The long-term siege is the greatest blow to morale and cohesion, and this is no exception to anyone even the church priests who originally had a firm belief and stance.

When the situation is stable and there are no major differences in interests, the church can still maintain a balance and unity. Although there are many factions inside and outside the cathedral, and there are big or small interests between priests and priests on all levels and entangled in conflict points, at least everyone will maintain superficial unity for the sake of the church compatriots. In short, it is to give the Holy Light a face. If there are any conflicts, try not to get it on the table and not affect the overall interests of the church.

However, after the church has no profit to be profitable, and even after the church itself has become the cause of threat, apparent unity will be divided from the inside out.

Not everyone supports the order from the Holy Spirit Plain. Although the former Southern Bishop Lemont has the highest authority in the Cathedral of Lu'an, he cannot make all the Holy Light Priests a monolith as a diocese on the border of the kingdom. The Southern Church has had a large number of hidden dangers of internal rupture from the beginning.

Local priests have always been resistant to instructions from the Holy Spirit Plain. In the past two years, the young and strong priests who have been promoted to expand their influence in the diocese have had friction with the senate schools in the cathedral. The lower priests hope to gain more autonomy in this land far away from the center of the church. The upper priests are always worried that those "barbaric, rude, and lack of civilized education" country priests preach at will and tamper with the classics. Among them, there are even more conscientious priests who are resistant to the increasingly bad behavior of the church in the past two years...

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

If Bishop Lemont could defeat the oldest family on this land in this war and gain higher prestige among the combined forces of more than forty nobles, then Bishop Lemont would undoubtedly greatly consolidate his position in this diocese, and most of the undercurrents in Lu'an Cathedral would be quelled. If Cecil had not been a group of immortal players, his success rate would still be very high.

Unfortunately, he failed.

His failure even led to the entire Southern Church standing opposite to the Principality of Cecil, where the faith of Holy Light was in danger of being forcibly eradicated on this land.

The priests who had not supported Bishop Lemont's adventures were naturally resentful. Because Lemont was born in the Holy Spirit Plain, a large number of local priests also became shaken. After that, as the situation in Lu'an City became worse and worse, the haze of insufficient supplies began to emerge. The order of the outer city was getting worse day by day, and a large number of lower-level priests also accumulated huge resentment: they could not bring their families to the inner city like those high-level priests, and even they lived in the "small church district" adjacent to the outer city. The chaos in the outer city has inevitably affected them and is becoming increasingly serious...

The flyers circulating into the city at this critical moment undoubtedly exacerbated all the situation.

Almost everyone can think of this as a "conspiracy" by the Cecils, but so what? Is the flyer false?

The upper class controls the right to interpret the classics, and the middle priests use atonement gold to accumulate a huge amount of wealth. The archbishops on the Holy Spirit Plain are full of hearts in the rich land, but they are pointing fingers at the difficult southern border. Now something is wrong, the bishop is dead, and a large group of Holy See knights are also dead. The angered Cecilians blocked the entire church, but the consequences are to be taken by everyone in the church together. Who is not angry?

Bishop Franbergan had a gloomy face, and put the prints in his hand into a ball, burning them to ashes with holy light, while his mind was quickly calculating.

Although these propaganda materials from the Cecils were vulgar, the worst thing was that almost all the contents were true.

Anyone who has close contact with the Holy Light Church and who has a little contact with the circle of priests can see the authenticity of these contents.

These things are being secretly spread, and they should not be able to spread throughout the city in four days... so they must be stopped from fermenting immediately.

He looked at the priest in front of him: "Immediately inform the Order of the Precepts, confiscate all the pamphlets that were spread between churches, and let the exiled knights and the knights of the church go to the outer city together and search from house to house. Anyone, regardless of the reason, must be handed over immediately. If they refuse to hand over, they will be dealt with as heresy."

"yes."

"In addition," Franberg added, "if there is any active handover or reporting the hiding person, the ration will be rewarded."

The Holy See knights of Luan Cathedral and the exiled knights who defected to this place quickly started their actions.

The gate of the church area that had been closed for a long time opened, and fully armed knights rushed out from inside and began to search for "heretic evidence" from house to house. The priest guarded by the knights walked to the streets, used divine arts to shout, warning all the civilians hiding propaganda materials. In this process, the outer city suddenly became more and more chaotic.

It is impossible for those "experienced" knights to break into private houses and search for materials without any mistakes.

Not only did the outer city area start to become chaotic, but the atmosphere immediately became tense in the church area of ​​the inner city.

The monks wearing black burqas and tattooed scalp were silently walked into small churches and began to interrogate all monks and low-level priests. A large number of brochures were turned out from the corners of those churches or priests. The priests hiding the brochures were immediately punished, first with unified confinement, followed by whipping and divine punishment.

The extraordinary people of the church cannot be punished before the common people. In order to maintain the dignity of the church, all the punished priests must continue to be locked in the confinement room after receiving punishment, and they cannot be released until they complete their complete confession.

In just one day, thousands of promotional materials were collected from various areas of the city, some were booklets and some were leaflets. Bishop Franberger was shocked when he saw the large pile of prints and he did not expect that there would be so many.

The printing quality of these prints is so exquisite, with clear text and neat layout, not like those wax plate printing products with poor skills. He could not imagine how the Cecilians could have printed so beautifully and printed so much.

But no matter what, these things must be destroyed immediately.

All the confiscated brochures were gathered together and sent to the large square outside the church area for public burning. The messengers wearing robes ran three laps in the city, drove all the civilians out of their homes and let them go to the square to watch the burning scene.

The main square was crowded with people, and thousands of civilians who were driven to the square looked numb and pale and thin: Due to the insufficient food supply, people in the outer city have been in a semi-hungry state for most of half a month. The ever-present feeling of hunger was biting everyone's heart. In fact, they didn't want to come to the square and lie on the bed at home, perhaps slashing their physical energy consumption a little, and gather here... everyone can only get hungry.

But the knights' swords and the priest's spells cannot be violated, and they have to come if they don't come.

The wooden pedestal in the center of the square was set up, and a large number of confiscated brochures were packed and carried by strong soldiers and threw them on the wooden pedestal. A tall man in a throne came to the stage. The tall priest swept across the entire square with his stern eyes. The holy light surged beside him, slowly spreading the pressure of the extraordinary.

The civilians in the square were shocked and suddenly became silent, and a silent silence permeated the square.

The tall priest looked at the scene in front of him with satisfaction and contempt, then raised the staff in his hand high: "You confused and stupid people! Without the guidance of the Lord, you have no idea that you are sliding towards the abyss of danger and sin!

"The Cecils were bewitched by the devil, and they spread the power of the devil's bewitched into this city!

"Look at these blasphemous documents, they were searched from 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 do not realize that these things are actually contracts signed by the Cecils and the devil.

"They sent these contracts to the city, which is actually harming you! You were favored by the Holy Light, but these devil's contract books pollute you, and the Holy Light will stay away from you.

"Only flames can purify these blasphemous documents. You take the initiative to hand over these documents and watch the ritual of purification here, so you are still saved and the most hopeless of you must accept purification with these devil contracts!"

A few more strong soldiers came up and pushed a man tied up onto the stage. A little commotion occurred in the crowd gathered below the stage, but more people just looked at him numbly and had almost no reaction.

The tall priest looked at the numb crowd below, then looked at the man tied up. He was a ragged man, and he had been beaten to the point of being unconscious, with a bruised nose and swollen face that could hardly tell what he originally looked like.

It was just a homeless man caught near the city gate. He was caught because he recklessly hit the soldier and found a brochure on his body.

The biggest advantage of this kind of homeless man is that no one knows him, and no one will make a fuss for him.

"This man has hidden a large number of devil's documents and refuses to hand them over!" The priest raised his staff in his hand and pointed at the man who had lost consciousness in a daze. "He also promoted the contents of the documents everywhere to deceive the people around him, and asked everyone to question the Lord and the church!"

There was finally some commotion in the crowd. It seemed that someone was really scared by the words of the priest. The tied man suddenly struggled. He tried to stretch his neck, as if he wanted to shout something, but the soldier next to him immediately punched him in the stomach, and the severe pain immediately made the weak man fall into a semi-coma again.

The priest frowned and looked at the moment of surprise, and waved the staff in his hand: "Push the blasphemer into the devil's documents!"

The soldiers immediately dragged the tied man to the center of the platform, and then pushed it into the "hill" made of propaganda materials. Another monk in a black robe walked forward and poured the flammable grease on the pile of books and the man.

Whispers rang out in the crowd, some people retreated nervously, some people prayed in a low voice, and some people looked distorted and excited, and they stretched their necks to watch the movements on the stage.

Someone suddenly heard a low murmur from behind: "Isn't that old Sam... Old Sam can't read!"

The person who heard the muttering immediately turned to look for the person who was talking, trying to inquire about more details, but only saw a left-off back.

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

"The person above who was about to be burned to death seemed to be called Sam, and he couldn't read."

Several people in ordinary burlap cloth were pushing and shoving among the crowd, and the low-pitched discussions gradually began to spread wherever they passed:

"The person on the stage seems to be named Sam, who is unwilling to read!"

The commotion grew from small to large, and the low-pitched discussion turned into a buzzing sound. Although the scale was still very small, the priest standing on the stage finally noticed these unusual movements. A strange feeling rose in his heart. In this vague sense of uneasiness, he decisively gave up the originally planned missionary and immediately raised his hand to summon a holy light.

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

The scorching holy light ignited the grease, ignited the booklets and leaflets that promoted the dark inside story of the Holy Light Church, and ignited the unspeakable Sam.

The tied people twisted in the fire and made a tragic cry. The crowds of onlookers in the square took a step back in front of this terrible scene, and there were discussions from all directions. One of them carried a sackcloth bag on his shoulder, and the man dressed as if he was standing closest to the tent. He seemed to be frightened by the scene of the tent and stood there in a daze. Until the crowds nearby began to retreat, he staggered and retreated slightly.

The priest standing on the platform had a gloomy face. The burnt smell in the air and the commotion of the ignorant and foolish people below made him, who was already in a bad mood, and at this moment, a very, very slight magic fluctuation suddenly came from a direction below the platform.

The priest immediately looked over there, but he found nothing except a group of terrified and ignorant civilians who were retreating in panic.

Maybe it's just an illusion.
Chapter completed!