Free Web NovelChapter 432: Chapter 432 World Police_1
The next day, Aiden read a letter from Heinz Hoffman.
Heinz had long since left the autonomous region, but he had left enough personnel behind to maintain contact with Aiden. Through the secret police’s telegraph lines, they could establish rapid communication.
All Aiden had to do was to find a contact person and pass on a message, and the other party would relay the inquiry to Heinz. Then Heinz would issue orders to the secret police branch in Sunset City, and the Silvertown contact person who received the telegraph reply would disguise the intelligence Aiden wanted as an ordinary citizen’s letter and deliver it to the warden’s mailbox.
Just yesterday, Aiden passed a message to the contact person. He wanted to probe into the intelligence regarding the Revenge Temple mercenary group active on the southern border of Gistas.
Before that, Aiden also tried to ask Sophie for specific intelligence on the Revenge Temple.
The Revenge Temple was a mercenary organization with a religious nature, worshiping the goddess of vengeance—in fact, it was not accurate to call it "one." Like most mercenaries, they had no stance but advocated the act of revenge according to their doctrine. From terror attacks involving racial hatred to bloody retaliation stemming from personal vendettas, as long as they were offered compensation, they would provide strength to help employers seek vengeance.
However, it seemed that since the goddess of vengeance did not unify the thoughts of all her followers, the Revenge Temple’s own banner had little core cohesion. Positionless mercenary groups were scattered across different regions, basically fighting on their own. Sometimes, two opposing employers would hire the same mercenary group, and even situations would arise where two mercenary groups under the Revenge Temple would fight each other to the death.
Therefore, instead of saying that the "Revenge Temple" is a religious mercenary organization, it would be more accurate to say that the "Revenge Temple" is actually a collective term for several different mercenary groups with the same religious faith.
However, among these groups, there was one authentic "Revenge Temple" because they served the goddess of vengeance directly. The scattered mercenary groups flying the Revenge Temple’s flag would wage war against each other over differing positions but would never oppose this "main group" (nor would they dare to). Should the "main group" serving the goddess issue a call to arms, the other mercenary groups might not necessarily lay down their lives, but they would, more or less, take some action.
In Aiden’s eyes, this was somewhat similar to the relationship between a religious leader in a certain era of his past life and various countries big and small that followed that religion. It was also a bit like franchisees—the mercenary groups offered faith to the goddess of vengeance and, in return, were entitled to fly the "Revenge Temple" flag.
After the "Revenge Temple main group" where the goddess of vengeance was, was destroyed by the Blood Moon Cult manipulated by Melifilia and Mr. Bloodrobe, the mad Halo and a small group of remnants who were mistakenly believed to be some small mercenary group flying the Revenge Temple’s flag.
But now, it seemed that these people might be the surviving members of the Revenge Temple main group.
According to Sophie’s intelligence, the Smiling Scales had not paid attention to the Revenge Temple’s intelligence since the main group’s demise. After all, they were only interested in the goddess of vengeance. With the fall of the goddess, those scattered followers had no value to the Smiling Scales in terms of collecting intelligence.
Moreover, after the main group lost its activity, those scattered "Revenge Temple" mercenary groups disappeared one by one. The reason was easy to guess—perhaps they did not know what force had destroyed the main group, but the force that had dealt with the Revenge Temple main group might not spare any mercenary group flying the "Revenge Temple" flag.
These mercenary groups devoted to the goddess of vengeance were not necessarily very devout; most groups just thought the "Revenge Temple" flag was useful.
On the other hand, mercenary groups that still dared to fly this flag after that incident were probably the so-called "true lovers," that is, devout followers of the goddess of vengeance—like the one mentioned by Abigail.
Without their intelligence from the Smiling Scales, Aiden had no choice but to rely on the royal secret police for investigation—he suddenly realized that in just a few months, he seemed to have accumulated quite decent intelligence resources in certain areas.
The letter from Heinz read, "Many religious groups have emerged in Sunset City, but many are the local beliefs brought by refugees from the south, and it will take some time to discern which can be utilized.
There has been no news from Professor Dodge.
The Revenge Temple is currently hidden in the Sea of Red Mountain, and they are connected to an attack incident.
If needed, we can make use of informants to establish contact with them."
An attachment was enclosed with the letter, a report on the terrorist attack. freeweɓnovel.cøm
Aiden furrowed his brows as he read, the report transcribed from a telegram was concise but contained a significant amount of information.
In the southern part of Gistas Kingdom, two minor kingdoms have long harbored complex ethnic conflicts, which erupted into war this year following an explosion attack.
The attachment reported on the terrorist attack, which both warring sides have different accounts of, yet Gistas’s royal secret police directly identified the explosion incident as the work of a small mercenary group operating under the banner of "Revenge Temple".
Not only that, but they also knew the current hiding place of the mercenary group and even had informants who could directly make contact with them.
This was rather interesting—as Aiden collected local political reports previously, he found a considerable number of political commentators were advocating that the war was being pushed by the Gistas Kingdom itself. frёeweɓηovel.coɱ
In fact, after war broke out, Gistas Kingdom did indeed take a stance, supporting one side covertly and manipulating the war from behind the scenes.
This was not surprising; a major power always seeks to maintain its influence over neighboring regions, and when war breaks out in a surrounding country, the major power can always find an opportunity to "mediate" or, if more "enthusiastic," can even send troops directly, playing the role of world policeman.
Heinz’s reply was undoubtedly directly telling him something—that the explosion that ignited the war was inextricably linked to Gistas.
Having such a mercenary group, which was almost akin to a terrorist organization, carry out the deed meant that even if exposed, it would be easy to disassociate from them. It so happened that "Revenge Temple" was famous for engaging in terrorist activities related to ethnic hatred.
After completing their job, this mercenary group was left idle, hiding in the Sea of Red Mountain on the border of Gistas, occasionally taking on other scattered work from the battlefield. The one who directly hired them was one of the kingdoms involved in the war, but the real sponsor behind the scenes was probably the Gistas Kingdom—and this might even be unknown to the mercenary group itself.
If this mercenary group still retained a strong sense of devoted belief, the goddess of vengeance might still hold enough sway over them to even use them to rebuild the headquarters of the Revenge Temple.
Of course, Mr. Blood might also take advantage of this...
