This heretic cannot be burned, he must be hung up and whipped!

"Saints! Saints walking among men!"

A trench pilgrim with a broken arm suddenly fell to the ground, his forehead covered with blood scabs slamming heavily into the mud. The roar was like a spark that lit a fuse, instantly detonating the entire trench.

"Lord, have mercy on us!" The young pilgrim tore open the cloth on his chest and carved a cross on his bare chest with a dagger. "Please cleanse my sins with holy fire!"

Drops of blood rolled down the blade, but the moment they touched the blue light, they evaporated into a pale golden mist. This vision drove the believers completely crazy, and they rushed to cut their palms and smear the blood on the toes of Neos's boots, as if it was holy oil that could forgive original sin.

"I hope our devotion to the Lord will be recognized by you, Saint." The military priest, holding a wooden shield in his left hand and a whip in his right hand, walked quickly to Neos and prostrated himself in front of him.

"Get up, get up! Don't let them hurt themselves! Also, I'm not used to people kneeling down to me, nor am I used to calling me in such a respectful tone. Priest, please just call me Mr. Neos." Neos quickly helped the tall and strong priest up, and took a look at the priest's equipment.

The priest was covered in golden crosses and bronze plates with biblical legends printed on them. On a wooden shield more than one meter high was nailed an exquisite relief of Jesus's crucifixion, with many unburned holy wax sticking to the relief.

"Saint Neos, you can call me Father Amos. I serve as a punisher in this group of pilgrims. Look--" Father Amos pointed to a dozen hands nailed to the shield. These hands were embalmed and neatly arranged next to the crucifix.

PS: Tribute to the legendary nail-resistant king, Brother Ye

"This is the trophy I won with my own hands. Please let me follow you, Mr. Saint Neos!" After saying this, Priest Amos knelt down before Neos and wanted to kiss his toes.

"No, no, no, just follow me, I will protect you - uh, and your team!" Neos said casually, but he didn't expect that these words were like water dripping into a hot oil pan. The trench pilgrims who were quietly waiting in line nearby immediately cheered. They excitedly surrounded Neos and knelt down in front of him, shouting fanatically.

Suddenly, Priest Amos spotted a few pilgrims in simple clothing who also wanted to "cut the cross" to show their piety to Neos. He walked over quickly and slammed his wooden shield to the ground. "Line up! Line up in the name of the seventy-seventh saint!"

The barbed whip exploded in the air, and blood marks immediately appeared on the faces of the three believers.

"You filthy sinners! How dare you stain the holy robes of the saints with your dirty blood!"

“How did they-” “Uhhhhhhhhhhhh-!”

The screams of the heretic soldiers suddenly pierced the din. Among the captives being escorted to the remains of the shrine, a Hell officer with goat horns on his head suddenly convulsed and fell to his knees.

His scaly skin began to crack, and blood gushed out of his eye sockets. It seemed that he was too deeply contaminated by the breath of hell, and the demonic features on his body began to rot and fall off.

"Hell...The power of the Lord of Hell is receding!!"

A certain heretic soldier suddenly tore off the inverted cross badge on his chest. His face, covered with wounds from the inverted cross, was distorted with extreme fear: "This power does not belong to that damned God! This is more terrifying than hell—"

Before he could finish his words, Amos' whip had already wrapped around his throat. The giant lifted the heretic soldier into the air with one hand, and with the other hand reverently stroked the tear in the hem of Neos's coat:

"Saint, please allow me to mend your holy robe." As he spoke, the heretic soldier, who was strangled by the whip, was scratching his festering eyeballs with his nails, trying to dig out the eyes that had witnessed the miracle.

Neos took a half step back, his lower back bumping into the cold church helmet of the hermit of the shrine. He looked at the absurd scene before him:

More than thirty ragged believers were crawling towards him in the mud, their fingers leaving winding bloody trails on the ground; three of the five heretic captives had gouged out their own eyes, and the remaining two were gnawing at the ropes on their wrists with their teeth; on the wooden shield of Priest Amos, the embalmed severed hands were shaking slightly with his movements.

Both sides felt so shaky that they didn't feel like humans.

"Everyone, stop!" A sudden burst of blue light froze everyone's movements. Neos seized the brief silence and roared:

"I'm not some god descended from the sky! This light is just... just some scientific phenomenon!" He pointed randomly at the ruins of a tank. "Look carefully! That thing was... corroded by acid. It's not a miracle!"

"Bang!" "Puff! Chirp! Pop!"

There was a churning sound from the wreckage of the tank. A believer who had been searching for spoils in the heretical tank suddenly rushed out, holding a metal bucket high. "Holy Spirit! The Lord will appear to me, and I will follow the way of Saint Catherine!"

PS: It comes from the biblical legend. For the specific content of the legend, please refer to Chapter 2 of the Miscellaneous Volume

He frantically poured the fuel from the Hell Tank's fuel barrel onto himself, and the sparks from the flint instantly ignited his whole body!

"Crazy! Damn, this idiot is crazy! Hurry up and put out the fire!" Neos was dumbfounded and quickly sent someone to put out the fire on the madman.

With a shrill scream, the burning human-shaped torch staggered towards Neos' blue light range, but the flames went out the moment they touched the area - the charred body fell to the ground with a bang, and the chest was still rising and falling slightly.

"Witness the miracle!" Amos' voice cracked with excitement. "Even the fires of hell must bow before you!"

Neos was a little annoyed by this. As an ordinary person from the 21st century, he really had no good feelings towards this group of superstitious and crazy believers.

In his view, there is not much difference between a church that encourages sacrifice and worships pain and a hell that slaughters people. No monster or demon can save humanity except humanity itself.

"Get up, everyone get up!" Neos frowned and raised his voice, but it was still drowned out by the fanatical prayers and worship of the believers.

When the priest Amos, who was closest to him, heard it, he immediately picked up the long and terrifying whip and lashed the kneeling pilgrims.

"Crack!" The sound of the whip breaking through the wind scared Neos. The believer who was hit by the thorny whip was torn to pieces, but the piety on his face did not diminish at all. Instead, he thought this was another "shortcut" to get closer to God.

"Get up! Put down the whip!"

Neos's rage rose. What did they think they were? A living exhibit? A talking statue? He grabbed the whip in the priest's hand and yanked it hard.

Instead of pulling, the barb on the whip cut a big gash on his hand, and blood gushed out. The pilgrims stood up in horror. Priest Amos immediately let go of the whip and knelt on the ground, holding Neos' hand with both hands to catch his blood.

"Saint Neos, please punish me for my blasphemy! I will cut off this blasphemous hand to atone for my sin!"

Then, priest Amos drew out a dagger inlaid with holy nails and intended to cut off his hand holding the whip. Seeing this, Neos was angry and felt sorry for them.

"If you really think I'm a saint, then stand up right now and don't do anything. Don't speak unless I tell you to. Listen to me!"

The pilgrims immediately lined up, with Priest Amos standing at the front. His nearly two-meter-tall figure was hunched over with his head lowered, looking well-behaved.

"Reverend Amos, please explain to me what is happening now."

Priest Amos was stunned. The blue light from Neos swept over him, and his fanatical brain filled with faith began to calm down gradually.

"Forget it, the question is a bit general, and this is not a good place to have a conversation. What was your previous battle plan? Let's go back to the command post first." Seeing that the priest was in a daze, Neos realized that his question might be too vague, so he simplified his question.

"Saint Neos, the command's plan is that after we recapture this position, reinforcements from the rear will take over. We will then return to Vlehrad Monastery and maintain the monastery's last shrine and hermits... But this is no longer necessary because you—Saint Neos—are willing to shelter us! We must provide you with sufficient protection before Hell tempts you."

"Temptation? Since Hell fears saints, why not assassinate them?"

"The most precious possession of the Lord of Hell is the profane saints, those who were destined according to God's plan to become saints, great prophets or saints, but who were led astray and fell from grace.

Many of them were once righteous rulers or religious leaders dedicated to bringing prosperity and glory to their people, but pride, despair, or a desire for martyrdom led them to commit indelible crimes or evil deeds, despite their supposedly noble and pure motives.

Some believed this was a divine command and offered human sacrifices; others continued to wage war even after being commanded to stop; and still others attempted to perform miracles through magic. When their actions led to their own downfall and death, they were sealed in unholy reliquaries and awakened in Hell.

"Human sacrifice will lead to corruption? Do you want to listen to what you are saying? Were all the people sacrificed to the war machine just now dead?" Neos frowned.

"They were devout believers who voluntarily sacrificed themselves for God. The human sacrifices that were considered blasphemous were because they were not voluntary."

Neos sighed.

"It's really crazy. No wonder everyone in this world is mentally unstable."

PS: 100 recommendation votes for the next 4k update...

The book has finally reached 3 words and is ready to be signed. Now I pray to the editor...

Rising Flames: 1914: Chapter 9: This Jesus is suspected to be born (5.5k)

"Nyos, it is precisely because of the dedication of generations of believers like you that we have been able to maintain the last bit of 'respectability' that remains in this war of over eight hundred years."

Sergeant Valentine, who was following beside him, spoke to Neos very seriously, but Neos's expression remained grim:

"If God truly loves humanity, why has He refused to intervene despite eight hundred years of human sacrifice? What have we humans done wrong?!"

Neos's comprehension of this world's God grew increasingly baffled. If gods truly existed, why hadn't they intervened? They couldn't have been testing humanity for eight hundred years, could they?

Don't talk to me about the theory of original sin. I haven't offended anyone since I was born. Yue/Yi-First post~Why am I guilty?

The Jesus of this world is somewhat born.

"Saint Neos! You can't continue. Hell has already begun to tempt you. Hell must be watching you now!

If you succumb to the temptations of hell and fall, then the centuries of Christian struggle against hell, the blood of countless believers and soldiers who sacrificed their lives on the battlefield, will have been shed in vain! " Priest Amos covered Neos' mouth in horror, looking around vigilantly.

"This God is really not a--" Neos' words were interrupted by a sudden explosion. Deep in the heretic-occupied area, a huge column of smoke suddenly rose into the sky!

"Om——"

The moment the black smoke column tore through the sky, Neos felt the rusty smell of blood in his nostrils.

"What is that—what is flying?" "Holy Father—it is the power of the Lord of the Flies!"

Tens of thousands of plague flies swarmed out from the center of the "smoke column." The swarms that covered the sky suddenly dimmed the midday sun, as if someone had immersed the entire sky in a pool of asphalt.

"Damn it! I should have known this earlier!" Sergeant Valentine seemed to suddenly remember something and pointed to his wound.

"Ordinary heretic soldiers have no chance of obtaining infected bullets. Only the Black Grail Cult possesses them! Beelzebub... The Lord of the Flies' Cult hasn't appeared on the front lines in decades!"

"Why don't you just say the big one is coming!!! Father Amos, help me wrap this rag!!" "Your will is at my command!"

Neos quickly found a gas mask on the spot and put it on his face. He also dug out an iron helmet used by trench pilgrims in the trench and put it on his head. With the help of Priest Amos, he wrapped himself with strips of cloth printed with scriptures.

"Cover your mouth and nose! Take precautions!" Priest Amos had no time to protect his men, and his roar was shattered by the sound of flapping wings.

"Woo--Goo--Ugh"

But it was too late—the Adam's apple of a trench pilgrim suddenly bulged and burst like a ripe abscess, and the yellow-green fly eggs, coated in blood, splattered onto Neos's gas mask. He watched helplessly as the believer fell to his knees, digging his fingers deep into the crack of his neck, trying to dig out the hatching larvae.

"Ugh..." Neos was about to vomit when he suddenly realized that taking off his gas mask would only make him die faster. He swallowed it with the acid water, and his throat was corroded by the stomach acid and it was burning with pain.

The tragedy just now was only the beginning. The power of the Lord of Flies enveloped the land equally. A black cloud of flies swept across the battlefield, and the trench pilgrims began to scratch at their skin. A soldier reloading his rifle suddenly froze, his eyeballs dissolving into yellow-green pus in his sockets, his fingers still mechanically loading the bullet.

Further away, the necks of the heretic captives who tried to take the opportunity to escape were swollen like toads—

"Boom!"

The head flew out of the neck like a cork from a wine bottle, accompanied by hundreds of flies the size of a baby's fist spurting out of the throat.

“No—!! What the hell is this!! Why is this Lord of Flies killing his own people?! Flamethrower!! Where’s the insecticide? Oh my God!!”

The only sound on the battlefield was the buzzing of giant fly wings. The heretic soldiers who were still alive in the previous second disintegrated into a group of flies bigger than fists in the next second. The combined visual and auditory shocks directly drove Neos to despair.

"Black Holy Grail..." Priest Amos stood on the ground in awe. He finally witnessed this scene that only appeared in history books.

"What Holy Grail? How is it sacred?! How do you usually deal with situations like this?!"

Amid the sound of flies flapping their wings that covered the sky, Neos had to shout to be heard by his comrades. He asked loudly to Priest Amos, who was also wrapped up tightly.

"Mr. Saint Neos! According to historical records, the last time there was such a fierce attack was in 1346. The Black Death plague swept across most of Europe, killing tens of millions of people. In the end, it relied on—what's wrong with you?!"

"My head...my head hurts!"

The swarm of flies in the sky began to rush towards Neos. The blue light field around him was fluctuating violently, and Neos felt a little pain in his head.

He could clearly sense every infected soldier within the area—some sticky mental tendrils were eroding his consciousness along the connection. A heretic captive suddenly leaped up with his limbs bent backwards, his scaly spine piercing his skin. But just as he was about to transform into a reptilian creature, a blue light pushed him back into human form!

The monster rolled and screamed in the mud, and the forms of humans and demons flickered like a video on a cassette tape.

"Neos!" Sergeant Valentine ripped open his collar, revealing a festering bullet hole in his collarbone. Maggot-like creatures could be seen writhing wildly in the flesh under the blue light.

"We must find a church to hide in! The power of the Lord of Hell is too great, you must leave!!"

Before he could finish his words, a roar like a landslide echoed from the northeast. Three rotting corpse monsters, each the size of a bull, burst through the smoke. Their arms had long since rotted away into tentacles, each end adorned with a variety of strange weapons.

The swollen head on its left shoulder opened its mouth, revealing a face half eaten away by maggots, and roared, "Praise the Lord of Hell!"

"Go to hell and praise!" "Bang!" "Ah——"

Priest Amos dragged out a gun of terrifyingly large caliber from the remains of the hermit in the shrine and fired a shot at the monster in the distance!

"Is this still Earth? What about this grenade launcher? Didn't Old Man Huang really send Terra to me?!" Neos complained while running with the team.

"Get down!" "Boom!"

Amos's thin wooden shield was embedded in the ground. Suddenly, a bomb was shot from one of the arms of the corpse monster in the distance. The shell exploded on the shield but failed to destroy it.

"squeak----"

Several holy candles stuck to the shield spontaneously combusted without a trace of wind! Hundreds of larvae, exploding from the shells, cried like infants in the flames of holy oil. But more plague flies descended from the sky, gnawing at the blue light barrier with their human teeth, forming a writhing black wall of flesh at the edge of the area.

Neos felt a pain in his head again. He saw that the cloth on a believer's face was suddenly stained with black spots. The young man who was filling the Molotov cocktail stopped moving. His pupils dilated into the compound eyes of a fly, but his fingers were still mechanically wrapping the cloth.

When the blue light swept over him, the compound eyes turned back into human eyes, but what flowed out of his eye sockets was no longer tears, but half-red and half-green pus and blood.

"Quickly pull him into my barrier!" "Your will is obeyed!"

"No! Go to church!" Valentine kicked the puppy-like monster away. Its abdomen suddenly split open, spewing out its barbed ovipositor. The sergeant's bayonet accurately severed the disgusting organ and turned to Amos, shouting:

"Do you want the Saint to be dragged to death here?"

Priest Amos's eyes flickered behind his gas mask. Within seconds, he made up his mind and wrapped the barbed whip around Neos' waist.