The God of Light will not save them. At least, the God of Light will not save these lowly people.
This will completely threaten the diocese's rule. In order to solve this big problem, Bishop Stephen must fight with me as soon as possible...
The decisive battle took place at a time when the diocese's northern expeditionary force was not yet ready and its morale had suffered a severe blow.
In this case, I have to take the opportunity to harass them. Only in this way can I truly blaspheme the faith of the Church of Light and their gods.
Yang Hao took the cold water brought by the elf and drank it all.
He snapped his fingers, and watched the flames before him start, watched the flames turn into huge infernos, watched the captives wail but could not die no matter how much they were burned, and heard the earth-shaking prayers and curses after the prayers were shattered amid the crackling sound of the flames burning flesh—
"Commander, follow me - let's expand our victory. While the diocese is in chaos due to the collapse of faith, let's plunge the largest religion in the Roman Empire into hell."
He turned around, oblivious to everything in front of him.
After all, this was just torturing the followers of the Church of Light. No suspense, no fun. Only two thousand people died, and the diocese was still able to handle the chaos as much as possible.
So what he wanted to do was to torture the faith of the Church of Light and the God of Light himself. He wanted to torture their God in front of everyone in the parish.
Then they trample on their faith, which seems to be well-forged but is actually extremely filthy, for which they have sacrificed everything, sold their wives and daughters in exchange for a few words of atonement in order to ascend to heaven.
Then, the saint should wake up.
All she believed in was a usurper, a false god, and a foolish and incompetent backstabber.
"Yang, Yang Hao—please! Please let me go!! Aaaaa?! So, so hot?! So hot!!"
The village chief's screams and pleas were heard from behind.
Yang Hao just shook his head and said: You should first seek forgiveness from the villagers you sold to the west.
…
When Bishop Stephen was pushed awake by his servant from his early sleep, he was still savoring the wonderful pleasure that the little boy had given him when he went to the Trial Chamber last night.
He subconsciously sighed, "Werewolves are so tight," subconsciously reached out to wipe the saliva that was flowing freely due to his sleep, and subconsciously asked what was going on - Bishop Stephen noticed the servant's strange yet solemn face.
"What's going on?"
"Your Excellency the Bishop... Please come to the window and look."
Led by his attendants, Bishop Stephen came to the window of the bedroom.
As the glass screen window was opened from the inside, horrifying screams were heard from high above the window, and one could faintly hear someone cursing the God of Light and the sound of flames burning...
What is going on? Who is disrespecting God?! What is wrong
This is more than 40 floors high... Why is there such a sound
Bishop Stephen, who was originally furious, was stunned.
He looked in the direction the servant pointed and saw that it was a knight riding a Hippogriff.
The knight threw some small balls containing magic power towards the city below. The balls were transformed into a circular screen in the air by the magic power, and the screen was playing...
The captives and bodies of the dead of the Formal Redemption Army were burned at the stake, and these believers began to curse the God of Light in painful torture, asking for divine punishment or divine grace but never receiving a response.
"This... is bad, this is bad..."
Bishop Stephen's eyes widened in an instant.
Oh no, oh no!
Bishop Stephen didn't care about the failure of the New Redemption Army at all - after all, the Redemption Army itself was a sacrifice to be consumed. Although the best among them had the possibility of becoming the guards of the Order, overall, more than 90% of them would be liquidated after the war even if they survived.
Therefore, Bishop Stephen actually doesn’t care much whether the Redemption Army will rashly go to the battlefield because of their underestimation of the enemy, nor does he care whether the Redemption Army can achieve results on their own - but he cares very much about the existence of precious priests and crusaders!
But if they only lost a few priests and a few squads of crusader soldiers… Bishop Stephen would not be so frightened in his heart that he would shout “Oh no!”
What really matters is that those shameless bastards! Those elves and demons who desecrated the corpses actually burned the bodies of believers and even let the captives be burned at the stake? !
"It's bad... It's bad! Quick! Quickly, have someone turn off those screens! Get the bishops here immediately! We need to have a meeting, we need a meeting!"
The diocese where the Church of Light is located is a typical country within a country. Believers living in the diocese naturally need to abide by the rules of the diocese.
The people living in the parish would naturally accept all of this, believing that as long as they were not cremated or burned at the stake after death, the angels of the God of Light would eventually lead them to heaven.
As long as they can maintain their devout faith, the God of Light will never leave them, grant them the courage to fight against the devil and allow them to enjoy God's grace.
In fact, all clergymen know that the God of Light does exist and his power is real - but does he really care about ordinary believers
The answer is no.
The God of Light even caused two disasters in history. If the diocese had not whitewashed the situation and put the blame on the regent, that "smog" alone would have been enough to turn the diocese from a popular religion into a small, unpopular religion.
The God of Light does not care about ordinary believers. All the priests of the God of Light know this very well.
But the pastor must maintain the lie of the God of Light... The pastor must make believers believe in the lie that "the God of Light loves every believer."
Because lies are the foundation of the diocese's stability! Lies are the reason why the Church of Light has prospered to this day!
But now?!
That traitor of the Roman Empire! What on earth did that bastard regent do? !
It was like he directly dissected the rotten inside of the goldfish of the Church of Light and displayed it to the believers...
Believers are not afraid of the condemnation of the God of Light, because condemnation proves that the God of Light still cares about believers.
Perhaps the one condemned by God will become hysterical, but the other believers will have greater cohesion. This is a sure win for the bishops.
But believers fear the most... God has "no response" to their flattery, their prayers, their apostasy, their insults—
Especially when the enemies of God openly humiliated the corpses of believers, humiliated the three views of believers, and even executed believers with the most insulting burning at the stake to the believers of the Church of Light.
This will directly shatter the faith of believers, and once the faith of believers is shattered...
The entire diocese's industry, except for the ascetic nuns, will collapse.
"Right now! Make them stop!!"
Bishop Stephen's screams spread throughout the mansion. In fact, some people had already begun to deal with the screen that appeared in the sky, but it was too late.
Before the parish's griffin crusaders could fly high into the sky, the Hippogriff fled with its riders.
They have left images of hope all over the diocese, and these images have long been clearly seen by the vast majority of believers.
Originally, there were still stubborn believers who held ideas like "This is just an illusion created by the elves with magic", "God loves the world, how could he let us suffer?", or "The elves and demons have already lost, this is just a way for them to deceive themselves", and they were preaching the greatness of the God of Light to their fellow believers, asking everyone to restore their confidence in the God of Light.
Especially after the griffin knights of the parish rushed into the sky and shattered the screens, the greatness of God in their hearts became even greater.
But soon—these fanatics themselves had a question:
If God is watching here, why would he allow the elven griffins to shit freely in the sky above St. Petersburg, the city of God
The believers looked at the sky, and for a moment, all the towns and villages in the parish seemed unusually quiet.
They have not chosen to believe the facts. After all, people are creatures like this. Only when death is imminent, only when they realize that the last day of the winter vacation is today, will they realize that the knife against their neck is real.
The believers chose silence and anxiety in shock for the time being, and at the urgently convened bishops' council, everyone, including Patriarch Peter, was unusually serious.
Everyone looked at each other, and finally decided to start from the area they were most concerned about.
Patriarch Peter said, "Does the Ascetic know about this?"
The bishop who was in charge of the affairs of the Ascetic Sisters shook his head and said, "We have kept a tight control on the intelligence. The Ascetic Sisters just mistakenly thought that someone was harassing them from above. They wanted to come out to fight, but we have already pacified them."
"That's good... We must not let the ascetic nun and the saint find out about the current situation in St. Petersburg. Once they show signs of returning to the secular world, we must immediately restore the entire St. Petersburg to the state it was in before the saint began her ascetic life... Do you understand?! Once the saint shows up again, even the slightly fatter priests in St. Petersburg will have to leave temporarily! We must maintain our image in front of the saint..."
“Yes, yes!”
The bishops agreed. After all, they were the ascetic nuns and saints of the Church of Light!
In all religions of this world, there is always a small group of people who not only offer extremely fanatical beliefs but also require others to live according to the precepts.
The Ascetic Sister and Saint of the Church of Light were one of them. When the Saint and Ascetic Sister were still active on the surface, Peter the Great could not even eat salted fish and could only eat bran with the untouchables. You can imagine how strict the original precepts of the Church of Light were!
In a sense, if the ascetic nuns and saints found out that the Church of Light is so "rich", they might just use violence to clean up the diocese one day...
Although Patriarch Peter was prepared for the diocese to split, it should not be now.
After making sure that the group of ascetic sisters had been appeased, everyone discussed the second issue of concern.
That is - is the Redemption Army's defeat true? Is the above impact real? How many areas are affected by those elf bastards
The answers were more shocking than the last: Not only had the Redemption Army suffered a crushing defeat, but the priests and Crusader Knights had also been sniped by some "powerful weapon."
Of the priest's body, only the short and fat lower half remained, and only one in ten of the Crusader Knights remained. Most of the survivors were babbling nonsense, saying something like "this is God's punishment."
Naturally, the captives and corpses of the Redemption Army were burned in the flames and the survivors were also cast under spells. Not only could they not die for a while, they even openly apostatized and insulted the entire family of the God of Light just to beg for a speedy release from divine punishment. It is also true that in the end they did not even receive any divine punishment at all.
This means that the bishops' second biggest worry might have spread to the people - but they still held on to a glimmer of hope that if the elves only sent letters to St. Petersburg, they could still control the situation... But is that really the case
Through divine magic, the bishops looked at each other, and their already pale and oily faces now had a hint of vegetable green:
Unfortunately, things didn't go as they imagined.
The Knight of the Hippogriff had already transmitted the video to most of the diocese. Except for the area in St. Petersburg where the influence had been cleared, the video had been broadcasted for a full half hour in other places.
"A full half hour?!"
Patriarch Peter was so angry that his nose was crooked. He slammed the conference table hard, turning the entire table into a cracked spider web. He looked grim and blew a foul breath at Stephen:
"Bishop Stephen! I don't care how the Redemption Army failed, but we must now deal with the aftermath! A wise victory can restore the trust and faith of believers, so I want you to win a victory for us in the near future at all costs!"
"But Master! How can untrained soldiers go to the battlefield?"
"I don't care! This is what you have to do! I'm going to go and beg for the grace of my Lord, and I also have to change clothes and comfort the Saint... By the way, how are other places? I mean, have you received any news from other places?"
Patriarch Peter's words silenced the bishops.
After another round of communication between divine powers, a bishop soon contacted his friends in the royal capital and the military district.
Fortunately, the greatest scandal in the diocese has not yet reached the ears of the wolf Prince Gasson and General Dreshuka, but even so, these images may still spread through words...
The spread of the scandal must be stopped - just as the bishops reached a consensus and Patriarch Peter was about to leave, there was a sudden and urgent knock on the door of the meeting room.
Before Patriarch Peter could frown and allow outsiders to enter, the messenger opened the door without authorization and shouted with a pale face:
"No, it's bad! The Redemption Army, the defeated Redemption Army has fled back to the diocese! Now they are burning, killing and looting in the villages around the diocese, and are openly publicizing the Redemption Army's defeat. They are even saying that the elves and demons have God's help - Bishop, Master! What should we do?"
Silence. Still silence.
The collapse of the Redemption Army—everyone had thought about it and kept it in mind, but no one expected them to come so soon.
If you think about it carefully, the Monster Forest is not far from the parish, and the parish itself has border frictions with the Elf Kingdom because of this... It is reasonable for them to run back to the parish within a few hours.
If it is just a simple rout, there is actually nothing to be afraid of.
But the terrible thing is that just now, the "image" representing countless scandals in the diocese was still being broadcasted unscrupulously in the sky, and the people being burned and roasted and insulting the God of Light were not paid any attention to at all: the soldiers of the Redemption Army? !
This was bad—everyone looked at Bishop Stephen, who was sweating profusely.
He stood up and was about to say that he would personally lead the elite troops of the Northern Expeditionary Force to persuade or wipe out the defeated Redemption Army, when another "Oh no—"
Another pale-faced deacon came in.
"It's bad! The demons and elves! They attacked the Northern Expeditionary Force's base, and now one of the camps has been defeated! Those elves and demons kill anyone they see and burn any food or supplies. What should we do?"
Everyone looked at each other.
The next moment, a bishop with lower endurance fell limply into the chair, holding his forehead.
He couldn't bear the continuous blows and fainted from fright.
Chapter 8: Bloody Tactics and Planning Before the Decisive Battle
20 minutes ago, 20 kilometers away from the Redemption Army's original camp was a training camp for some of the new recruits in the Northern Expeditionary Force's 300,000-strong army.
The new soldiers receive the most basic training here, and cultivate their most basic qualities for marching in formation on the battlefield.
In a sense, this is as ridiculous as giving a farmer a hammer and asking him to forge iron himself.
The parish is free. They just need a lot of cannon fodder and consume the population that will share their wealth according to the agreement - so it doesn't matter whether these people have learned to forge iron or not, it's great to be able to go up and die.
But even so, the diocese just wants "them to die."
Instead of becoming "invalids" who must receive treatment - and there are so many of them that they can no longer be thrown directly into the slaughterhouse for processing.
"Huh... Now we just need to let the golems move freely. Let's go."
When Naruja, the chief of the Listening tribe, and her people rode away on the Hippogriff, the gate of the training camp had been completely blocked, leaving only a few golems made of stone and earth playing a happy game of cat and mouse with the survivors in the camp.
Golem, a specialty of the Ling people. After a long period of changes and improvements by the elven wizards, as well as Arthur's new ideas and Yang Hao's tactical ideas, Naruga lived up to expectations and proposed a new type of harassment tactics.
This kind of tactic would make the parish run around in a hurry, cause bleeding wounds to appear on their bodies all the time, and make them feel the terror from the elves and demons.