"Plead for mercy for my sins, Caesar!"
The acolytes in the confessional room confessed the sins in their hearts to God.
Norton had chosen an excellent moment—the church's nightly confession period was underway.
The confessional room was not open to just anyone; only missionaries qualified to confess. Acolytes could only do routine tasks.
The Church’s justification was that acolytes were not allowed to go outside; they were considered unworldly and therefore could not have committed worldly sins. Only worldly missionaries needed to confess the sins they committed outside.
There were few people in the confessional room, mainly because two hundred missionaries in Holy Lord City had been wiped out by werewolves. That had sharply reduced the number of confessing missionaries, leaving only a handful inside.
The heavy rain was drenching Norton nearly to the bone.
But such a downpour also did a great job of masking any noises he made.
Plink. A faint sound of bricks and tiles came from the confessional roof. Norton, to make the attack look more plausible, had pried off a large tile from the eaves so he could use his body weight to deliver a fatal strike.
You ask whether Norton felt uneasy the first time he killed someone?Norton was absolutely certain: put himself in front of these Church people, and they would not hesitate to kill him—the heretic—without mercy. They would even deliberately pick disgusting methods to torture his Hakino. So Norton killing them was only right!
What Norton regretted most now was that he didn’t have the traditional vampire method of turning servants. If he could, transforming the entire Church into his blood thralls would be blissful.
Norton lay quietly on the confessional hall’s roof, minimizing his presence.
The rain lashed the earth; this year’s harvest was almost certainly ruined.
But the impending disaster mattered less to these missionaries than the night’s confessions; after all, if the food ran out, there were always people to eat.
Norton hid in the rain, waiting for the confessions to end.
Finally.
Dong, dong, dong... Three strikes of the copper gong sounded through the church—an announcement that it was time to sleep.
With the gong’s end, the sparse noises in the confessional room faded.
Norton pressed his fingers against the loosened tile. He had pried off a very large piece—about twice the size of a human head. The tile, together with the bricks beneath, probably weighed several jin. Church buildings were known for being tall; although Rino City’s church was not as grand as Holy Lord City’s, this confessional hall still reached six or seven meters high.
Who knew why they built the first floor so towering, but it made it particularly convenient for Norton to drop things on people.
Such heavy broken tile falling from that height onto a head would be a guaranteed kill.
Norton didn’t reveal himself to look; instead he used hearing and smell to pinpoint the missionaries’ locations.
There weren’t many missionaries in the room. To make a stone’s fatal blow seem more plausible, Norton listened for footsteps toward the central exit and, predicting the timing, gently pushed with his finger.
"Plead for mercy for my sins, Kuba... hee hee hee..."
Clatter... thud! The faint sound of stone scraping was followed by a muffled thump as something struck a skull.
Then came the sound of a body hitting the ground.
Shouts arose below, and the air began to fill with the coppery scent of blood.
"This one’s a good hit!" Norton silently crouched on the roof, limbs braced, pressed flat to reduce his exposure, and crawled backward.
By the sound, he could tell he’d hit his mark!
Good, good! Norton was truly skilled!
He was ecstatic. Carefully, he retreated to the wall. Before the people could gather, he moved quickly along the roof toward the city wall. Then, using the church wall’s ornamental dragon reliefs with superb agility, he rapidly scaled the church’s high wall and leaped down!
It was hard to imagine a human could pull that off.
Staying up half the night in a torrential rainstorm, waiting until midnight just to drop a slab of tile on someone’s head—Norton’s method of revenge was truly...
People who come out of the Church really aren’t normal!
----
The downpour gradually eased, but the famine was set in stone.
At a time like this, even an experienced old pope would issue a decree of charity, ordering the Church to open grain stores and distribute provisions so people could survive.
Although much of the food came from dead victims’ bodies and families still had to surrender their children to the Church, it was still considered merciful.
After all, sending a child to the Church meant the child could grow up normally—an unimaginable blessing for the poorest. Of course, most children might still end up as food; acolytes had standards, and the ugliest were rejected.
But the newly appointed pope, His Holiness Adam, seemed to have no intention of doing that this year.
Not only did he not plan to help, he was even going to issue laws to keep people ignorant—closing their minds and extinguishing human will!
"His Holiness Adam, your actions truly disgrace the glory of our Holy Faith.
God’s holiness is known to all. In the face of disaster, we should throw open our doors and give generously, proclaiming Caesar’s mercy and the greatness of our Holy Faith—not haggle over every grain and deceive the people!"
Although the Church had not officially addressed the annihilation of the Holy Inquisition Tribunal—indeed, the Pope had not mentioned it at all—there was already simmering unrest inside the Church.
Most conspicuous was that a Cardinal actually dared to publicly oppose the Pope, calling his decree problematic.
Such insubordination was unthinkable in the past, because the Pope, who controlled the Holy Inquisition Tribunal, was an unrivaled force; no one would dare show disrespect.
Now, with the Holy Inquisition Tribunal just wiped out, a Cardinal already dared to step forward and challenge the Pope's decisions—an enormous insult, and one delivered to his face!
Though the Cardinal’s words were correct, the act still amounted to a challenge to papal authority.
The other Cardinals stood silently, saying nothing, seeming to wait and see.
But watching in silence is a kind of consent.
His Holiness Adam sat on the high papal throne, eyebrows lifted slightly, looking coldly at the Cardinal who had stepped out, apparently unconcerned by his words.
"All know our Holy Faith is pure, yet human hearts are untrustworthy. There are countless who harbor other ideas like you. If we do not firmly subdue people’s hearts and blind the masses, how can we maintain our Church’s rule and preserve God’s radiance?"
As his words ended, a golden figure silently appeared behind the speaking Cardinal.
Pff! The sound of steel entering flesh rang out as a golden great sword pierced through the Cardinal’s chest without resistance.
Coughing... Feeling the pain in his chest and seeing the sword protruding from his body, the Cardinal’s eyes widened; he began to hack up blood.
"Adam, you... you will drag the Church into... endless... torment..."
Blood pooled on the golden floor; the Cardinal’s corpse was dragged away by the Holy Knights. The other Cardinals said nothing, and the heads they had lifted now bowed again.
"Hmph! Endless torment? If we truly let human hearts run wild and allow development, that would be what drags the Church into endless torment!"
His Holiness Adam recalled the so-called “great” divine corpse in the Vatican’s rear hill and felt he would not sleep well tonight.
Human hearts are unpredictable; as someone who climbed the ranks step by step, how could Adam not know this? Without the divine corpse, the Church could live with any social development—even if the Church fell, it would be tolerable.
Is Adam so lacking in resolve? Would he not realize that letting society develop weakens the Church’s foundations?
But because the divine corpse existed, he had to act decisively.
The more prosperous society became, the more schemers there would be. Only when everyone is starving and has no control over their own lives will people stop thinking of rebellion—survival becomes the sole concern, leaving no energy for other ideas.
Otherwise, some self-proclaimed clever fools would grow discontented and scheme to seize the essence of the Holy Knights; if they discovered the divine corpse, Adam wouldn’t have to worry—these people would try to use it to drag humanity into irreversible ruin!
Deceive hearts, suppress development, make the poor merely scrape by, keep the powerful trembling, and freeze society’s progress—so that fewer people entertain treacherous thoughts, so the Pope can rule forever, and the divine corpse remains sealed on the rear hill.
Human hearts are unpredictable; Adam would not gamble on anyone’s intentions!
In short, His Holiness Adam had been driven to extremes by the divine corpse on the Vatican’s rear hill.
The Church really has no normal people!