Don’t raise unruly people in extreme cold weather

Chapter 879

News of Perfecto's large-scale actions in France and the Desert Kingdom soon spread back to the empire and the north.

The news was like a stone dropped into a calm lake, causing ripples among the imperial high-ranking officials and northern nobles.

The whole empire had actually expected that this iron-blooded regent would suppress the rebellion in the colonies with thundering means.

After all, when Perfectot left the North in her floating city that blocked out the sun and sky, everyone with a discerning eye knew that she would use the terrifying force of this aerial fortress to re-establish the authority of the empire.

Those rebels who were executed, those rebels who were reduced to scorched earth by the artillery fire of the floating city, all declared to all colonies: any act of challenging the rule of the empire will pay a heavy price.

As for the several corrupt governors she dealt with, they were just trivial matters in the eyes of the imperial nobles.

After all, as the regent of the empire, Perfecto holds the power of life and death second only to the empress herself.

Those parasites who were executed in public didn't even make the members of the National Assembly raise an eyelid.

However, when news came from the Desert Kingdom that Perfiket had begun large-scale infrastructure construction, the politicians in the imperial capital frowned.

In the eyes of the empire's top leaders, that barren desert has always been seen as a passage from the Old World to the wealthy colonies in the south. Perfectoct's large-scale actions are really a bit incomprehensible.

Only a few important cabinet officials who knew the inside story of the war of gods fell into deep thought while looking at the map in a secret room late at night.

The dim light illuminated their solemn faces. The thick map marked Perfecto's movements in the desert kingdom and the hidden threats that the empire might face in various parts of the country.

They knew better than anyone what a burden the young regent was carrying alone.
Not only does she have to suppress the rebellion, but she also has to face the shadows from the old gods. If she is not careful, the entire empire may fall into an abyss of no return.

The Minister of Finance had already secretly mobilized the treasury reserves, secretly allocated precious alchemical materials, large amounts of industrial raw materials and supplies sufficient to support a major war to secret warehouses, and formed a fleet of large floating transport boats, ready to transport supplies to the Desert Kingdom at any time to ensure that Perfectoct would not be passive due to supply shortages at critical moments.

At the same time, the military elders selected the most loyal and fearless warriors from the empire's most elite legions, and combined them with the empire's most elite steam knights to form a special elite force, ready to rush to the front line when Perfect needed it.

However, contrary to the cabinet's expectations, Perfecto did not ask for any reinforcements from them.

On the contrary, the communication she sent back to the North made it clear - "The North must not be left empty."

During this period, the North relied on the students left behind by Sandrion and the technical accumulation of the alchemy school, and finally pieced together a floating city module of initial scale.

The cabinet originally planned to send her to serve under Perfectoto to strengthen her combat power.

But her reply was decisive: "Let it stay in the North."

Her reason was simple - the minions of the Old Gods were omnipresent, and if the empire's homeland defenses were empty, those enemies lurking in the shadows would likely take advantage of the situation and sneak in.

She would rather bear the pressure of fighting on the front lines alone than expose the heartland of the empire to danger.

The cabinet ministers remained silent for a long time, and finally had to obey her will.

They understood that it was not that Perfecto did not need support, but that she knew the empire's weak points better than anyone else.

If Perfectok is defeated, the Empire can still fight back with the help of the North, but if the North is empty and the gods take advantage of it, then even if Perfectok achieves results on the front line, humans will be passive.

But both the cabinet and the queen herself were worried about Perfecto.

It just so happened that a new floating battleship had recently been launched in the North, so after consulting with the cabinet, the Queen ordered this floating battleship and several other airships to form a small fleet, with a court envoy carrying a batch of supplies and a steam knight group to go to the desert kingdom.

This is both a condolence and concern for Perfect, as well as support for her.

Although Perfect did not ask for help, it was impossible for the cabinet to really not send any reinforcements.
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While the cabinet was taking action, Sandrion in the empire was also considering how to provide support to Perfect.

Her vision was far more far-sighted than those of the cabinet ministers, for she understood the cruel nature of the war of gods better than anyone else.

Ordinary mortal troops? Even more would only lead to more casualties.

Sandrion clearly remembered the battle between Perfectoct and the gods in the city of Langton. In that confrontation beyond the comprehension of mortals, even the well-trained elite of the empire were nothing more than dust that turned into ashes in an instant.

Extraordinary people below the rank of Grand Knight cannot even approach the core of the battlefield, and even those Grand Knights wearing steam armor and capable of fighting a hundred enemies alone are nothing more than consumables that can barely hold on for a moment in the face of the power of the gods.

No, what Perfectoct needs is not warriors of flesh and blood, but war machines that are powerful enough to shake the gods—floating battleships, alchemical colossi, and even complete floating cities!

Only these behemoths that embody the empire's highest alchemy and industrial technology can truly play a role in the war of gods.

However, Sandrion also understood that Perfect would never accept any combat forces being withdrawn from the empire's homeland and the north.

Long before they set off, they had reached a consensus - the empire's homeland must not be left empty!

The minions of the Old Gods are omnipresent. If the floating city or the main fleet is transferred to the south, who can guarantee that the enemies lurking in the shadows will not take the opportunity to raid the north?

Perfect would rather bear all the pressure on the front alone than allow the heartland of the empire to be exposed to danger.

Therefore, Sandrion was not in a hurry to send the floating city module south, but instead focused on another thing - how to provide truly effective support to Perfect without shaking the empire's homeland defense.

Perhaps... the answer lies not in sending more troops, but in creating some kind of entirely new force, one that can support Perfectort without weakening the Empire's home defenses.

She slowly raised her head, her eyes looking through the glass dome of the tower, towards the sky covered by wind and sand in the south, and whispered to herself: "Perficot, how long can you hold on? And how can we... help you?"

If Sandrillon's worries were heard by Perfecto, the young imperial regent would probably just say indifferently: "Taking care of yourselves is the greatest help to me."

For her, the stability of the empire's homeland is the most important backing. After all, if the rear is lost, no matter how many achievements she has made on the front line, it will be meaningless. After several months of forced missionary work and high-pressure rule, the belief in the new god has spread throughout the desert kingdom. Temples have sprung up, priests recite prayers day and night, and people are forced to participate in sacrifices - at least on the surface, the seeds of faith have been sown in every corner of this land. The collection of the power of faith is smoother than expected, and a steady stream of divine power is converging into the concept of the "new god" shaped by Perfect.

However, the divine transformation was slow to complete.

Perfect knew very well that becoming a god was not something that could be achieved overnight.

Even the "spirits of ancestors" worshipped by the indigenous people of the North for generations had to go through hundreds or even thousands of years of devout worship before they could barely condense a faint ray of divinity.

The new god faith she promoted relied on only a few months of forced implementation, and even though it covered the entire desert kingdom, its foundation was far from solid.

Moreover, how many of these beliefs come from the heart, and how many are out of fear or exchange of interests?
Perfect knew better than anyone that most of the faith she had gained was just a compromise between the sword and bread by the desert people.

There are very few truly devout people, and such faith is ultimately shallow.

But even so, she still felt satisfied.

It was a miracle that an unfamiliar concept of God could take root in this land in just a few months.

The rest can only be left to time - or some more radical catalyst.

"Faith can be forced, but divinity... ultimately needs to be settled."

Perfect looked at the flickering holy fire under the dome of the temple, and her fingertips gently ran over the stone pillars engraved with prayers. She knew better than anyone that true divinity could not be born through violence. Those crazy believers of the old gods might resort to blood sacrifices, massacres, or use famine and plague to force desperate people to pray to the gods. These methods could indeed gather a huge amount of faith in a short period of time, and might even forcibly catalyze a distorted divinity.

But can such a "god" still be called a new god?

It's just the old madness and corruption covered with a new coat.

Perfect doesn't need such a "shortcut". She would rather let the divinity slowly condense than repeat the mistakes of the old rulers. After all, her purpose in creating a new god was to find a different path for the world - a path that is not corroded by madness and chaos.

So she is not in a hurry.

But this does not mean that she will relax her efforts to advance the New God plan.

She even personally adjusted the laws of the desert kingdom, closely binding the belief in the new god to daily life - not through fear, but through order and interests, so that the people would get used to and rely on the new god in a subtle way, and eventually accept the new god from the bottom of their hearts.

Because Perfect knew that when this plan succeeded, the bargaining chips in her hand would completely change the pattern of this war.

The reason why humans seem passive in the face of the Old Gods is that, on the one hand, the Old Gods destroyed the entire world. They used the power of the White Star to freeze the earth, plunging the entire world into an extremely cold eternal winter.

This was indeed a heavy blow to humanity. If Perfect had not appeared out of nowhere and forcibly changed everything with alchemy, perhaps human civilization would have faced a catastrophic destruction.

But in fact, the lethality to human civilization is not as great as imagined. Although Perfect stayed in the floating city all the way from the North to the Desert Kingdom, he could still see how human civilization survived in the cold winter when he occasionally went down to the ground.

The extreme cold of dozens of degrees below zero is indeed very cold, and it can indeed cut off civilization and destroy the world.

But humans can still find ways to survive. Even without the energy tower invented by Perfect, they can still survive tenaciously.

So this is not particularly fatal to human civilization.

Even without Perfectoct's help, she believed that human civilization could survive this catastrophe, even if the land beneath her feet would be completely frozen within three hundred years.

In three hundred years, as long as humans are willing to find a way, they can even escape from this planet.

Perfect had considered this option before, but it meant that she would have to build an entire aerospace industry system from scratch and train a full set of aerospace talents on her own, which was too much work for Perfect.

If she hadn't calculated that even with her full support, it would take at least several decades to achieve manned space flight, and at least a hundred years to truly realize space migration. She might not even see it in her lifetime. Perhaps she really did it.

Since escaping from this planet that is about to be frozen is not reliable, Perfect can only choose another way to solve the cause of this doomsday winter.

This is also another reason why humans seem so passive when facing the old gods.

That is the involvement of the gods.

The old gods once ruled this land, and their beliefs permeated every corner of the old world.

Even though that happened thousands of years ago, the echoes left behind by the old gods are still profoundly affecting the world, and are even gradually pulling the gods back into this world!
Through the excavation of the ruins of the desert kingdom and the search for prophecies, Perfect already had a clear understanding of what was happening in this world.

When the White Star first arrived thousands of years ago, the gods tried to resist, but in the end most of the gods were infected by the madness and destruction brought by the White Star. As a result, most of the gods were assimilated by the White Star and were taken away with its departure. The mythological era ended there.

The White Star itself contains destruction and madness, which pollutes the gods and makes them all become twisted and crazy.

This also explains why the old gods behaved like a group of evil gods, not good gods.

And now, the White Star has come to this world again. The old gods are eager to return to this world. They even concocted this doomsday winter in an attempt to destroy the entire planet.

It is this will to destruction that Perfecto needs to fight against.

It would be difficult to fight against this kind of world-destroying disaster relying solely on mortal power. After all, all the gods who resisted in the past are dead.

Without the support of gods, it is difficult for mortals to fight against this disaster. After all, in a world where true gods exist, it is really difficult to fight against it without divine power.

So Perfect created the God-killing Armor to bridge the gap in military power. Now she wants to create new gods to further narrow the gap between humans and the old gods.

(End of this chapter)