The prison in the city of Skikda was very filthy.
The floor of each layer was uneven, made of black stone, and the surface of the stone was covered with a layer of black dirt.
The yellow and brown excrement and red blood of the prisoners who were once imprisoned in this prison mixed and dried to form this horrible dark color.
The pungent stench filled the entire cage, and even the rats in Skikda were unwilling to live in the prison.
Perhaps, the only creatures that can live comfortably in this stinking prison are the filthy flies.
Judas was wearing only ragged trousers, which he took off and placed on the floor, sitting on them.
The clean-loving high priest Judah would rather be naked with his fat body as white as jade than be stained by the filth on the ground.
According to him, being naked can bring him closer to his faith, but being stained with dirt will make his devotion to the angels impure.
Judas had been here half the night.
Normally, he would feel nauseous and his stomach would stink like sour water whenever he smelled the stench of the prison, but now he has gradually gotten used to it and can barely stand it.
At this moment, Judah felt extremely regretful.
He shouldn't have used the prison cleaners' wages just to embezzle a few gold coins.
Unfortunately it's too late.
When Judas spent a large sum of money to buy merit and obtained the legendary order, he never thought that even after being promoted to legendary, he would one day end up in jail.
Judas began to sigh involuntarily.
One cry after another is a protest against the injustice of fate.
Gelmos supported , leaning against the black stone wall, his brows furrowed, breathing repeatedly, like a time bomb that was accumulating power.
Unfortunately, the Yasha Fire of Skikda City suppressed Gelmos.
At this moment, Gellmos, a legendary warrior, was no different from an ordinary level 1, stage 1 soldier.
His space backpack and troop cards were all blocked and could not be opened at all.
The Crusaders who were in charge of interrogating them couldn't stand the stench in the prison and hid at the door of the prison.
This was a blessing in disguise, as it gave Gelmos and Judah room to communicate freely.
Gellmos asked Judas, who was three cells away, with a serious expression on his face:
“Priest Judas, you are more familiar with the church.
Do you know who Adela is?
Why would Pope Ronis deprive us of our right to command troops just because of her words?
And they imprisoned us in this stinking cell.
And they want us to accept their rude scrutiny?
We are legendary heroes!
I have done meritorious service to Erathia and I have shed blood for the Church!
How could Pope Ronis disrespect our dignity like this?!"
Judas hesitated for several seconds before answering with lifeless eyes:
"So what if he's a legendary hero? How can he compare to Adela?
Adela is a saint.
She is the only saint in the whole of Erathia.
I don't know the specific details, but Adela is highly trusted by Pope Ronaldius in the church.
You know, when Adela was canonized as a saint, it was Pope Rhonis who crowned her personally.
If Pope Ronald is the core of our church, Adela is the face of our church.
Every year, Adela presides over the church’s disaster relief and large-scale prayer ceremonies.”
That’s it?
The more Gellmos listened, the more he felt something was wrong. He asked in confusion:
"Just because of this?"
"Of course not."
Judas lowered his voice.
"I have a little gossip, you must not tell anyone else."
He continued mysteriously:
“It is said that Adela is an orphan brought back from Longtong Port City by Pope Ronis, and is born with the ability to release water magic.
We humans don’t have the talent for casting spells.”
Gellmos frowned:
"You mean, Adela's parents are from Bracada?"
Judas sighed and said:
"Why can't you understand?
For spellcasting heroes above Legendary level, there is a small chance that their children will inherit their spellcasting talents.
Pope Ronald Reagan is good at praying.
Prayer is water magic.
Adela is blessed by the Holy Spirit.
Holy Spirit's Blessing is also a water magic.
Saint, Saint, but it doesn't necessarily mean a holy woman."
Gellmos's voice was particularly low:
“No wonder, no wonder Ronis trusts Adela so much.
It turns out that Adela is the daughter of Rhonis."
Judas shouted:
"I didn't say anything. You just guessed.
In short, Adela wants to catch us, so we just have to cooperate.
I just hope that nothing happens to her guardian knight, otherwise we will be in trouble."
Thinking of this, Judas became even angrier.
"Gail Moss, if you had listened to me at that time, we would have gone to rescue that guild leader and nothing would have happened.
You insisted on retreating, and you caused me so much trouble. You don’t know how worried I am now.”
Gelmos leaned against the wall and closed his eyes in pain. His five fingers pressed tightly against the black stone wall, even pressing five holes into the hard stone wall.
(If Adela is really the daughter of Ronis, then Saniel and Sosa are in danger.
Damn it, the plan was going well, but then Adela showed up.
Man proposes, God disposes. Is this the trick played by the goddess of fate?
Your Majesty, Gelmos is sorry for you, please save Sosa and the others.)
——
The players of the Timely Rain Chamber of Commerce are very proud of themselves now. They rely on the power of others and Adela to turn the tables and take charge.
They all received the task of investigating clues from Adela, and began to investigate various locations in Skikda City in a big way.
From the main castle of Skikda City to the military camp, all of them have been explored by the players.
Judas's men and Gellmos's men have completely different attitudes towards the players' investigation.
Although the soldiers under Judah cooperated, they always insisted that High Priest Judah was clean, honest, and devout in his faith, and it was impossible for him to collude with Ofer.
Gellmos's subordinates simply refused to cooperate, pretending to obey but actually disobeying, and even attempted to block the progress of the player's investigation.
In the end, it was Palu who led the Crusaders to subdue all the Gelmos soldiers.
Several players from the Tian Xia Hegemony Guild were searching in Judas' room.
But Judas' room was unexpectedly clean and they found nothing.
Meteors glanced around.
Judas' room only had a bed, a wardrobe, a bookcase, and a prayer table.
He and Hai Qinyan searched through all the books but found nothing.
Hai Qinyan murmured to herself:
"This is strange. Could it be that Judas is really an 'honest official'?"
Meteor shook his head and said, "Impossible! We must not have looked carefully enough.
It’s written on the mission reward.
If we find the stolen money, half will be handed over and we at the Timely Rain Chamber of Commerce will keep the other half.
If we can find evidence of collusion between Judas and the forces of Hell, we can keep 70% of the stolen money.
Look again! "
At this moment, Soaring Crane looked at the angel statue on the prayer platform and had some vague ideas.
He walked over, picked up the angel statue and examined it, but after feeling around for a long time he couldn't find anything wrong with it.
The system display also suggests that it is an ordinary rare item.
At this moment, Hai Qinyan suddenly thought of something and walked over and said:
"The nuns at the temple said that Judas was very devout and would pray three times a day, once in the morning, afternoon and evening, and each prayer would take more than an hour."
"Normal prayers usually take about 15 minutes. He prayed for so long, there must be something wrong."
Meteor took the angel statue from Soaring Crane's hand and threw it to the ground!
Boom!
With a heavy thud, the plaster angel statue broke into two pieces.
"Hiss! Vice President, you are so brave.
Luckily, we are all players here. If the NPCs saw this, they would fight you to the death."
"Humph!" Meteor sneered and said decisively: "I am sure that there must be something hidden in this statue of Judas.
That's how it's played out on TV.
Using something that no one dares to touch as a cover to hide the secret!"
Unfortunately, the statue was hit by meteors several times and shattered into pieces, but there was still nothing inside.
At this moment, Soaring Crane suddenly realized and said:
"Space backpack! Judas is a legendary hero, he has a space backpack, the stolen goods must be carried with him!"
Liuxing slapped his forehead and leaned on it secretly.
yes!
This is not the real world, where there are space backpacks.
The space backpack is the safest place for NPC heroes to hide things.
Only when the NPC hero dies will the items in his backpack be recovered using the sin value. Otherwise, no one can check it.
What should I do about this?
Hai Qinyan said thoughtfully: "If that's the case, then why did we receive the task of investigating clues from Adela?"
Meteor's eyes lit up: "Judas' men! Those soldiers!"
…
…
After the players searched for nearly an entire night, the truth was finally revealed.
The findings are simply shocking.
The leadership of all the churches in Skikda and the officials of Skikda were extremely wealthy.
Meteor even found 20,000 gold coins from a monk who had just entered the temple.
You know, Skikda is a key impoverished city in Erathia, the kind that suffers from natural disasters year after year.
With the help of the Holy Spirit's insight, Judah's operations were also thoroughly interrogated by Adela from among his men.
It turned out that the city of Skikda had applied to the church for tax reduction eight years ago, claiming it had suffered from natural disasters and years of famine.
But all these tax exemptions were pocketed by Judas in the name of prayer tax.
In addition to taxes, there was also a large amount of disaster relief money and grain reported by the city of Skikda to the church headquarters.
And the funds needed to develop the church and spread the faith.
All of these fell into Judas' hands.
Tax evasion, ghost employment and reselling of supplies are simply the three carriages of Skikda City.
Every year, the poverty alleviation grants that the city of Skikda applies to the church amount to millions of gold coins.
Judas also used the stolen money to corrupt officials at all levels in the city of Skikda, forming a huge network to deal with inspections from church superiors.
When the church came to inspect, they had to bribe their superiors.
They can’t bribe their superiors, so they won’t find out anything even if they question the officials.
When they went among the people, they saw that the common people were indeed living in extreme hardship, and they were guaranteed to see only what they wanted to see.
A businessman once tried to inform on someone.
He informed on others in the morning and was burned to ashes in the afternoon for colluding with hell.
The neighbors around the merchant also received two gold coins per person as a fee for reporting the incident.
Judas handled every inspection smoothly.
Judah was even praised several times by the church for his contributions to the governance of the city of Skikda.
The huge amount of wealth made Judah's life extremely luxurious.
He specially built a glazed house in the basement of the church, in which he kept women he collected from various places, from orcs to humans to elves, and forced them to live in the room only by wearing open-crotch pants.
They said that Judah’s favorite thing was to make them lie on the ground in a row.
Judah blindfolded himself, spun around a few times, and then randomly picked a lucky winner, guessing the other person's race based only on partial physical contact.
Judah's diet was prepared by four halfling chefs specially hired to serve him.
During the most extreme period, he even raised a group of live griffins.
Every day when he wanted to eat a griffin, he would order the kitchen to catch one, cut off only two pieces of meat from the base of the griffin's wings for grilling, and throw the rest of the griffin away.
The results of the investigation left the players of Tian Xia Hegemony speechless with shock.
Meteor even said bluntly: "Damn it, I'm so envious. I wish I could take his place."
In addition, the players of Tianxia Hegemony were originally planning to frame Judas.
The paws of Xiaotian's four dogs were tied up and ready to be used as evidence.
There is no need for that now.
In Judas' glass house, there is a concubine, a succubus, and two female hellhounds.
After interrogation, Adela found out that they were all bought by Judah's men and a lord of the hell forces.
Because it was just corruption, Judas still had a way to survive, and the church could still give him a light punishment or a severe warning.
After all, Judas is a legendary officiant.
But the chief priest has soldiers from hell around him, and has made deals directly with the lords of the hell forces.
Then the only punishment waiting for Judas was death.
After listening to Adela's report, Ronis sighed three times and asked Adela with a cold look to take Judah back to Holy Sky City for interrogation.
He appointed Adela on the spot to temporarily take over the city of Skikda and officially become the commander-in-chief of the rebellion suppression army.
Gellmos also came under stricter scrutiny because Judas was found to be colluding with Hell.
Until Judah was put on the prison van, he was still confident that his operation was flawless and Adela would definitely not be able to find out anything.
Unfortunately, in the face of the Holy Spirit’s insight, all lies are exposed.
Adela watched the prison van escorted by Palu enter the portal and head towards Holy Sky City.
She turned her head and looked at the sky. The deep night shrouded Erathia, hiding all the sin and darkness.
The people of Skikda never knew the truth; they didn’t even know that Skikda had been suffering from famine for years.
All they knew was that every year the church would come and collect just enough food so that they wouldn’t starve to death, but wouldn’t have enough to eat either.
Only in this way can they avoid being bewitched by the devil because of excessive desires.
On the skinny shoulders of countless civilians stood a fat and extravagant high priest.
This is not an isolated case. It is just a microcosm of the vast kingdom of Erathia and one of the consequences of the disorderly expansion of the church.
Fortunately, there were seven pigeons.
There is still half an hour until dawn.
The night will pass, and light will eventually return to the world.
"Oooooh!!"
"Whirl Charge Tornado!"
Adela lowered her head and saw that under the city wall, the players of Tianxia Hegemony were swimming happily in the gold coins they had searched for, like idiots.
She sighed deeply, her eyes weak.
It seems that it will be dark for a while.