I've read the first 200+ chapters of this manhua. When I stopped to think about what I'd read, I realized this. There are a lot of similarities between the regime in China and the main character in this manhua.
One of the more egregious examples is how the main character institutes a policy of encouraging people to pay attention to their neighbors and report "suspicious" activity. It is initially coached as a way to catch spies, but is later expanded to other nonconformists.
Another is how, while there are socialistic/communistic ideas, the "constitution" the main character sets up is actually quite dictatorial. All state power is concentrated in or overseen by the main character and he has the final say. There is no separation of powers and no recourse.
The public "trials" the main character sets up are nothing more than public spectacles where the outcome is already decided and he just riles up the public to demand the defendant be executed. He doesn't even refrain from distorting the truth to achieve this. At one point, he summarily judges over a thousand people, executing over a hundred of them and condemning the rest to forced labor in the mines for years. And when he clears out the criminal underbelly, where he knows and we are shown there are people there only because of how poor they are or because they're being threatened to, the deciding factor for wether they are executed or not is whether they ever murdered (or raped) someone, with just a simple yes/no, regardless of whether they were forced to or whether it might have been to prevent something like a rape.
All these things are presented as positive and normal things in the manhua.
All this, in combination with images of an entire train/subway carriage in China being decorated to advertise this franchise, makes me think that this franchise is not just entertainment, but at least partly regime propaganda to present policies and actions by the Chinese government as normal and good.
PS: Why the heck would a fantasy world have a "church", with crosses as their symbols? Especially given that the "God" they revere isn't remotely humanoid and there is no crucified saviour figure nor any other reason to choose a cross symbol. Besides,
it was founded by witches
. Some kind of sun or moon worship would have made more sense given what their "God" is, as well as their practices.