A prolonged siege is the greatest blow to morale and cohesion, and this is true for no one – even the clergy of the Church who have been deeply committed and have taken a stand.

Although there are many factions inside and outside the cathedral, and there are large or small interests entangled in the conflict between the priests and clergy at all levels, at least everyone will maintain superficial unity for the sake of the fellow Church - in short, it is to give the Holy Light a face, and try not to put any contradictions on the table, so as not to affect the interests of the church as a whole.

However, when the church has no profit to gain, and even the church itself has become a source of threat, the apparent unity will split from the inside out.

Not everyone supported the order from the Plains of the Holy Spirit, and the former Southern Bishop Lemont, although he had the highest authority in the Luan Cathedral, could not make all the priests of the Holy Light monolithic—as a diocese on the edge of the kingdom, the Southern Church had a lot of internal divisions from the beginning.

The nativist priests have always resisted the directives from the plain of the Holy Spirit, and the young and strong priests who have been newly promoted in the past two years in order to expand the influence of the diocese have been in conflict with the senators in the cathedral, with the low-level clergy hoping for more autonomy in this land far from the center of the church, while the upper clergy are always worried that the "barbaric, rude, and uncivilized" country clergy will preach and tamper with the scriptures, and among them, the more conscientious clergy are full of resistance to the worsening behavior of the church in the past two years......

In the face of contradictions, former Southern Bishop Lemont took almost all the top forces of the church to participate in the war against the Cecil family, which was actually a helpless move.

If he can defeat the oldest family in the land in this war, and achieve greater prestige among the united forces of more than forty nobles, then Bishop Lemont will undoubtedly greatly consolidate his position in the diocese, and most of the undercurrents in Luan Cathedral will be quelled, which would still have a high success rate if it were not for the fact that Cecil was full of fairy contestants.

Unfortunately, he failed.

His defeat even led to the entire Southern Church standing in opposition to the Duchy of Cecil, and the Light Faith was in danger of being forcibly eradicated from the land.

The clergy who did not support Bishop Lemont's adventure naturally boiled with resentment, and because Lemont was born in the plain of the Holy Spirit, a large number of native priests also wavered, and then as the situation in Lu'an City became worse and worse, the haze of insufficient supplies began to emerge, and the order in the outer city became worse day by day, and a large number of low-level clergy also accumulated huge resentment: they couldn't bring their families to the inner city like those high-ranking priests, and even they themselves lived in the "small church district" adjacent to the outer city, The chaos in the outer city has inevitably affected them, and it is getting worse day by day......

The leaflets that circulated into the city at this juncture undoubtedly exacerbated the aggravation of the situation.

Almost everyone could have imagined that this was a "conspiracy" of the Cecilians - but so what? Is it true that what the leaflet says is false?

The upper echelons hold the power to interpret the scriptures, the middle clergy amass a huge amount of wealth with the ransom money, the archbishops of the plain of the Holy Spirit are full of fat brains in the land of abundance, but they are pointing fingers at the difficult southern border, and now something is wrong, the bishop is dead, a large group of papal knights are also dead, the enraged Cecil has blocked the entire church, and the consequences are to be borne by everyone in the church - who is not angry?

Flange?? Bishop Béran's face was gloomy, and he clumped the print in his hand and burned it to ashes with the light, while his brain was rapidly calculating—

Although the Cecil propaganda material is vulgar, almost all of its content is true.

As long as there is close contact with the Holy Light Church, and people who have a little contact with the circle of priests, they can see the authenticity of these contents.

These things are spreading secretly, and it shouldn't be possible to spread all over the city in four days...... So these things must be stopped from fermenting immediately.

He looked at the priest in front of him: "Go and inform the Order of the Monks at once, confiscate all the pamphlets that have been circulated between the churches—and let the exiled knights go out of town with the knights of the church and search them from house to house." Anyone who is in possession of such a booklet for any reason must surrender it immediately, and if he refuses to do so, he shall be treated as a heretic. ”

"Yes."

"Also, "Flange?? B. Braun added, "If there is an active surrender, or if the person who reports the hiding, the ration will be rewarded." ”

The papal knights of the Luan Cathedral and the exiled knights who had defected to the cathedral were quick to act.

The doors of the long-closed church district were opened, and heavily armed knights rushed out of it and began to search from house to house for "heretical evidence", and the priests guarded by the knights took to the streets, shouting with magic to warn all civilians who were hiding propaganda materials, and in the process, the outer city suddenly became more and more chaotic.

It is impossible for those "experienced" knights to break into people's houses and search for materials without committing a crime.

Not only did the outer city begin to become chaotic, but the atmosphere in the inner city's church district immediately became tense.

The ordination monks, dressed in black burqas and tattooed on their scalps, entered the chapels in silence and began to interrogate all the monks and low-ranking priests, and a large number of pamphlets were dug out of the corners of the churches or on the clergy, and the clergy who hid them were immediately punished - first in uniform confinement, then whipping and divine punishment.

The transcendents of the Church could not be punished before the common people, and in order to maintain the dignity of the Church, all the punished clergy were to remain in confinement until they had completed a thorough confession.

In just one day, thousands of copies of propaganda materials were collected from various areas of the city, some were brochures, some were leaflets, and the flanges. Bishop Béran was stunned when he saw the large pile of prints—he had not expected them to be so many.

The print quality was so beautiful, the text was clear, the layout was neat, and it was not at all like the shoddy wax plate prints, and he could not have imagined how the Cecil had done so beautifully—and so much.

But one way or another, these things must be destroyed immediately.

All the confiscated pamphlets were gathered together and sent to the large square outside the church district to be burned publicly, and the heralds, dressed in robes, ran around the city three times to drive all the civilians out of their homes and let them go to the square to watch the burning.

The main square was crowded with people, and what was driven to the square were thousands of numb-looking, yellow-skinned civilians: due to the lack of food supply, the people in the outer city had been in a semi-starved state for almost half a month, and the constant hunger gnawed at everyone's heart, and they didn't really want to come to the square at all—lying on the bed at home might reduce some physical exertion a little, and gathered here...... Everyone can only get hungrier and hungrier.

But the swords of the knights and the spells of the priests cannot be disobeyed, and they must come if they do not come.

The wooden platform in the center of the square was erected, and a large number of confiscated pamphlets were packed and carried by the strong soldiers and thrown on the wooden platform, and a tall man in the robe of a priest came to the stage, and the tall priest swept the entire square with a stern gaze, and the holy light surged around him, slowly spreading the power of the transcendent.

The civilians in the square were shocked, and suddenly fell silent, and a wordless dead silence permeated the square.

The tall priest looked at the scene in front of him with satisfaction and contempt, and then raised the staff in his hand high: "You confused and stupid people! Without the guidance of the Lord, you would not have known that you were slipping into the abyss of danger and sin!

"The Cecil people were bewitched by the devil, and they spread the power of the devil's bewitchment to the city!

"Look at these blasphemous papers—they've been scoured out of your backyard, from your neighbor's house, from your own bedroom! Your eyes are not bright enough, and your wisdom is not enough, so you don't realize that these things are actually the contract that Cecil and the devil have signed—

"When they send these contracts to the city, they're actually harming you! You were blessed by the Light, but these Devil's Covenants have polluted you, and the Light will be far from you.

"Only the flame can purify these blasphemous instruments, and you have taken the initiative to hand them over and watch the ritual of purification here, so you can still be saved—and the most hopeless of you will be purified with these devilish contracts!"

A few more strong soldiers stepped up and pushed a man with a whole body tied to the stage, and there was a slight commotion in the crowd gathered below, but many more people just watched numbly, barely reacting.

The tall priest looked around the numb crowd below, then at the tied man—a man in rags, who had been beaten to the point of delirium, with a bruised nose and swollen face that he could barely see what he had been.

It was just a homeless man caught near the city gate, who was arrested for recklessly ramming the soldiers and finding a pamphlet on him.

The biggest advantage of this kind of homeless man is that no one will know him, let alone complain about him.

"This man has a large number of devil's papers, and he refuses to hand them over!" The priest raised the staff in his hand and pointed at the man who had lost consciousness in a trance, "He also went around promoting the content of the paperwork, to confuse the people around him, so that everyone could question the Lord and the church!" ”

There was finally some commotion in the crowd, as if someone had been really frightened by the priest's words, and the man who had been tied up suddenly struggled, and he tried to stretch his neck as if to shout something—but the soldier next to him immediately threw a punch into his stomach, and the pain immediately plunged the weak man back into a semi-conscious state.

The priest frowned at this momentary accident, and waved the staff in his hand: "Push the blasphemer into those devil's papers!" ”

The soldiers immediately dragged the tied man to the center of the platform, and then pushed him into the "hill" of propaganda materials, where another black-robed ordination monk stepped forward and poured flammable grease on the stacks of books and the man.

Whispers rang out from the crowd, some nervously retreated, some whispered prayers, and some had twisted and excited faces on their faces, craned their necks to watch the movement on stage.

Someone suddenly heard a whisper behind him, "Isn't that old Sam...... Old Sam can't read! ”

The person who heard the muttering immediately turned his head to look for the person who was speaking, wanting to inquire for more details, but only saw the back of a departing figure.

Someone next to him became curious and asked in a low voice, "What's wrong?" ”

"The guy up there who is going to be burned to death seems to be called Sam, he can't read."

A few men in ordinary burlap clothes pushed and shoved through the crowd, and wherever they passed, whispers began to spread:

"The guy on stage seems to be Sam - he can't read!"

The commotion grew from small to large, and the whispered discussion turned into a buzzing sound, although the scale was still small, but the priest standing on the stage finally noticed these unusual movements, and a strange feeling rose in his heart, and in this faint sense of unease, he decisively gave up the planned mission, and immediately raised his hand to summon a ball of holy light.

"Those who disobey the will of the Lord should be purified!"

The scorching light ignited the grease, ignited the pamphlets and leaflets that promoted the dark inside story of the Church of Light, and ignited the illiterate Sam.

The bound man writhed in the fire and screamed violently, and the crowd of onlookers in the square took a step back in front of this terrible scene, and from all sides there was a sound of discussion, and a man who looked like a farmer with a sackcloth bag on his shoulder stood closest to the place of the burning, and he seemed to be frightened by the sight of the burning, and stood there in a daze, until the crowd in the vicinity began to retreat, and he staggered back slightly.

The priest standing on the platform had a gloomy face, the scorching smell in the air and the commotion of the ignorant pariahs below made him particularly annoyed, and at this moment, a very, very slight wave of magic suddenly came from a certain direction under the platform.

The priest immediately looked over there, but he saw nothing but a group of terrified, stupid civilians retreating in a panic.

Maybe it's just an illusion.

The priest waved his hand irritably, and turned away from the place, surrounded by squires and knights.