“The Pope? How many divisions can he have?” “Their hordes are already under the city, fifty-five in all, Your Majesty.” --Record of the Valkyrie Conquest War

The first rays of the morning sun tinted the great city of Fiddlesticks a golden color as the solemn and sacred bells of the churches rang through every street.

The capital of the Pope's Kingdom and the cultural and trade center of the city-state's jurisdiction, it had the busiest downtown area, knowledge-filled colleges, noisy workshops, and the towering Cathedral of Our Lady.

At the end of the day, as dusk approached, sacred and solemn music would be played in the theater plaza, and the monks would sing in unison to glorify the scriptures for all the good that the all-knowing Lord had bestowed upon the people.

Tonight, however, the crowds in the square dispersed early, and even the usually noisy evening market became particularly quiet with the shroud of night, and the whole of Fei Leng Cui seemed to have been whisked over by the scythe of the god of death the moment the sun set, turning it into a lonely, dead city, with only the dodo crows circling above it still uttering their mournful chirps.

Late at night, a drunkard seemed to have broken his drink. Holding a half-spilled glass of wine in his hand, he staggered into a dark and empty alley, unable to remember the direction of his own home for a moment, and could only grope his way blindly with a drowsy brain and a half-limp body.

Suddenly, he vaguely felt that the end of the road in front of him flickering fire, his brain dizzy as if listening to the sound of horses' hooves, he squinted his eyes to take a closer look, instantly shocked into a cold sweat, the wine also sobered up most of the time.

He realized that it was the knights of the Church galloping towards him, those riders wearing cloth black robes, horses hung with oil lamps, the masks on the faces of the people in the reflection of the firelight showed a hideous face, although there were drunkards blocking the way, but the group of knights did not have the slightest intention of slowing down, and rushed straight towards his face.

The drunken man who was scared half to death hastily dodged, and ended up falling into the roadside ditch with one heel.

“Hurry up! The people at the back keep up!”

The knights were in a column all the way, organized in chaos, their fast horses weaving in and out of the alleys, startling the rats on the pavement to flee in all directions, and the crows on the eaves of the houses to scatter in all directions.

When this team of people came to the main street, the other forks in the street have also emerged in similar numbers, dressed in the same knights, they naturally converge all the way, like a well-trained army through the city of Fei Leng Cui, galloping in the direction of the outskirts of the countryside.

The sound of the horses' hooves was like a chaotic and disturbing tune, and every accent seemed to break Duke Dominic's nerves, jolting him out of his nightmare and quickly drawing his short sword from under his pillow, as if he had expected something to happen.

He looked around the darkened room with wide eyes, there was nothing here but a frightened old Duke, and the sound of horses' hooves had long since faded from his ears, as if it had all been a nightmare.

Dominic slowly calmed his breathing as he realized that the window to the room was not closed, perhaps it was just the wind that was giving him nightmares. And as he walked towards the window, he noticed that there seemed to be a figure standing vaguely in the garden of the mansion looking up at him, the man raised his hand in a gesture for him to come down and then turned away from the view visible from the window.

“Barron! Why is someone in my yard!” Dominic shouted the servant's name, but was slow to get a response. “Barron! Where are you people!”

Helplessly, Dominic gripped his short sword tightly and grabbed the candlestick at the end of his bed, and carefully pushed open the door of the house towards the outside. He kept trying to call out to the servants, but the whole mansion was so quiet that only his own footsteps and heartbeat could be heard.

When he tried to walk down the stairs to the foyer, a gust of wind from somewhere extinguished the candles, and the feeling of uneasiness made him breathe heavily, so he could only walk down the stairs a little bit in the dark from memory.

The hazy moonlight was separated by a layer of mist, and through the window only added a touch of coldness to the dimly lit foyer. Dominic couldn't see clearly, but felt as if he had stepped not on the floor but into a puddle. He walked straight to the door and pushed the heavy door outward, and the black-clad knights had been waiting outside for a long time.

“Lord Duke, please come with us.” The man in the lead saluted respectfully, while the guys beside him surrounded Dominic in a half-arc.

“Judgement Court...you shouldn't be here, even if I did something, it's not up to you, now exit my courtyard immediately.” Dornimik's expression was angry at first, then he seemed to realize something, suddenly frowning, his right hand gripped the hilt of the sword at his waist tightly, veins rippled on his wrist.

“I see, he sent you guys, I can't imagine that he has already put his hand into the court of judgment.”

“Don't get excited Duke, we're just on routine business by order of the Pope.”

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“The Pope?” Dominic first sneered, then roared in a low voice, “He's not the Pope! He doesn't have that qualification!”

Dominic drew the blade of his sword and aimed it at the throat of the man in front of him, but yet such intimidation did not have any effect. Through the mask, he could not see the group's expression, they were like a group of evil ghosts that were not afraid of death, and they continued to press forward against the sword blade.

Seeing that the situation was not good, Dominic, driven by instinct, wanted to escape back to the room, but the moment he turned around he was shocked by the sight in front of him and froze in place. Moonlight poured through the door, and he saw the servants of his mansion sprawled in a pool of blood, no longer answering his cries, no one had been spared.

And as his eyes looked around the chamber, the shadows had long since been filled with Inquisitors as well, a cold mask that had been watching Dominic in the darkness for who knows how long.

“You, how dare you! You bunch of lackeys! I'd rather die than give in!” He raised the short sword in his hand and was about to turn back to strike, however, the moment he turned around, the man who had just led the way struck him straight in the face with a plan of a heavy punch at an even faster speed, instantly taking away his consciousness and knocking this Lord Duke out.

“Take away.” With the cold order, Dominic was dragged out by his collar like a corpse without human rights, and was eventually thrown onto a horse and taken to an unknown place.

And not far away, just inside the pavilion in the garden of the Dornimick house, a man and a woman, two people who looked like they had special status, witnessed the whole course of events. The man's left hand held a scepter of equal size, dressed in a white floor-length robe with a scarlet tint at the end, his head covered by a hood with a veil underneath to hide his face, he looked incredibly holy yet had a suffocating sense of oppression.

The lady beside him looked like a guard, also dressed in white, but the joints of his body were designed with leather protection, with a sword hanging from his waist, and his face wore a white mask without any facial features, only his eyes were densely distributed with tiny holes.

The two men looked at Dominic's miserable state, that man was the first to break the silence, and spoke in its heavy, icy voice and asked, “In your opinion, isn't what I've done too cruel?”

“You did it for the sake of the entire Fei Cui...bloodshed is inevitable in its current form, and you had no choice but to make the decision after much deliberation.” The lady responded cautiously.

“There's no need to be so formal, if I wanted to listen to complimentary nonsense, I would have found someone more suitable.” His tone was cold and oozing, scaring the lady attendant so much that she couldn't help but gulp. “Go ahead, I know you have something to say.”

“Yes, I just feel...”

“Feel what?” The man prodded coldly.

“Dominic deserved to die, but at least those servants were innocent, and isn't what we're doing a little...”

“Innocent?” The guard's words were cut off by the man. “Things have come to this, no one is innocent in my opinion.”

“But, too many people have already died this month, and with this trend...more will die.”

“What are you worried about? Worried about not going to heaven? Come on. You've followed me for many years, you should be clear about my style of doing things, and the moment they messed with me, the end was already predetermined.” Immediately afterward, the man looked towards the Duke's mansion and said in a contemptuous tone, “May they rest in peace, hallelujah.”

He tapped the ground with the scepter in his hand, and from the base of the scepter a flame miraculously flared up, which in turn spread rapidly forward in a curved line like a python, crossing the garden path, crawling over the stone path in front of the mansion's door, and spreading all the way into the interior of the house. In less than a few dozen seconds, hot columns of fire erupted from countless windows, and Dominic's mansion was instantly ablaze, the flames dancing with the devil in the air and illuminating the deadly black night as bright as day.

“Tonight, it's just a personal vendetta between me and him.”

Looking at such a spectacular sight, the man leaned on his scepter and slowly left the pavilion. “Come on, I have an evening tea party that needs urgent attention. As for you, it's time for you to return early, remember to do your part, Winnie.”

Watching the man about to leave in the distance, the lady known as Winnie did not say anything more, but only bowed and curtsied to his back after a short silence. “Yes, my honorable Pope.” Afterwards, the night returned to the quietness it belonged to, with only the crackling of the flames resounding for a long, long time.

On July 14th of the year 4084 of the Stardate, an accidental fire wiped out the traces of Duke Dominic, and there was such a great disagreement within his family over the succession to the title that a series of bloodshed ensued.

However, in July of the same year, there were dozens of such incidents, involving countless members of prestigious families and courts, directly or indirectly leading to the disappearance and accidental deaths of thousands of people have even been estimated, and later on in the historical record will be named as - “Bloody July “.