Lin Tuo vanished out of thin air, as if he had never appeared, leaving only a group of freed wizards standing in the wind, looking at each other.

……

The Northern Continent, the Kingdom of Delai, the Sacred Plains.

A solemn and depressing "small city" stands in the middle of the mountains where there is still remnant snow, covering an extremely large area.

The city is not large, and there are only tens of thousands of people living in it, but it is full of tall buildings.

Inside, the streets are neat and clean, with large and small churches and monasteries symmetrically distributed on both sides of the streets, and most of the people walking in the city wear clergy robes.

Occasional conversations were whispered, and the air was filled with a sense of order brought about by majesty.

The name of the small city was "Hayeks", but the people of the kingdom of Delai were more familiar with another name:

Holy City.

Yes, this is the headquarters of the Church, a city made up entirely of clergy, priests, priests, and Templars.

It stands alone at the northern end of the Sacred Plains, not far from the royal capital, and its daily necessities are transported from the capital of the Delai Kingdom to the southeast.

For a long time in the past, this holy city was a place of worship for countless believers on the mainland, and it was the brightest and most solemn place closest to the creator god.

However, at some point, this holy city suddenly became fearful and terrifying.

……

In the very center of the city, a magnificent church made of pure white stone stands.

In a ceremonial hall deep in this pure white building, the current pope, dressed in a magnificent robe, crowned on his head, and holding a scepter, is sitting upright on the ground, his eyes closed.

He was tall and old, and as one of the most powerful people on the continent, he had outlived many people and outstripped him in strength.

It's a pity, but it still can't resist the power of time.

"Knock...... Boom...... Knock ......"

Suddenly, when the bell came through the cracks in the window curtains of the gloomy hall, the old man, who was the Pope, suddenly opened his eyes.

And what makes people's hearts palpitate is that there is also a pure black in his eyes.

It was far more pure darkness than the Templars.

It's like an endless abyss.

Suddenly, the abyss seemed to shake down, and his body trembled slightly, only to see black threads pouring out of the pores of his skin.

It's like a broken doll that has been ripped out of its wool.

The dense black lines flutter without wind, and just looking at them makes people instinctively dizzy and frightened.

"What happened?"

As dozens of black lines broke, the Pope whispered to himself in confusion, and in the next second, the expression on his face distorted, as if he was extremely angry.

After a few seconds of silence, he stood up and walked out of the empty hall.

The moment he pushed open the door, the expression on his face became majestic and peaceful again, and the countless black threads on his body also converged and disappeared.

"Your Majesty."

The priests guarding outside the main hall saluted respectfully, not daring to look directly.

The Pope was silent, nodded imperceptibly, and walked straight out, through the Avenue of Holiness, up the Steps of the Unsullied, and pushed open the door of faith, where there were fewer and fewer priests nearby, and soon, his surroundings were completely empty.

There is only a dark and spacious corridor.

On one side of the corridor is a wall with sacred scrolls, and on the other side is a row of narrow windows.

The floor is covered with marble painted with religious patterns, and the sunlight shines through the windows and slanted into the corridors, but there is no trace of warmth.

"Da, da, da......" the Pope's footsteps echoed through the hallways, the hem of his ornate robe dragging against the marble floor.

Soon, a closed, unadorned door appeared in front of him.

"Great, supreme God, your faithful believers have doubts."

The old pope bowed and saluted, and a hoarse voice rang out.

Immediately, the door suddenly opened, and inside was a narrow prayer room.

It is circular in shape, there are no windows, and the walls, floors, and other corners are painted with sacred patterns, and only a shining gemstone at the top is illuminated.

However, when the door opened, the whole world spread out in the old Pope's view.

The familiar buildings were gone, and he was standing in a hall that was incomparably vast, incomparably magnificent, and incomparably majestic.

Directly ahead, at the top of hundreds of steps, there was a divine seat, and hovering on top of the divine seat was actually a giant composed of pitch-black mist.

"Oh?"

An ethereal voice echoed in the hall, and in that voice, as if there was some kind of chaos and pollution, if ordinary people heard it, they would only have a splitting headache, but the old pope was intoxicated, as if listening to the holy voice:

"I sensed that a team sent to hunt down heretics was missing, and I was unaware of their presence."

"They're dead." The black mist giant replied, "A heretic killed them. ”

"Heresy?"

"Yes, a very special heretic, I don't know where he came from, but by the sense of nothingness, I can smell his sweet scent, which is more delicious food than that of wizards." The black mist swirled and said.

The Pope was a little surprised, knowing that he had given food to the gods in front of him by an unknown number of wizards, but he had never received a "delicious" evaluation.

"Allow me to send someone to arrest him." He said.

However, the black mist paused before saying:

"To you, he is powerful and untraceable, and he seems to be looking for you, and perhaps he can take advantage of that......"

……

……

In a short time, the door of the prayer room in front of the Pope closed again, and the magnificent temple was no longer visible to him.

Turning slowly, the old pope walked down the corridor and walked out again.

Stop one of the guards outside: "Go and inform Archbishop Cisse and order him to contact the Knights Templar throughout the kingdom through divine magic, and ask them to return to the Sacred Plains immediately." ”

"Yes." Although the guard was puzzled, he did not dare to ask questions, and immediately took the order.

Only the old man in a gorgeous costume was left standing indifferently in the shadow of the church, his two deep eyes looking south, and the words of the "gods" echoed in his mind, which had long been completely eroded:

"Take them as bait and draw that heresy here and sacrifice it to me."

……

……

Kingdom of Delai, Solan City.

When Lin Tuo finally used the map, plus the constant "teleportation", looking for locals to ask, and arrived at this city located southwest of Oak Town.

I just happened to meet those church knights who had just received an order from the Holy City through divine magic and were ready to evacuate.

After wasting some hands and feet to solve this team, Lin Tuo once again said the same problem to the rescued wizards in the queue:

"Do any of you know where the other church arrest teams are going?"

However, in the face of his inquiry, these people failed to provide much effective information, and only a few of them were at least a month ago, which was seriously lagging behind and completely informative.

This gave Lin Tuo a bit of a headache.

After all, although he can overlook the entire continent through the ontology, he can even see some specific details through the "zoom" function.

But in such a large area, it is really difficult to find a few teams.

Lin Tuo had also thought about using those "Aether Threads" that spread to the sky to locate them, and through observation and experimentation, he found that those Templars seemed to be very few of them cultivating.

Not to mention the wizards who are tortured all the time and are not allowed to have the opportunity to "meditate".

"Do you want to keep searching, or do you want to go straight to church headquarters?" With a wave of his hand, the wizards dispersed on their own, and Lin Tuo wandered through Solan City and began to think about this question.

If it was a normal infighting between humans, Lin Tuo could actually avoid such trouble.

As long as the Pope is controlled, he is asked to give an order for release, or more simply, disguised as a god, and issued a real "oracle" to the mainland, it can be solved.

However, with the elimination of two teams in a row, and the various messages collected along the way, he had already determined that this incident was anything but "normal".

These knights and magicians of the church are quite strange, especially the wisps of black qi that permeate after death.

Considering that these people were acting according to the Pope's orders, Lin Tuo even suspected that the entire Holy City, the upper echelons of the church, had been "polluted" in some way.

This reminded him of the "Secret Seal" in Sandbox 1 that had influenced the Mad Emperor.

Could it be that in the kingdom of Moral Lai, similar items also appeared?

If these fears are true, then I am afraid that even if I send down an "oracle", it will be useless, and it is even impossible for the church to deny it and judge it as an evil spirit.

And if the church headquarters is directly erased, it will be neat, but this will leave many hidden dangers.

Therefore, in Lin Tuo's mind, the most thorough way is to first eradicate those scattered church knights, and then solve the problem of the "Holy City".

But now the clue was interrupted, but it made him hesitate.

"Who?"

At this moment, Lin Tuo, who was thinking, suddenly realized something, and suddenly looked at a shadow next to the street.

Then, the light was distorted, and a middle-aged man in a strange robe took the initiative to reveal his figure.

"Your Excellency, please don't get me wrong, I'm just an incompetent, cowardly, wizard hiding in the shadows." The middle-aged man smiled wryly and opened his hands, indicating that he was not hostile.

"Wizard?" Lin Tuo's eyebrows were slightly raised, which was not very surprising.

Although the Church is very strong in arresting, in such a large kingdom, there are always some wizards who can find a way to hide.

In particular, the "talented" ability is good for the type to hide.

"Do you have something to say to me?" Lin Tuo asked.

"Yes, honorable strong, are you looking for traces of the Knights Templar?

I have some clues that might be useful to you...... Just before you arrived, the church in Solan received a decree from the Pope, calling for all teams to return to the Sacred Plains immediately......"

"Return?" Lin Tuo was a little depressed, and his heart moved:

Could it be that the news of these people's deaths has already been transmitted?

In this age of magic, this is not impossible.

"So? You're here to tell me this? After hearing this, Lin Tuo looked at him with a strange expression.

Immediately, I saw the middle-aged wizard give a deep salute:

"I don't know what your purpose is, but the fact that you have rescued the wizard is immensely admirable, and I hope that my message will be of some use to you."

With that, the wizard's figure blurred, and soon, disappeared into the shadows.

Lin Tuo stared at the corner of the street for a while, under the hood, the corners of his mouth slowly hooked, and his gaze turned to the north:

"Sacred Plains...... Where is the headquarters of the Church...... That's a lot of effort on my part. ”