"Pope? How many divisions can he have?" "Their army has arrived at the city, fifty-five in total, Your Majesty." - "Records of the Valking Conquest"
With the solemn and sacred bells of the church ringing through every street, the first ray of sunshine in the morning dyed the great city of Feilengcui golden yellow.
This is the capital of the Papal State and the cultural and trade center of the city-state. It has the most prosperous urban area, colleges full of knowledge, noisy workshops, and the towering Notre Dame Cathedral.
When dusk approaches at the end of the day, sacred and solemn music will be played in the theater square here, and the monks will sing in unison to sing scriptures and praise all the good things bestowed upon people by the omniscient and omnipotent Lord.
However, tonight the crowd in the square dispersed early, and even the usually noisy evening market became extremely quiet as the night fell. The entire Feilengcui seemed to be swept over by the scythe of death at the moment the sun set. It became a lonely dead city, with only the raven hovering above still emitting its sad cry.
Late at night, a drunkard seemed to have stopped drinking. Holding a half-filled wine glass in his hand, he wandered into the dark and deserted alley. He couldn't remember the direction of his home for a moment, so he could only blindly grope forward with his head in a daze, half-limping.
Suddenly, he vaguely felt the light of fire flickering at the end of the road ahead, and his mind felt dizzy as if he heard the sound of horse hooves. He squinted his eyes and took a closer look, and suddenly broke out in a cold sweat, and was mostly awake from the wine.
He found that it was the knights of the Holy See who were galloping towards him. The riders were wearing black robes made of cloth, and oil lamps were hung on the horses. The masks on the human faces showed ferocious faces under the reflection of the firelight. Although There was a drunkard blocking the way, but these knights showed no intention of slowing down and rushed straight towards his door.
The drunk man who was scared to death quickly dodged and fell into the ditch on the roadside.
"Hurry up! Follow up with the people behind!"
The knights lined up all the way, orderly in the chaos, and the fast horses shuttled through the alleys. The rats on the road were startled and the crows on the eaves fled in all directions.
When this group of people came to the main street, similar numbers of knights in uniforms also poured out from other forks in the street. They naturally merged together, like a mighty and well-trained army. They passed through the emerald urban area and galloped towards the suburbs.
The rapid sound of horse hooves was like a messy piece of music, making people upset. Every accent seemed to be destroying Duke Dominic's nerves, waking him up suddenly from his nightmare and quickly pulling out the dagger under his pillow. It seemed that he had anticipated that something was about to happen.
He stared around the dark room with wide eyes. There was nothing unusual here except a frightened old duke. The rapid sound of horse hooves had long disappeared from his ears, as if everything was just a nightmare.
Dominic slowly calmed down his breathing. He found that the window in the room was not closed tightly. Maybe it was just the sound of the wind that gave him nightmares. And when he walked towards the window, he found that there seemed to be a vague figure standing in the garden of the mansion, looking up at him. The person raised his hand and made a gesture for him to come down, and then turned around and left the window visible. view.
"Barron! Why is there someone in my yard!" Dominic shouted the servant's name loudly, but received no response. "Barron!? Where are you!"
In desperation, Dominic gripped the dagger tightly, picked up the candlestick beside the bed, carefully opened the door and walked outside. He kept trying to call the servants, but the entire mansion was silent and could only hear his own footsteps and heartbeat.
When he wanted to go down the stairs to the foyer, the dark wind blowing from nowhere extinguished the candles. The uneasy feeling made him breathe heavily. He could only use his memory to walk down the stairs in the dark.
The hazy moonlight, separated by a layer of mist, through the window could only add a touch of desolation to the dim foyer. Dominic couldn't see clearly, but it felt like he was stepping into a puddle rather than stepping on the floor. He walked straight to the door and pushed the heavy door open. The knights in black had already been waiting outside the door for a long time.
"Your Excellency, please come with us." The leader saluted respectfully, while the guys around him surrounded Dominic in a semi-arc.
"The Tribunal... you shouldn't be here. Even if I do something, it's not up to you to control it. Get out of my courtyard immediately." Dominic's expression was angry at first, and then he seemed to realize something. Suddenly he frowned, holding the sword hilt at his waist tightly with his right hand, and veins popped out on his wrist.
"I understand, he sent you here. I didn't expect that he had already put his hand into the court."
"Don't get excited Duke, we are just following the Pope's orders as a matter of routine."
"Pope?" Dominic sneered first, and then roared in a low voice: "He is not the Pope! He has no qualifications!"
Dominic drew out his sword and pointed it at the throat of the man in front of him, but this intimidation had no effect. The expressions of this group of people cannot be seen through the masks. They are like a group of evil ghosts who are not afraid of death and continue to move forward with swords in their hands.
Seeing that the situation was not good, Dominic wanted to escape back indoors driven by instinct. However, the moment he turned around, he was so shocked by the sight in front of him that he froze on the spot. The moonlight poured directly into the room from the gate. He saw the servants in his mansion lying in a pool of blood. They would never respond to his call again. No one was spared the disaster.
And when he looked around the room, the shadows were already filled with people from the Tribunal. The cold masks had been observing Dominic in the darkness for who knows how long.
"You, how dare you! You lackeys! I would rather die than surrender!" He raised the dagger in his hand and was about to turn around to attack. However, the moment he turned around, the person who just took the lead moved faster. A heavy punch hit him directly in the face, instantly taking away his consciousness and knocking the Duke unconscious.
"Take away." Following the cold command, Dominic was dragged out by the collar like a corpse without human rights. Finally, he was thrown on a horse and taken to an unknown place.
Not far away, in a pavilion in the garden of Donimik's house, two people, a man and a woman, who seemed to have special status, witnessed the entire incident. The man's left hand holds a scepter as large as his body. He is wearing a white floor-length robe with a hint of scarlet at the end. His head is covered by a hood, and there is a layer of tulle underneath the hood to cover his face. Look. It sounds extremely sacred but also has a suffocating sense of oppression.
The lady next to him looks like a guard. She is also dressed in white, but the joints of her body are designed with leather protection. A sword hangs from her waist. She wears a white mask with no facial features on her face, except for the eyes. Densely distributed tiny holes.
The two of them looked at Dominic's tragic situation. The man was the first to break the silence and asked in his heavy and cold voice: "In your opinion, is everything I did too cruel?"
"You are doing it for the entire Feileng Cui... Bloodshed and sacrifice are inevitable in the current situation, and you made the decision only after careful consideration." The lady responded cautiously.
"You don't have to be so reserved. If I want to hear nonsense flattery, I will find a more suitable candidate." His tone was so cold that the female guard couldn't help but swallow her saliva. "Go on, I know you have something to say."
"Yes, I just feel..."
"What do you think?" the man urged coldly.
"Although Dominic died unjustly, at least those servants were innocent. Didn't we do something..."
"Innocent?" The guard was interrupted by the man. "When things get to this point, in my opinion, no one is innocent."
"However, too many people have died this month, and according to this trend... more people will die."
"What are you worried about? Are you worried that you won't be able to go to heaven? Come on. You have been with me for many years and you should know my style of doing things. The outcome was already doomed from the moment they provoked me." Then, the man looked at the Duke 's mansion, saying in a contemptuous tone: "May they rest in peace, Hallelujah."
He tapped the ground with the scepter in his hand, and a wisp of flame miraculously ignited from the bottom of the scepter. The flame quickly spread forward in a curved line like a python, passing through the garden paths and crawling up. Passing the stone path in front of the mansion, it spreads into the interior of the house. Within a few dozen seconds, hot pillars of fire spurted out from countless windows, and Dominic's mansion instantly burst into flames. The flames danced with the devil in the air, illuminating the dead night as bright as day.
"Tonight is just a personal grudge between me and him."
Looking at such a spectacular sight, the man slowly left the pavilion holding his scepter. "Let's go, I have an evening tea party that needs to be dealt with urgently. And you, you should go back early. Remember to do your part, Winnie."
Seeing that the man was about to leave, the lady known as Winnie said nothing more, but bowed to his back after a brief silence. "Yes, my respected Pope." Then, the night returned to its own tranquility, with only the crackling of the flames resounding for a long time.
On July 14, star date 4084, an unexpected fire wiped out the traces of Duke Dominic. There were huge differences within his family over the succession of the title of duke, which led to a series of bloody events. .
However, in July of the same year, there were dozens of such incidents, involving countless prominent families and court members. The number of direct or indirect disappearances and accidental deaths was even estimated to be in the thousands. It was named "Bloody July" in its records.
