Mystery: Good Witch

Chapter 1349 Calling My Honorable Name
Stepping back onto the streets of the "City of Dreams," Angel found that the city had changed dramatically since he first landed on the island and settled there.

The city’s population increased by 20% in a year and a half, the vast majority of whom were immigrants from the North Continent who had applied for residency. People from various countries who were fleeing war and yearning for order brought new culture, technology and vitality, which inevitably made the streets and alleys originally designed for 100,000 people even more crowded.

It's time to build a new area in Gerdruf to accommodate these immigrants... Right, He has already... Angel subconsciously thought of the somewhat bloated but always smiling Amon clone, only then realizing that the other party had returned to the original body, and Annie was not the kind of management talent, so the city planning had been handed over to some employees selected through civil service exams.

"Trust the plan I came up with myself..." she muttered to herself, standing in the middle of the busiest intersection under her own statue, looking around and noticing that there were quite a few pedestrians over two meters tall on the street.

Some of them were residents of the new Silver City, while others came from Fusak. They were reserved and polite in the crowd, always worried about accidentally bumping into other pedestrians and incurring warnings from the city's laws.

The laws of the "Hand of Order" are much more lenient now than before. Two years ago, knocking over someone would not have been just a warning... She smiled and entered the mirror world directly, arriving at the location below the city's mirror image, opposite the "Night Emperor Memorial Hall" in reality.

That is the headquarters of the "Church of Witches". It was moved here by Angel from a hidden ruin in the Southern Continent. Although it is located in the real world, it is essentially a special mirror world that cannot be reached by conventional means. Therefore, only witches of the "Despair" level or higher can enter this place.

Therefore, not much defense is needed here; the difficulty of entering and the deterrent effect of the "master of the mirror world" are the best defenses.

Emerging from the enormous circular mirror that covered the entire ceiling of the rotunda and reflected the azure sky, Angel landed on the mirror below, which displayed the surging magma deep within the earth. Bathed in the peaceful blue and the calamous red, he looked around at the furnishings.

The hall, which originally had no doors or windows, has been opened to several passages leading to other areas, but the interior does not extend very far. Mirrors are used as entrances to the area where the Witch Church stores important documents, extraordinary properties, and sealed artifacts.

In addition to the several passageways, fourteen mirrors of completely different styles, shapes and decorations are placed at the same intervals around the rotunda. They are all facing the center, as if focusing some kind of light around Angel.

The sapphire-adorned mirror that originally belonged to the "Blue Witch" is no longer here. In its place is a rectangular silver mirror with a frame that looks as red as if it were burning with flames, and a nearly round crystal mirror with cat paws outlined on the edge.

At this moment, a silver mirror with an antique design and a somewhat dusty surface flashed with a deep light, revealing a mature figure dressed in an old-fashioned gray robe.

She is Judith, the "Grey Saint" on duty this month, monitoring the church headquarters.

Upon seeing who it was, the "disaster" witch was about to bow when Angel said:

"A meeting will be held in one hour."

Judith immediately agreed and turned to use her mirror to send messages to the other "disaster" and "ageless" witches who were qualified to attend the pre-divine meeting.

Angel could easily do this with his authority, but for someone who has become a god to personally notify each participant seems somewhat out of place for his current status.

Sensing the message "Return to headquarters within thirty minutes" being rapidly transmitted from the mirror world into the distance, Angel felt that this witch, who had always served as the "grandmother" of the witch cult, was a bit too honest.

There's a feeling of being a civil servant from my original country. Is this what witches look like after living for thousands of years? Angel then noticed that not only Judith, but all the high-ranking witches who submitted to her looked almost the same, especially the "White Saintess" Katarina, whom she first came into contact with. She lived a somewhat complacent life, with little motivation to fight or strive, and was not prone to betrayal.

This is evident from the fact that they all sided with Angel, and not one of them attempted to defect.

Even after the fall of the "God of War," the Grand Patriarch Larion of the Church of the God of War fled with "0-02," and when Angel replaced the "Primordial Witch" Chick, she was only a Sequence 1. The three "Calamity" Witches did not have any intention of vying for the divine position.

This might be related to the characteristics of the witch's path itself. After achieving "immortality," one's lifespan is extremely long, and it's difficult to die completely. This means that once most of the characteristics are used, the sequence is basically fixed... Apart from the "Grandmother," the higher-ups of the "Witch Cult" don't have a hierarchical relationship; colleagues are generally harmonious... Angel pondered, seeing that Judith had already notified all the witches, and then asked:
What are your thoughts on attributing that 'disaster' characteristic?

After the death of the "Blue Witch," Angel acquired a Sequence 2 witch trait that could transform a certain "ageless" being into an angel. Although she favored her own protégé, Elaine Soren, the latter had just advanced to Sequence 3 and needed time to digest the potion, making it impossible for him to advance further before the apocalypse.

"If it's about having more strength before the end of the world, I think it would be better to promote Katarina or Windsa."

Judith turned around, lowered her eyes, and answered calmly.

I take back what I said earlier, you're actually quite shrewd... Knowing that the other party's choice of candidate was purely based on their relationship with him, Angel sighed inwardly, stopped testing the other party, and changed to a lighter topic for casual conversation.

Soon, the conversation inevitably turned to Judith's parents, and Angel asked curiously:

"When did you learn the truth about Christina's death?"

Judith slightly raised her beautiful yet somewhat indifferent face and said:

“I knew right away that it was my mother who did it. She didn’t hide it from me, but just emphasized the danger of the ‘female witch.’ I didn’t dare to, and I didn’t have the ability to, do anything for her.”

It seems that Judith does have some grievances against Chick in this matter, but a Sequence 2 can't really do much. And over the millennia, time has long since erased all love and hate, even though He rose from a lower sequence and possesses humanity that mythical creatures don't have... Angel commented.

Perhaps if they survive the apocalypse, there will be a chance to resurrect the witch angel who died tragically at the hands of her own mother. Of course, this is extremely difficult. Her soul has been fragmented and affected by a tributary of the River of Eternal Darkness. The difficulty is probably no less than resurrecting the "Blood Emperor" Tudor...

She continued chatting with Judith for a while, and then the mirrors in the rotunda flashed with light, revealing the high-ranking members of the Witch's Church who had rushed here from all over the world.

Besides the Yellow Witch Tisavika and the Purple Witch Eugenia, there were a total of eleven "ageless" witches present. In addition to the original nine, there was the "Red Witch" Elaine, who had recently advanced to Sequence 3, and the Black Cat Wensa, who had obtained an extra "ageless" trait, which was almost equivalent to resurrection.

Adding to the list is Glad Soren, the "weather sorcerer" who never attends witch meetings and only obeys Angel's orders; these constitute the entire leadership of the newly formed Witch Church. Unfortunately, compared to the number of angels and Sequence 3 Saints, which is comparable to other orthodox churches, the Witch Church is extremely lacking in Sequence 4 Saints, who form its core strength. After some of the wicked and unrepentant "Despair" witches were ordered by their superiors to surrender to the orthodox churches or were executed, only eight survived to join Angel's ranks. This even includes Triss and Therese, fewer than the number of "ageless" witches.

Fortunately, a new batch of "pain" witches, including Sherman, Laura, and Tia, will soon be able to ascend to demigod status through the ritual of "letting a demigod die in pain and despair," rather than the original ritual of killing 3 ordinary people with the plague. These vacancies are expected to be filled.

As for the Soren family, which is controlled by Glad Soren, there are also several promising "war bishops" and "iron knights" serving as unofficial members of the Witch Church, which satisfies Angel's vanity in comparing himself to other churches.

Oh right, and there are also sealed artifacts. In this respect, we far surpass other churches... Watching one after another, stunningly beautiful women dressed in various colors, their expressions a mixture of respect and fear, walk out of the mirror and bow to him in reverence, Angel's thoughts began to wander.

Excluding those that Angel has restored to their pure attributes or intended for advancement, the Witch Church officially reported ten "0" level sealed artifacts to other righteous churches: the Sword of Glory, the Pale Crown, the Cruel Stone Pillar, Tamara's Myriad Changes Card, the Fear of Love, the Sunset Rooster, the Eye of God, the Inevitable Madness, the Mask of Solomon, and the Post-Revelation Book.

The number of Level 1 sealed artifacts that also need to be reported to the major churches exceeds 30 after combining the collections of the "Morse Ascetic Order" and the original "Witch Cult".

This resulted in the original two-digit Level 1 Sealed Artifact number becoming a three-digit number, which can be considered a small contribution by Angel to the Sealed Artifact system that has remained unchanged for thousands of years.

As for the sealed extraordinary traits, in addition to the Sequence 1 traits "Divine Abomination", "Hand of Order" and "Conqueror", there are also "Calamity", "Weather Wizard", "Sage", "Planetary Planeswalker", "Duke of Entropy" and "Desolate Matriarch". Angel intends to give the other "Divine Abomination" to Renette Tinicul to help her advance to Sequence 1. This will prevent this trait from being taken away by the Mother Tree of Desire when the apocalypse comes, and it will also give Earth an additional powerful Sequence 1, killing two birds with one stone.

The thought that the Witch Church now has more level 0 sealed artifacts than the Archbishop, and that each Saint can get at least one level 1 sealed artifact, with angel-level extraordinary traits filling the warehouse, made Angel smile with satisfaction.

The witches interpreted this expression as a divine sign of their early return to headquarters. Coupled with Angel's natural allure, which was equally effective on women, every witch was in high spirits and prepared to chant Angel's name in unison, just like last time, to begin the meeting.

Sensing their presence, Angel, whose cheeks were already flushed with embarrassment, immediately stopped them.

The main purpose of her convening this pre-divine meeting was to understand the construction progress of churches in various places and the effectiveness of the witch church's missionary work. Once her divine kingdom truly enters the astral plane, she won't have many opportunities to wander around the real world.

With the help of Katarina, the "White Saint" who oversaw the construction of the church, Angel quickly learned the amount of his current "assets".

Apart from the five churches under construction, there are only nine churches that have been officially completed and opened to the public, distributed in major cities of the Northern Continent and the Rose Island. The Extraordinary Armed Forces, composed of believers and members of the original Witch Cult and Gnostic Society, are also in name only, with a severe shortage of personnel.

Fortunately, the high-ranking witches of the original "Witch Cult" had been operating in various countries for thousands of years, leaving behind numerous industries that penetrated into all walks of life. This time, they were all taken over by Angel, which made this emerging church sound less like a secret cult lacking a foundation.

Even so, compared to the number of angels, saints, and high-level sealed artifacts, Angel's Witch Church was significantly weaker in terms of secular power and the accumulation of its middle and lower-level members. After all, the "Morse Ascetic Order" primarily accumulated its strength in the field of mysticism, while the "Witch Cult" could only develop in secrecy, unable to openly preach or accept donations and offerings from believers. Although the new Witch Church solved these two problems, its rise was far too short-lived.

The Church of Fools faces the same problem. Excluding Angel and Klein's cameo roles as "Angel of Calamity" and "Angel of Redemption," the Church of Fools has roughly the same number of angels as the Church of Witches. However, it is far inferior in terms of the accumulation of saints and does not have the financial resources accumulated by the Church of Witches. In many cities, Angel even had to contribute his own money to build churches.

"Who told you to choose that plan and enter slumber alone..." Angel muttered to himself, continuing to ask questions about the church's development before assigning new tasks:
"I am about to travel to the Astral Plane to cooperate with the gods in dealing with the end times. In exchange, you will not be ostracized by the major churches because of your past actions, and you can openly preach. I hope you will not waste this opportunity."

When Angel first took over the "Witch Cult," he considered whether to exterminate the "disaster" and "ageless" witches trained by Chick and choose new direct descendants, but in the end he did not do so.

After all, each "disaster" witch requires hundreds of years of accumulation, while an "ageless" witch inherently implies rich experience and the sedimentation of a long time, making it difficult to "quickly" achieve as Angel envisions. Moreover, through her observation, these witches, lacking the guidance of a deity above them, have actually had their sharpness and various concepts of good and evil worn down over the years. As long as they can be guided, they can all get back on the right track.

Under Angel's control, the ritual for advancing to "Despair" has changed, and the formulas and materials for mid-to-high-level potions can be firmly controlled by the Witch Church. It is unlikely that witches like "Despair Nightingale" Panatia, who kill without hesitation, will appear again in the future.

As the apocalypse approaches, every angel will be a precious resource. After all, when the Outer Gods break through the barriers and invade, the angels who control the pathways will inevitably join in the plundering of Earth. As for the Saints, although they cannot participate in battles at this level, they can still protect ordinary people and maintain the anchor of faith in the gods.

Seeing that all the witches, including Judith, were listening attentively with their eyes lowered, Angel nodded in satisfaction and continued:

"In addition, in order to change the image of the church in the minds of the people, I plan to change the Witch Church to the 'Endless Church'. This will shift the focus from the 'witch' herself to the warning that the end times are coming. On the other hand, spreading the message that disaster and the end times are coming will also have a positive effect on the people's faith and the spread of the doctrine."

"This is not about intimidating them or selling indulgences for doomsday salvation, but about promoting self-help and mutual assistance in the face of disaster and the end times, and cherishing everything we have now."

Upon hearing her words, most of the witches looked puzzled.

Before becoming an angel and understanding the secrets of the starry sky and the existence of Outer Gods, no one would regard "Doomsday" as a prophecy of the world's destruction. At most, they would think it was just a sign of the changing of the era. Naturally, they would not understand Angel's purpose in changing the church's name and the corresponding scriptures and doctrines.

Let the angels teach them slowly… Angel chuckled to himself and announced the last thing:

"Finally, with the current reorganization of the church, my name has also changed somewhat."

"When you ask for my grace or need my attention, you may call upon me in this way:"
"The terminator of calamities and strife, the queen who rules chaos, the origin of the world in the mirror."

"The eternal companion of the Lord of Mysteries."

"Angel Granger, the Goddess of Calamity".

(End of this chapter)