Eris City had once been the economic and cultural heart of the west, a vast and prosperous city. Now it lay in an eerie stillness.
Where the city lord's mansion had stood, a giant altar had been forged out of heaped bones. Unlike the sunken altars the Servitors made on their travels, this bone altar rose above the horizon line, and around it knelt countless believers of the Church of the Supreme God, men and women no different from ordinary folk, their faces devout, prayers spilling ceaselessly from their mouths.
The praying never stopped. Now and then someone died of going too long without food; then the flesh and blood would melt into the ground, leaving only a skeleton that flew of its own accord to the altar.
The rest showed neither surprise nor fear — instead their faces filled with heartfelt envy, as though dying in prayer were an honor beyond measure.
At the very top of the altar stood a tall statue with blurred features, cradling in its arms the skeleton of a little girl. It resembled the bone-white staff, save that it was pure and transparent from end to end, like a single piece of crystal, and one could feel formless energy ceaselessly gathering toward it.
Beneath the towering statue sprawled several dozen Servitors, men and women both, dressed in nearly identical white robes. What told their ranks apart were the threads of different colors worked into those robes.
At the very front was a female Servitor whose white robe was embroidered all over with silver thread, giving her an air of noble mystery.
The Servitors prayed under her lead, their voices blending into a sound of unclear meaning that formed an eerie wave of noise.
When the prayers ended, all the Servitors sang in a chant, "Praise the great Supreme God. May your glory descend upon this world soon."
The female Servitor spoke. "All Gold-Thread Servitors will remain. The rest may go." Her voice was unexpectedly lovely, as though the sound alone could heal the wounds of a heart.
At her command, the Servitors whose robes bore no gold thread bowed and withdrew in silence. Then one of the Gold-Thread Servitors said, "First Servitor, in the past month our brothers and sisters have suffered heavy losses. Nearly every brother who left the kingdom of God died at the hands of those four blasphemers."
The other Servitors followed with reports of their own: the missionary bands under their command had suffered grievous losses.
The First Servitor listened quietly and offered no opinion, as though she did not care in the least.
When the reports were done, a male Servitor suddenly burst out, "Those four blasphemers command the power of the evil god. The children of the Supreme God cannot withstand them at all. At this rate they will storm into the kingdom of God, and we—"
The First Servitor's eyes, calm as lake water, settled on him. "Luke, are you afraid? Is your faith wavering?"
Luke, the Gold-Thread Servitor, dropped straight to his knees and crawled forward, crying out in panic, "No! I am not. My faith in the Supreme God is as firm as ever!" Believer or not, he was terrified of the woman before him. He knew her vicious methods better than ordinary believers did: the first order to massacre had come from her lips, and she had crushed every voice of dissent with the cruelest means.
"You should be firm. All glory belongs to the Supreme God, all power flows from the Supreme God. The evil god is nothing but a sickness of the world, and it cannot hide from the glory of the Supreme God."
Luke was close to sobbing. The calmer the First Servitor's voice grew, the more terrified he became. "Praise the Supreme God..."
The First Servitor stepped forward, raised Luke up with her own hands, and gently embraced him. "In that case, will you prove your faith to the Supreme God?"
Luke recoiled several steps in terror. He wanted to flee, but found his legs trembling and strengthless, and could only keep begging, "My lady, don't kill me, don't kill me..."
Bang.
After a muffled bang, Luke exploded where he stood. His flesh and blood flowed toward the crystal skeleton in a grotesquely holy manner, and his white bones flew out of their own accord and came to rest upon the altar.
"It seems Luke had already betrayed the Supreme God. The evil god beguiled him, and he forgot the glory of the Supreme God. He needed to wash away his sins with his life and beg the Supreme God's forgiveness in heaven." The First Servitor gazed piously at the crystal skeleton as she spoke.
Every other Servitor bowed his head, not daring to show any expression, endlessly voicing praises of the Supreme God for fear that he would be the next punished.
The crystal skeleton gave off a red glow that fell evenly upon the Servitors. The pleasure flooding their bodies made them forget their fear, and the faces they lifted were devout once more.
"First Servitor, may I ask what the Supreme God commands?"
The First Servitor did not answer. Instead she asked, "How long has Servitor Brown been gone from the kingdom of God?"
Someone answered in a low voice, "Fifteen days now. If all went to plan, he should be nearly at the royal city."
The First Servitor nodded in satisfaction. "The Supreme God is most displeased with the size and location of our kingdom of God. That is our sin. We must win more believers and a better kingdom for the Supreme God. Servitor Brown is the son of God sent to carry out this task. Now we need only guard the altar and wait for good news from Servitor Brown."
Adam and the other three were faster, but their constant running about all over Madeira Island had let Brown and his knight company escape by sheer luck.
Brown's party burned, killed and looted the whole way, abandoned all their supplies, and took a week to enter the west. The moment he set eyes on the Servitors, he ordered his men to lay down their resistance and abase themselves in submission to the Supreme God.
He obtained an audience with the First Servitor without difficulty, and once he had seen her power he wisely chose to lie low for a time, obeying her every command.
The First Servitor saw his ambition, but whether from confidence or from faith in the Supreme God, she did not strike Brown down on the spot. She allowed Brown and his knight company to join the Church of the Supreme God, and held a bloody sacrifice for them.
Having gained this brand-new power, Brown was wild with joy. He volunteered before the First Servitor to leave the west, take the royal city, and open a new kingdom of God for the Supreme God.
Half a month ago, Brown left the west by another route, storming every city and town that lay in his path. He strictly forbade his men to take the life of any ordinary person who had already surrendered. He did not mean to make them believers of the Supreme God — he meant to hold a grand blood sacrifice once the royal city fell, so that in one stroke he could gain power beyond the First Servitor's and seize the authority of the Church of the Supreme God.
His plan went smoothly. With strength far beyond that of ordinary people at his back, all resistance was futile. He ruthlessly ordered everyone to march at speed straight for the royal city, sparing not even the corpses of the common folk who dropped dead of exhaustion along the road. Leading the Servitors that some of his knights had been transformed into, he flew into the royal city, killed every royal guardian knight, took the city, and launched the largest blood sacrifice the Church of the Supreme God had ever held.