I will be crowned king

After leaving the prison, the cold and humid air immediately hit Anson's face, making his recently relaxed body become tense again.

Generally speaking, winter in the north is long and dry, and the biting cold wind is eager to drain the last trace of temperature and moisture from the air; if you can get closer, it will be slightly warmer, but at the cost of the air becoming very humid.

It is very unfortunate that the weather in Beluga Harbor has the characteristics of both, and completely abandons the advantages of both; the colony shrouded in haze and water vapor is like a huge ice cave, obviously on land, and the entire port But it seems like an abyssal city immersed in icy water.

However, this also proves from the side that the reconstruction work of the surrounding communities of Beluga Harbor is very necessary. Profitability or not is secondary. It is certain that it can improve the survival rate of new immigrants.

Almost half of the increase in the colony's population is due to the continuous flow of new immigrants; as the war between Clovis and the Empire continues, there will definitely be fewer and fewer immigrants who can leave the mainland and arrive at White Whale Port alive.

In the short term, this problem should not be obvious, but in the long term, immigrants who share the same beliefs - even just on the surface - are definitely the most important "resource" of the colony.

What's more, in addition to improving the living environment, rebuilding communities also has a hidden benefit, which is to greatly improve public security.

This is the advice provided by Fabian: According to his several years of experience in the Guards career, the reason why the security environment in the outer city is so bad that gangs are everywhere and even filled with elements of the Old Gods. After excluding the shortage of manpower and ability problems, in the end The important point is the poor infrastructure.

Garbage dumps are breeding grounds for bedbugs, and communities with inconvenient transportation and poor environments that are difficult to manage are the soil that breeds gangs and pagan groups.

Only by rebuilding the entire community and eradicating all these unorganized, low-level armed organizations and heretics can the Storm Division (high-level armed organizations) and the Rune Family (organized heretics) manage the city well!

The next plan was slowly outlined in his mind, and the corners of Anson's mouth gradually began to rise.

As soon as he left the prison, a four-wheeled carriage stopped in front of him; the door opened, and Thalia, who was sitting in the carriage, smiled softly at him.

She put on a light-colored long skirt and a delicate little hat. The closer-fitting skirt and long lace gloves gave her petite figure some curves.

Anson decisively accepted her kindness and calmly boarded the carriage.

Smiling Thalia immediately closed the carriage, and at the same time took out an unopened bottle of rum and a glass from the drawer on the side, and poured wine for him.

Anson, who was sitting opposite the girl, sorted out the snowflakes that had fallen on his body and enjoyed the girl's service like the head of the family.

"Where are you going?"

Thalia smiled easily and handed the glass to Anson.

"Beluga Port Council, go see the anxious Bishop who has been waiting for me." Anson took the wine glass easily:

"Now that we have a target, all that remains is to encourage the believers of the Ring of Order in Beluga Port to 'stand up' and stand up against the 'evil heretics' with a clear-cut stand... to fulfill the wish of our Lord Bishop for many years."

A group with clear goals and a relatively standardized organization is always much easier to control than a chaotic mob with unknown goals; especially for a group of fanatic believers, the best way to manage them is to find an enemy for them.

It doesn't matter whether it is strong or weak, but it must be representative enough to facilitate public opinion building to attract the majority of attention; at the same time, it is best to be difficult to deal with and will not be completely eliminated for a while, which is very suitable for causing trouble when needed. The enemy slaps a hat on him.

By this standard, a group of extreme and fanatical indigenous pagans couldn't have been better.

The four-wheeled carriage drove slowly towards Beluga Harbor, and the carriage began to shake slightly.

"So have you finally started cleaning up the Old Gods sect in White Whale Port?" Thalia suddenly looked at Anson.

"Almost, of course, after the Faithless Knights are completely eliminated."

Anson took a sip of his wine and responded with a smile: "Any questions?"

Thalia nodded gently:

"It's almost time."

Um?

Anson was stunned for a moment, and then realized the meaning of the girl's words.

"Dear Anson, for a spellcaster, it is not enough to just continuously 'absorb' knowledge. More practical experience is also needed." Thalia answered softly:

"There is no experience more valuable to evolution than combat."

"This is just Thalia's little suggestion, but only by accumulating enough experience and creating your own magic can you start the next step of evolution and become a 'real' spell caster."

In essence, the three major magics are three paths of evolution. For spellcasters walking on these paths, there is no way out.

Mace Honnard didn't, and neither did he himself... Anson didn't speak, and listened quietly.

"In order to shorten this process as much as possible, Thalia instilled the memories of those spell casters directly into Ansem, because as a blood mage, Thalia could not provide any useful advice or guidance to Ansem."

The girl's gaze turned to the window. It was still afternoon, but the moon could already be seen in the horizon: "But the next step must be completed by Anson himself."

"Are you anxious?" Anson asked a seemingly unrelated question.

But there was no smile on Thalia's expression. She nodded lightly, her expression very serious:

"The Lord of the Abyss...it's still alive."

Anson's brows raised sharply!

"The encounter at sea was a little beyond my expectations, so I wasn't fully prepared." Before Anson could speak, the girl had already withdrew her gaze:

"As you know, the purpose of the Luen family is to find allies against the Church of Order, not to become enemies of the true God believers in the Land of Rest."

"But unfortunately... that's not what they think."

"Although the battle in the Turbulent Sea succeeded in making it give up, Thalia could feel that it was not all of its strength. The opponent was also ill-prepared because of its hasty response... It is only a matter of time before it makes a comeback."

"Thalia can try her best to hide her aura so that the old gods in the Land of Rest cannot feel her presence, but the Lord of the Abyss can...it left a mark on Thalia's body."

The girl stretched out her right hand and gently took off her glove, revealing the wound on her wrist.

It was an extremely deep wound that almost cut off her right hand completely, but what was truly terrifying was the milky-white parasite that crowded the wound - with lobster-like shells and tentacles, which were constantly tearing away from the pus-oozing wound. Bite off the flesh.

Anson suddenly felt his stomach churn.

"This is……"

"What it took away from Thalia... this is only part of it." The girl said lightly, gently covering the wound with her gloves, her calm expression seemed to be that she could not feel the pain at all:

"It won't take long for it to completely recover; Thalia is confident of defeating it again, but by then it will be completely impossible to hide it..."

Anson nodded slightly.

He must become a blasphemous mage before the Lord of the Abyss returns!

Of course, this is definitely not as easy as talking... Mace Honard spent decades to achieve this step, and even turned his best friend into a madman. In the end, he almost died at the hands of the Lord of the Abyss before he managed to succeed. .

But now I only have a few months at most.

Even if Thalia can really defeat the Lord of the Abyss, there are three "evil gods" believed by the indigenous pagans in White Whale Port alone; assuming that the strength of the other two is equal to that of the Lord of the Abyss, even if it is only slightly inferior. One chip...

However, curse magic has an advantage that casters of the other two types of magic do not have, and that is that the effect of the ability to "distort reality" is absolute.

High-level blood mages can "suppress" low-level casters of the same kind, and low-level black mages can almost only be completely crushed in front of high-level casters; but curse magic is different. No matter the level, it has the ability to distort reality. It won't change.

Even a fifth-level conjurer may be burned to ashes by a new spell caster using [Concentrated Flame]... Of course, the probability is very small.

This is also Anson's only source of confidence now. As the only one of the three major magics that has no strengthening effect on himself and relies entirely on distorting reality to gain strength, becoming stronger is often a matter of magic.

He only needs to absorb the memories of those curse mages as soon as possible and master a few relatively powerful magics to make a significant leap in strength; on the contrary, evolving into a "blasphemy mage" will not have a particularly obvious impact on his strength.

The only difficulty is how to find the most useful one among the vast sea of ​​information.

The scenery outside the car window kept changing, and finally stopped slowly when the sign on the gate of the Beluga Harbor Parliament could be seen; in the car, which was filled with smoke and the smell of alcohol, neither of them got out of the car immediately.

"I remember you said, Anson, that you need to solve the problem of the Faithless Knights first." Thalia suddenly said:

"In that case, why did you come to see the bishop first instead of the Knights' behind-the-scenes sponsor, Mason Wetzler?"

Sure enough, she already knew... Anson pretended to be calm and smiled:

"Because it's not needed."

"unnecessary?"

"Three days have passed since we captured the members of the Faithless Knights...three days, which is enough time for them to know that their people have been arrested." Anson explained with some pride:

"If I were Mason Wetzler, no matter how calm I was, I would be a little panicked by now."

"When people are panicked, they tend to do wrong things, expose weaknesses that are not usually exposed when they are calm, and become extreme and uncontrollable."

"So there is no need for me to look for him. I just need to indirectly reveal to him that I have information about the Faithless Knights, and he will come to me on his own initiative."

……………………

Beluga Port Area, Beluga Harbor Chamber of Commerce Headquarters.

In the depressing atmosphere of the conference room, Mason Wetzler, wearing an exquisite tuxedo, sat at the front of the long table. On both sides were directors of the chamber of commerce who were dressed similarly and even looked very similar.

He lowered his head, staring intently at the long table that was so smooth that his own body could be seen. His hands with exposed veins were holding on to the two corners of the table. Cold sweat was dripping from his slightly trembling chin, and he was uttering " Tick! Tick!" sound.

"He knows..."

"He must already know..."

"He can definitely guess..."

The directors also lowered their heads in tacit agreement and did not dare to speak.

"what to do?!"

The frightened Mason Wetzler stood up suddenly, his wide-open pupils trembling violently.

"How about telling Speaker Harold about this?"

A director sitting in the back row raised his hand tremblingly: "With the support of him and those farms, we should be able to fight against the garrison commander..."

"Harold?!"

Mason stared at the guy who spoke, and his voice suddenly became several higher tones:

"Who on earth would have thought of such a bad idea - telling the great Chancellor Harold that his most loyal followers had raised a group of imperial traitors without telling him, and they were also traitors with the power of blood?!"

"Do you think he was overjoyed when he heard the news, or was he angry because we caused him trouble?!"

"I……"

"What do you think? Let me tell you, from what I know about him, Harold would never cover us for this; he would hand us over in a heartbeat... No! He would tell us that it's okay, that there's nothing to worry about, and that we'd be Just leave it to the Knights to handle it."

"Then, as soon as we hand over all control over them, our last use value and threat to him will be gone! He will drain us to the last drop of oil and water like a pile of rotten oranges and smelly salted fish, and then Use it as a sacrifice to Riper and his lunatics, and become a tool to win over people and fight against Anson Bach!"

"I don't want to listen to those nonsense about surrendering to Anson Bach... This Lord Commander wants more than you bastards can imagine. He wants to be the governor of the colony and support a group of wallets that bow to him. Not us, Chancellor Harold’s lackeys!”

"We're done, understand?!"

Hysterical shouts echoed off the walls of the brightly lit conference room.

Seeing these directors shrinking back and having their own agenda, Mason Wetzler became more and more desperate.

He could even imagine that once this meeting was over, how many of them would inform Harold, and how many of them would surrender to Anson Bach, or tell Riper that he was the mastermind and let him The group of fanatical believers under his command cut him into pieces.

But all of you bastards combined don't see the long term as well as I...Mason Wetzler.

Harold, Anson, Riper...

Let you take a good look... No matter how things change in Beluga Port, I will be the one who survives to the end.

Gritting his teeth, Mason Wetzler lowered his head and stared at his hideous face reflected on the table.