Chapter 376 Derivatives
Barrett's villa on the southwestern outskirts of Tivian, north of Shield Hill.
In the basement of the villa, Dorothy was controlling the corpse of the male servant to search the Barrett laboratory. On the wall of the laboratory, she found a very old cloth painting.
In order to deepen her understanding of this world, Dorothy had read many secular books in the library of Guanda University, including secular history and even art appreciation. Therefore, Dorothy recognized that the shield emblem on the cloth painting was a typical feudal thing in the main continent. This kind of shield emblem was generally a symbol of a family or even a force. When those feudal lords fought on the battlefield, this kind of shield emblem would be printed on their shields, armor, and flags.
Dorothy had once read a book called "A Study of the Shields of the Protestant Nobility" and had seen many shields of families and organizations, but this was the first time she had seen the shield of the Four Knights on the canvas.
"Four Horsemen... Could this be the so-called Four Horsemen of Shadow and Moon on the stone statue of Arthur? Arthur is the Knight of Wind, and there are three others?"
"Blood Knight... Wind Knight... Dream Knight... Spirit Knight... These correspond exactly to the four branches of the Path of Shadow. They seem to have a similar structure to the Church of the Goddess of Plenty."
In the carriage a few meters away, Dorothy used the vision of the butler's corpse to look at the old cloth painting while thinking in her heart. She had seen similar paintings before. In the evidence department of the Security Bureau, in Davic's research materials, Dorothy once saw a parchment hanging painting that seemed to depict the faith of the goddess of abundance.
If the crescent moon behind the shield is considered to be the Mirror Moon Goddess, then the structure of the painting of Davic is very similar to that of this shield. They are all pure-color main gods and his four mixed-color subordinate gods. The four knights may correspond to the four mixed-color gods in the Path of Shadow, the mixed-color gods during the period when the Mirror Moon Goddess sect was strong.
'It goes without saying that the Wind Knight is Arthur, the great hero of Putt and the source of the bloodline of the Putt royal family. It seems that the Despenser family is the descendant of God. Their Storm Path also originated from Arthur. According to the legends I have read before, this Arthur may have fallen now, and there may be no one on the throne of Storm Path.
'As for the Dream Knight and the Spirit Knight... apart from the fact that they are all women as shown on the shield emblem, there is no other useful information. Unlike Arthur, the other three knights do not seem to have a deep connection with the land of Putt, so the information I know is not much. I only know that the little fox's dream-eating journey in the dream may have something to do with the Dream Knight.
'Finally, there is the Blood Knight... Strictly speaking, this should be the deity of Blood Darkness under the Goddess Mirror Moon, but his gender is male, which means that this Blood Knight and the female Spider Queen may not be the same person. The current deity of Blood Darkness should be the Spider Queen, so the Blood Knight may have fallen as the previous deity of Blood Darkness. Of course, this may be a guess. Blood Darkness can easily change its shape, so it must not be difficult for a deity to change gender.'
Sitting in the carriage, Dorothy, wrapped in a blanket, carefully analyzed the content on the canvas. Finally, she shifted the focus of her analysis to the annotation from Barrett on the canvas. This annotation accurately stated the source of the canvas, and this short annotation also contained a lot of information.
'According to Barrett's annotations, this shield emblem was drawn during the Wind King Rebellion, by the so-called 'Ancient Respect School'. That was the flag used by one of the warring parties during the Putin Civil War more than 100 years ago, a flag that does not exist in the records of secular history.
'According to the content of "The Influence of the Glorious Religion on the Traditional Culture of Putih" written by Barrett, the war conflicts in the Wind King Rebellion were not the covetousness of the throne by various parties in secular history, but the resistance of some local forces in Putih to the invasion of the culture and beliefs of the Glorious Religion. This so-called ancient reverence faction was probably established by some nobles who were dissatisfied with the influence of the Glorious Religion at that time.
'These ancient worshippers probably followed the ancient system, that is, the traditional culture of Putt, which is centered on the belief in the Mirror Moon Goddess and the legend of Arthur, the Wind King, so they drew this four-horseman shield as their own symbol. In their era, the belief in the Mirror Moon Goddess should still have some remnants. They extracted elements from the remnant culture that they wanted to protect, and finally drew this shield.
'It was several decades between the time of the Wind King's Rebellion and the time when the Mirror Moon Goddess Church withdrew from Putt. They may not fully understand the meaning of this shield emblem, but it was enough to rally people's hearts. But judging from the current results, this group of ancient worshipers should have lost. The current Putt faith culture has been influenced by the Church of the Light in all aspects. The legend of Arthur has also been changed beyond recognition. Only in remote villages can you occasionally hear some stories about the lake fairy.'
Looking at Barrett's markings on the canvas, Dorothy analyzed and thought in her mind, and suddenly she remembered the message engraved on the wall in the ruins under Guanda, which was suspected to be a message from the clergy of the Church of the Mirror Moon Goddess.
'The Wind King Rebellion broke out in Putt because of the resistance to the cultural invasion of the Glowing Church. Although the local nobles of Putt raised the banner of the Mirror Moon Goddess's faith to resist the Glowing Church, these were just spontaneous actions of these nobles and did not seem to have much to do with the Mirror Moon Goddess Church itself.
'In the message in the ruins, the Mirror Moon Goddess Church voluntarily withdrew from Putt because of some kind of "agreement" and then went to the East. The Mirror Moon Church withdrew long before the Wind King Rebellion, and it seems that no conflict occurred. I don't know what the content of this agreement is? Is the counterparty of the agreement the Radiant Church?'
Recalling the message she found on the wall of the ruins in the basement of the school, Dorothy pondered over this. Based on the information currently available, Dorothy was able to roughly work out the decline of the Mirror Moon Goddess faith in Put.
The message on the ruins under the school is in the Imperial language, so the time when the Mirror Moon Goddess faith left Putt must have been around the beginning of the Radiant Era, which is around the beginning of the Fourth Epoch. At that time, the Third Epoch Empire of the King of Time should have had a profound influence. The time when the Mirror Moon Goddess Church left was not far from the time when the Radiant Church was introduced to Putt, so the Mirror Moon Goddess Church's agreement partner may have been the Radiant Church. It is unknown what kind of agreement the Radiant Church and the Mirror Moon Goddess Church reached that made the Mirror Moon Goddess Church directly abandon the entire Putt.
In the following long years, the Radiant Light Church began to spread in Putt on a large scale. Under the influence of the Mirror Moon Goddess Church, the image of the Mirror Moon Goddess changed from a deity to a fairy in the lake in folk legends. After that, the Radiant Light Church did not even want to give the Mirror Moon Goddess the status of a folk legend. Under further suppression, even the legend of the fairy in the lake was gradually transformed and replaced by the three saints of the Radiant Light Church. This cultural extinction-like transformation activity of the Radiant Light Church caused resistance from the conservative forces of the Putt nation itself. Under the leadership of some nobles and royal families, the Wind King Rebellion was launched. The final result was that the current royal family supported by the Radiant Light Church came to power, until today's scene.
"In terms of spreading faith, the Glorious Church is truly incomparable. The current Fourth Epoch can be said to be an era dominated by the Glorious Church. Fortunately, I don't have the need to preach on a large scale, otherwise it would be bad if I was targeted by the Holy War Knights."
Sitting in the carriage, Dorothy, who had just sorted out the decline of Mirror Moon faith in Putt, said this with emotion. Then she asked the butler corpse in the room to put down the coat of arms cloth painting, and then cast her eyes around the desk and bookshelves piled with paper.
"Barrett's research materials are really rich. I have already found a lot of valuable materials. If I can read them all, it should be a great harvest."
Dorothy murmured with a smile, and then she continued to control the male servant corpse to search around, hoping to find more valuable information.
…
While Dorothy was controlling the corpse doll to look through various materials in Barrett's room, in Barrett's villa, Kenk was still looking for the entrance to the room with a group of his killers. However, after searching through all kinds of boxes and cabinets and every corner of the scene, he still didn't find any clues.
"Damn it! Where on earth did this Barrett hide the laboratory?!"
Standing in the hallway, Kenke looked at the mess in front of him and spoke angrily. He and his men had searched every corner of the mansion, and even began to tear off wallpaper and pry up floors, turning the entire villa into a demolition and moving site. However, they still couldn't find the entrance to the room. In his anxious anger, Kenke glanced at his watch and found that it was not long before dawn. Continuing this fruitless search would only make it more and more dangerous.
"There's nothing else to do. If we can't find anything, we can only burn this place down and make things more difficult for the Black Dogs..."
Kenke was thinking this in his mind, and just as he was about to ask his men to give the order to burn down the villa, he suddenly felt a slight pain in his arm. It was the human-faced spider in his clothes biting him.
"This location is..."
Feeling the pain of the human-faced spider's bite, Kenke's brows slightly wrinkled and his expression became extremely serious.
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