January 8, 1688.

After the end of the state mourning period of the Pole Kingdom, the widow of the late King Duris I, Queen Catherine, was officially crowned and enthroned in the presence of the diocesan bishop appointed by the royal family, becoming the second monarch of the Heath dynasty of the Pole Kingdom, known as Queen Catherine II.

However, on the night of the second day of the coronation, a strange fire broke out in the royal palace of Hansar City. The fire burned the entire palace to the ground, and many entrances and exits of the palace were "coincidentally" blocked by rubble and other debris, causing a tragic tragedy.

But coincidentally, at the time of the fire, Queen Catherine, Princess Di Eucalyptus, the captain of the guard, Sakoros, and a dozen other knights, attendants, and maids happened to leave the palace and survived, but the rest of the more than 400 people who stayed in the palace on errands or living in the palace all died in the fire and no one survived!

This fire shocked the entire kingdom, and it was undoubtedly worse for the royal capital Hansha City, which had suffered many disasters. Immediately, the whole city was terrified, and a large number of powerful people in the city were planning to escape from the city.

Surprisingly, however, Her Majesty Queen Catherine was surprisingly calm about the fire, which caused a large number of deaths. Instead of ordering a thorough investigation into the fire or preventing the magnates from fleeing, she silently found a manor house on the outskirts of the city to serve as a temporary palace. I don't know if Queen Catherine is an unpredictable prophet, before the fire, all kinds of national treasures and important archives in the palace have been transferred to the manor, so when Queen Catherine and her party moved in, the royal power center of the country immediately resumed normal operation. The initial chaos in Hansha City was quickly brought under control, order was restored at a miraculous speed, and the exodus of the magnates was quickly contained.

On the other side of the three continents, the Kingdom of Sealand, an island nation facing the western ocean, also lost its king a few months ago, but according to custom, the new monarch of the secular state will be crowned mainly by the witness of a senior clergy from the central Church representing the pope. However, the central squad, mired in civil strife, was unable to protect itself, and it was impossible to even elect a new pope, let alone send a representative to witness the enthronement of a new king. As a result, the Kingdom of Sealand could only spend a few months in the absence of the throne.

However, the practice of the Pouler Kingdom is the best example for the Kingdom of Sealand.

On January 12, a fire broke out in New Newtlenburg, the capital of the Kingdom of Sealand, and the diocesan bishop and his subordinates were burned alive in their church, and the entire church system in New Newtlenburg was thrown into chaos; In the near future, the new young diocesan bishop will be a witness to Prince Harun's accession to the throne.

With the two large powers of the Kingdom of Pole and the Kingdom of Sealand as precedents, the monopoly of faith in the Central Church has finally been pried open, and some other royal families that do not have a good relationship with the Central Church are also preparing to move. As for the Central Church, the Cardinal in power was naturally quite angry, but so far, the internal struggle and the use of the "purifiers" as a sharp blade to fight political opponents are the most important tasks of the Cardinal's work, and it can only watch the peripheral local churches lose control one by one.

However, the Cardinal's troubles are not limited to this. At noon on 20 January, an armed force of the "Purifiers" who were out on a mission was attacked by an unidentified enemy, killing all 18 of them and leaving no corpses.

But that's just the beginning. In the days that followed, the forces of the "Purifiers" were repeatedly attacked throughout the island, suffering heavy casualties. The tactics of the sneak attackers were the same, and familiar to the insiders, as was the practice of the Inquisition.

Since the rise of the House of Cardinals and the establishment of the "Purifiers", the once formidable Inquisition has fallen silent and is in a state of semi-dissolution. Originally, the huge staff of the Inquisition was that some of them were arrested, persecuted, and killed by the "purifiers"; some of them retired and left alone like their chief inquisitor; some of them joined the "purifiers" and worked for the tigers; and the few remaining departments that could still operate were taken over by the "purifiers" from top to bottom. It can be said that after more than half a year of repeated suppression, the Inquisition has been weakened to the limit, and it is impossible to have any ability to resist the "purifiers", and the former inquisition executives, including the retired former chief judge, are still under the watchful eye of the "purifiers".

Therefore, despite the clues left at the scene pointing to the Inquisition, the reality of the situation convinced the higher-ups of the "Purifiers" that the Inquisition would not be capable of committing a bloody debt.

But the world is unpredictable. The more subjectively you think something is impossible, the closer you are to the truth.

At this time, Sixtus, the former chief inquisitor of the Inquisition, who was closely monitored in the small village and lived a day and night life, was in fact nothing more than a stand-in for the deity. The real Sixtus himself was actually in the basement of a small hotel in the "City of Myths".

The inn was one of the secret safe houses of the Inquisition, and one of the few Inquisition properties that was not taken over by the Purifiers. Sixtus had been hiding here for some time, and he had personally instigated one attack after another against the "Purifiers".

Even if the Inquisition's secret service system was paralyzed, it didn't hinder Sixtus much, as a powerful ally brought him plenty of money, manpower, weapons, and vital intelligence from within the Senate and the Purifiers.

There is a prison in the ground of the Hansar Imperial Palace in the Kingdom of Pole for the prisoners of the palace. Although the buildings on the ground have been burned to rubble, the impregnable palace prison has not been affected in the slightest.

The prison had been completely emptied before the fire, and today there is only one prisoner in the prison, guarded day and night by a responsible warden and several of his wardens.

At this time, surrounded by several soldiers, a "big man" came to the palace prison.

"Open the door. ”

"Your Majesty, the prisoners inside are too dangerous, and there was a brother ...... yesterday"

"Open the door!"

“...... Yes, sir. ”

The warden knew that his persuasion was ineffective, so he was ordered to open the door with a key, but he remained trembling. He was deeply impressed by the death of that subordinate yesterday. Even though his hands and feet were tightly shackled with heavy iron shackles, and even the lute bones on his shoulders were locked with iron hooks, this dangerous prisoner was still able to easily bite off the neck of a powerful prison guard.