Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 1240 - 26: War and Faith

Chapter 1240: Chapter 26: War and Faith

War, was the best breeding ground for the spread of belief; every war was the most optimal way for deities to gain faith. It could be said, the faith in deities was entirely built upon the blood and flesh of humans. These words came from Marin Viet, one of the most famous human scholars, historians, and philosophers at the beginning of the Fourth Epoch, and also the most famous infidel in human history. After deeply studying the history of Yarra during the Third Epoch for forty years, he suddenly became an infidel, not only did he cease to believe in any deity, but he also frequently criticized the faults of deities in public, proclaiming that even without the existence of deities, everyone could live better, and called on people to cast aside the deities like he did and take control of this world left to humans.

However, despite such blasphemous remarks, not a single deity issued an oracle to punish him; instead, they acted like bystanders, allowing him to propagate his theory. Under the deities’ indifference, Marin’s followers gradually increased, at most, the number of disciples willing to follow Marin even surpassed thirty thousand. To prove his theory, Marin called these followers into the wilderness to establish their own villages and towns, hoping to demonstrate through facts that, without the deities, people’s lives could be better. However, reality was not as he imagined. Without the protection of the Earth Goddess, the yield of crops was less than one-tenth of the original, without the blessings of the Gods of Life, diseases and pains could not be treated, without the protection of the Wind God, they could no longer pray for monsoons from afar to bring rain during dry days, without the passion of the Fire God, people even struggled to gather Fire-attribute Elements to warm their cold bodies. The deities didn’t even need to do anything—by simply withdrawing their protection from those who no longer believed in them, they made Marin’s followers stop believing in his theory and return to the original world. And Marin himself, likewise did not stick to his theory, after reality proved him wrong and demonstrated that having the protection of deities definitely made people’s lives better, he returned to the human world and publicly admitted his failure. This act of courageously admitting to reality, rather than damaging his reputation, actually earned him even greater respect.

The story of Marin has been passed down on the continent for thousands of years, especially among scholars, as a standard example of speaking based on facts, uncontrolled by bias and preconceived notions, used to educate students. Of course, regarding this incident, there were occasionally different opinions, even those whose hearts leaned towards darkness would secretly speculate whether this history from beginning to end was just a play acted out by Marin and the deities, because during that time, just after the War of Faith had ended, Yarra drove away the deities from the main world and began to repair the Yarran Continent, and due to the years of War of Faith, people’s faith in the deities had somewhat weakened after calming down. However, after this incident, people’s faith in the deities became firm again, no longer hesitant as before.

However, regardless of whether all of Marin’s theories were right or wrong, at least his evaluation of the relationship between war and belief was recognized by many, even the deities had to admit that what he said was indeed true. Every war expanded the faith in deities to a certain extent, and the upcoming war was no exception. It is unknown about other cities, but merely in the City of Knowledge, the number of people going to the Temple District for daily prayers had doubled since the war started. Although the shadow of war had not yet enveloped the City of Knowledge, people had already noticed many subtle changes in their daily lives. For those living an ordinary life, change often came with unrest; to alleviate this inner unrest, or to send blessings to distant relatives and friends who might participate in the war, more and more people entered the temple, increasing their devotion to the Power of Faith. Of course, this kind of mutually beneficial chain reaction wasn’t bad at all, whether it be deities, temples, the City Hall of Mortal World, or those prayer-goers, each could obtain what they desired, hence none of the parties would break this tacit agreement.

"Indeed, war is the best breeding ground for the spread of belief." Dressed in serious formal attire and walking in the streets of the Temple District, Pannis didn’t display his usual lazy demeanor, but instead, cooperated like a well-mannered gentleman beside the priest girl. However, upon seeing the visibly increased flow of people in the Temple District, his words could make most clergy want to throw whatever they held at him.

Fortunately, there was no one else beside him except Lina, clad in a white robe, linking arms with him. The girl had long grown accustomed to his sudden strange comments, so she did nothing extreme, just rolled her eyes helplessly and whispered, "This is the Temple District, can’t you wait until we leave here to talk?"

"Don’t worry, the deities have long since changed their attitudes towards humans, it’s now a situation of cooperative mutual benefit, so they really won’t mind these kinds of comments," Pannis shrugged. "Don’t believe me? We could try shouting that phrase right here, and it still wouldn’t bring Divine Punishment upon us," he said.

"But you will be beaten to death by thousands of clergy." Lina gritted her teeth and said, "Even Catheria with her mild temperament is currently planning how to teach you a lesson, let alone Tifa. But Katerina is pretty happy, she said it’s good to have some excitement to watch."

"No worries, your body is too weak, they controlling your body won’t be able to defeat me," Pannis had not finished speaking when he suddenly thought of something terrifying, speaking in a low voice, "You two stop, don’t encourage her to let that woman out; this is the Temple District, do you want to bloodbath this place? Hey, I said stop, okay okay, I was wrong, please definitely forgive me."

Lina’s expression changed several times in an instant, eventually returning to her usual expression, glancing sideways at Pannis, "Catheria says you’re wise, Tifa says it’s not over, Blood Girl says she’s remembered your provocation, telling you to wait for her."

"I was wrong, I really was wrong," Pannis hurriedly bowed his head to admit his mistake, his face mournful, "Please be sure to forget, don’t remember me."

"Hmph, see if you dare to talk nonsense again." The priest girl looked around to confirm no one had heard their conversation before re-linking arms with Pannis, softly saying, "Thank you for accompanying me to this prayer, it means a lot to me. Let’s go in now."