Chapter 488: Collapse

The heresy trial ceremony teetered on the brink of chaos.

Flamberon had long anticipated every possible variable in the heresy trial. The worst-case scenario he imagined was his divine spell failing—after all, using the Great Divine Spell to detect heresy was subject to many uncontrollable factors, and his own power wasn’t yet strong enough to guarantee absolute control over it.

But he never expected the crisis to come from the exact opposite direction: his divine spell was being amplified.

As the milky-white halo spread across the entire square, Flamberon realized the situation was spiraling out of control.

He had known from the start that very few of the common folk in the outer district of Luan could pass the Great Divine Spell’s test.

Years of blockade had severely eroded the faith of the believers. Leaflets circulating throughout the city had shaken everyone’s belief in the God of the Holy Light. Flamberon might not have cared about the lives of the lower classes, but as a seasoned cleric, he understood human nature—he knew how fragile ordinary people’s resolve would be under such circumstances. And yet, the “Great Divine Spell” was an extremely harsh test. In fact, it was never originally designed to judge ordinary people for heresy; its true purpose was to test the strength of the faith of the clergy!

Using a spell meant to test the extraordinary on commoners and calling it a “heresy trial” was a simple ploy: it ensured that anyone standing against the church would be swiftly condemned.

From the very beginning, the trial was never fair. No matter which civilian the soldiers dragged onto the square, there was a 99% chance they would be judged heretics!

The temporary bishop of Luan immediately tried to sever his connection to the divine spell, but it made no difference. The aftereffects of the Great Divine Spell were being strengthened by some unknown force. The halo continued to spread, now enveloping the heads of those gathered in the square.

The civilians stirred in panic but had no time to escape the spell’s reach. The pure white halo swept over them, and what happened next left every cleric dumbfounded: one by one, shimmering, fractured light shields appeared around the civilians, each being marked as heretics by the spell.

As the halo expanded, the broken light shields formed an unbroken sea of shattered faith. Among the countless “heretic” marks, fewer than ten percent maintained a steady glow of the Holy Light—and even those were dim and flickering, barely passing the test.

In this city of the church, the entire population was deemed heretical.

Flamberon felt dizzy, as if a black tide of broken light was rushing toward him. Through his swirling vision, he saw something even more terrifying:

The halo wasn’t just spreading over the civilians—it was creeping onto the heads of the clerics standing at the edge of the judgment platform, those undergoing punishment.

Their light shields also began to fracture and waver.

Next came the church knights and soldiers. They stared in shock and fear as the halo enveloped them, and moments later, their shields shattered too, black cracks spreading like ink stains around them.

“Lord…” came a startled cry from the clerical council behind Flamberon. His heart tightened. He tried to steady his pounding pulse, but when he turned back, the horrifying sight froze his breath:

Among the clerics on the platform, between those from Luan’s grand cathedral, two venerable assistant bishops looked at themselves in despair. A dimming layer of Holy Light was fracturing around them, and the black cracks were spreading rapidly.

The Great Divine Spell, which should have only spread toward the square, had suddenly been amplified and was now affecting the clerical council itself!

“Hold onto your faith!” Flamberon finally shouted, unable to contain himself. “Do not doubt your beliefs! Do not question what you are doing!”

After his shout, a sudden image flashed through his mind—

Among the civilians closest to the judgment platform, a few clusters of unusually bright, steady light had appeared moments ago…

He had thought those were civilians with exceptionally strong faith and a natural affinity for the Holy Light—rare, but not impossible. Now, belatedly, he realized how abnormal it was. Or rather, he should have realized it from the start, but his shock had robbed him of judgment in those crucial seconds.

Those lights were not the glow of passing the Great Divine Spell—they were the Holy Light itself! Something akin to divine magic!

“The Cecilian agents are in the square!” Flamberon raised his staff high and shouted to the knights and soldiers still panicked around the platform, “Seize those—”

His shout cut off abruptly. When his gaze swept over the square, the suspicious figures had vanished.

They had withdrawn as soon as the situation began to spiral.

All he saw were a few strange metal plates scattered on the ground, their surfaces shimmering with bright, sacred light. Powerful divine energy pulsed from them.

For a moment, Flamberon was stunned. The metal plates seemed to buckle under some pressure, crackling and sparking, smoke rising as the sacred glow on their surfaces instantly faded.

As these strange “divine artifacts” ceased functioning, the Great Divine Spell spreading across the square finally stopped.

But it was too late to turn back. The entire square fell into a deathly silence.

Flamberon stood on the high wooden platform like a statue, his face frozen in a grim expression. He looked at the dazed civilians and the silent clerics, his mind racing with one desperate question:

When a heresy trial declares nearly the entire city’s believers and clergy as heretics, what is one of the few who are not supposed to be heretics supposed to do?!

Should he call upon the Lord to purge the city of heretics? Or pretend nothing happened, as if the Lord’s power had simply faltered this once?

For the first time in his life, Flamberon wished the God of the Holy Light would just strike him down with divine punishment—burn him to ashes—anything to avoid facing the hardest choice of his life.

But at that moment, a strange howling sound suddenly came from the sky, breaking the temporary bishop’s paralysis.

He was stunned for a moment, as if unable to comprehend the noise. But then he noticed the fearful expressions on the faces of the exiled knights gathering at the edge of the square, and instantly understood what the sound meant.

It was the Cecilians. The “Heaven’s Fire” of the Cecilians had arrived! They had finally made their move!

Flamberon couldn’t suppress a surge of joy. All his troubles seemed about to be solved with the arrival of the Cecilian fire. He spun around and looked at the clerical council behind him. On their faces, awakening to the situation, he saw the same joy.

The Cecilians were finally attacking the holy city with their weapons!

The out-of-control heresy trial, the spreading doubts and divisions in the city—all of it would become history. The moment the Cecilians launched their assault, all the mistakes the cathedral’s clerics had made would be seen as mere preludes to a noble martyrdom. And Flamberon… had long prepared himself to die for the cause.

He was truly devout, and so was the clerical council. From the start, they had not feared death—not a false courage, but genuine fearlessness. Their faith in the God of the Holy Light was ingrained in their very bones. Even the most selfish among them would summon immense courage when it came to “sacrificing for the Lord.”

“The time to sacrifice for the Lord has come!” Flamberon suddenly cried out, raising his staff high. Brilliant holy light burst forth from behind him. “I will prove my devotion with my blood!”

The clerical council shouted back fervently, “The time to sacrifice for the Lord has come!”

The howling in the air grew louder as the magical weapons wrapped in pale cyan energy streaked through the sky. Flamberon’s extraordinary eyes tracked their flight from the southeast, like falcons diving toward the earth. He narrowed his eyes and opened his arms wide, silently awaiting death.

His body trembled with excitement, driven by his great faith in the God of the Holy Light.

Then, the “Heaven’s Fire” flying in from afar suddenly exploded in midair above the city.

With a sound far softer than a typical magical crystal cannon blast, the cyan energy spheres disintegrated one by one. The metal structures inside shattered into pieces. After the hollow shells burst, countless leaflets fluttered down from the sky.

Flamberon squinted, arms outstretched, waiting for death that never came. Puzzled, he opened his eyes and saw the civilians in the square craning their necks to look up.

A leaflet drifted down before him. The temporary bishop caught it and stared at the familiar, finely printed words:

“…The heresy trial is the greatest lie…

“…Sacrificing civilians, kidnapping their will—this is no different from robbery…

“…The Holy Light should not be decided by the clerics in the church; the Holy Light belongs to everyone…

“Abandon futile resistance. Cecilia will treat all friends equally…”

With each howl and explosion, more and more leaflets rained down. Flamberon stared blankly at the sky, feeling as if it were snowing endlessly.

The leader of the Order of Discipline finally reacted. The senior cleric in black robes shouted the only words he could think of to salvage the situation:

“It’s the evil magic of the Cecilians! They have used dark magic and demonic pacts to disrupt the heresy trial! The ceremony has been corrupted—this trial is invalid, invalid!”

The clerical council echoed loudly in agreement. Flamberon regained some composure amid the shouting. He summoned the Holy Light one last time and declared loudly the farce’s conclusion: “This heresy trial has been compromised by sorcery and is hereby suspended.”

Then, the tall temporary bishop ignored everyone in the square. He cast aside the reactions of the civilians as if fleeing, and swiftly led the clerical council through the cathedral district’s gates.

At the edge of the square, a pair of amber eyes watched coldly through the crack of a window in a modest house, observing the farce unfolding below come to its fittingly farcical end.

Flamberon had retreated back to the church district; the bishop and clergy of Lu’an City still lived.

But the Church of the Holy Light in the southern lands was finally dead.

Now, there was only one thing left to do.

(End of chapter)