Lord: Starting with Biological Modification

Chapter 295: Chapter 290: If the Shoe Fits

The banquet was over.

The candles were extinguished, the music silenced.

The guests, each lost in their own thoughts, departed in twos and threes, and the long hall returned to its cold tranquility.

Philippe returned to his residence in the Noble District.

The mansion had once belonged to a wealthy Knight of the Dawn Territory. Its lavish decorations, however, now only served to irritate Philippe.

He didn’t light any lamps, standing alone before the French windows of the second-floor study. Moonlight poured down like mercury, flooding the courtyard.

A figure slipped out from the shadows of a colonnade and knelt on one knee.

He was dressed in the unremarkable attire of a merchant—Philippe’s most capable intelligence chief.

"My lord, the men sent to the stone bridge in the Western Territory and the southern three-forked road have returned."

"Speak."

"Nothing to report. Neither the watchposts in the Western Territory nor the porters of the northbound and southbound caravans have seen or heard of any large-scale church procession passing through."

After speaking, the man retrieved a parchment report from his coat.

Philippe did not take it.

"They can’t be traced," he muttered to himself.

"Indeed, my lord. Could it be... that the Baron of Grey Marsh Territory is just bluffing?"

"No." Philippe turned, the moonlight illuminating half his face and making him look exceptionally cold and sinister.

"The most secure intelligence is intelligence that doesn’t exist. This proves one thing: the diocese has completely locked down all information. The route, the personnel, the objective—it’s all top secret."

He walked to the table and poured himself a glass of water. The cold liquid slid down his throat but couldn’t quench the fire in his heart.

"Go to the slums of Light City, the taverns by the docks. Find the vagrants and beggars. If the church’s people are heading south, some friar must have been sent to scout ahead. They love dealing with the lowest classes, prying information from their lips."

"As you command." The man bowed, retreated silently, and melted back into the shadows.

Meanwhile, in a mansion at the other end of the Noble District, the atmosphere was entirely different.

BANG!

Valerius slammed his Knight’s Longsword onto the oak table, making the wine goblets on it hum.

A travel-worn Knight captain stood before him with his head bowed, his armor still beaded with night dew.

"Viscount, I led my men thirty *li* out, questioning everyone at the nearby watchposts and villages. No one has seen a church procession."

"Useless!" Valerius kicked over a chair. "An entire tribunal, dozens of people! How could they just vanish into thin air?"

"My lord... could this all be a hoax?" the Knight captain asked cautiously.

Valerius paced back and forth across the room, his iron boots thudding heavily on the floor.

He stopped abruptly, a memory flashing through his mind.

Last winter, when the land was frozen solid, he had been short on funds. To procure a desperately needed batch of winter clothing for his cavalry, he had taken his men and directly "borrowed" an entire year’s worth of tithes from the church in Red Leaf Village.

"Remember that letter the old priest wrote to us?"

The Knight captain’s face changed.

"Didn’t that old codger die of illness?"

"He died of illness, yes," Valerius said, staring at the captain. "But his letter of complaint might not be dead. If this tribunal is really targeting me, that’s the best evidence they could ask for."

He waved his hand in frustration.

"Get out! Take your men and guard the door. Don’t let anyone in!"

The Knight captain fled in a hurry, as if granted a pardon.

That night, many in the castle did not sleep well.

Philippe burned half a box of documents.

They were secret agreements he had signed with several minor barons of the Dawn Territory, concerning land mortgages and the manipulation of the grain trade.

Any one of them was enough to ruin a nobleman’s reputation and bring about his downfall.

The firelight flickered across his face, his expression grave.

Valerius, for his part, was polishing his armor.

He used a linen cloth and fine sand, again and again, to polish the scratches on his breastplate.

Those were marks of glory, earned in battle against boar-men.

But what he was thinking of now was how, three years ago, he had forcibly requisitioned a patch of church-owned woodland to use as a logging camp, all to expand his armory.

One by one, the incidents—neither major nor minor—were all ironclad proof of "encroachment upon divine property" if they were ever brought to light.

On the highest terrace of the castle, the night wind was cool.

Diana gathered her cloak around her shoulders, looking down at the few windows below that remained lit throughout the night.

"Will they really believe it?" she asked softly.

"Fear doesn’t need proof, only a seed," Velin said from beside her, his voice calm.

"They don’t dare to take the chance, because they truly have blasphemed, haven’t they? We don’t have to do a thing. They’ll convince themselves this whole play is real."

Diana looked at Velin’s profile. In the moonlight, his expression was so calm it was almost frightening.

Without her realizing it, this man had become a player capable of moving the strings of fate.

The next morning, the sun had just risen.

The castle dining hall was still quiet, with a few early-rising nobles eating their breakfast in silence.

A servant burst into the dining hall in a panic, so flustered that he even tripped at the entrance.

"The city gate! A procession has arrived at the city gate!"

The servant was out of breath.

"They’re flying the banner of the diocese!"

An uproar erupted in the dining hall.

Several nobles who had been eating breakfast began whispering to each other, their faces filled with suspicion.

A young Knight set down his goblet. Driven by intense curiosity, he joined a few others and hurried out of the dining hall, across the courtyard, and toward the castle gate.

The guards of the Dawn Territory were already lined up at the gate, their expressions tense.

Diana stood at the very front. She had changed into a simple, gray long dress and removed all her jewelry.

The young Knight’s gaze went past the guards, toward the crenellations of the city wall.

He saw two figures who had long been standing there, gazing out at the long bridge outside the castle.

It was Viscount Philippe and Viscount Valerius.

They had clearly arrived even earlier.

Philippe stood with his hands behind his back, his face as dark as water; Valerius also had his hands clasped behind him, his muscles taut.

On the long bridge outside the castle, a procession was approaching.

At the very front were two Knights. They rode tall warhorses and wore full suits of black plate armor, a crossed-keys insignia carved into their chests.

That was the emblem of the southern diocese of the Haidi Duchy.

Behind them followed twelve Knights.

In the center of the procession was a person dressed in a black friar’s robe.

He rode a donkey, his hood pulled down low, obscuring his face.

Philippe and Valerius rushed to Diana’s side.

They got a clear look at the procession’s formation and equipment.

Well-equipped and highly disciplined.

This was no escort from an ordinary church.

"It really is a tribunal," Valerius said, his voice dry.

Philippe said nothing, his gaze locked on the black-robed figure on the donkey.

That person was the core of it all.

The procession halted at the castle gate.

The lead Knight dismounted and walked before Diana.

"Count of Dawn, we are passing through on a mission. The Father needs to stop briefly in Light City."

His voice, muffled by his helmet, was deep and authoritative.

Diana bowed in salute.

"Welcome, Your Excellency. The castle has rooms prepared for all of you."

The Knight did not respond. He turned, returned to the procession, and reported to the man in the black robe.

Fabian raised his head.

The face beneath the hood was gaunt, his eyes calm, filled with a compassion that seemed to look down upon all living things.

He gave Diana a slight nod, a gesture of returning her courtesy.

His gaze swept over the crowd, lingering for an extra moment on Philippe and Valerius.

Just for a moment.

But it was enough to make Philippe’s sphincter tighten.

Just then, a commotion broke out at the edge of the square.

A farmer carrying jars on a shoulder pole, delivering vegetables to the castle, tripped on something and pitched forward.

CRASH!

The jars shattered on the ground, and vegetables scattered everywhere.

"Ah—my leg!" the farmer cried, clutching his shin and rolling on the ground, groaning in pain. "It’s broken! My leg is broken!"

The crowd gasped and automatically stepped back, clearing a space around him.

Fabian’s gaze turned in that direction.

He dismounted from his donkey and, flanked by two guards, walked toward the farmer.

He crouched down, extended his right hand, and held it hovering over the farmer’s bloody, mangled shin.

His lips moved without a sound.

A soft white light emanated from his palm, enveloping the wound.

The light wasn’t blinding, but carried a warm and sacred aura.

Everyone present held their breath.

Under the gazes of nearly a hundred onlookers, the torn flesh on the farmer’s leg writhed and healed at a visible speed. With faint CRACKLING sounds, the shattered bone slowly reset itself.

In less than a minute, the light faded.

The farmer’s shin was as good as new, without so much as a scar remaining.

He stared at his leg in a daze, then tentatively stood up and jumped twice with all his might.

"It’s healed! My leg is healed! Oh, God!"

Overcome with emotion, he turned and, with a THUD, dropped to his knees, kowtowing repeatedly to Fabian.

"Thank you, Father! Praise be to the Lord of Eternal Radiance!"

First, a dead silence fell over the entire square, then it exploded with a tsunami of praise and prayer.

Watching this scene, Philippe felt his hands and feet go cold, a chill shooting straight up his spine to the crown of his head.

He recognized that Divine Art.

The fourth-circle spell, [Greater Heal].

It was a powerful Divine Art that could only be mastered by High-Tier clergy of bishop rank or higher within the diocese.

This man was, without a doubt, a person of immense power and authority within the church.

He stiffly turned his head to look at Valerius.

That decorated military noble, who usually feared neither heaven nor earth, was now pale as a sheet, his forehead dotted with fine beads of cold sweat.

Their last shred of hope had been shattered by that Holy Light.

Fabian paid no mind to the kowtowing farmer or the cheering crowd, as if he had just done something utterly insignificant.

He rose to his feet and, flanked by his guards, walked toward the castle gate.

He refused Diana’s invitation.

"There is no need to trouble the Count," he said, his voice peaceful as he spoke for the first time. "I will be temporarily lodging at the church in the city."

He paused. "There, it will be more convenient for me to listen to the Lord’s teachings, and... to the voices of His subjects."

After speaking, he led his procession away, turning toward the Light City church without a backward glance at anyone.

Philippe and Valerius stood frozen to the spot.

The signal could not have been clearer.

He was going to set up his court outside the lord’s control.

He was going to encourage everyone to expose secrets, to inform on others.

At that moment, the two men felt as though all their secrets had been laid bare by the black-robed man’s calm gaze.

Cold sweat soaked the linings of their fine ceremonial attire.

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