Women only affect my ability to spread the fire

"Yes! Yes, Prophet! I am not worthy! I am not worthy!" Hans turned to Margaret and knocked his head to the ground again.

Ah, so this lady is the true prophet? And the Occitania incarnation before me is actually the Lord?

A few "smart people" suddenly realized what was going on. They were so frightened that they didn't know how to salute for a moment, so they all followed Hans's example.

As soon as Margaret stepped into the hall, what she saw was a group of bandits who called themselves prophets and kowtowed to her.

The author says:

Author's words: I can't remember how much I owe, anyway, I'll make up for it when I'm in a good state...

173 Demon Worship

In fact, what Margaret said, "The thieves outside have been cleaned up," is a psychological tactic.

The most combat-capable guys among the bandits were basically gathered in this hall. The bandits on the periphery lacked both fighting spirit and combat effectiveness. After killing two or three kittens in battle, they quickly surrendered.

After getting the situation under control, Margaret walked into the hall.

When the door opened, the bandits who were still unwilling to give up and hoped for a counterattack from their leaders saw the tragic scene in the hall. They no longer had any other thoughts and began to kowtow hard like the few smart people left in the hall.

Although Eleanor was a princess of the kingdom, it was the first time that she accepted the worship of her subjects without any guards or support.

Eleanor walked briskly past them, feeling their fear and finding the experience both fresh and amusing.

For Eleanor, the evening battles were as easy as playing.

She used the power of shadow to make it impossible for the bandits to find her. She swaggered among the bandits, causing some damage or setting a fire when she felt like it. Soon the bandits became suspicious.

Then they were hit by Rosaline's spell. In the chaos, Margaret rushed into the battle like a meteor, killing several people in succession. The others dropped their weapons and announced their surrender.

Eleanor found this experience fresh and interesting, much more enjoyable than the royal parade.

Therefore, Eleanor couldn't wait to share her joy with Russell.

"Master!" Eleanor's face flushed with excitement. She removed the shadow covering her body and ran into the hall.

Several bandit leaders kneeling on the ground heard a clear female voice calling "Master" and couldn't help but look up.

Then they immediately lowered their heads again in shock.

Because when Eleanor removed the shadow spell, she accidentally removed the spell covering her animal ears.

The pair of animal ears caught the eyes of several bandit leaders.

The person who called her "Master" turned out to be Her Royal Highness the Princess!

Yes, that's as it should be. He has such a holy and noble status, it's only fitting for a princess to call Him "Master."

When the bandit leaders calmed down and thought about it, they felt that this title was justified.

As for how Her Royal Highness the Princess quickly ran to the god, threw herself into his arms, and chattered like a little woman in love, expressing her joy, these smart bandit leaders naturally lowered their heads and pretended not to know.

Some principles are universal even across time and space. At this moment, these bandit leaders fully understood the great principles of the Analects of Confucius - do not look at what is improper, do not listen to what is improper, do not speak what is improper, and do not do what is improper.

They didn't see, hear, speak, or move, and were frozen on the ground like stone sculptures.

Russell pinched Eleanor's pointed ears, reminding her to hide them. When Eleanor stood obediently behind him, Russell began to deal with the problem of these bandits.

Originally, Russell wanted to detain the bandits separately and interrogate them one by one, but then he changed his mind and thought that these guys worshipped him as a god, so they should answer every question and tell him everything they knew.

"Come on, tell me what's going on with this demon, and how did it get among you?" Russell pulled over a stool and sat down boldly. "You! Hans, you speak first!"

Hans subconsciously raised his head and was shocked to see that the pair of pointed ears on Eleanor's head had suddenly disappeared, as if it was just an illusion.

"Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men."

Hans suddenly thought of this verse.

The Lord could actually dress up the royal princess as an ordinary woman with ease!

He became more and more convinced that Russell was God coming down from heaven.

However, Hans's knowledge was limited because he had left Gritzburg and returned to Meldorf to investigate the matter of old Alvin.

He only knew that Gvogoff (brother), the brown bear stabbed to death by Russell, was in cahoots with the Satanic Cult.

It was even because of this that the "Emperor of the Night" was arrested and imprisoned by the Inquisition.

That was all Hans knew. The other bandits were overjoyed. They tried their best to show their worth in front of the gods, volunteered, and pieced together the general details - of course, mixed with a lot of confessions and self-repentance.

This so-called demon worship is an underground religion that has taken root among the people of Usedom since the Great Retreat, with the purpose of worshiping demons.

Their thinking is not difficult to understand. Since neither the church nor the knights can defeat the devil, it means that the devil is the more powerful and more correct party.

Moreover, they are extremely fanatical, truly devout people who take pride in dedicating their souls to demons and even being able to summon demons to possess them.

In the past, this underground religion could never develop, of course, because of the relentless crackdown by the Inquisition.

But more importantly, they love to summon demons at “sacramental” gatherings.

Often, the most devout and fanatical believers who participate in the "sacrament" will be caught in a net by the greedy and violent demons that descend, which will deal a heavy blow to the missionary work of the underground church of demon worship.

The bandits were still a little frightened when they talked about this. None of them had expected that someone present was possessed by a patient and cunning demon.

So the bandits started to flatter, saying that they would all be caught by the devil, and that it was thanks to the holy Lord that he sent down fire from heaven to burn the devil to ashes. Praise the Lord, may the Lord bless us, Amen, and so on.

Hearing this, Russell was speechless. One was blindly worshipping, and the other was fishing in a desperate attempt. This demon worship cult and the devil really had an excellent matching mechanism.

As for why the devil could possess a human body, how it was done, and what rituals were required, these bandit leaders were clueless.

"Go, pick out all the people who worship the devil for me. I want to interrogate them one by one." Russell waved his hand and directed several bandit leaders to go to work.

Just like the followers of the demon cult have a fanatical attitude towards the devil, these bandit leaders are now also showing considerable fanaticism.

They gave full play to their subjective initiative, not only managing the surrendered bandits in an orderly manner, but also using the mutual reporting system to accurately and efficiently screen out those who worshipped the devil.

Rosaline, who was originally outside intimidating the bandits, returned to the hall out of boredom.

Not long after, the bandits who had passed the checkpoint entered the hall with the devil worshippers.

Although the service was mixed, the bandits and the believers could be distinguished at a glance.

The bandits who were allowed to enter the hall held their heads high and chests puffed out, their faces flushed, and regarded the audience with the Lord as the most glorious event in their lives.

Most of the devil worshippers were depressed, remorseful, confused, and kept silent with their heads hung. Only one young man lowered his eyebrows, trying his best to suppress the fierceness in his brows.

Russell saw all of this.

The author says:

Author's words: Thanks for the tips and coins without a nickname

Thanks to Bloodthirsty Bronze Bull for the reward and coins

Thanks to reader 1703124876 for the reward, reminder, monthly ticket and coins

174 distinctions

During the interrogation, Russell discovered an interesting fact. These devil worshippers were not very devout at the moment, but they would often tell everything that they should or should not say when Russell asked them questions.

They had bitter faces because they were worried that Russell would send them to the stake for having any connection with the devil.

Upon questioning, Russell discovered that most of them were poor farmers who had to find a way out due to drought.

Likewise, the secrets they hold are extremely limited, and they can hardly offer any useful information.

Moreover, these people are not well educated and speak incoherently. When they are in panic, their speech becomes even more incoherent, often just repeating the same few sentences over and over again.

The standard procedure is to first claim innocence, then express that one has nothing to do with the core of the devil-worshiping cult and was just deceived by it, and finally express that one has come to the right path and hopes to repent and obtain the Lord's forgiveness.

Their rhetoric is often similar, with only the order of words and sentences being changed.

Russell repeatedly asked for details and found that what they said was indeed very similar.

It seems that the core figure of this demon-worshiping cult has been hacked to death by Russell.

At present, the clues for tracking down the devil can be said to have been almost completely cut off.

"Why did you join the devil worship cult instead of asking the church for help?" Russell asked curiously.

None of these guys, who were originally farmers, could give any decent answers. Only the young man with fierce eyes, whom Russell paid special attention to, spoke in a coherent manner.

"Well, of course we asked the church for help, but the monastic order refused to accept so many of us, saying they couldn't provide for so many lay brothers. And the monks of the mendicant order are no different from beggars. They can help us with our medical treatment, but they can't provide much food themselves."

The boy said angrily.

Russell originally thought that this skinny boy was a diehard member of the Satan cult. Russell had been on guard against the boy's sudden attack, but he didn't expect that he would be willing to speak.

"Oh? What's your name?" Russell asked with a pleasant face. "Oh? Jansen, right? Nice name."

From the mouth of this young man named Jansen, Russell roughly understood some of the current situations in the Kingdom of Usedom.

The monastic orders established monasteries in the wild and lived in seclusion. In addition to the professional monks, they had a system of lay brothers - the lay brothers were responsible for most of the labor and daily maintenance work, while the professional monks were responsible for spiritual practice, as well as providing spiritual guidance and protection to the lay brothers.

However, the power of the Lord could not bless the monastery's land with sufficient irrigation.

Due to the severe drought, the monastery had no food left. Although there were many monks of high moral character who were willing to save their own rations to feed the hungry, the monastic order still had to prioritize the provision of food for their lay brothers.

The hungry refugees turned to the monastery for help, and although they could occasionally get a full meal, they could only barely survive by not starving to death.

As for the mendicant monks, they have gone so far on the path of non-interference with reality that they look almost the same as beggars.

According to the conventional principle of separation of church and state, bishops "have no right to cultivate other people's land", but for mendicant monks, this was taken to the extreme and became "no right to cultivate land", advocating simple asceticism.

So the mendicant monks naturally couldn't provide food. But the leader of the demon worship cult who was killed by Russell was able to provide a large amount of food, so he naturally absorbed a large number of disaster victims.

The young boy Yangsen spoke in a surprisingly organized manner and knew quite a lot, most of which were the result of his observations and summaries. He was a very intelligent boy.

"This is very interesting. Do you know where his food comes from?" Russell asked with interest.

Russell now has a good impression of Jansen, just like a teacher likes a smart student, and the questions he asks are also testing.

Although Jansen, who had no education and was illiterate, could be considered intelligent, this matter was more of a test of his knowledge, so after thinking about it, he shook his head regretfully.

"To grow crops, you need land, right? To produce so much food at once, you need a lot of land, right?" Russell asked heuristically.

Jansen nodded sharply, suddenly realizing, "Ah! I see. The royal family owns the most land! It must be the Burgoni royal family sponsoring the devil worship!"

Eleanor had been listening with great interest to Jansen's introduction of the differences between the priests. She had never known that there were so many types of priests among those annoying ones who had made her father unhappy.

Now, she suddenly heard the boy's accusation and immediately retorted angrily, "Nonsense! There's no way my father would support a demon!"

Uh, this body of yours was born from the Black Princess, could you please stop lying with your eyes open?

Russell covered his forehead.

Margaret narrowed her eyes in dissatisfaction. She leaned over and whispered to Rosalyn, who nodded repeatedly.

"So, how long will your current food last?" Russell continued to ask.

The one who answered Russell was no longer the young man Yangsen, but a bandit leader. He hesitated, looked around, and came close to Russell. He lowered his voice and said, "You can't eat it for much longer. You can probably eat it for four or five days, but you won't be able to sustain it for a week."

Oh, you still have some sense and know that this cannot be said publicly.

Russell nodded. "Oh, it can still hold out for a while. So what were your original plans?"

"Gvogoff said earlier that there's food on a certain farm. If we capture it, we'll have enough for everyone to eat."

It seems Gvogoff brought these people in as cannon fodder. He wanted to find out his brother's whereabouts and then lead them to attack the Inquisition dungeon. The leader of the Satanic Cult wanted to use more people for sacrifice. Both sides had their own ulterior motives...

Russell probably understood what those guys were thinking.

So, how to deal with this group of people became a thorny problem.

Although they mistook Russell for the coming of God, Russell was not omniscient and omnipotent. He could not conjure up bread or fish, let alone feed so many people with five loaves and two fish.

These guys all confessed sincerely before "God" in a mess, and told him all the mistakes they had made.

It is easy to deal with those orthodox bandits who have committed murder. Just let them pay with their lives and be done with it.

As for those starving people who are stealing and robbing, we can't just kill them with a knife.

Russell estimated that if all the people with lives were executed, there should be enough food for these people to eat for a week.

"How about this, you all stay in the mountains honestly and don't go anywhere. During this period of time, you should listen to Yangsen's arrangements. I will be back within a week. Go down." Russell instructed.

So these former believers of the "Devil Worshipping Cult" all retreated.

Then Russell waved to several bandit leaders and said, "Come on, gather your brothers."

175 Execution