Chapter 58: Blasphemy and the Revenge of Faith (part 1)

The Redemption Army was annihilated. When Yang Hao arrived at the battlefield and conducted a count, he found that the defeat of the Redemption Army was more thorough than he had anticipated.

There were reportedly 80,000 men attacking the Monster Forest, and just within and outside the forest, over 20,000 bodies were found.

In addition to this, there were thousands of prisoners—kept alive mainly to gather intelligence. Otherwise, the Demon folk would have likely chopped them to pieces with their axes.

The Demon folk were ruthless. They pursued the fleeing soldiers of the Redemption Army all the way to the position previously held by the priest, stopping only when the Elves intervened. Without the Elves’ restraint, they might have chased them all the way into the Church’s territory.

“We need to further enforce discipline among the Demon troops. Many of our casualties were due to their impulsiveness,” Yang Hao said. “But on the bright side, we took down a priest and half of the Holy Guard knights. That’s an unexpectedly great gain. Plus, over 50,000 fleeing soldiers returned to the Church’s territory, which is also good news for us.”

Yang Hao handed the statistical data to the Elven commander, adding, “The gun barrels hand-crafted by the former bow-makers are surprisingly accurate.” 

He and the commander then discussed their next counterattack.

It was clear that the influx of retreating soldiers into the Church’s lands was bad news for the Church.

These soldiers had lost their faith after witnessing the priest’s death. They had never been true zealots but were driven by profit and coercion to believe in the God of Light.

Realizing that even powerful priests could die, they were even less likely to return to the Church’s fold.

Moreover, the Church was notoriously harsh on failures. Given that the mission aimed to reduce excess population, these soldiers would be foolish to consider returning to Church control. More likely, they would become wandering bandits, plundering within the Church’s territory, spreading tales of the Redemption Army’s defeat, and causing damage to rural areas.

In every way, this was a positive development.

But Yang Hao felt something was missing.

“Blasphemy and desecration of faith—those were the charges they brought against me,” he muttered to himself while inspecting the bodies being prepared for burial with the Elven commander. 

Suddenly, he signaled for everyone to stop.

In the Church, burial rites were reserved for devout believers, and only the most devout were given the honor of having their bodies properly prepared before burial.

To exact his revenge on the Church, Yang Hao realized the best starting point would be the prisoners and the bodies.

Desecrating corpses wasn’t his forte, nor did he feel the need to stoop to such a level for revenge.

He was simply pondering that the most taboo practice in the Church was cremation. 

And then there was the punishment of burning at the stake.

The former was because cremation left no body to be preserved, and the God of Light did not accept believers into heaven without their bodies. 

The latter was because burning at the stake was a punishment reserved for heretics.

Both were cruel punishments for the Church’s followers. Yang Hao’s orders were very simple. All the corpses of the Redemption Army were to be cremated with magic outside the Monster Forest. As for the prisoners, they would be interrogated by the demon folk for any useful information and then burned at the stake on top of the blazing corpses.

But if this was all he did, without any witnesses from the Church’s broader congregation, how could it truly be considered a desecration of faith or blasphemy?

After all, this would merely bring pain to the followers.

If the believers of the Church of Light didn’t personally witness the desecration of their deity, didn’t personally experience the collapse of their faith, what was the point of Yang Hao’s revenge?

He thought he might be a bit psychologically twisted.

But then, thinking of Teresa, who always supported him at home, a warm feeling surged in his heart.

While the elves and demons were dealing with the corpses and interrogating the prisoners, Yang Hao approached one of the accompanying elven mages. He kindly asked if there was a spell that could broadcast everything happening here to the bishops of the Church and to the faithful for their viewing pleasure.

He wasn’t referring to the minor spell they used for observing the Isugard vanguard, nor the simple spells used in elven meetings.

He wanted something that could broadcast to nearly the entire Church, displaying clear sound and visuals for every believer to see a big show.

The elven mage was stunned and then sketched on the ground.

“There is, but it would require the Roc Eagle riders to fly over the Church territory to drop magic nodes along the way and even then, the duration wouldn’t exceed an hour.”

“An hour? That’s enough. An hour of blazing fire will make those prisoners curse the God of Light with their dying breaths. Seeing the former believers curse the God of Light without divine retribution will naturally make others start questioning their faith. One more thing.”

“Yes, Your Majesty?”

“Make sure those being burned at the stake can keep consciousness for as long as possible. The longer, the better.”

In an instant, cold sweat poured down the elven mage’s forehead.

But seeing the Regent’s happy expression, like a child anticipating a birthday gift, the mage considered his position as an elf and chose to obey.

He began preparing his spell. 

At that moment, another elf approached and said that a man claiming to be the village chief of Skool Village was repeatedly asking for Yang Hao by name, saying he had important information to report. What should they do?

“The village chief?” Yang Hao was quite surprised, then sneered, “I thought he would use the money I sent him to visit the military district, the capital, or some noble’s house but he ended up here in the Church? He’s no good either. Fine, let me hear what he has to say.”

In Yang Hao’s memory, the village chief of Skool was a miser.

When someone in the village did something good, it was due to his guidance. When someone caused trouble, they were responsible for their own actions. But if the troublemaker was his own son, the village chief would protect him fiercely, even forcing some lonely villagers without cliques to take the blame.

Yet, in some sense, Skool Village was also his home, so when he became successful, Yang Hao sent the chief a substantial sum of money. And then? Nothing.

Now, the fact that the village chief remembered his name before dying was already astonishing to Yang Hao.

When he reached the prisoner and saw the village chief in shabby leather armor tied on the ground, he was even more shocked.

They stared at each other for a while, then Yang Hao said, “Even Priscilla would call you a gambler now.”

“I, I—this, I—”

The chief stammered, seemingly trying to argue. Yang Hao had no patience for his nonsense, so he signaled a demon soldier holding an axe to give the chief a hard blow to his lower back with the axe handle, then said:

“I don’t have time, so you better quickly say what you need to say. Maybe, if I’m feeling generous, I’ll spare you out of old times’ sake.”

“I, I’ll talk—ouch! I’ll talk—”

The chief stammered, saying that after making a lot of money betting on demon fights in Demon City, he overheard a big shot, who was with him visiting demon women, mentioning something.

The information was that the head of the Northern Expeditionary Force, Bishop Stephen, planned to set the Monster Forest on fire to avoid the predicament of jungle warfare in the upcoming battles.

But at the time, the chief never thought he would end up in debt, forced to sell his life to the Redemption Army. So he had almost forgotten about this news back then. It was only because he was about to go to heaven that the village chief racked his brains to recall this important matter.

“Please, please! Little Yang Hao! For the sake of me being your village chief, for the sake of my good guidance and telling you such important news, spare my life!”

The village chief wept bitterly, but Yang Hao showed no emotion and asked an unrelated question, “Where did the other villagers of Skool Village go?”

At the mention of the villagers, the village chief’s face turned pale. But under the threat of the elf mage’s spell, he confessed. He had sold the villagers to a ranch owner in the west because he heard they needed serfs to take care of livestock.

Yang Hao was silent for a moment and then asked another question, “What about the money I gave you?”

The village chief looked downcast, “My son invested it. I heard he’s been living it up in the Church’s territory, so after selling the villagers, I came to the Church too… yada yada.”

Yang Hao was speechless.

Looking at the village chief, who was crying about how tough his life had been recently, Yang Hao signaled the demons to untie him.

Before the village chief could express his joy, Yang Hao said, “I release you in my personal capacity. Demons, handle him as you see fit.”

The village chief’s face turned ashen as the demons tied him to a cross, and he started crying out.

“You said you would spare me!”

“I did, but the relatives of the demon women you violated have no intention of sparing you. And demon fights? I’ll remember that.”

The village chief was tied to a makeshift cross along with other wailing prisoners. Some, due to the lack of ready-made crosses, were stuck directly to the surface of earth-and-stone golems.

The golems, carrying the prisoners, moved to the center of the pit that had been dug out with magic.

When the bodies began to burn, the golems would act like ovens, roasting the prisoners tied to them until they were charred outside and tender inside. But Yang Hao didn’t rush the eager demons to start the fire.

He was just patient, very patient. He waited and waited. With a fervent look, he watched the pit filled with corpses, the crosses standing in the pit, and the golems being used as ovens.

He then turned around and kindly told the curious Ling tribesmen who had followed to close their eyes and go back.

He said what was about to happen would give everyone nightmares, and the Ling tribesmen, being inherently kind, didn’t need to see this.

He waited until the morning sun hung overhead, until the mage stepped forward and a few Roc Eagle knights landed to cast spells on them. Only then did he ask, “Is everything ready?”

The mage, exhausted, nodded, “It’s done.”

When the time came, everything that happened would be broadcast by the Roc Eagle knights across the various towns and cities of the Church, letting everyone witness what was about to unfold. They would see the believers burned to death, cursing the God of Light without receiving any divine punishment or mercy, and feel the despair firsthand.

This would deal a heavy blow to the Church’s morale and cohesion. 

The reason the Church currently thrived as the most powerful faction in the Roman Empire was because their followers had fervent faith. Their God appeared to grant great divine favors. Their priests wielded powerful abilities, and they had never experienced a large-scale defeat.

Now, with a large-scale defeat and the beginning of a collapse in faith starting from the prisoners, they would see their fellow believers subjected to cremation and burning at the stake, unable to ascend to heaven. They would witness the remains of the priests and come to realize that the God of Light would not save them. At the very least, the God of Light would not save the lowly peasants.

This would fundamentally threaten the Church’s rule. 

‘To address this major issue, Bishop Stephen would have to engage in a decisive battle with me as soon as possible.’

A decisive battle when the northern expeditionary force of the Church was not ready and their morale was heavily damaged.

This way, they would have to seize the opportunity to conduct more raids. Only then could they truly desecrate the faith in the Church of the God of Light and blaspheme their deity.

Yang Hao took the cold water handed to him by an elf and drank it all in one gulp.

He snapped his fingers and watched the flames ignite. He saw them grow into a raging fire. He listened to the screams of the prisoners who couldn’t die from the burning. He heard the crackling of burning flesh, accompanied by thunderous prayers and curses after the prayers failed.

“Commander, come with me, let’s expand our victory. Let’s throw the Roman Empire’s largest religion into complete chaos while the Church is reeling from the collapse of faith.”

He turned away, indifferent to what was happening in front of him.

After all, this was just tormenting the followers of the Church of the God of Light. It was no fun, no challenge. Just killing two thousand people, the Church could still handle the chaos.

What he wanted was to torment the faith of the Church and the God of Light Himself. He wanted to torture their god in front of all the Church’s followers.

Then trample on the hearts that had sacrificed everything for the Church. These were hearts that had sold their wives and daughters for a few words of absolution. They seemed well-honed but were actually filthy.

After that, the so-called Saintess would finally realize—

The one she worshiped was nothing more than an impostor, a false god, a foolish and incompetent traitor.

“Yang, Yang Hao—please! Please spare me! Ahhhh?! It’s so hot! It’s so hot!!”

Behind him came the screams and pleas of the village chief.

Yang Hao simply shook his head and said, “First, seek forgiveness from the villagers you sold to the west.”