Chapter 179 (1/2)

Chapter 179 Conversion Ritual

To become the next Pope, it was necessary to grasp all knowledge about the God’s Punishment Army’s Conversion Ceremony. A year ago, after O’Brian had declared that Mayne would be the one to become his successor, he had given him books about the ceremony to read. Only when he had obtained all the knowledge within would he have the qualifications to succeed him.

Because of this, the contents of the book have long since already been memorized.

To create a new soldier for the God’s Punishment Army, it was necessary to sacrifice a witch’s life. A mixture was made out of her blood and out of the God’s Punishment Stones, which was then injected into a warrior of the Army of Judges. During the centuries the pattern of the ceremony had been improved many times, but the essence of it has never changed – while the number of witches decided the upper limit of the possible number of new member for the God’s Punishment Army, it was the devotion and will of the Judges which decided its rate of success.

After reading this book, he finally came to understand why the Church would accommodate so many young women every year. There was no outward sign to indicated that they would turn into a witch, before the moment they started to gather their magic, they were completely the same as any other human. But once they began to converge into their magic power, their body, organs, and blood would all be changed. So, in addition to expanding the scale of the breeding, there was no other way they could raise the number of witches.

This was also the reason why he had approved of Heather’s way of speaking – everything they had ever done was totally evil, the hands of the people within the higher ranks of the Church were all soaked in blood. They had killed more witches than any executioner. But in order to defeat the Devil, to avoid the destruction of humanity, they had no choice but to do so.

Only the victorious would be qualified to obtain God’s favor.

…

There were two Judges placed on the conversion table, and Mayne knew both of them, namely it was Dylan from the first battalion and also Tucker Thor, a Holy City guard, who was still a Presiding Judge.

Even though both of them were smiling and trying to display their faith, but because of their tensed muscles and clenched fist, the Archbishop could still see just how nervous they truly were. So he tried to calm them by stepping up to them and patting their shoulders, “Relax, I believe both of you will succeed.”

“Your Excellency, as long as we endure the pain, will we make it?” Dylan couldn’t prevent himself from asking.

“That’s right, you only have to hold on,” Mayne laughed. “Your name is Dylan, right?”

“You remembered my name,” he became totally excited.

“Of course, you are a member of the First Battalion, which had participated in the war to defend Hermes last year. The captain of your unit is… Alecia, am I right?”

“Yes,” Dylan nodded over and over, “During the battle, our unit suffered heavy casualties, half of my comrades died under the claws of the demonic beasts. I thought that if I could get the ability to kill those mixed species like I’d seen the God’s Punishment Army do, Your Excellency, I would also want to become a member of the God’s Punishment Army!”

“That’s a firm belief,” Mayne encouraged, and then turned around to look at the other Judge. “So what’s about you, Tucker Thor, what is your reason for becoming a member of the God’s Punishment Army?”

“I want to defend the New Holy City,” said the Presiding Judge. “Furthermore, it seems that each passing year the demonic beasts only keep on growing stronger. They already broke through the wall of the Holy City last year, and if it weren’t for the God’s Punishment Army, it would have been entirely possible that they cathedral would have had fallen on that day. So now I also want to become a powerful shield against the demonic beasts, and pierce them with my pike.”

“Excellent, you are both the pride of the Church,” Mayne, just as it was described in the ancient records, tried to resolve their tension and fear through using encouraging words. When he saw that their faith was as strong as possible, he waved his hand to signal that the ceremony could now continue.

A group of guards came up to blindfold their eyes and used iron rings to fix their ankles and hands to the top of the table, making it impossible for them to struggle free during the course of the Conversion Ceremony. Then the witch was also brought in and placed on the table between the two.

As a witch that belonged to the Church, she had spent most of her life in a monastery within the Old Holy City, but after her awakening, she was then sent over to the core area, waiting until it was time for her to become the material needed for the conversion.

One day before she was to be turned into a sacrifice, she was forced to drink a lot of dream water was. The dream water was an herbal medicine made from boiling sleeping ferns and winter flowers, it ensured that regardless of what happened she would not wake up during the ceremony.

“Number, age?”

“One, eighteen,” one of the guards replied.