Chapter 1342: Chapter 250, The Sorrow of the Magical Beast Legion_2
The war has now escalated from a re battlefield clash to a political level.
Only by weakening the Clergy to the greatest extent can the Frank Empire ensure its advantage in the post-war struggle for the voice of the Human Race.
“Kill!”
“Kill!”
…
The Terrain Dragon Cavalry charging out from the mountain forests once again clashed with the Frank people. The two elite cavalry units collided savagely on the plains.
In the blink of an eye, the battlefield was littered with more corpses. However, the Church Army, focused solely on breaking out, had no ti to care about their comrades’ lives or deaths.
They now only had one path: break through!
To turn back was to die!
Even after breaking through the Tyrannosaurus Army’s blockade, waiting on the other side were heavily fortified infantry lines, with regular cavalry patrolling the periter of the encirclent.
But none of this mattered. At the edge of life and death, the Church Cavaliers had only one thought in their minds: escape.
The night hid the grotesque carnage, but it could not obscure the grim reality of corpses scattered everywhere. The bright moonlight illuminated the earth, exposing this hell on the mortal world.
The battle raged on, with both sides killing each other with frenzied eyes.
“Pass down the command: spare those who surrender!”
With Marquis Sunil’s command, chants of “spare those who surrender” echoed across the battlefield, finally breaking the will of the Church soldiers.
“Bang!”
A Church Soldier dropped his weapon and surrendered, followed by a second, a third… and eventually, countless soldiers abandoned resistance, bringing this bloody war to an end.
…
On the Holy Mountain, after thorough investigation, Shelter VII finally uncovered the truth behind the angels’ fall.
An infiltrator within the Clergy had tampered with the Crystal Ball from the outset. What should have contained a sealed ordinary soul was instead infused with a fragnt of a demon’s soul.
Coupled with that bottle of water from the River of Hades, it drove the souls rged into the angels’ bodies completely insane. The resentnt quickly corroded the angels’ souls, triggering the sins buried deep within them.
The result? What should have been the Church’s aid turned into the most ruthless executioners of Holy Mountain.
Having figured out the entire sequence of events, Shelter VII could do nothing but rage impotently.
The culprits behind all this were long-standing fugitives of the Clergy. If they had been easy to deal with, the Clergy would have eradicated them long ago.
What couldn’t be done years ago was now even less feasible. After reaching the Sanctuary level, these individuals had integrated into various nations across the Continent.
Even those who once acted alone had chosen to beco affiliated with major powers after reaching the Sanctuary level.
Given the Clergy’s current strength, even making an example of them was impossible. This group of “chickens” had all beco monsters, no longer the frail mortals they used to be.
“Bishop Soren, you were responsible for summoning the angels’ descent. How do you explain what happened?”
Shelter VII’s cold remark sent chills down Bishop Soren’s spine.
Summoning angels was no task a single Cardinal could accomplish. However, several others who shared the responsibility had been just a fraction too slow to react—and now they were face-to-face with the Lord of the Dawn during the battle of Holy Mountain.
Martyrs who sacrificed themselves didn’t need to bear responsibility. As the unfortunate survivor, Bishop Soren beca the scapegoat, left to shoulder all the bla.
“Your Majesty, this was an error in our work! But the enemy’s sches were too concealed, even managing to tamper with the Crystal Ball.
We must rember that these items were prepared decades ago, making it completely unforeseeable in advance.
Before use, we inspected them thoroughly multiple tis and found no issues!”
Soren trembled as he defended himself.
The sin was too great for him to bear alone. To avoid taking the fall by himself, he could only drag others into the ss.
The Crystal Ball had already turned to ash, leaving no evidence of when it was tampered with.
The most incriminating item was that bottle of water from the River of Hades. However, when the enemy’s Five Great Sanctuaries invaded, bypassing a Cardinal like him entirely was easily plausible.
After all, even the three Sanctuary Powerhouses guarding the Holy Mountain couldn’t imdiately detect the intrusion.
“Hmph!”
“You co up with excellent excuses, but with so many soul crystals stored in the warehouse, why choose the ones that turned out to be problematic?
Don’t tell the enemy tampered with all of them. Just yesterday, I personally inspected the storage. Apart from two defective soul crystals, the rest were all normal.
Because of your mistake, the Clergy lost one Sanctuary Powerhouse, three others were seriously wounded, and over forty Eighth-order Strongn were killed…
Even Fabrizio, the elder protecting the Holy Mountain, aged nearly a century from forcing himself to clean up your ss!”
Shelter VII spoke furiously.
The heavy losses were one thing; worse still, the aftermath of the Holy Mountain battle left his position as Pope precarious.
Fabrizio, who had been stationed on the Holy Mountain, scolded him rcilessly, directly declaring him the worst Pope in the Clergy’s history.
Defending himself was near impossible. A glance at the Clergy’s decline during his tenure revealed it was like a downhill snowball—a situation worsening year by year.
In past years, the Clergy’s political slogan had been, “Reclaim the Continent, Restore the Divine Spirit’s Glory!”
No one ntioned it now. Forget reviving past glories; even maintaining their current domain wasn’t an easy task.
Shelter VII had made nurous efforts to reverse the Clergy’s decline. Yet alas, a decaying institution couldn’t be cleansed with just a few decrees.
The entangled and convoluted internal relationships abolished all of Shelter VII’s reforms, rendering them hollow gestures.
Appointnts and promotions strictly adhered to “bloodline” principles. No matter how capable ordinary people were, they remained in laborious roles.
Those who stood out too much were sent to infiltrate cult organizations under the pretense of “honing their minds.”
But such “discipline” often lasted decades, and even if one endured, they developed rebellion deep in their hearts.
In fact, among those who attacked Holy Mountain, many had roots in the Clergy. Overwheld by internal injustices and unable to bear their oppression, they defected.
Inside the Clergy, dissatisfaction with the current system was rampant. Without insiders’ cooperation, no outsider infiltrators alone could penetrate Holy Mountain within just a few generations of hiding.
The strongest fortresses are always breached from within.
That phrase served as the best conclusion for the Holy Mountain battle!
“Your Majesty, I…”
Before Bishop Soren could continue defending himself, Shelter VII swiped his sleeve, sending him flying out of the grand hall.
The tragedy of the Holy Mountain battle demanded soone take responsibility. Bishop Soren, who oversaw summoning the angels’ descent, was the perfect scapegoat.
His rank and status barely qualified him. If he didn’t shoulder it, there was no way the higher-ups would step in personally.
Understanding this truth and political scheming, everyone present chose to remain silent. Even Blake, aligned with the sa faction, said nothing to plead for him.
After publicly assigning bla, Shelter VII felt slightly relieved. Yet his furrowed brows refused to ease.
Shifting bla was easy; the trouble lay in dealing with the aftermath. Whether Undead creatures, Abyssal creatures, or Fallen Angels, they were all slaughter-obsessed lunatics.
The imdiate consequence was that the casualties tallied post-war far exceeded those of a typical campaign’s losses.
Unlike before, this ti, the dead were all “our own.” So institutions were crippled entirely due to the heavy losses.
Had the enemy forces outside the mountain dispersed, the various factions would already be fighting tooth and nail over the newly vacated positions.
For now, internal strife had yet to erupt, but its threat was already apparent. The original political equilibrium had been shattered, while a new balance remained unford—making Holy Mountain destined for continued unrest.
“Your Majesty, terrible news!
We’ve just received word that the returning Magical Beast Legion was ambushed in Soul’s Domain, suffering heavy losses and forced to break through last night.
Currently…”
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