinking about right now will appear safe and sound before you at some point."

Erwin thought about this for a moment, then shook his head in response. "Forget it, I don't want to bet on her safety."

"I knew you would say that," Christine said as she turned her gaze to the side, then thought to herself with a forlorn expression, If I ever find myself in peril someday, will you also be this concerned for me?

...

A creaky horse-drawn carriage was rushing down the provincial road of the Boll Dukedom, and its destination was the ruler's territory of the Fulway Empire situated in the east.

As the name indicated, the ruler's territory belonged directly to the ruler of an empire, and it was the exact same concept as the king's province. However, due to the fact the Fulway Empire's ruler was referred to as emperor, his territory naturally couldn't be referred to as the king's province, so it could only be called the ruler's territory.

The young missionary, Joe, was driving the carriage vigorously as he turned to Lia with a curious expression. "Teacher Lia, are you confident that you'll be able to persuade the other elders?"

Lia couldn't help but massage his own tired eyes upon hearing this. They had already been traveling for several consecutive days by carriage, and that had taken a physical toll on him.

However, most of the exhaustion that he was feeling actually didn't come from the rigors of travel. Instead, he was feeling extremely weary at the thought of the verbal battle that he would have to endure in the near future.

He wasn't wondering whether he would be able to convince the other four elders. Instead, he knew that no matter what he proposed, there was no way that the other four elders would approve without putting up a fight.

The five elders of the Universal Church were supposed to supervise one another, and they were meant to pose opposition against one another in order to maintain a balance.

In addition to that, Lia was going to be making an earth-shattering proposition, so it was even less likely that the proposal would be approved.

Sitting in the open-air carriage, Lia was looking at the lines on his own hands. He wanted to cover his own face with his hand and lie down to take a nap, but he knew that it wouldn't be possible.

He was unable to fall asleep. As soon as he closed his eyes, the insane vision that Erwin had proposed to him would surface in his mind. It was as if he had been afflicted by a curse from Erwin, and he was absolutely obsessed.

"Teacher Lia, are we really going to organize an army for the church?" Joe asked as he turned around to look at Lia.

Lia offered no reply as he continued to stare absentmindedly at his own palm, and it was as if he hadn't even heard Joe's question.

Ambition and desire were like a constricting python, slithering up and down in his mind while suffocating his brain. It had made a home in its mind in a completely blatant and brazen fashion, and what was particularly frustrating to Lia was that it was constantly rearing its ugly head to remind him of its existence, making it impossible for him to forget it.

Lia heaved a long sigh as he mused to himself, "That Erwin truly is a terrifying man."

"Then why did you decide to work with him, Teacher Lia?" Joe asked in a perplexed manner.

"That is the way that the almighty Universal Lord works. He always throws some geniuses into your life when you least expect it, and our destiny is to help these geniuses, lending them our aid to make their visions that don't belong in this world into realities. You have to believe me when I say this. Once certain people appear in your life, some things will inevitably follow. The sequence is like a flood, a force of nature that can't be stopped by anyone. Hence, the wisest cause of action for us would be to prepare a life raft before the flood arrives."

Joe was silent for a long while upon hearing this before nodding with a rather confused expression.

He then asked a question that Lia was unable to answer: "Teacher Lia, did you intentionally choose him back in Belama?"

Lia thought about this question for a long time, but offered no reply in the end.

...

After traveling tirelessly for several hundred kilometers, the two of them finally arrived at the capital city of the ruler's territory, Finklan.

This was the largest city north of the Terarody Mountain Ranges, and it was the political and cultural center of the Fulway Empire.

The headquarters of the Holy World Church, the Universal Church, and the New Light Church were all situated in this city, and the three churches were all trying to take advantage of the city's population, which was in excess of 1,000,000, and its proximity to the emperor's power.

The emperor of the Fulway Empire was quite a shrewd and reasoned man, treating the three religions as equals and never displaying any favoritism. However, at the same time, he had never expressed a belief in any of the three religions, so it could also be said that he was simply indifferent toward all three religions.

This was the tradition of the Fulway Empire's imperial family. They always maintained an ambiguous attitude toward all religions, neither acknowledgment nor renouncing them, simply allowing them to develop organically instead.

Strangely enough, the magisterium had never outstripped imperial power, and that had always been the case over the past several centuries, even back when the Holy World Church was at the height of its powers.

At this point, both Lia and Joe were already exhausted and starving. They passed through the lively and bustling Victoria Street, passing by countless luxurious horse-drawn carriages from esteemed noble families in the city, and they couldn't help but be drawn toward the alluring aroma wafting out from the restaurants that lined the streets.

Unfortunately, the two of them had urgent business to attend to, so they could only continue on toward the Holy Rosken Cathedral while gnawing on some dry rations.

The cathedral was situated in the eastern part of the city, which was inhabited by commoners, so it fit in with the demographic targeted by the Universal Church.

The name "Holy Rosken Cathedral" sounded quite grandiose, but when it came to the scale of the cathedral, it was nowhere near as eye-catching and majestic as the Holy Jade Cathedral.

The reason for this was that the Holy Rosken Cathedral was the first ever cathedral constructed by the Universal Church since its founding. The Universal Church had very limited funds at the time, so this was already the best cathedral that they could've built back then.

Even though its scale was rather unremarkable, the symbolic importance of the Holy Rosken Cathedral to the Universal Church far outweighed its physical size. The cathedrals of the Universal Church had become more and more luxurious as the religion had grown stronger over the years, but this was the point where everything had begun, and all of the Universal Church's clergymen were well aware of this.

This was also why all of the secret meetings between the five elders of the Universal Church were held here.

The cathedral was another lesson in not judging a book by its cover.

As soon as Elder Lia and Joe set foot into the Holy Rosken Cathedral, he was immediately identified by a bishop, who came rushing over to him.

Lia was so exhausted that he was in no mood for small talk, and he directly asked, "Are they here yet?"

The bishop faltered slightly upon seeing this, and he mistook the intensity in Lia's eyes for fury. Thus, he immediately lowered his voice in an uneasy manner and replied, "They've already arrived and are waiting for you."

Lia nodded in response. "Prepare two clean rooms for me in the monastery, I have to rest for two hours. Wake me up when it's time for the meeting tonight."

"Understood. Please come with me." The bishop led the two of them out of a side entrance of the cathedral before guiding them toward the monastery.

The Holy Rosken Cathedral was quite an archaic building without any rooms for clergymen to eat and sleep inside. Instead, there was a separate monastery beside the cathedral that served as lodging for the bishops and pastors here.

The fact that this bishop had been made responsible for attending to the five elders meant that he had to have been quite an important figure. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to come into contact with these core members of the Universal Church.

"You must be exhausted after traveling all this way." The bishop was leading from the front while occasionally turning around to speak to Lia with a fawning smile on his face.

"I'm fine," Lia replied with a cold expression. It wasn't that he was intentionally putting on a cold expression, he simply didn't have the energy to put on a benevolent smile.

The bishop could see that Lia wasn't in the mood to talk, so he didn't say anything further.

Truth be told, he was feeling rather perplexed. A couple of days ago, he had suddenly received news that a meeting between the five elders was going to be held. The news had been delivered to him by Lia through the Universal Church's internal secret pathways, and Lia had even decided on the exact time that the meeting was going to be held on his own. Of course, very few people in the entirety of the Universal Church were aware of this.

Meetings between the five elders, otherwise known as Five Summits Meetings, weren't exactly rare or remarkable events, but this one was being held on extremely short notice, and that was something that had never happened before. Furthermore, the timing of the meeting had been decided by a single elder, and that was rather inexplicable. In the past, the timing of these meetings had always been decided following a discussion between all of the elders.

Looking at his expression, it seems that they're going to discuss something extremely urgent tonight. I wonder what it is, the bishop thought to himself.

The nature of the Five Summits Meeting was that even if only a single elder proposed such a meeting, the other four had to attend the meeting in person. The five elders were responsible for overseeing matters in five different areas, namely the southeast, the southwest, the northeast, the southwest, the northwest, and the ruler's territory.

Lia was the elder of the southwestern area, and with his decision to propose a Five Summits Meeting, all of the other elders aside from the one who was already in the ruler's territory also had to travel to Finklan without rest.

If Lia didn't have something extremely important to discuss tonight, the other three elders were most likely going to tear him to shreds.