Everyone knelt devoutly, their hearts filled with fervor.

Seeing this, William Clark nodded to himself.

With these people, his followers would surely grow in number.

The longer he stayed, the more divine power he consumed. Seeing that the little divine power he had left was still being depleted, William Clark immediately stopped lingering and withdrew his consciousness from the silver cross.

In an instant, the light radiating from the silver cross of the Holy Maiden of Light, Catherine, rapidly dimmed and vanished, leaving behind only a faint, yet pure and holy glow.

An item that had manifested a miracle was naturally no longer an ordinary object. That small pendant, which had some potential, would from now on be a holy relic.

As William Clark's consciousness returned to the divine realm through Catherine's channel of faith, a flood of information poured into the mind of the Holy Maiden of Light. These were all recorded in the godhead: various miscellaneous divine arts, as well as instructions on how to handle the matters to come.

……

In the next moment, William Clark's main consciousness returned to the divine realm.

As soon as he returned, he felt his soul body tremble, leaving him dizzy and disoriented for a while.

It took quite some time before he recovered, unable to help but sigh. His soul body was simply too weak. Truly powerful gods could split their consciousness into many parts, each handling different matters. For a truly mighty deity, having hundreds of avatars and millions of consciousnesses was normal.

But, as the saying goes, you eat a meal one bite at a time, and walk a road one step at a time.

William Clark had finally established a decent start, escaped from a desperate situation, and it was all worth it.

After resting for a while and feeling his soul body had returned to normal, William Clark squatted amidst the ruins of the divine realm and began to take stock of the gains from this descent.

Descending once had cost him 0.8 points of divine power, but the gains were obvious.

Saints: 0

Holy Disciples: 0

Fanatics: 1

Devout Followers: 4

True Believers: 0

Shallow Believers: 70

The number of shallow believers had not yet stopped declining, but he had gained four devout followers and one fanatic. Just these five alone could provide 1.4 points of faith power per day, much better than before.

Moreover, the faith of these five was extremely firm. Unless they died, their channels of faith would be hard to break.

If things stayed as they were, in just over two years he could convert another point of divine power.

But William Clark was no fool—why would he just sit around and wait for two years?

The remaining 0.2 points of divine power were precisely to prepare for the next plan. He had already transmitted his plan into Catherine's mind, and now it was up to the temporarily elevated Holy Maiden of Light to carry everything out.

Now that William Clark was severely lacking in divine power and could not descend often, he could only wait patiently for the seeds to bear fruit.

Bored, he continued to study the mysteries within the godhead. Only by fully mastering the godhead could he become a true Lord of Light.

As he waited, time flowed by swiftly.

On the third day, the number of shallow believers dropped to 60.

However, in less than an hour, the number of shallow believers rose from 60 back to 61. Another hour later, it dropped to 60 again, and two hours after that, it rose back to 61.

For most of the day, the number of shallow believers fluctuated back and forth like a tug-of-war, making William Clark's heart race with anxiety.

But he understood in his heart that this meant the Holy Maiden of Light had begun to act.

Now, the enemy was powerful and spread throughout the entire empire. If the Holy Maiden of Light dared to shout out that the Lord of Light was still alive and called everyone to return to the faith, then with her mere level 3 strength—let alone even if she reached level 7 as a holy nun—she would not survive three days.

What William Clark wanted her to do was to proceed slowly, first gradually bringing back those shallow believers whose channels of faith had collapsed. Ideally, she would lead by example, using herself as a model to develop some true believers.

First gather a group of people, then slowly plan the next step.

Catherine truly did not disappoint him.

With her, the new Holy Maiden of Light, working in secret, the number of William Clark's shallow believers finally stopped declining and began to rise again. On the fourth day, it returned to 65; on the fifth day, to 78; and by the eighth day, the number of shallow believers had once again surpassed one hundred.

What excited William Clark the most was that, during this process, two shallow believers were actually converted into true believers.

Although a true believer was only worth ten shallow believers and was far inferior to a devout follower or fanatic, this kind of conversion was undoubtedly a good start.

In the days that followed, William Clark almost every day squatted atop a stone pillar, watching the number of believers, deducing from the changes what the Holy Maiden of Light and the others were doing and whether their actions were going smoothly.

Every time he saw the number of believers drop by one or two, his heart would leap with anxiety, fearing that the Holy Maiden of Light's actions had been discovered by the enemy and she was being persecuted.

Every time he saw the number of believers “shoot up” by a few, he couldn't help but get excited, praising Catherine and the others over and over in his heart, and marveling at his own luck—just one random descent, and he had found such a reliable Holy Maiden of Light.

……

Chapter 7: Saving the Lost Lambs

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