There was a long silence between Bertila and Gawain.

The first to break the silence was Gawain.

Because he wasn't sure if the woman in front of him, who had become a semi-vegetative, would have the same patience as a plant—if she didn't speak all day, he wouldn't be with her all day.

"Now that I've said and done my business, it's time to talk about you." He said in a deep voice.

"We? As you can see, we're just a bunch of pathetic losers now," Bertila's roots rustled behind her, and her voice seemed to be mixed with rustling and rubbing, "but I see that you have built barracks around Fort Solin and are gradually recovering land...... Presumably, the final winner of this war has been decided. ”

"Can you 'see' the outside?" Gawain raised an eyebrow, more curious about Bertilla's current state, "That's right...... It's funny. ”

"I could see, very wide, unprecedented, but I couldn't move, I couldn't see what I was like now," Bertila said slowly, "I ...... What does it look like now? ”

“…… A tree, a huge plant that covers a small half of the Thorin region, and is still growing slowly," Gawain said calmly, "If you are really curious, I can send someone to take a picture of your current situation from a distance and show it to you." ”

“…… I thank you in advance," Bertila suddenly moved the roots entrenched around her, as if she had made up her mind, and as if she had suddenly figured out something, "Extraterritorial wanderer, I still don't know what you are, but I've become like this, so it doesn't matter if you choose to choose or not." The path we have taken has been proven wrong, and if our failures can leave you with some lessons, then just ask. ”

Gawain glanced at the other party a little surprised, and then thought for a moment: "You should know about the 'Disobedience Plan', right?" ”

Bertila's expression suddenly changed: "...... Why do you know?! ”

But then she showed a sudden expression: "Ah, yes, extraterritorial wanderer...... You've been observing the world, and of course you know what you just said......"

"Don't get me wrong, it doesn't matter if I'm an extraterritorial wanderer," Gawain frowned, interrupting the other party solemnly, "Don't indulge in the illusion of carrying out a mission or saving the world alone, you have become like this, you should at least come to your senses - there are still people in this world who are pushing the world openly, while you are paranoidly carrying out those unseemly extreme plans." ”

Bertila's brow furrowed, and after a moment, the squirming of vines and roots behind her gradually subsided: "Arrogance, it should be the first mistake we made. ”

"You have made many mistakes, but I will not discuss this with you now," Gawain said, "who passed on to you the 'plan of disobedience' that you carried out?" How much do you have in your hands? Is the inheritor still alive? How long have you been doing this? ”

Faced with this large series of questions, Bertila closed her eyes slightly and whispered, "How long has it been executed...... We have been carrying out this plan since the birth of the Society of the End of All Things, and for nearly 700 years we have been the continuators of the plan of disobedience! ”

Facing Gao Wen's slightly surprised expression, she quietly continued, "Do you know the ceremony on the Ancestral Peak back then? ”

"I know," Gawain nodded, "you wrote me a letter saying that you were going to the Ancestral Peak to participate in a ritual of communicating with the gods. ”

Bertila immediately stared at him: "My letter is addressed to Gawain Cecil. ”

Gawain smiled and pointed to his head: "I know, but this memory is here-Beltira, whether you recognize it or not, I have inherited the memory of Gawain Cecil, I know most of the things he has experienced, I know that there is a part about you, maybe you still think that I am an extraterritorial wanderer who steals my body, but in a sense, I am Gawain Cecil now, and in this life, I will live in this capacity." ”

Bertilla looked at Gawain steadily, a large number of vines and roots slowly trembled or squirmed unconsciously behind her, no one knew what she was thinking at this moment, but Gawain seemed to see a glimmer of light in the other party's wooden eyes, and then she continued the topic: "...... On the Ancestral Peak, the Holy Spirit Druid Patriarch, the Dream Church Pope, and the Storm Church Pope held a joint ceremony and successfully teleported Dream Pope Megael III to the Kingdom of God......"

Gao Wen knew this part, and he nodded: "After that, all the members of the three dark sects went crazy...... What really happened then? ”

Bertila closed her eyes, her body trembled slightly, as if to this day, seven hundred years later, remembering what happened at that time was still a torment of fear for her, Gawain heard her say in an almost dreamlike voice: "Megael III entered the realm of the kingdom of God, where his soul was almost completely torn apart, but compared to what he had witnessed, the tearing of the soul was nothing at all: he saw the kingdom of God and the palaces of the gods, and around those illusory and beautiful halls, It is an immensely vast and chaotic void space, where countless broken ruins and the corpses of gods float around the kingdom of the gods, orbiting in dead silence......

"The broken ruins and the corpses of the gods seem to have been floating for a long time, and they are clearly distinguished from each other, as if they are not destroyed at the same time, but have undergone rounds of regeneration and extinction. Megael III was almost half-insane when he looked directly at the ruins and corpses, but what was even more terrifying was what he witnessed afterwards:

He saw the gate of the kingdom of God open, and the figure of the god flashed inside...... In that extremely brief sighting, the vast amount of knowledge and truth destroyed all of Megael III's mental defenses, and he almost immediately descended into madness—

"The Grand Imam of the Druids and the Pope of the Storm, who were performing the ritual together, spotted the anomaly just in time to try to pull Megael III back into the real world, but the act brought the three of them together spiritually...... They shared perception. ”

Listening to what Bertilla described, Gawain remained calm and calm on the surface, but a huge wave had already set off in his heart-

Seven hundred years ago, the three church leaders witnessed the ruins of the fall of the gods, but the specific situation was even more weird and crazy than he imagined!

The kingdom of the gods is surrounded by countless ruins and countless corpses, and that is not a situation that can be created by a single round of destruction - Gawain knows the battle in which the god-killing fleet destroyed the gods in ancient times, but if Bertila's information is true, then the battle report that Gawain heard in the eternal stone tablet is probably only one link in the countless destruction cycles of the gods.

If the ancient god-killing fleet destroyed the gods once, what caused the other countless other destructions?

Will the reincarnation of the gods and their kingdom of destruction be related to the demonic tide of the present world? Could it be related to the repeated destruction of human civilization?

With the surviving gods and their kingdom in the middle of the ruins, surrounded by countless wreckage, could it be that each new round of gods is born from the "graveyard of the gods"? Or...... The scene surrounded by ruins corresponds to the demon tide of the mortal world and the reincarnation of civilization, and has a deeper symbolic meaning?

Countless speculations and associations fluctuated in Gawain's mind like a tidal wave, but these questions obviously could not be answered from Bertila's mouth, and he could only temporarily archive these questions from his memory and start focusing on another thing:

The original three church leaders were distorted by being exposed to the knowledge of the gods after sharing their senses, so why did the other ordinary believers go crazy together?

He asked his own question, and Bertila sighed slightly: "Faith, it binds us all together. ”

Gawain's expression suddenly froze.

"Belief in the gods is a chain, and it has taken us many years to understand this—praying for the same object of worship, following the same precepts, building the body and mind according to the canon, seeking the unity of one's own spiritual gifts' and the 'divinity' of the gods, which is the foundation of all beliefs and divine arts, according to which mortals obtain the blessings of divine arts, but at the same time they are tantamount to locking their hearts to the same chain, which is the 'bridge between gods and men'. And the stronger the faith, the stronger the chain, the more powerful it can be transmitted...... Strength. ”

Bertila spoke slowly, her tone more serious than ever.

It is for this reason that when the vast amount of knowledge involving the gods poured into the minds of the three church leaders, they were the first link in the chain and in an instant spread this knowledge downstream in an instant......

"The most marginal shallow believers may not be affected, because their beliefs are not firm enough, and there is still a certain distance between their hearts and gods, but all the priests who can use divine magic are undoubtedly part of this chain, whether they are at the peak of the ancestors or not, they cannot escape this terrible impact of knowledge.

"The end result is that everyone in the chain is affected."

Gawain gasped.

Faith leads to an invisible connection between mortals who share the same faith, an important piece of information that has never been known before!

Could this connection have something to do with the Soul Seal?

Bertila's description is full of metaphors and occult vocabulary, which is determined by her personal knowledge and worldview, but in Gawain's case, it all can be summed up in two sentences:

The leaders of the three dark sects looked directly into the secrets of the gods seven hundred years ago.

All the devout members of the three sects performed a nationwide san check in that instant.

The result of this terrible collective san check is obvious: none of them.

But perhaps because a large number of middle- and lower-level priests shared the pressure of that spiritual shock, or maybe it was because the three church leaders at that time disconnected from the kingdom of God in time, this collective san check failure did not lead to the most terrible consequences - although the three dark sects were instantly blackened, there was no terrible incident in which a large number of members were directly distorted into monsters, and after a short period of frenzied behavior, they even "woke up" from their madness and reorganized themselves into the Society of the End of All Things. The three new sects, the Sleepers and the Children of the Storm, have even done a lot of research to try out the disobedience plan......

But if you think about it, after that shock, did they really "wake up"?

Gawain quietly looked at Berthira in front of him.

She stood quietly between the roots and the vines, there was not a hint of madness in her eyes, she looked sane - but look at the vines around her, look at the slowly wriggling roots, think about how these roots cut through the layers of palaces and crypts, think of the huge trees that were unimaginably large...... None of them are normal.

Perhaps, this symbolizes the essence of the three dark sects: the informant who has returned from madness, a heart that thinks it has woken up, imprisoned in a frenzied shell.

When it manifests, it's a dangerous madman.

"After the Council of the Ancestors' Peak, we experienced great confusion and loss, with a large number of members rushing into the Gondor wasteland, and many of the remaining members mutilating themselves, committing suicide, or falling into perpetual madness, and the members who barely managed to keep their senses went into hiding—it was easy to hide in the chaos of the time—and then it took a few more years for the frenzy caused by the mental shock to wane, and we were secretly regaining our strength......

"We know that the truth we have is too shocking, even if we just say half a word, it will attract the attack of almost all Orthodox sects, and it is more likely to attract the attention of the gods behind them, so we chose to fall into the darkness and look for a way to break the situation......"

Speaking of this, Bertila shook her head, revealing a hint of self-deprecation: "Now calm down and think about it, our original purpose is really not that complicated, it was a long time and long-term paranoia that caused everything to deviate from the trajectory, and more importantly, that disobedient plan......

"The two elven druids who brought the plan of disobedience were two sisters, Filna White Frost and Rayna White Frost."