The Divine Punishment Ritual is a knowledge that the Pope must master, and when Mayne received the Divine Punishment Book from His Majesty Oberline a year ago, it was equivalent to obtaining the right to succeed the next Pope.

Mayne had memorized the contents of the book, and a Divine Punishment Army was required to sacrifice the life of a witch, fuse her blood with the Divine Punishment Stone, and infuse it into the Inquisition. This ritual has been refined several times over the centuries, but its essence remains the same - witches are the upper limit that determines the number of divine punishers, and the will of the Inquisitors is the key to the success rate of conversion.

After reading this book, he understood why the church took in so many underage girls every year. Witches appear without warning, and they are indistinguishable from normal people until the magic gathers. And once the magic starts to gather, their bodies, organs, and blood will be changed. So there is no other way than to expand the scale of breeding.

That's why he agrees with Heather's statement that everything they do is so evil that every high-ranking person has blood on their hands, and they slaughter more witches than any other executioner. But in order to defeat the devil, to avoid the destruction of humanity, they had to do it.

Only the victors are eligible for God's favor.

......

Two Inquisitors lay on the conversion platform, and Mayne knew them, Dalion of the Advance Battalion and Tucker Thor of the Holy City Guard, who was also a Presiding Judge.

Both were smiling, but the bishop could still tell the tension in their tense muscles and clenched fists. He patted them on the shoulder, "Relax, I'm sure you can do it." ”

"My lord, will you just have to endure the pain then?" Dalien couldn't help but ask.

"That's right, just get through it," Mayne laughed, "your name is Dalien, right?" ”

"You remember my name. He said excitedly.

"Of course, you are a member of the advance battalion and participated in the defense of Hermes in the previous year, and the captain is ...... Arecia, am I right?"

"Yes," Darien nodded repeatedly, "our team suffered heavy casualties in a battle, and half of them died at the hands of the Mixed Beasts, and I thought it would be good if I could kill all the deformed mongrels. So, my lord, I want to be a Divine Punishment!"

"It's a good belief to be strong to defend your comrades," Mayne encouraged, and then he looked at the Presiding Judge, "What about you, Tucker Thor, and why did you decide to transform into the Divine Punishment Army?"

"To defend the new Holy City, my lord," he said firmly, "the priests say that the evil beasts will grow stronger and stronger every year, and the last time they touched the walls of the Holy City, the cathedral might have been destroyed if it weren't for the Divine Punishment Army. I also want to be a shield against evil beasts and a spear to pierce through enemies. ”

"Very well, you are all the pride of the church," Mayne followed the steps of the text, and used conversation to dissipate their tension and fear, and when he saw that the emotions of the two of them were gradually becoming high, he waved his hand and motioned for the ceremony to continue.

The guards stepped forward to blindfold the two of them and secured their limbs firmly to the transformation table with their hand and foot bands. Then the witch was picked up and laid flat between the two.

As a witch raised by the Church, she spends most of her life in the monastery of the Old Holy City, and after awakening, she is sent to the Privy Chamber, where she is used as material to be transformed. The day before the sacrifice, she had been poured with a large amount of Dream Water, an herb made from sleeping ferns and winter flowers, to ensure that no noise during the ritual would wake her up.

"Number, age?"

"One, eighteen years old. The guard replied.

It was a routine inquiry, and only the blood of an adult witch was enough to transform two Divine Punishers at the same time, and Mayne checked the witch roster again to announce the start of the ceremony.

A delicate silver needle was inserted into the witch's arm, and reddish-brown blood flowed down the leather tube wrapped behind the silver needle, collecting into the crystal basin beneath her. The bottom of the basin was covered with a light blue stone of divine punishment, and the blood gradually soaked through the stone, and finally filled the entire basin.

Soon, the Stone of Divine Punishment changed. Through the side of the basin, you can see that the blue stone is absorbing blood, and after about half an hour, the stone gradually melts away, and the cloudy blood becomes clear, and the color changes from reddish-brown to sky blue.

These operations may seem simple, but they have gone through tens of thousands of trials to obtain a complete and reliable set of steps. For example, the estimation of the blood volume of witches of different ages and body shapes, the production of silver needles and leather tubes, the part of the body inserted to drain the blood, the part of the body to be inserted for blood transfusion, and the quality and quantity of the Divine Punishment Stone...... The texts detail the experiments and improvements that have failed in the past, and also explain the general principles of transformation.

When a witch's body is magically modified, its blood is equipped with the ability to strengthen organs and tendons, and if used directly, it will only kill the recipient instantly. The Stone of Punishment must be soaked in the witch's blood to dissolve the "unknown power" before it can be injected into the transformer's body - even then, this blood will damage the person's mind, causing them to gradually lose their emotions and intellect, and eventually only instinct and a part of their strong will remain. The surviving Divine Punishment Army is strengthened to the same level as the Transcendental, and when they are not wearing the Divine Punishment Stone, they can also have the effect of banning demons.

It has to be said that this is a wonderful combination, the blood of a witch can kill a human being, and swallowing the stone of divine punishment can also kill a person, but the combination of the two can minimize this adverse effect.

As the blue liquid slowly flowed down the leather tube into the bodies of the two inquisitors, the green tendons on their arms and necks suddenly burst out, and their expressions were hideous, as if they were enduring great pain. Dalion was the first to shout, and he struggled on the stage, his fingers clenched and spread, but his hands and feet could not move, and in a short time a fine sweat broke out all over his body.

Tucker wasn't much better, he let out a low roar, a little blood foaming from the corners of his mouth, and his whole body twitched.

The liquid level in the crystal basin slowly dropped, and when it was about to bottom, Darien's voice had turned into a cry, and he shouted words of unknown meaning indiscriminately, his skin opened and dissolved, and white smoke rose all over his body. Judging from the description in the text, his transformation was basically on the verge of failure, and when Mayne hesitated to observe it again, the Pope pressed his shoulder from behind, "Enough, let him be free." ”

One of the guards stepped forward, drew his dagger and stabbed Dalyon cleanly into the neck, twisting the hilt violently to end his pain.

After a long wait, Tucker Thor's convulsions subsided, his breathing gradually steadied and his skin turned from rosy to light blue. Mayne knew that he had made it through the ritual.

One succeeded, the other failed, and the Lord sighed, and in just two quarters of an hour, the Church had lost a pious Inquisitor and half of the witch's blood.

But with sixty more Inquisitors waiting to be converted, he had to keep the ritual going.

......

When the ceremony was complete, Mayne could barely stand still, and he staggered off the stage, leaning against the wall of the hall almost out of obscenity.

The Pope slowly crossed over and stood in front of him, "To be honest, I was amazed by your performance, kid. The first time I presided over the ceremony, it was much worse than you. I was forty-five years old that year, and the strong smell of blood made me vomit directly on the ceremony stage, almost wasting a whole basin of blood. The previous pope even gave me a slap in the face, but when I was done, he ordered me to return to the stage and continue to preside over the ceremony. ”

"......" Mayne opened her mouth, but she didn't know what to say.

"So, don't think about anything, just go back and rest for the day. ”

"Yes, Your Majesty. The bishop took a deep breath, knelt down and was about to take his leave, when he suddenly remembered the purpose of his visit, "By the way, you called me to the privy quarter to ......."

"Oh, look at my memory," Oberline shook his head self-deprecatingly, "I came to you to give you a new poison developed by the Agency. ”

"Poison?" There is a special institute in the privy area of the organ that specializes in the study of the Divine Punishment Stone, such as Hearth's Warming Pills, Fluorescent Stones, and Mad Chemicals, etc., and when the results are obtained, they will be distributed to the Bishop for use. But he had never heard of them being involved in poison, which Mayne remembered as what the alchemist was good at.

"Listen to them, this result was all due to a chance. The Pope said slowly. "It can be applied to the surrounding population for a long time by sprinkling it on a decomposing corpse, and does not have to be poured into the mouth like ordinary poison. Without a special antidote, there is basically no cure. You can ask Master Raveneye about the specifics, and I think it might come in handy in the battle against the Four Kingdoms. ”

Mayne immediately thought of the long-lost Broken Tooth Fortress and the unpleasant stalemate in the Grey Keep. Suppressing his joy, he saluted again, "If this poison is as effective as Master Raveneye says, then it will do me a great favor. (To be continued.) )