The Church Disaster
The Church Disaster
The residents in the city were all hiding in their houses with their doors closed. There was no one on the street and it had become a little deserted after the war.
"Sir Lehmann, is your arm okay?" "Shield" Knight Levin asked.
"It's not a big problem." Lehmann Howes shrugged. "At least I can still move." However, the shrugging move had caused him to frown suddenly.
The hasty war last night was very successful. There were only 20 soldiers guarding the eastern gate of the stronghold and they did not expect the enemy to attack within the city.
Although the horn was sounded, it took the reinforcements at least 15 minutes to arrive. The mercenaries who had taken the pills jumped onto the city wall and killed the soldiers on watch one by one, and Lehmann opened the city door along with the knights. He did not notice that there was a side door beside the city wall in the dark, and two soldiers came out from the door, one of whom jumped over to Lehmann with an iron hammer in his hand.
In order to facilitate the rotation of the capstan, he had kept his weapon by his waist and Lehmann could only block with his arm in the haste while Levin, on the other side, pointed out his swords and pierced into the soldier's waist almost at the same time. The hammer force that struck on his arm was decreased by half under the influence of the deadly attack, but yet it still left a dented mark on his arm armor.
Lehmann did not feel much pain at that moment, only after they won the city gate did he realize that he could barely lift up his right arm. He found his forearm swollen like a rolling pin after taking off the armor.
"I hope there's some pain-killer herb in the church," Levin said, "They always have some strange and eccentric stuff."
"Such as the pill," another knight, Duane, came up and said with a smile.
[Two people were killed in the night attack among the 13 knights and one is seriously injured and currently lying in the camp groaning. He probably won't last through the night. The loss is acceptable in general,"] Lehmann thought, [now that the militia army had entered the city, the stronghold should entirely fall into my hands.]
After a while, they came to the church entrance and there was already a team of over 100 militias awaiting command. They all looked hopeful when they saw Lehmann.
"Distribute the pills to them." Lehmann turned around to dismount and walked up to the stairs towards the main hall with the team after everyone received their pills.
"Stop!" two believers who were on the watch shouted, "no weapons are allowed in the holy place!"
Levin pulled out his weapon and delivered it with both hands. "Alright. I'll give it to you now, okay?" He suddenly held onto the sword handle and pointed it upwards when the believer was about to reach out for the sword, both of the believer's arms dropped on the floor.
"Ah..." Before the believer could scream, the knight had pierced his sword tip into his throat.
Levin's nickname was "Shield", however, it did not match with his swift sword skills.
The other believer's throat was also cut by Duane. Lehmann kicked the door open and walked into the hall without any expression.
"Who're you?" A middle-aged man, wearing a priest robe with a white base and blue trim, walked towards them. Facing the bloody edge of the sword, he showed no fear. "How dare you break into the church! My children, catch them!"
Lehmann sneered. Most of the people were now hiding in the house and there were only 20 or 30 believers residing in the church. There would only be a dead end for them, facing the knights who had fought in hundreds of wars.
Duane did not wait for Lehmann's command. He drew his sword with a sneaky smile and rushed towards the believers. The others quickly joined the war and the church was suddenly in chaos. Looking at the situation, the priest loudly shouted, "My children, take the pills and let the Gods give you the power to defeat the mob!"
Timothy, His Majesty, was right and Lehmann was pleased. There really were pills here! The believers' eyes turned red and the blue veins appeared on their faces. An ordinary human could overcome the limitations of a human body in both strength and speed, and they were harder to handle in smaller spaces when the pills took effect. [Unfortunately, you're not the only ones who have the pills,] Lehmann thought, [you're going to have a taste of your own power.]
"Get out of the wat!" He yelled. "Militia, engage the enemy!"
The militia behind him quickly swallowed the double-colored pills after hearing him and fought the frantic believers closely. The priest finally turned pale and said, "Why would you have...!"
"The Holy Medicine?" Lehmann walked around the group of people from both parties and approached the priest with a sword in one hand. "This is a gift from the church. If you didn't come in between, His Majesty would probably have ruled the Kingdom of Graycastle."
"His Majesty?" the priest stared at him and said, "you're Timothy's..."
His voice abruptly stopped, and the sword in the knight's hand was already piercing through his heart from his chest.
The war of great disparity quickly ended and over 20 believers were killed, with the corpses lying all around the floor. After the efficacy faded, the militia was breathing heavily and sitting down beside the corpses contentedly without caring about the blood that was wantonly flowing.
Lehmann started to notice that his arm was getting increasingly heavy, and he could feel a searing pain from pointing his sword. Sometimes he also wanted to swallow the black-colored pill to ignore the physical exhaustion and pain, but he put away this idea every time he saw the ugly appearance of the pill-takers.
Lehmann had had a deep understanding of the two pills sold by the church. For a healthy person, the pills would only take effect for three times. The first time lasted for about 15 minutes, and then the duration would become shorter and shorter, forming a strong dependence on it. If no medicine was taken for a long time, the body would gradually decline until the person died.
Using this characteristic, he had unified the militia to take the pills before the departure in order to make them follow his command. The desire of the drugs would turn the weakest farmer into a bloodthirsty beast. This was the second time the 100 people took the pills and they had only one use remaining.
However... after three times of continuously supplementing the drugs, they would only help to reduce the pain but it could not reverse the process. In other words, it was equivalent to putting one foot in the coffin. Of course, Lehmann would not share this with the group of people.
There was no doubt that the double-colored pills were the church's conspiracy. Timothy, His Majesty, recognized this point clearly and stopped the knights from taking them. However, they were also a weapon that would unify the kingdom, or perhaps... a necessity. His Majesty would not be able to defeat Garcia Wimbledon, who possessed the same pills, without them.
When His Majesty first mentioned this matter, Lehmann found it unbelievable, as he was not able to understand why the church wanted to support both of the royal blood to fight for the throne. However, a series of misfortunes had made him increasingly agree with His Majesty's judgement. He had no further doubt about it after seeing the pills in the Western Region church today—the church did not plan to assist any of the royal blood to ascend the throne, but they wanted the entire Kingdom of Graycastle.
"The pills were found in the basement, four big boxes, and there were thousands of pieces in total." After the church was searched thoroughly, Levin excitedly reported, "There were also a lot of gold royals, jewelry, and silk that were supposedly donated by the believers."
"Take what we can and burn the rest," Lehmann ordered. "After all, all of this was done by Roland Wimbledon, we were just assisting the church to suppress the rebellion."
As the drugs could only be reliably supplied by the church, it was not the time to completely ruin the relationship yet, and pushing it to Prince Roland, he would have no testimony from a witness. His Majesty was staying in the north in order to prevent the church from being suspicious to create the illusion of complying to the other party, sending only several knights to recruit a large number of militias to take down the Western Region.
Now the church had focused the entire force in the Kingdom of Wolfheart, ignoring the situation here. Therefore, it was necessary to unify the Kingdom of Graycastle as soon as possible in order to draw the strength to resist the church's attack—Timothy, His Majesty, believed that they would soon attack the Kingdom of Graycastle and it was necessary to store and collect as many pills as possible before that. At the same time, he ordered the Alchemist Workshop of King's City to study the composition of the drugs to imitate it as soon as possible.
Now that they had the pills on hand, the final step for the task was left—completely eliminate Roland Wimbledon.