The Queen Villainess Eavesdrops on My Heart and Won’t Let Me Slack Off – Chapter 240

Chapter 239: The End of the Old Era

Pope Louis Pandit, the supreme administrator of the Church of the God of War in this World, was also a devout follower of Taibera.

When the Azurevine Empire’s fleet appeared in the sky, the entire World was shocked and at a loss. However, defenses were immediately established.

Unfortunately, their response was ineffective. The magical civilization, stagnant for ten thousand years, relying on priests blessed by gods and traditional vocational systems, had fallen behind the Empire, creating a technological gap.

Since the implementation of the five-year plan, the Empire had not engaged in any true all-out wars. However, by acting as an arms dealer for the entire Eternal Night World, they had thoroughly analyzed the tactics and strategies of traditional magical civilizations.

In this inter-planar operation, despite differences in race, troop types, weapons, and combat habits, it all boiled down to the same fundamental principles. “Use more powerful magic to blast them to hell!”

Before the quantitative change could trigger a qualitative one, the First Fleet easily neutralized all opposition.

Pope Louis had perused the Church’s records, which stated that the Church of the God of War had protected the people of this World and resisted Invaders from other Planes on multiple occasions.

However, whether it was hell or the abyss, they had never before piloted these steel machines. The magical energy they wielded was not absolutely superior to the invaders’, but the impact on their defensive measures was exceptionally prominent and obvious.

In gaming terms, the absolute magic power ceiling was not despair-inducing, but the penetration effect was nightmarish.

In this nightmare, the so-called most powerful Church in this World, the superpower that controlled the World’s order and could directly interfere with the Emperor’s coronation, the Church of the God of War, found its arrogant Holy See Knights in utter disarray after facing long-range bombardment.

These Knights had always been the Church’s ultimate trump card, bravely charging against formidable demon legions, their zealous Paladins achieving final victory over evil with pure faith.

But this time, the enemy gave them no chance to showcase their prowess. They first shattered the Holy See Knights with long-range attacks, leaving them without a coherent formation.

For the Empire, armed with powerful artillery, the enemy’s defensive magic power was already depleted. Even though the Paladins possessed considerable magic resistance, what did these resistances have to do with the explosive power generated by changing chemical bonds?

The Empire hadn’t even deployed their weapons capable of greater destruction, those that could alter atomic structures!

Of course, the Holy See Knights, as the ultimate trump card, were still powerful. They withstood the initial barrage, and the resilient ascetics organized the young Paladins for a desperate charge, finally reaching the enemy’s position.

Then they saw soldiers wielding virtual magic gods, mixed with magic crystal mechanical units, making them realize what it meant to be too tough to crack.

The magic advisors’ support wasn’t limited to breaching enemy defenses. Against the Church’s expertise in additional holy damage, the magic crystal machinery could flexibly adjust its armor resistance. The only impact on the pink rabbit composite armor was the physical strike of the weapons themselves.

Even with a two-handed greatsword and a legendary aura exceeding twenty in strength, wielding a sharp weapon and attempting to dismantle a ten-meter-tall steel golem felt like despair.

When what emerged from hell were not demons, but their more intelligent, technologically advanced professional soldiers, even the most faithful Paladins felt their resolve waver. “Doesn’t justice always triumph over evil? Have we no longer represented justice and failed to protect the World?”

Compared to the corruption in the Church’s upper echelons, the Paladins and ascetics, whose hearts burned with zeal, continued to fight for what they believed was absolute justice.

Therefore, after much deliberation, the Empire’s staff offered these Holy See Knights a fair opportunity: soldiers equipped with virtual magic gods would engage them in classic one-on-one duels, granting these knights the honor they deserved.

And so, in a war that had been forcefully transformed into modern dispersed assaults combined with mechanical unit attacks, a retro battle emerged.

However, this battle was somewhat one-sided. The ground troops of the First Fleet of the Empire were already the best of the best. The strengthening of the nation had led to the rapid growth of its professionals, whose individual professional levels far surpassed those of the so-called elite Holy See Knights of the Church.

Furthermore, they possessed ability cards that could be flexibly adjusted and targeted, further enhancing their combat effectiveness.

Thus, an absolute one-sided crushing ensued. Even an ordinary soldier, by skillfully utilizing every bit of magic power, employing exquisite combat techniques, and coordinating with their comrades, demonstrated both their backing by the Empire’s power and their accumulation of knowledge and experience.

The pride of the Empire reached its peak as close combat completely overwhelmed the Holy See Knights, while despair and frustration spread among them. They wished they had died in the prior bombardment, at least to avoid facing such a disheartening scene.

It was as if the old era was drawing to a close, and the new era was dawning. The Empire had given them a chance, but they couldn’t seize it.

After suffering a complete loss in their field of proud combat, a significant number of Paladins chose suicide, fulfilling their final loyalty to their faith – they feared further failure would lead to complete doubt and corruption.

However, more chose to surrender, and the Empire accepted their choice, not pursuing them relentlessly. They were more pure than the priests and, indeed, often acted to help and protect ordinary people due to their doctrines. When unable to access true justice and power, all they could do was their best. The Empire allowed them to observe, to rethink and reorient their futures.

But such a scene, in Pope Louis’s eyes, was the enemy’s absolute evil and extreme power, so much so that not even their proudest Paladins could resist their temptation.

Thus, to perfect his faith in the Goddess, Louis produced the Church’s ultimate treasure – the Orb of Collective Faith, a divine artifact that could connect all believers through faith. Normally, it was a key step in the Church’s collection of believer faith. However, in crucial moments, it could be used to inject spiritual toxins, causing permanent mental damage to all believers who had contributed their faith, turning them into mindless imbeciles. Simultaneously, the extracted souls would transform into the purest Faith Power, allowing Louis to unleash a desperate suicide attack.

Although uncertain if it would harm the Empire, it was the limit of what he could do. At least this way, even if these evil heretics could defeat them, they wouldn’t gain a single believer, for fools do not pray.

The Pope had not resorted to such measures in the Empire’s previous war in that Plane, and thus did not anticipate the current believers’ madness, attempting a self-destruction by sacrificing over a billion followers.

Of course, the self-destruction would not harm the core of the First Fleet. Their advance, though seemingly reckless, was not without caution, and they always guarded against the believers resorting to various outrageous tactics. They had never encountered such a malicious “destroy it if it cannot be obtained” tactic, but the Empire had seen too many believers who valued their lives to risk it.

However, Pope Louis’s plan did not succeed. Roger had persuaded Shana to participate in the war to destabilize Taibera’s faith, and he himself was curious to see the combat power of the mechanical torrent he had painstakingly accumulated. Therefore, he asked Afu to help transport them to the target Plane A to witness the front-line scenery.

To his surprise, Afu appeared bewildered: “There’s no front line in that World?”

“Hasn’t the war started yet?”

“No, it’s already over!” Afu looked at Roger with disdain, questioning how the commander of the Night Guards could be so poorly informed.

Roger was speechless. Who could have imagined that the Empress of Eternal Night and Rommel would be so ferocious, dismantling a World’s mainstream Church in less than a week? It wasn’t just tens of times larger than Gaul, yet it couldn’t even last three days?

Fortunately, once the Empire’s war machine started, it wouldn’t stop easily. He and Shana immediately proceeded to target Plane B. Observing the steel torrents of another World as a special observer was truly a feast for the eyes.

The combat power of Empire soldiers was already formidable, and with a wealth of new equipment and years of pent-up energy, they displayed the ferocity of tigers descending a mountain. They unleashed their newly honed tactics and defeated the enemy in their strongest domain, utterly crushing their spirits.

As the primary designer of the Empire’s current tactical and strategic systems, Roger felt a sense of pride, akin to watching his own children grow up. From their condition, the First Fleet was not at its peak. They had been in a decisive battle in target Plane A just two days prior and had rushed here to fight another decisive battle without rest or resupply.

While this unit had high morale and the advantage of a complete surprise, from another perspective, it showed they genuinely treated their opponents with respect, initiating combat based on prior intelligence.

The Empress of Eternal Night, when in battle, was indeed unreasonably formidable, often employing anti-logical maneuvers, pushing enemies to the brink through relentless offense. Spectators of e-sports enjoyed beautiful team fights, while His Majesty here was a connoisseur of creating grand spectacles, her fluid command enabling the ultimate tactical pulls that left enemies bleeding and defeated without understanding why. She was an honor student who, in her teens, had shattered her brother’s meticulously designed defenses with offensive logic more savage than that of bandits.

The First Fleet, with its powerful mobility and neither its offense nor defense revealing any weaknesses to the traditional powers of this Universe, advanced like flowing mercury. Even a layman in warfare could appreciate the spectacle.

The accompanying reporters from the “Long Live the Empress!” newspaper meticulously documented the battles from all angles using magical drones, capturing the Empress of Eternal Night’s unparalleled commanding demeanor. These reports, upon their return, were sure to boost the alcohol sector by upwards of twenty percent. While the Empire had achieved crushing victories before, they had never possessed such comprehensive filming and propaganda methods, nor such a terrifying technological disparity. Roger, too, was witnessing a spectacle far grander than in-game CG battles in a way not depicted in games – a “minor trial of strength.” After all, game development funding was limited, and rendering scenes involving nearly a million combat units would make artists tear their hair out and servers overheat.

After inheriting Nalineil’s memories, Shana’s emotions towards the Empress of Eternal Night became even more complex. She was the culprit who had deceived her, a nightmare for a long time, yet also one of her creators. Furthermore, she was the perfect monarch in Nalineil’s heart. The little Ao and a series of replicas created with the Empress of Eternal Night as a blueprint were the existences Nalineil had encountered most frequently in her later memories, leaving an indelible impression.

When Shana arrived in the Empire, it was already in a phase of recuperation, so she had never witnessed the Empress of Eternal Night in true combat. Now, watching her up close, beating up “country bumpkins” from another World, even as a fellow woman, Shana felt an surge of excitement. She suddenly understood why Marguerite had become a fan of the Empress of Eternal Night. As the top figure in the military, constantly witnessing such an absolutely confident and peerless beauty would undoubtedly lead to admiration. Especially after comparing numerous Worlds and regimes in her memory, her recognition of the Azurevine Empire grew. What she had grown accustomed to as ordinary life was, in fact, a paradise yearned for by many.

Therefore, when Pope Louis, in his despair, decided to resort to drastic measures, Shana, with the keen senses of a top-tier believer, detected his intent to embark on a mutual destruction scheme. Thus, leveraging her understanding of divine arts, she, along with Roger, bypassed the heavily guarded Church headquarters, rendering all defensive measures useless. Much of this technology had been developed by Nalineil’s subordinates and sold to the followers of other gods, so Shana was intimately familiar with its strengths and weaknesses. She did not possess many secrets of the Seven Gods, as that would expose her, but for powers below divinity, even angels of the same rank would have few secrets or hidden maneuvers against the Empire in the future; all were within Shana’s grasp.

Pope Louis was not a combat-oriented individual; he was a management and diplomatic talent cultivated by the Church, adept at navigating between numerous powerful nations to maintain the Church of the God of War’s transcendent status with minimal cost. Therefore, facing two combatants above the Legendary tier, breaking through his meticulously arranged defenses while he was in the midst of uninterrupted focused spellcasting, naturally led to his unresisted capture. His plan to cripple all believers with the Orb of Collective Faith was something even his subordinates wouldn’t know about, for even the purest faith would prefer death over a lifetime of drooling idiocy! Thus, the Pope’s operation never materialized. The Orb of Collective Faith was “accepted” by Shana, and his actions and intentions were revealed. The Church’s most resistant elements were enraged at the Pope. Simultaneously, surrounded by the net cast by the First Fleet, the remaining forces of the Church either committed suicide or surrendered, completely abandoning any resistance.

“Reserve energy and prepare to warp to target Plane C!” the Empress of Eternal Night ordered excitedly, assessing the remaining supplies, estimating they could support two more satisfying battles.

“You devils, destroyers, scum that ruins Worlds, what are you after?! Just destruction and catharsis?” Pope Louis, hearing these maniacs rushing to leave after winning, was on the verge of collapse. Everything he had schemed for his entire life, only to have it treated as trash that could be discarded at will by others, was truly unbearable.

“Before you accuse the Empire of invasion, I wish to ask: have you truly protected this World?” Hearing the defeated man’s furious question, the Empress of Eternal Night did not become angry. Instead, she asked with great interest about his feelings.