The cold has always enveloped the city, and since the day it was founded, it has endured loneliness and cold in silence for thousands of years.

The walls of Ironrock were covered in cuts and the black ash of the flames, and the ancient city looked scarred, but it was still strong and strong.

This strength comes from the army that guards it, from the temple thousands of miles away.

Xi Lan looked at the snowy area outside the city wall, and was a little worried about the situation in Void Ancestor City, the power of the temple was too scattered now, and Tieyan City alone had dragged down nearly one-third of the army of the Judgment Temple, and the Judgment Temple, which had just experienced a battle, had lost a lot of its own strength.

"We can't go on like this, we must confirm as soon as possible whether the mighty apostle has come. Xi Lan's gaze became resolute, "If it doesn't come with its army, we will defeat its army before it comes!"

"Without a demon race led by a monarch, the strength is not too terrifying. The old priest Tano who was standing on the side had a cloudy gaze and said in the same heavy tone: "The Hell Monarch is the core of a race, and with the blessing of its magic power, the strength of those little monsters is very, very much stronger than the original. ”

"Let the temple send some transcendents over, with their concealment abilities, it will be possible to safely penetrate the Shadow Mountains without repeating the mistakes of the paladin. Xilan frowned, "Speaking of paladins, the inheritance ceremony is ready, right?"

"It was ready for use right away, and although there was a shortage of materials, I got a replacement. Priest Tano wrapped his thick coat hard to avoid the cold wind: "It should be almost starting, you better go and have a look." ”

......

The Succession Ritual is not something that every Cardinal Priest is qualified to master, in fact, there are less than ten priests in the three temples who can participate in the Paladin's Succession Ritual.

In addition to mastering the content of the rituals in the hadith, the priests who preside over the succession ceremony must also possess extremely skilled practical skills, and most of these priests who are qualified to participate in the ceremony are doctors, and only in this way can the success rate of the succession ceremony be maximized.

The Paladin's inheritance ceremony is, in the final analysis, a blood-exchanging ceremony.

The blood of the seriously injured and dying paladin is released, fused with some medicine, and then neutralized with the help of the properties of certain magical materials, and finally injected into the body of the successor.

And then the rest depends on whether the will of the successor is strong enough to endure the great pain along the way.

As the strongest combat power of the temple, the paladin can no longer be called a human in the strict sense, and the blood, bones and organs in his body have been transformed into the most suitable form for combat.

How the first paladin was created in the first place, no one knows, not even the Pope at the time, and the description of the paladin in the hadith is missing, only that the birth of this powerful and perverted warrior is accompanied by blood and mystery.

The temple had studied the paladin's body in depth for this purpose, and finally came to a conclusion.

The secret of the paladin's strength may come from the blood in his body, which contains a certain substance containing magical powers, and will change the master's constitution over time, but the temple has refined it countless times, and it has never been able to see what the origin of that substance is.

But in the process, they discovered another way to transfer this power to other human bodies.

Inheritance rituals.

The temple found that the blood in the paladin's body could be neutralized by extraction and then injected into the bodies of other warriors, and as long as the strong rejection reaction at the beginning was resisted, the blood would soon begin to merge with the inheritor due to the drug, and then create a new paladin.

However, in the process, the substances in the blood will also be depleted and lost, and the temple found that the inherited paladins were far less powerful than the previous paladins, and in order to solve this problem, the temple continued to improve the steps of the inheritance ritual for hundreds of years, and finally came up with the method with the lowest loss.

In today's temple, every paladin is the product of several, if not dozens of inheritance ceremonies, and its blood has been passed down since thousands of years ago, and its combat effectiveness has long been vastly different from that of the first paladins at the beginning of the temple's establishment.

"Relying on this way to inherit, I'm afraid that sooner or later, the paladin's blood will be depleted, and it will not be able to change the physique. Xi Lan looked at the paladin lying on the transformation table, thinking of the blank space in the hadith, "Who erased the record of the paladin, if you can get the production method of the first batch of paladins, the temple has already unified the continent." ”

But he could only think about it, and Xilan looked back at it.

This time, the successor was a minor leader of the Crusaders, and Silan remembered his name as Telos, who fought bravely and firmly in faith.

Most importantly, he is very loyal.

Xilan walked over and looked at Telos, who was obviously a little nervous, and the red-clothed priests next to him, who were also nervous.

Even though he had already performed several succession rituals by himself, the intense tension could not be extinguished.

"Relax, the succession ceremony is not as difficult as you think. Silan patted Telos on the shoulder, "As long as you get through the initial pain, your physique will change drastically. ”

"Will it be a long time?" Telos couldn't help but ask.

"No, it's only a few minutes. Xi Lan smiled: "At first, you will feel some burning skin, and then it will swell a little, although it is a little painful, but as long as you keep a clear consciousness, you can get through it quickly." ”

"That's right, after the inheritance ceremony is completed, you can become a respected paladin, which is the highest glory of being a crusader!" The red-clothed priest on the side slowly drew blood from the body of the paladin beside him, and the expression on his face was calm and terrifying, "Think about it, at that time, you can have a strength completely beyond ordinary people and a stronger faith!"

The conditions for choosing an heir were very harsh, and Telos cherished this hard-won luck very much, and he felt that his nervousness had weakened a lot as he looked at Xilan's longing gaze and the reassuring of the red-clothed priest.

You just have to endure it......

Telos felt the cold touch of the circular locking rings on his wrists and ankles, which held his body firmly to the transformation table, making it difficult for him to struggle.

A thought suddenly popped up in his heart: "That pain must be very strong." ”

Closing his eyes, someone stepped forward and covered his face.

There was a tingling in his right wrist, and it was a cold needle that pierced his body.

The succession ceremony began.