The Pope

The Pope is the elderly leader of the Orthodoxy, Shang Xingzhou's junior brother, and the martial uncle who selects Chen Changsheng as his successor. His gentle manner conceals one of the continent's oldest Divine Domain experts and an experienced political actor whose overriding concern is balance: he protects the Orthodox Academy, cooperates with the imperial court when stability requires it, and ultimately opposes the Tianhai Divine Empress when he concludes that her rule can no longer restrain its own power.

Biography

Sponsor of the Orthodox Academy

The Pope's support for the revived Orthodox Academy is initially indirect. While the academy remains politically suspect, Li Palace priests protect it and his trusted subordinates treat its young principal as someone of exceptional importance. His most decisive early intervention occurs inside the Green Leaf World during Chen Changsheng's initial Meditation. Chen's accumulated starlight ignites with enough force to kill him, but the Pope causes rain to fall within the miniature world, cooling the youth's body until he can complete the breakthrough. The act is so unusual that even the archbishop beside the Pope cannot understand why the leader of the Orthodoxy is nurturing a possible symbol of opposition. (Chapters 163, 382, and 450)

That protection does not make the Pope an uncomplicated patron. When Chen first speaks with him at length, the Pope is already treating him as his sole successor and martial nephew, yet he also admits responsibility for the Orthodoxy's attempt to kill Su Li. He distinguishes his private regard for Chen from the burdens of his office: a Pope must account for institutions, alliances, and the future of humanity rather than merely favor the people his heir admires. The encounter establishes the central difficulty in their relationship. Chen has his protection, but cannot assume that the old man's judgments will follow his own conscience. (Chapter 426)

After Chen's victory on the Bridge of Helplessness, the Pope concludes that the youth is more reliable than he had expected and that no better prospect exists for the Orthodoxy's future. He therefore rejects the older and more conventionally qualified Linghai Zhiwang and Daoist Siyuan, declaring Chen his successor before the gathered Orthodoxy and transferring the Divine Staff as public confirmation. The choice is both confidence and compensation: the Pope knows Chen will face an exceptionally cruel decision concerning his own existence, and he wants the Orthodoxy to give the youth authority rather than merely use him. (Chapter 524)

Balance between Palace and Orthodoxy

The Pope's political conduct is governed less by permanent allegiance than by the relative weight of institutions. He had supported the Divine Empress when the late Emperor's court was weak, and for many years the Palace and Li Palace pursued shared aims, including stability and the confluence of north and south. His later explanation is that figures as powerful as Saints must check one another so that the world does not simply move with their preferences. What can look like indecision is therefore also a deliberate refusal to let either imperial or ecclesiastical authority become absolute. (Chapters 655 and 696)

That doctrine shapes the counsel he gives Chen. After Mei Lisha's death, the Pope explains that old people sometimes employ methods contrary to their convictions because they feel responsible for securing a better future. He later defends rules that appear stale or unfair: they restrain experts, but the same restraint can protect weak people who have no cultivation with which to defend themselves. He will answer Chen clearly on some institutional questions while remaining silent when Chen's desired answer would violate duties the Pope still accepts, showing that his affection never erases the office's limits. (Chapters 441 and 553)

The same measured approach governs his interventions around the academy. He permits Li Palace power to shield Chen and presses the court over the imprisonment of Zhexiu, but he avoids turning every dispute into open war with the Palace. He also annuls Chen's engagement to Xu Yourong at Chen's own request, accepting the political consequences of allowing his successor a personal choice. These decisions strengthen Chen without making the academy an independent armed faction, preserving the uneasy settlement between the imperial court and Orthodoxy until that settlement itself becomes untenable. (Chapters 450, 503, and 553)

The Coup and the Succession Decree

During the coup against the Divine Empress, the Pope initially keeps Li Palace silent. He finally admits that Mei Lisha had understood Chen's place in the crisis better than either of the two Saints: the Empress would not simply permit Chen's death, whatever his origin. When the Pope acts, he seals Linghai Zhiwang and Daoist Siyuan because they oppose his choice, dons the Divine Robe and Crown, and brings the Green Leaf rather than the Divine Staff. He rejects the claim that either Chen or Shang Xingzhou has chosen for him. Dying of old age and unable to delay without allowing further slaughter, he decides that the Orthodoxy must enter the conflict for the sake of living beings. (Chapters 650, 655–656)

His intervention determines control of the capital but forces a direct confrontation with his former ally. The Pope releases Orthodox experts from the Green Leaf World, then descends toward the flooded streets to contain the destructive ripples of the Saints' battle. Against the Empress, he plucks a leaf and casts the weight of its entire miniature world toward the Mausoleum of Books. Her Heavenly Tome Monolith stops the attack, leaving him visibly diminished, and the same leaf later crumbles during its repeated collision with the Reflecting Monolith. Standing amid the flood and casualties, he even prepares to perish with her; she refuses the exchange, leaving him to witness the end of the ruler he had once supported. (Chapters 656 and 659–664)

Victory does not make him a servant of Shang Xingzhou's new order. As his illness worsens, the Pope preserves Chen's formal claim to succession and explains why Orthodoxy must now move in the opposite direction from the ascendant court. He had backed the Empress when the imperial clan was weak and the Chen clan when her authority became overwhelming; with Shang now able to influence the court and the Pavilion of Heavenly Secrets, Chen's succession becomes the next counterweight. His decree and instructions transform his personal sponsorship of Chen into a durable institutional obstacle to any single ruler controlling the world. (Chapters 695–696)

After Chen and Wang Po kill Zhou Tong, Shang Xingzhou comes to Li Palace for a final private conversation with his junior brother. The resulting settlement temporarily eases the confrontation between court and Orthodoxy, sends Zhexiu north, and returns Mo Yu to house arrest rather than immediate punishment. The Pope then tells Chen that leaving the capital is now possible and perhaps necessary, but insists that his chosen successor must return whenever the Orthodoxy needs him. He personally brings Chen before the six halls, whose ancient powers acknowledge the succession, and places the Divine Crown on Chen's head while the youth holds the Divine Staff. (Chapter 725)

With the bishops, cavalry, priests, and believers still kneeling, the Pope closes his eyes behind Chen and never opens them again. The bells announce that he has returned to the sea of stars, but his final design continues after his death. Power from the six halls forms a rainbow over the capital; together with the Green Leaf, it breaks Wang Zhice's prison array beneath New North Bridge and melts the Orange Garden's restraints, freeing Zhizhi and Mo Yu. His death therefore completes both the public transfer of religious authority and a concealed plan to leave Chen an independent Protector and allies outside Shang Xingzhou's control. (Chapters 726–727)

Appearance and personality

In private, the Pope resembles an ordinary old man more than a supreme religious ruler. He wears a simple hempen robe, speaks with an amiable smile, and tends the potted Green Leaf with a ladle and soft cloth while the Divine Crown and Staff sit nearby. Formal crisis changes his presentation: during the coup, he appears in the Divine Robe and Crown with sacred light behind him. Near the end of his life, his wrinkles deepen and he looks markedly older, although his terminal illness produces no obvious outward weakness; he dies standing behind Chen during the final ceremony. (Chapters 426, 524, 655, 696, and 725–726)

He is gentle, patient, and capable of sincere pity, but he does not mistake kindness for political innocence. His long hesitation troubles him: he compares himself to grass swaying in the wind and believes that delayed choices allowed divisions and deaths to accumulate. At the same time, he refuses the simpler identity of either saintly mentor or cynical schemer. He accepts blame for harsh methods, measures policies by their effect on ordinary people, and keeps choosing restraint even when restraint makes him appear weak or inconsistent. (Chapters 441, 553, 656, and 696)

Abilities and cultivation

The Pope is a Saint-level cultivator in the Divine Domain and one of the oldest supreme experts remaining on the continent. His power is sufficient to confront the Divine Empress, influence phenomena inside a stable spatial shard, and restrain multiple senior Orthodox experts. Age is his decisive limitation. He has not attained Concealed Divinity, his life is nearing its natural end, and the coup forces him to spend strength he cannot recover; after exchanging world-scale attacks with the Empress, his face becomes pale and deeply lined. (Chapters 634, 655–656, and 659–664)

Green Leaf World

The Pope maintains a potted Green Leaf whose leaves open into a genuine miniature world containing mountains, rivers, buildings, wind, and light. The Tower of Purging Dust within it serves as the Grand Examination's battle arena, while its stable space can hold cultivators until the Pope releases them into the capital. His connection to the world is not merely custodial. He can alter its internal conditions, most notably by making rain fall to suppress the fatal heat in Chen's body during initial Meditation. The care he gives the plant makes its physical growth conspicuous enough for Chen to wonder whether the entrance between the leaf and the outside world is also becoming more stable or larger. (Chapters 163, 524, and 656)

In battle, each physical leaf can carry the miniature world's near-limitless weight as an attack. The Pope plucks one and sends it toward the Mausoleum of Books like a world transformed into a sword, forcing the Divine Empress to answer with the Reflecting Monolith. Their repeated collisions expose the technique's boundaries: a sufficiently powerful Saint wielding an indestructible Heavenly Tome Monolith can halt it, using the attack visibly taxes the already aged Pope, and damage to a leaf is permanent. The same plucked leaf tears, loses most of its surface, and finally crumbles into gossamer as the Empress casts the monolith away, reducing the plant from four leaves to three. (Chapters 659–664)

Sacred light and spatial control

When the Li Palace enters the coup, sacred light rises over the complex and the Pope's voice carries across the capital. He uses the Orthodoxy's formations and his personal authority together, first sealing dissenting Prefects and then deploying experts preserved inside the Green Leaf World. During the Saints' clash, he moves away from the symbolic heights of the battle and toward the inundated streets, suppressing the waves of power threatening the city's inhabitants. These feats show the scale of his perception and control, but the narrative does not separate every effect produced by his cultivation from those sustained by Li Palace's religious arrays. (Chapters 655–656 and 659–661)

Institutional strategy

The Pope's most enduring ability is political rather than martial. He reads relative power across the Palace, Orthodoxy, academies, southern sects, and great clans, then uses recognition, appointments, protection, and religious symbols to change the balance without constant open conflict. Naming Chen successor deprives senior Prefects of an expected promotion; protecting the academy limits the court; sealing those same Prefects prevents an internal schism during the coup. This strategy depends on timing and legitimacy rather than coercion alone, and its weakness is the Pope's own tendency to wait until conflicting obligations have made every available choice costly. (Chapters 450, 524, 655–656, and 695–696)

Power progression

Relationships

• Chen Changsheng: The Pope is Chen's martial uncle, rescuer, protector, and chosen predecessor. He saves Chen during initial Meditation, defends the Orthodox Academy, and publicly grants him the Divine Staff, but also teaches him that the obligations of office can require decisions Chen finds painful. His final political design relies on Chen remaining independent enough to check Shang Xingzhou and the court. (Chapters 163, 426, 524, 553, and 695–696)
• Tianhai Divine Empress: The Pope and Empress are long-standing partners in rule whose cooperation once stabilized the continent. Their paths divide over the concentration and use of authority. He joins the coup only after concluding that further delay will cause more deaths, fights her with the Green Leaf, and responds to her fall with sorrow rather than triumph. (Chapters 650, 655–656, and 659–664)
• Shang Xingzhou: Shang is the Pope's senior brother and ideological rival. The Pope alternately opposes and aligns with him as the political balance changes, supporting Shang's side against the Empress but refusing to let the victorious Daoist monopolize the court, the Pavilion of Heavenly Secrets, and Orthodoxy. Chen's succession is the Pope's principal answer to that danger. (Chapters 655 and 695–696)
• Mei Lisha: Mei Lisha is an old associate whose judgment the Pope trusts in matters concerning the academy and Chen. During the coup, the Pope acknowledges that Mei had understood the Empress's response to Chen more accurately than either Saint, a posthumous vindication of Mei's long protection of the youth. (Chapters 163, 441, and 650)
• Mao Qiuyu: Mao is a senior Orthodox subordinate who questions the speed of Chen's elevation while accepting the Pope's authority. The Pope explains his reasons to Mao in private, then has him recite Chen's merits at the ceremony that formally establishes the succession. (Chapter 524)
• Linghai Zhiwang and Daoist Siyuan: Both Prefects are senior candidates displaced by Chen's selection and resist the Pope's choice during the coup. Rather than allow their opposition to split the Orthodoxy at the decisive moment, he seals their cultivation and acts without their consent. (Chapters 524 and 655–656)
• Su Li: The Pope respects Su Li's power but regards his obstruction of the north–south confluence as a threat to the wider human future. He accepts responsibility for Orthodox efforts to kill the swordsman, demonstrating to Chen that institutional calculations can override personal sympathy and shared opposition to the demons. (Chapter 426)

Items

• Green Leaf: The Pope tends this potted spatial artifact and controls the miniature world within its leaves. He uses it to save Chen, shelter and deploy Orthodox experts, and confront the Divine Empress with the weight of an entire world; the leaf used in that clash is destroyed. After his death, the remaining plant passes into Chen's Orthodox inheritance and helps break the prison beneath New North Bridge. Zhizhi subsequently carries and wields it, including against Hai Di. It later returns to the Pope's old hall and is redeployed under the Orthodoxy, but its exact location after being taken away again is not stated. (Chapters 163, 524, 656, 659–664, 726–727, 738, 761–763, 1068, 1087, and 1138–1144)
• Divine Staff: The Staff symbolizes the authority and succession of the Orthodoxy. Although it rests casually in the Pope's private hall, he publicly transfers it to Chen to confirm the youth as his heir. During the coup he deliberately carries the Green Leaf instead, separating the weapon he needs for battle from the emblem that now secures the succession. (Chapters 426, 524, and 655)