Chapter 165: Glory Fortress
The Church of the Sanctuary was laid out like a nine-square grid, with the Clock Tower at its center, and the Glory Fortress and the Monastery positioned diagonally opposite each other.
Currently, the Glory Fortress housed nearly forty individuals. Besides the Temple Warriors, the rest were warriors who had followed Marl on his expedition and were personally selected by him afterward.
Even Marl himself was entranced by the ceremony upon their return. Naturally, such an experience corroded the hearts of many.
They were intoxicated by the glory. After entering the town, they indulged in wine, flowers, women, and praise, gradually forgetting about battle. Their bodies grew fat.
Therefore, after the Glory Fortress was completed, Marl did not summon them back. He only called upon those who had returned to their families, resumed a normal life, and were still willing to pick up weapons.
Marl believed these people had strong enough resolve. With proper training, they could become Temple Warriors.
He had seen it on the Flower Path.
The four Temple Warriors who carried the Lord’s Throne were, of course, delighted by the glory bestowed upon them—but only delighted.
Their faith was steadfast. Even in an atmosphere that made Marl himself somewhat intoxicated, they remained unmoved.
After completing the Flower Path, they turned without hesitation, exited the town, and returned to the Church to report.
If Marl hadn’t noticed them, he might have been dragged into a banquet by those three nobles who flattered and praised him.
They were true nobles, bearing titles—far above the level of mere local gentry.
Just imagining it made Marl feel as if he were soaked in honey wine, slightly drunk from the thought.
But the actions of those four Temple Warriors snapped him out of it. He understood how everything had come to be.
So he solemnly refused the invitation from the three nobles and turned away, leaving them with displeased expressions.
It was also because of this that Marl held those Temple Warriors with unwavering faith in extremely high regard.
Corleon approved of his thinking, so he appointed him as a Priest. However, this Priest was not sent to preside over a Small Church in some village but was stationed in the Glory Fortress, responsible for guiding these warriors and, when he deemed someone capable enough, promoting them to Temple Warrior.
However, up to now, Marl had not promoted a single warrior.
He believed these men only had strong will, not strong faith.
Now that he was a Priest, Marl naturally understood how important it was to possess steadfast faith as a Servant of the Lord in the Church of the Sanctuary.
Of course, Marl was only responsible for guiding faith. As for the warriors' combat skills, knights were hired to provide instruction.
Though this method displeased some knights who followed the traditional path of becoming a Knight’s Squire and earning promotion, the lure of gold coins offered by the Church tempted a few nonetheless.
Not just for the gold—but also for the Church.
Take Knight Borien, for example.
A white dove circled above the Glory Fortress. After spotting Marl watching swordsmanship training, it dove down and landed beside him.
“You’ve worked hard,” Marl said with a slight smile, gently stroking the dove’s wing, untying the message strapped to its leg, and offering a bit of grain.
Not only were the warriors training, Marl was also constantly learning how to command in battle. In the process, he came to understand how vital these messenger doves were in warfare. Because of this, he always carried grains that the doves liked.
After reading the letter, Marl appeared somewhat excited.
The Bishop had instructed him to prepare the army. Once the Clock Tower was completed, he would lead the warriors northward again to wage war against the Nation of Werewolves.
Those men had been corrupted by the glory of walking down the Flower Path—but wasn’t Marl the same?
The difference was that while those men were corrupted by material things, Marl yearned for greater glory—not the fabricated kind peddled by those bastards in the Monastery.
Just by their fabrications alone, they claimed that Marl had left over twenty children with various noble daughters in the Nation of Werewolves.
And he had only just recently gotten married.
Naturally, the one he married was the girl who had offered him flowers.
The Church of the Sanctuary did not prohibit marriage, nor did it require celibacy.
After all, the cycle of life and death was itself a law established by the Lord.
The members of the Church of the Sanctuary all had faith and believed they had their own missions, so they didn’t place much importance on love and such.
Even Marl’s marriage to that girl, beyond a bit of affection, also stemmed from pity.
Marl recognized the girl—Sarah Morgan, the same one who had poured wine for him during a conversation with Clement.
Sarah had pleaded with him, expressing her fear of Clement’s retaliation and her desire for Marl’s protection. She said she was willing to become his lover.
As she said this, Clement stood not far away, smiling at the two of them, like a benevolent father watching over his daughter.
Yet the more benevolent his smile appeared, the more terrified Sarah looked.
Perhaps out of pity—or perhaps because Marl remembered the look in her eyes when she brought him flowers—
He married Sarah.
And when the Bishop gave them his blessing at the Great Church, he wore a very strange expression.
This made Marl a bit uneasy.
After some time, the Bishop issued a statement requiring that, for Church personnel to marry, the woman must be at least sixteen and the man at least eighteen.
Only then did Marl understand the reason behind the Bishop’s odd expression.
He was a bit embarrassed.
He wasn’t even eighteen yet, and Sarah was only fourteen.
Although, in this era, at their ages, some children were already helping out in the fields—
The Bishop's words had to be followed, as they were the Lord’s Words.
So, for a while, George and the others gave him some very odd looks.
Marl even went to the Great Church to confess.
He shook his head, brushing away the cluttered thoughts.
Marl cradled the white dove and left the training grounds.
Entering his study, he wrote on the special paper meant for messages carried by doves.
“Good child, go find George and give him this letter,” Marl said, touching his forehead to the dove’s. Then he released it out the window.
This was the Lord’s sacred dove, capable of identifying Church personnel—especially those like George and Marl, whose names could be used as Church names.
The dove flapped its wings, gliding across the sky, overlooking a white-covered land, eventually circling above a snow-buried ruin.
Finally, it dove upon spotting a figure emerging from a small house.
George raised his hand, letting the dove rest on his finger.
“You’ve gotten a bit fatter,” George said with a smile.
The dove, seemingly displeased, pecked at George’s hand that had stroked its wing.
Unbothered by the peck, George removed the message from the dove’s leg.
After reading it, George’s expression turned solemn.
He was a Guardian Knight, not under Marl’s command, and Marl had not requested him to join the expedition.
Marl merely informed him of the situation and asked if he wished to go to war together.
After all, an Upper-Ranked Werewolf was equivalent to a knight, and the Temple Warriors had not a single knight among them.
During the last expedition, they had been fortunate not to encounter any Upper-Ranked Werewolves. But this time, there was no such certainty.
The Bishop had also stated that this time only the Church’s forces would be involved. Hence, Marl hoped that the Church’s sole knight could accompany them on the campaign.