In the Holy City of Lands, inside the Pope's study.
"A live broadcast of the Lontart Music Festival?" Benedict III looked at the Cardinal across from him and repeated the news he had just reported, clearly struggling to understand how intelligence of this magnitude had been brought to his attention. If he had to personally handle matters as trivial as peas, then what was the point of having so many Cardinals?
Sensing the Pope's displeasure, the Cardinal broke into a cold sweat on his forehead. In his nervousness, he had omitted a crucial detail: "Your Holiness, this broadcast is nothing like the Altor Music Festival broadcast at the municipal square. This is a simultaneous broadcast across all four strait nations and portions of cities along the northern coastal corridor. The number of people watching the Lontart Music Festival reaches into the millions."
"Ultra-long-range image transmission… using an artificial planet?" Benedict III naturally understood that the Cardinal was referring to more than just audio broadcasting, so, well-versed in the arcane arts as He was, His first thought went to artificial planets. Currently only they could handle such demands—unless the Magic Council had gone bankrupt deploying sound and image transmission circles everywhere, the way the Church had done in the past.
The Cardinal kept his head lowered: "Yes. According to the Night Watch's intelligence, the Magic Council did indeed use an artificial planet as a relay station."
Mid-rank mages who had deployed the "Veil" had caused the artificial planets to glow during final calibration, scattering brilliant light and creating a wondrous spectacle—at their level of power, this was unavoidable. The Night Watch, possessing basic arcane knowledge, had therefore determined that this "music festival broadcast" had relied on artificial planets.
Benedict III's expression turned grave. He took the emergency intelligence report from the Cardinal's hands and began reading through it carefully.
"Your Holiness, although this broadcast's Magic Circle is neither permanent nor an alchemical artifact—it loses effectiveness after a few uses—this method will certainly be refined and standardized by the Magic Council. This will shake the faith of believers across the four strait nations and the northern coastal corridor, which is detrimental to our future counteroffensive." The Cardinal, worried for the Church's prospects, mustered his courage and spoke up.
Benedict III set down the intelligence report. His expression was as deep and unfathomable as the ocean, making it impossible to read His true thoughts: "Merely shaking the faith of believers? The Lontart Music Festival is being broadcast nearly simultaneously in cities separated by varying distances—complete with sound, with images, and accessible even to common folk, not just the great nobles. What lies behind such an event is far, far more than the simple shaking of faith."
"It was my foolishness—I failed to grasp the Lord's revelation." The Cardinal's body trembled slightly in fear. He had been too eager to win the Pope's favor, and that greed had clouded his judgment, leading him to speak when he should have remained silent.
Benedict III gave a slight nod and continued: "Of course, the most critical impact on us is indeed the shaking of faith. The mages use pleasure, luxury, debauchery, and a lizard-like kaleidoscope of colors to lure people into corruption, making them no longer as simple and pure as they were centuries ago, causing them to lose their way and the world to become a mire of filth. But the more things deteriorate like this, the more we must uphold the Lord's teachings and save every lamb that still carries even a faint glimmer of kindness within."
"This is a difficult and perilous path. Every member of the clergy must be prepared to become a martyr. Are you prepared?"
The Cardinal, feeling validated, was moved with excitement and traced a cross over his chest: "Truth endures forever!"
"Convene an emergency meeting of the College of Cardinals." Benedict III let out a compassionate, merciful sigh.
Half an hour later, with the exception of those temporarily away, unreachable, or stationed in vital regions and unable to leave at short notice, all remaining members of the College of Cardinals gathered in the Great Hall of Radiance.
Before Pope Benedict III emerged with his platinum scepter, they had already been briefed by the Cardinals on the meeting's agenda.
"Your Holiness, the artificial planets pose an enormous threat. We must concentrate our forces and destroy them completely—we cannot continue combining countermeasures with opportunistic strikes as before." Grand Master of the Knights Templar Melmoth made his recommendation bluntly. Although he did not study the arcane arts the way Cardinals did, from an outside perspective, he could see more clearly the harm artificial planets posed to the Lord, to the Church, and to the faith. Their orbits in the sky gave the mages what amounted to an extra pair of "Eyes of God," a set of "Wings of Light"!
After the second artificial planet was "launched," the Church had tried various countermeasures and strike methods, but the results were mediocre. Their current achievement stood at two artificial planets destroyed, which had disrupted the mages' "spying" on the Holy City of Lands and other critical locations. However, ever since Lucian Evans published his General Theory of Relativity, the Magic Council launched new artificial planets into orbit every year, so they could well afford such losses.
Saint Maria was a brown-haired young woman with a serene expression, though her true age was at least over three hundred. She spoke in a gentle voice: "For the Magic Council, manufacturing and launching artificial planets is not an especially difficult task. Even if we concentrate our forces to destroy one, within a year they could launch several more."
"Moreover, the current Magic Council, aside from lacking quasi-gods, is virtually on par with us in overall strength. If we can concentrate our forces to attack, cannot they concentrate theirs to counterattack? Can we even afford the cost of an all-out war? The heretics to the north and the evil creatures of the Dark Mountains are watching us, waiting for us to make a mistake."
Asteriel, the "Angel of Wind," picked up where Maria left off: "The Magic Council is publicly broadcasting Lucian Evans's Valkyrie on such a massive scale—did they really fail to anticipate our reaction? Perhaps this is yet another trap. Perhaps they are waiting for us to concentrate our forces to destroy the orbital planets!"
"Then what do you suggest? Can any of you produce similar objects, pitting our 'Eyes of God' against the mages' artificial planets?" Belial, the "Divine Radiance," was dissatisfied with their litany of difficulties and impossibilities—someone needed to come up with an actual plan!
The newly appointed Cardinal Philip spoke: "Crafting similar objects directly is not our strong suit, but we could find a way to capture one of their artificial planets. The patterns of Divine Arts and the patterns of arcane magic are not fundamentally different—the only distinction lies in the power they ultimately draw upon. Given sufficient time, we should be able to replicate one. And when that time comes, empowered by the Lord's grace, the objects we produce will surpass the artificial planets in both offensive capability and creativity!"
Past experience showed that in borrowing power, Divine Arts were more convenient than arcane magic, because the "God" was omnipresent—even in orbit. Mages, on the other hand, relied not only on their own spiritual power for spellcasting, but when harnessing gravitational or solar thermal energy, they needed permanent Magic Circles or entire Magic Towers for support. This left artificial planets notably lacking in offensive power. And if one were to raise an artificial planet to near-Legendary-grade, the cost would be prohibitively high, undermining the advantage of numbers.
This was precisely why the Magic Council placed such importance on fission reactors and their planned controlled nuclear fusion. If those could be miniaturized, the gap between arcane magic and Divine Arts in this domain would be completely leveled.
"This will require a thorough and airtight plan. We must not fall into the Magic Council's trap." After acknowledging Philip's proposal, Melmoth's attitude turned cautious rather than aggressive.