"Haha...don't worry! None of us have joined the True Church."
I wiped the cold sweat from my brow and quickly clarified. I knew that the archbishop from the Preston Cathedral had nearly succeeded in tempting me to join.
"That was lucky for you!"
Casey wholeheartedly agreed at this time, with an extremely unhappy expression.
"You probably haven't encountered it yet. I saw the scenes of the followers pulling people into the church with Lady Serena. It's simply fraud! All kinds of tricks like discounts and promotions in every city, and the last time a sister who was new to the outside world almost ran to fill out a church membership form because she liked a free gift. Fortunately I stopped her!"
"Really? Is it that exaggerated?"
Nicola had never been to St. Maria Avenue, so he had not yet witnessed the recruiting tactics of the church in this world. His impression of the True Church was still stuck in the Earth.
"Your thinking is very dangerous!"
Casey educated us with a heavy heart.
"It's people like you who are ignorant of the ways of the world that they deceive. You should know that we angels are like honeybread to the True Church. Those believers would be happy to grab us back as mascots."
"We understand, we understand!"
Listening to this, I was sweating profusely and quickly agreed.
"But I think these recruiting methods are quite creative?"
At this moment, Cyra had finished praying. Hearing Casey's warning, she couldn't help but give her opinion.
"As long as there is no coercion or deception, then no matter what method is used, as long as the goal of voluntarily joining and increasing the number of believers is achieved, it should be fine. Moreover, widely spreading the gospel of God is something the Lord would like to see, I believe."
"You...you're hopeless!"
Casey was so angry her face turned blue. She turned and walked down the hallway.
"Cyra..."
The remaining four-winged angels looked at Cyra somewhat puzzled and asked,
"Are you sure you have no connection with the holy angels of the Church?"
"I really don't!"
As expected, this scared Cyra again.
"I beg you not to associate me with that holy angel again. I'm not her and not the Lord's wife, let alone the founder of the Church. I...I want to change my name!"
"You are hopeless. You don't even have the determination to devote yourself to your God..."
Nicola hit rock bottom by patting her on the shoulder and shaking his head as he walked away.
"She probably feels that using this name profanes that holy angel Cyra."
Seeing Cyra looking rather pitiful, I couldn't help but speak up for her.
"Actually, it would be much easier if you just separated the religions here. Think of them as two different True Churches."
"But it's not that easy..."
Nicola said somewhat helplessly.
"These two churches seem too similar to clearly distinguish between them. Besides, even if you forcibly distinguish between them, the True Church on Earth does not exist in this world. What about her as the only believer?"
"That depends on her. But believers this devout to the God faith are rare in this day and age."
I looked back at Cyra, who was drooping her head dejectedly at the back, and couldn't help feeling emotional.
"We're here. You can meet Lady Elara inside."
In front of a huge and luxurious double door, Casey and the others stopped and gestured to us.
"I've been here before. The chapel is inside."
Cyra whispered to us.
"Where's Reed? Why didn't she come along?"
Seeing only a few of us here, I asked somewhat disappointedly.
"The library where Reed is located is very far from here, so there was no time to inform her. Also, this is just a routine meeting for you and Nicola as new angels. She doesn't need to attend."
"Do all new angels have to meet this Elara?"
Hearing the word "routine", Nicola suddenly asked.
"Yes, when we first arrived in Edenmere, we also came to meet her immediately just like you."
Before Casey and the others could answer, Cyra already answered first.
"Lady Elara is the queen of our angels. Every time after the descent of the angel formation, she will personally meet the newcomers."
Casey also supplemented with a smile, and then helped us push open the door of the chapel.
Inside the door was a spacious and magnificent hall. The first thing that caught my eye was a long white carpet extending to the end of the hall. Just as Cyra had said before, two statues of twelve-winged angels stood there, and on both sides of the carpet, many ornately decorated columns were evenly distributed, with more than ten in the front even carved into the shape of angels with varying numbers of wings, although all under twelve wings.
At this moment, a ten-winged angel was standing in front of the two twelve-winged statues. She was the angel with the most wings I had ever seen among all the authentic angels.
"Lady Elara, two stray new angels have been brought..."
As soon as they saw her, Casey and the other four-winged angel knelt on one knee even before they entered the door, hands crossed over their chests, and reported loudly.
"I..."
Cyra looked at the angels kneeling on the ground, then back at Elara in the distance. Hesitating, she also followed suit and knelt halfway down.
"Greetings, Lady Elara."
"Let them come in. You can come along too, Cyra."
Elara's voice floated calmly over. Although she was several dozen meters away from us now, and we couldn't even see clearly whether her mouth was moving, all of us outside the door could hear it loud and clearly.
"Yes..."
Casey and the others kneeling on the ground stood up and let us into the hall.
"Aren't you only a believer in God? How come you assimilated too?"
Seeing Cyra following behind, I muttered to her softly.
"When in Rome, do as Romans do. And kneeling halfway doesn't count as full kneeling, at most it's a form of etiquette!"
Cyra's pretty face flushed slightly as she justified herself unwillingly.
I had to say she was quite good at finding excuses. I was at a momentary loss to find a suitable reason to refute her.
"The aura of light elements here is so strong!"
Walking on the white carpet, Nicola said to me while looking around,
"You're right. I can feel it too."
I nodded to Nicola. Ever since we entered the chapel door, I discovered that the concentration of light elements here was much higher than outside.
If the Dark Continent was overloaded with dark elements, Edenmere was undoubtedly overloaded with light elements, and this chapel was overloaded even more seriously. It could simply be described as excessive.
"I wonder if such a strong aura of light elements has any impact on ordinary people?"
I secretly wondered. Although I was currently an angel and had no problems, remembering that the overload of dark elements in Tethys Town had caused many people to fall ill, I vaguely felt that the light elements would surely bring more than just sanctity.
"And this Elara is not simple... "
Nicola turned back and whispered to me. Even someone as arrogant as she thought so. It showed even more how much pressure she exerted on us.
The light elements in this chapel were already abundant enough, but compared to Elara, it was like a room with lights on mixing with an extremely high-powered floodlight. Coupled with her gorgeous and noble appearance and temperament, I could only describe the feeling she gave me as dazzling.
However, that wasn't all. When we finally came up to her, the aura of light elements around her suddenly increased drastically to a very exaggerated level.
"I forgot about this part...I can't stand it anymore..."
Cyra behind me suddenly said laboriously. I looked back and couldn't help but feel emotional. No wonder she had behaved so obediently earlier...
Due to only having a pair of wings, Cyra simply didn't have the strength to withstand such a powerful impact of light elements. The longer it went on, the more she had to bow her head. Towards the end, I could vaguely see her body start to tremble.
It seemed this Elara wanted to establish her prestige at our first meeting! I suddenly saw her intention.
As expected of a high-ranking ten-winged angel to be able to emit large amounts of light elements to create pressure. If it were me, the light elements on my body would have been instantly depleted and I definitely wouldn't have survived.
However, Nicola and I had six wings after all. This scene didn't affect us that much, so we could barely endure.
It was miserable for Cyra though. Poor girl, she was innocently implicated. She was now purely relying on her willpower to endure.
"You must be Feliciana and Nicola..."
Seeing that both of us didn't react at all, Elara sighed lightly and withdrew her dense wings behind her back.
"I didn't expect that you two, having been stranded outside, would advance to six wings so quickly, and it hasn't even been a month..."
Cyra, who I had been supporting, was instantly relieved from the pressure and finally stood upright again.
"Is this how you make everyone submit to you?"
Nicola said somewhat dissatisfiedly to Elara.
"Sorry!"
Unexpectedly, the other party very readily lowered herself and explained to us,
"I have no choice, there are over ten thousand angels in Edenmere that need managing after all. Admittedly this is a very direct and effective approach."
"But Cyra can't withstand it at all. Didn't you consider her situation?"
I understood why the top brass would think this way, but having crossed over, our sense of identity was not as strong as that of ordinary angels, so we didn't buy it.
"Every new angel goes through this process. Actually she made it through fine without you a month ago when she first came here, didn't she?"
But Elara didn't seem to be moved by my words. She smiled at Cyra. Clearly she understood her endurance situation very well.
"If Cyra could be more hardworking and do more training, advancing to four wings should make it much less arduous for her. Unfortunately she always likes to slack off..."
"Is advancing to four wings easy?"
I remembered Casey had previously said it took her two hundred years to reach six wings, so I couldn't help asking.
"It should be relatively easy..."
Elara shifted her gaze back to me and Nicola, lingering especially long on Nicola before continuing to speak.
"Generally in an environment with abundant light elemental energy like Edenmere, coupled with diligent practice, it takes less than fifty years to smoothly advance to four wings. Of course joining the angel legions and battling monsters in the outside world speeds it up considerably, but also carries great risks."
"..."
I gave Nicola a speechless look. Seeing her also looking at me, I instantly didn't know what to say.
Compared to this way, we really were freaks...