CH 176 Sacrifice

"Who?"

The knight guarding outside the secret iron church heard a slight noise. He grasped the crossbow and turned around suddenly and raised his hand. The sharp arrow left the string and shot into the air. There was nothing in the corner where the sound came from. The knight frowned, holding his sword and walking towards a certain corner. When he got closer, his pupils suddenly dilated.

The knight commander's body was leaning against the corner, with a fatal wound on his throat. The blood soaked through his armor and turned a solid dark brown color. It had been a while since the knight commander died, but before that he didn't hear anything unusual or hear any alarm from his companions.

The knight reached out to grab the whistle hanging on his chest. Just as he was about to blow the whistle, a dagger slit his throat cleanly from behind.

Rebellion...rebellion…

Before he died, he realized the truth and fell forward.

"The seventh."

The assassin was a priest in white robes. He watched expressionlessly as the last guardian knight directly belonging to the Council of Elders fell in a pool of blood.

The same scene was staged around the iron church. Some of the patrolling guardian knights were suddenly stabbed in the stomach by an oncoming companion at a corner. Some were standing by the wall and had their throats suddenly choked by ropes. The assassinations were swift and brutal, and in the blink of an eye, the "watertight" defenders of the iron church were reduced to corpses.

The assassinations did not alarm anyone in the church, and all the isolation measures taken to maintain confidentiality at this time in turn became the best cover for the assassins.

The guardian knights were all wiped out, but the person who organized the assassination had no intention of tearing off the seal and opening the bronze door.

The people inside the church were completely unaware that this iron church had been taken over by another group of people.

Inside the iron church, the secret room.

Segni was restless and paced around the room. The conclave was held in accordance with the old rules for selecting a pope. All participants could not leave the room except during the discussion. The door to the room could only be opened from the outside, and the windows were small and barred.

The depressing atmosphere could easily make people anxious, let alone Segni, who had other intentions in his heart.

He took out the letter hidden in his robes and read it again.

Today was the day. According to his deal with Ferri III, someone would secretly take him out of the iron church. Originally, Segni thought that he had arranged everything well. From meeting the intermediary to bribing the guardian knights, every step was confirmed again and again. But when he woke up in a trance in the secret room, he was shocked to realize that things would not go as smoothly as he thought.

The secret room was completely isolated from the outside world, and he had no way of judging the time outside.

Hell, he didn't want to take a chance on whether those barbarians would follow the code of chivalry.

While complaining, Segni reached out and tried to push open the window.

The moment he touched the window, he took a big step back and flicked his wrist hard.

"Holy Lord, what is this?"

His face twisted with unbearable burning pain as he raised his hand in front of his eyes. He saw a long black scar on the palm of his hand, the flesh and blood melting together, as if he had touched a soldering iron.

Soldering iron?

A layer of cold sweat suddenly broke out on Segni's back. He endured the pain and stepped forward to carefully look through the gap in the window. His face suddenly lost all color.

A little light was faintly revealed through the gap in the window. He thought it was sunlight from the outside world before, but it was only then that he realized that it was not sunlight, but molten iron!

"Let me out!"

In a craze, he pulled on the window with all his strength, regardless of the burning.

Don’t know if it was his imagination, but he kept feeling that there was the sound of water coming from the roof.

Splash——splash——

The sound of water that Segni heard was not an illusion.

Buckets of strangely colored oil were hoisted up to the roof of the church through pulleys. People in boots and gloves poured the buckets of oil evenly onto the sloping roof of the church. The sharp architectural lines deliberately created to highlight the sense of sanctity were of great help at this time. As soon as the special oil was poured on the ridges, it immediately flowed downwards.

The iron church was a secret church whose main body was made of granite and black iron. The reason why it was called the "iron church" on the one hand was related to the fact that God told the prophet in the holy book of revelation that the world should be ruled with an iron scepter; and on the other hand, it was related to its nature, that everything that happened here was top secret, sealed with iron, and would never be leaked outside.

Today, however, it had completely become an "iron church" where secrets were buried.

After wiping away the guards on the outside, the assassins checked all the doors entering and exiting the iron church in turn, poured molten iron on the bronze doors, and completely sealed all the gaps in the doors and windows. With the skylight of the last tower also sealed, this place became a veritable iron coffin.

All actions were carried out in an orderly manner, and the white-robed priests pouring molten iron had no expression on their faces, all well-trained and organized.

Soon, the church seemed to be showered with a special rain.

Oil with a strange color, vaguely similar to the "holy anointing" used for monarchs during their coronations, fell down the gargoyles. A series of shallow trenches had been dug on the ground along the church. Viewed from a high altitude, those shallow trenches formed a six-pointed star with the iron church as the center.

This was a huge, blasphemous sacrificial ritual that should have never appeared in the Holy City.

The sacrifices were the iron church that became a death coffin to some extent after being sealed, as well as everyone and everything in the church.

This was an unprecedented sacrifice.

……………………

Rumble–r—Rumble——

A thunderous roar came from the far away walls of the Holy City.

After being unable to capture the Holy City for a long time, the Nujin Empire, symbolized by the demon wolf, had been quiet for a long time. Today, it suddenly broke out and organized an extremely ferocious attack.

The walls of the Holy City.

The city guards, composed mainly of fanatical believers, wanted to suppress the Nujin Empire's offensive with solid city walls, moats and continuous giant crossbows, just like the previous times. This time, however, Hermóðr''s offense was completely different than before.

The former Gulundi heavy cavalry wore black iron helmets cast into wolf heads. They were the sharpest force in the barbarian empire today. These heavy cavalry did not wander behind the besieging army like the previous times. Instead, they lined up neatly and slowly approached like a giant blade.

However, what was more eye-catching than them were the creatures accompanying the heavy cavalry.

A pack of evil wolves with green eyes.

Boom, boom, boom.

The ground seemed to be shaking. The heavy cavalry and evil wolves separated to the left and right, making way for a giant white-furred wolf that was larger than anyone could imagine.

The belief of the barbarians, the chief of the wolves of the world.

In barbarian legends, the demon wolf would appear on the earth when the world became a battlefield. As long as there was a wolf alive in the world, it would never die. Now that a thousand years have passed, the flames of war were once again sweeping across the earth. The demon wolf which lived on disasters and flesh and blood, was resurrected from its lair, and reappeared on the earth together with the barbarians who worship it.

"Holy Lord! What is that?"

The guards on the city wall moaned weakly, and even the most fanatical believers could not help but tremble at this moment, making it difficult to hold their weapons.

The demon wolf was as huge as a small fortress. When it stood, its cold green eyes looked level with the people on the wall. Under such cold eyes, the soldiers guarding the city were as small as ants. The few soldiers who looked directly at it were paralyzed at the top of the city walls, unable to move. The next moment, the demon wolf rushed forward, half-leaped up, and hit the city wall heavily.

Rumble——

The solid and thick city walls collapsed, sending smoke and dust billowing into the sky.

The snow-white demonic wolf stepped over the broken city wall and into the Holy City. It trampled down a building, raised its head to the sky and let out a long and chilling howl.

The wolves leaped high and the horses galloped.

Under the leadership of the demon wolf, the barbarian imperial warriors, together with the pack of wolves, rushed into the castle known to "never fall".

Hermóðr' led the soldiers to gallop on the spacious holy road. Now no one could resist their charge. All defenses were vulnerable in front of the wolf and knight. This castle with more than 400 towers was breached for the first time today. From then on, this holy place among believers would be reduced to ashes in the flames, and the halo given to it by God would be ruthlessly torn away and destroyed.

"Father."

Hamond held a sword in one hand and a shield in the other, following closely beside his father. According to barbarian custom, on the battlefield, the son served as the bodyguard of the father, and the younger brother served as the bodyguard of the elder brother. Those who acted as guards not only protected their father and older brother, but were also responsible for observing changes on the battlefield.

"Look——"

His voice was full of surprise.

Hermóðr' tightened the reins, raised his head and looked in the direction Hamond pointed.

He saw the demon wolf slowly approaching in one direction. It lowered its head, its green eyes stared ahead, and its canine teeth glared white in the sun. What could make the demon wolf show such a vigilant posture, as if it had seen a natural enemy that it hated to the bone?

"There's a fire over there.”

Hamond pointed in the direction where the demon wolf was growling at.

The burning, killing and looting after a city was captured was not something to be surprised at first, but the flames in the distance were completely different from ordinary flames. Deep in the Holy City, something was burning. The fire was rolling upwards, reaching hundreds of kilometers high. The flames were as red as blood, and there was something vaguely visible in the flames, as if there was a huge cross.

Something was wrong.

Hermóðr' realized something was wrong.

They had just invaded the Holy City. The Segni family, who were instigated by Ferri III, had made an agreement with them to open the gate to the inner city for them when they entered the city. However, before they even reached the Holy Palace at this time, the fire started burning from the deepest part.

That wasn't a fire they started.

Who was also acting in the Holy City today?

The demon wolf let out a deep growl and started running in the Holy City, heading straight towards the direction of the fire. Wherever it passed, buildings were knocked down by it, and cracks appeared on the solid rock avenue.

"Follow!"

Hermóðr' shouted sharply, whipped his horse and galloped after.