Received the material support from the Northern Territory and the Empress's personal gifts, Perfikot's icy blue eyes flickered with a trace of complex emotional fluctuation.

However, after a moment of sentiment, this young Alchemist soon regained his usual calm composure and threw himself back into the heavy daily work.

The progress of the New God project is proceeding smoothly as expected, with all key nodes prepared.

What's left are merely some details that need patience and honing.

Perfikot is not in a hurry for success, but methodically dispatches the Floating Fleet carrying carefully selected missionaries, crossing the cold winds returning to the old world.

These emissaries will carry out missionary activities in the survivor settlements in France and other countries, bringing the gospel of the New God to the people struggling in the severe cold.

To enhance the appeal of the mission, Perfikot formulated a highly attractive policy: any community converting to the New God faith would receive support in the form of Energy Towers and other survival resources, designed by her personally.

In this apocalypse shrouded in eternal winter, these valuable resources mean the ability to carve out a warm haven in the icy wasteland, allowing believers to continue their lives.

Perfikot is well aware that this mode of missionary work, based on material exchange, may be unlikely to catalyze the birth of a new deity in the short term.

Not to mention how much piety believers converted out of interest might have, and how thin the power of faith they provide would be.

However, this action undoubtedly touched the sensitive nerves of the Ancient Gods.

Although Perfikot did not mandate believers to abandon their original faith, she even deliberately loosened the restrictions, allowing New God believers to continue worshiping other deities after conversion.

This lenient policy seems gentle but has a sharp edge hidden within.

In the brutal reality of rampant winter, people suffering from hunger and cold naturally make choices most favorable for survival without any guidance.

On one side is the generous New God faith, where a sincere prayer can gain the warmth of an Energy Tower and a haven, stable food supply, and survival resources provided by alchemists.

On the other side are the increasingly greedy Ancient Gods, whose priests still demand precious sacrifices, even requiring living humans as offerings.

In such a stark contrast, how would ordinary people shivering in the cold and struggling on the brink of hunger choose, almost without thinking?

Perfikot knows well that such missionary methods are tantamount to directly challenging the authority of the Ancient Gods.

Yet she aims to provoke them in a nearly humiliating manner, forcing them to react.

Only, upon her arrival at the Desert Kingdom, the attacks from the gods seemed to cease, which made Perfikot feel a bit uneasy.

The previously frequent divine attendants and subordinate gods, those armies from the divine... all disappeared.

It was as if they no longer wanted to fight with Perfikot, thus unilaterally halting this war.

"The Ancient Gods... afraid?" Perfikot gently shook her head, dismissing this naive thought.

Those former rulers of the whole world could not possibly be scared by the previous losses.

Then, are they brewing a more dangerous plot? It's indeed very possible.

Her intuition, however, points to another possibility—perhaps this seemingly barren desert conceals a taboo even the gods fear.

To know, according to the ancient book fragments and secret legends collected by Perfikot during this time, the last time the "White Star" descended, it was exactly in the depths of this boundless sea of sand.

That catastrophe directly ended the glorious mythological era, with numerous mighty deities fallen in that disaster, survivors reduced to twisted Evil Gods.

If anything could make those arrogant Ancient Gods afraid, it must be related to this desert burial ground of divine fall.

"So... is there some unknown secret buried beneath this land?" She doesn't know the exact answer, but intuition tells her, beneath this seemingly dead yellow sand, must be lurking a truth more astonishing than the doomsday prophecy.

Perhaps, the archaeological excavation work, temporarily suspended due to the discovery of the doomsday prophecy... it's time to restart it.

"Pass the order, gather the best exploration teams and archaeologists. I want to thoroughly investigate the secrets of this desert—especially the precise location of the White Star's fall." Perfikot turned and said to the attendant behind her: "If even the gods fear this place, then we should know what exactly they are afraid of."

-----------------

The Floating Fleet left the Desert Kingdom, carrying Perfikot's orders and part of a Floating City module, returning to the old world.

Their first stop was the core area of the old Romulus Empire, located very close to the Desert Kingdom.

Although the former Romulus Empire was vast, once traversing the entire inland sea coast and incorporating countless city-states into its territory, in an era where transportation and communication were extremely primitive, such a large Empire was destined to struggle to achieve true centralized control.

The frontier provinces of the Empire were often only nominally submissive, actually governed autonomously by local Governors.

Only this core area where the Empire originated was the core territory directly ruled by the Romulus Empire.

Even after enduring the ravages of the doomsday winter and various disasters triggered by the return of the Ancient Gods, this land still maintains astonishing vitality.