Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 489 - 488: Collapse

The heterodoxies Inquisition Ceremony teetered on the brink of losing control.

Fran Belon had imagined all possible variables of the heterodoxies Inquisition Ceremony, and the greatest crisis he had envisioned was the failure of his Divine Arts—after all, using the Great Divine Incantation to identify heterodoxies is subject to many uncontrollable factors, and his own power was not yet strong enough to fully control this Divine Arts.

But he never expected the unexpected situation to strike from a completely opposite direction: his Divine Arts was strengthened.

Seeing the milky white halo spreading across the entire square, Fran Belon realized that the situation was going to spiral out of control.

Because he knew from the very beginning, it was likely that few of the civilians in Lu’an Outer City District could pass the test of the Great Divine Incantation.

The long-term blockade had already severely eroded the will of the faithful, and the flyers circulating around the city were shaking everyone’s faith in the Holy Light. Fran Belon might not care about the lives of the lower-class populace, but as a seasoned priest, he at least understood human nature. At the very least, he understood how fragile an ordinary person’s resolve would be under such circumstances—while conversely, the "Great Divine Incantation" was an incredibly harsh test—in fact, this Divine Arts was never intended for heterodoxies Inquisition among ordinary people; its true purpose was to test the mental strength of clergymen.

Using this Divine Arts meant for testing Transcendent on ordinary people and labeling it as "heterodoxies Inquisition" had a very simple intention: it was merely to ensure that anyone standing in opposition to the church could be quickly convicted.

Therefore, there was no fairness to speak of in the trial from the beginning, because in reality, no matter which soldier randomly grabbed someone from the square, there was a ninety-nine percent chance that person would be identified as heretic!

The temporary bishop of Lu’an City immediately severed his maintenance of the Divine Arts, yet the situation did not change at all: the aftereffects of the Great Divine Incantation had already been strengthened under some unknown power, it continued to spread, and had already enveloped the heads of those on the square!

The civilians were in turmoil, unable to escape the range of the Divine Arts in time, the white halo swept over everyone’s heads, and what happened next left every priest at a loss: one by one, tumultuous and fragmented light curtains appeared on the bodies of civilians, one by one, civilians were identified as heretic by the Divine Arts!

The halo spread all the way, and the tumultuous fragmented light curtains extended in patches, and among those patches of "heretic" marks, less than ten percent managed to maintain a constant Holy Light, and even for that ten percent, the light was dim and could extinguish any moment, hardly counting as truly passing the test.

In this church city, the entire city was "heretic."

Fran Belon felt a wave of dizziness, the fragments of light curtains spread out like an endless tide of black rushing towards him, and within this dizzying, swaying vision, he saw an even more terrifying scene:

The halo not only spread to the heads of those civilians, but also extended to the heads of the priests standing on the edge of the high platform for punishment.

Tumultuous fragmented light curtains also appeared on those priests!

Then it was the Church Knights and church soldiers—they looked at themselves covered by the halo of the Divine Arts with shock and tension, and the next moment, the light curtains on them shattered as well, like ink-black fissures spreading around them.

"Lord..."

A cry of alarm erupted from the priest Clergy behind Fran Belon, and this temporary bishop’s heart tightened instantly, he struggled to control his heart, trying to keep it from beating too fast, but when he turned around, that terrifying scene still made his breath stop instantly:

In the priest Clergy on the high platform, among those priests from Luan Grand Cathedral, two highly respected Assistant Bishops looked at themselves in despair, beside them, a layer of dim Holy Light was gradually fracturing, while pitch-black cracks were increasing in number.

The Great Divine Incantation, which was originally intended to spread toward the square, unexpectedly affected the priest Clergy after suddenly being strengthened!

"Hold onto your faith!" Fran Belon finally couldn’t help but cry out, "Do not doubt your beliefs! Do not doubt what you are doing!"

After exclaiming, this temporary bishop’s mind suddenly flashed to the scene he just witnessed—

In the square, among the civilians closest to the judgment platform, a few clusters of exceptionally bright and constant light suddenly appeared...

He thought those were civilians with exceptionally firm faith and innate Holy Light affinity—this situation is very rare, but not unimaginable, yet now he backwardly realized the abnormality of this. Or rather, he should have realized it from the start, but his state of shock at the time caused him to lose judgment in those critical seconds.

Those radiances were not the glow emitted after passing the test of the "Great Divine Incantation," but Holy Light! Something akin to Divine Arts!

"The Cecil Clan is in the square!" Fran Belon raised the scepter in his hand high, shouting loudly to the knights and soldiers around the platform who were still in panic and tension, "Go catch those..."

His shout abruptly stopped because when he swept his gaze across the square, those suspicious individuals were already gone.

As soon as the situation began to spiral out of control, those people had already retreated.

He only saw a few odd metal plates dropped on the ground, the surfaces of those metal plates shimmering with bright sacred glow, while waves of powerful Divine Arts fluctuations were emitted from them.

In the moment of Fran Belon’s daze, those metal plates seemed to finally succumb to some pressure, sparking and smoking slightly with a crackling noise, and the sacred glow floating on the plates immediately dissipated.

And as those strange "Divine Arts tools" ceased functioning, the Great Divine Incantation spreading across the square finally came to a halt.

But everything was already irreversible, the entire square had plunged into a deathly silence.

Fran Belon stood on the high wooden platform, his face maintaining a terrifying expression like a statue. He looked at the equally petrified and silent civilians and priests, with one crazy question racing through his mind:

What should he do as one of the few people not identified as heresy when a heterodoxies Inquisition Ceremony has labeled almost an entire city’s worth of believers and priests as heretical?

Should he invoke the name of God to purify the heresies of this city? Or pretend nothing happened, attributing it to a rare lapse in the Lord’s power?

For the first time in his life, Fran Belon wished the Holy Light would send down Divine Punishment immediately, burning him cleanly to death rather than forcing him to face this most difficult decision of his life here.

However, at this moment, a strange whistling sound suddenly came from the sky, interrupting this temporary bishop’s life decision.

When he first heard the whistling, he paused for a moment, as if not comprehending what it was. But he soon noticed the frightened expressions on the faces of the Exiled Knights who had sought refuge at the edge of the square, and immediately understood the significance of those sounds.

It was the Cecil Clan; the Cecil Clan’s "Skyfire" had arrived! The Cecil Clan had finally made their move!

Fran Belon couldn’t suppress his jubilation at this moment, as if all his troubles were to be solved with the descent of Cecil’s Skyfires. He abruptly turned around, looking at the priest Clergy behind him. On the awakening faces of those priests, he saw similar joy.

The Cecil Clan finally used their weapons to attack this holy city!

Whether it was the out-of-control heresy trial or the doubts and divisions spreading throughout the city, all this would become history. When the Cecil Clan directly attacked, all the mistakes made by the cathedral’s priests would become embellishments before noble martyrdom, and Fran Belon... had long been prepared for martyrdom.

He was indeed devout, as were the priest Clergy in the cathedral. They had not feared death from the beginning, and it was not a false courage but a true fearlessness -- faith in the Holy Light had permeated the bones of these senior clergymen. Even the most greedy and selfish clergymen would burst forth with immense courage when faced with "sacrificing for God."

"The time to sacrifice for the Lord has come!" Fran Belon suddenly shouted, raising his scepter high, with glorious Holy Light bursting forth from behind him. "I shall prove my devotion with blood!"

The priest Clergy also shouted passionately: "The time to sacrifice for the Lord has come!"

The howling in the air grew closer and closer, finally reaching the city sky. With eyes belonging to a Transcendent, Fran Belon could already see those magical weapons wrapped in pale blue airflow flying through the air. He saw those things coming from the southeastern direction of the city, swooping like falcons towards the land, and couldn’t help but squint his eyes slightly, opening his arms to those demons’ weapons, quietly awaiting the arrival of death.

The great conviction of sacrificing for the Holy Light moved him, causing his body to tremble slightly with excitement.

Then, those "Skyfires" flying from afar self-detonated above the city.

Accompanied by sounds much smaller than the explosion of a regular Magic Crystal Cannon shell, the blue air masses flying above the city disintegrated and exploded one after another, and the metallic structures within those air masses shattered into pieces. As those hollow shells exploded, countless pieces of paper drifted down from the sky.

Fran Belon squinted his eyes, arms wide open, waiting for death that never came. He couldn’t help but open his eyes in confusion, seeing the civilians in the square craning their necks to watch the sky.

A piece of paper floated down before him, and the temporary bishop grabbed it immediately. Studying this thing that fell from the sky in confusion, he saw familiar, exquisitely printed characters appear before him:

"...The heresy trial is the biggest lie...

"...Sacrificing civilians and coercing their will is no different from robbery...

"...The Holy Light shouldn’t be determined by the priests in the cathedral; it belongs to everyone...

"Abandon meaningless confrontation, as Cecil will treat all its friends equally..."

With the whistling and explosions continuing, more and more pieces of paper floated down. Fran Belon raised his head in a daze, watching the sky. He felt as if those pieces of paper were falling like snow, endlessly and unceasingly.

The leader of the Disciplinary Monks finally reacted, shouting the only line he could think of that might salvage the situation, his black-clad figure revealing his true intentions:

"It’s the Cecil Clan’s evil magic! The Cecil Clan used evil sorcery and devil contracts to interfere with the heresy trial! The trial has been sabotaged by them -- this trial is null and void, null and void!"

The priest Clergy echoed loudly, and in these shouts, Fran Belon regained some spirit. He incited the Holy Light one last time and announced loudly the result of today’s farce: "This heresy trial is affected by sorcery and temporarily suspended."

Then the tall temporary bishop completely ignored everyone in the square, casting aside the reactions of the civilians, hastily crossing the cathedral district’s Door as if fleeing, along with the priest Clergy.

At the edge of the square, a pair of amber eyes watched coldly through a crack in a residential window as the farce ended in the most fitting way for a farce.

Fran Belon retreated to the cathedral district, and the bishops and priests of Lu’an City were still alive.

But the Holy Light on the southern borders had finally perished.

Now, there was only one thing left to do.