"Quick! Someone's here!"
The man in security attire checked the house ruins, then shouted to his colleagues not far away, and began clearing the collapsed building materials to rescue the victims buried beneath the rubble. The monsters attacked the city around 2 AM, and the battle ended at 4 AM, but it was already nearly noon, and the sun was beginning to beat down.
This disaster destroyed almost half of E-Rantel, and the death toll among the population was countless. Most unfortunately, the City Hall, which served as the city's administrative body, was completely obliterated, and most of the city officials, including Mayor Panasolei Rauch Veyron, perished in the catastrophe, leaving a massive void.
Without effective organization, even though Gazef Stronoff had temporarily taken command of the city with his prestige as the Royal Warrior Captain, rescue efforts were still agonizingly slow and chaotic. Finding well-maintained and sufficiently large shelters, organizing personnel to care for the lightly wounded, searching and rescuing victims buried under building rubble, preparing disaster survival supplies, and reporting the situation to the higher-ups of the Re-Estize Kingdom were tasks that made Gazef, who wasn't particularly skilled in internal affairs, dizzy with stress.
Fortunately, the Adventurer's Guild and the major churches did not suffer heavy losses, and were able to dispatch some personnel to assist with disaster relief. Also…
Gazef lifted a collapsed beam and ordered the rescuers to bring the survivor out from underneath. He breathed a sigh of relief and looked at the groups of people on both sides of the street who were healing the injured. The proportion of Magic Casters among humans was not high, and they were even rarer in kingdoms that revered knights. Even in the major churches stationed in the city, the total number of priests did not exceed a hundred.
However, the number of faith-based Magic Casters gathered on this street had reached over 40, and they were clearly not from E-Rantel's official churches. Before this moment, the fame of the Church of Destiny had only spread among the city's slums and a small number of adventurers; most people weren't even aware of its existence. And now, I'm afraid all the survivors in this city had remembered this name, engraving it in their hearts.
Gazef still remembered that yesterday he was severely wounded by an insect monster and almost died. Then, an angel with brilliant light all over its body descended from the sky and easily killed the monster he couldn't fight with just one shot. It could be said that he was able to survive thanks to that humanoid angel.
And among the survivors in this city, many must have had similar experiences to his. When facing an unbearable, terrifying monster and wishing to end their lives, they suddenly encountered a desperate angel. At that time, they thought they had met God.
No, perhaps I've experienced it before.
Gazef glanced at the civilians on both sides of the street. When they saw the Magic Casters from the Church of Destiny, besides gratitude, occasional envy flickered across their faces, a complex emotion. The second thing that made the Church of Destiny famous was that all believers who joined the church were blessed by God. Even children as young as five or six years old could be reborn after death.
The scene that once appeared in the central plaza was that God, surrounded by holy light, gently raised his hand, and all those who believed in destiny who unfortunately died in this disaster were resurrected in the blink of an eye. When he saw that sight, he too felt a great shock at that moment.
Most humans feared death. If believing in destiny could gain the power to defy death, then surely many people would be willing to believe in God. Gazef could already imagine that after the disaster ended, the Church of Destiny might expand at an unimaginable speed and become the most powerful religious organization in the Re-Estize Kingdom. At that time, no one could guess what impact it would have on the kingdom.
Emotionally, he did not wish to see such development. However, he also knew that this was not something he could stop. Even the kingdom's nominal ruler, King Ramposa III, could not halt the rise of the Church of Destiny.
Blount Street. This was the most prosperous residential area in the city's residential district. Those who could live here were high-status nobles or wealthy merchants with astonishing fortunes. As you can imagine, the houses here were naturally the most luxurious buildings in the city, except for the VIP guesthouse that received the king annually.
After the disaster, most of the houses on Blount Street were destroyed, and only a few remained intact. In one of these fortunate houses, the gate was guarded by two soldiers wearing exquisite black armor, indicating its ownership had changed.
In the study of the grand house, Kael sat in a luxurious chair, and the beautiful Enri Emmott stood before the desk. A discussion about development was taking place. Strangely enough, the one who initiated the topic was not Kael, but Enri, who appeared a little nervous, rubbing her hands together.
"So, you want to use your resurrection ability to revive the unfortunate citizens of the city?"
"Yes... yes," Enri nodded bravely and said, her voice trembling slightly yet full of conviction, "Just like we resurrected Mr. Dylan's wife, doing this will garner gratitude from many people, which will definitely help us develop the church in the future."
Mr. Dylan was the original owner of this house. Unfortunately, his wife was killed by monsters in the disaster, which greatly saddened him. Then, Enri, who was passing by, was touched by his sincere love for his wife and used [Seventh Tier: Resurrection] magic to revive his wife.
By the way, Enri killed many monsters during this chaos, and the high-tier monsters killed by the legendary knight Gazef Stronoff were also counted towards her kill count. Now she was a high-tier priestess at level 50, having reached the threshold to use Eighth Tier magic. She could use [Seventh Tier: Resurrection] to revive ordinary people of low levels.
As a reward for reviving his wife, Dylan gave this house to Enri, and Kael also got a temporary place to stay. Not only that, news of Dylan's wife's resurrection also spread to the ears of surrounding nobles and wealthy merchants, some of whose family members had unfortunately been killed. So these wealthy merchants and nobles made a deal with Enri. By reviving their relatives, Enri not only obtained a certificate of residence in this area, but also received a large sum of monetary gifts.
Perhaps influenced by the atmosphere of family reunion among the wealthy merchants and nobles, Enri had an idea to continue "doing good," so she brought up this topic to Kael.
After listening to Enri's narration, Kael couldn't help but shake his head and say, "Enri, you're thinking this matter is too simple. Do you think your act of raising the dead is the main reason those people were willing to give a large sum of money in gratitude?"