Early the next morning, the female guard Nicole expressionlessly escorted Victor onto the carriage.
Inside the carriage, Victor recalled Nicole's look, which seemed both aggrieved and reproachful, and unexpectedly felt a twinge of guilt.
He shook his head, banishing the strange thoughts from his mind.
Right now, the most urgent matter was to set off for his new territory before the Wimbledon Family reacted.
After all, Victor had caused the layout that the Marchioness of Wimbledon had spent hundreds of thousands of gold sols on in the Centaur Hills to go down the drain.
Moreover, he would certainly be unable to fend off the subsequent counterattack from the Princes Faction.
However, as long as Victor arrived at the remote new territory, it would not be easy for the family to hold him accountable.
First, even if Marchioness Sophia dispatched an envoy to summon Victor back to the royal capital to stand trial, Victor could simply hide in his territory and refuse to see them, leaving them helpless against a feudal lord.
Secondly, the faction of Williams had long regarded the Centaur Hills as something in their own pocket; they could not possibly sit back and watch the Princes Faction dispatch troops or powerful knights deep into the Centaur Hills to call Victor to account.
Therefore, Victor decided to recruit guards and serfs, purchase supplies and equipment as soon as possible, and set off to assume his post in the territory in at most three days.
Entering the Black Castle, Victor walked straight back to his living quarters, and before he could even sit down properly, he heard a knock on the door.
After opening the door, a Black Castle servant respectfully bowed to Victor and said, "My Lord Baron, Bishop Pelor is going to hold a purification ceremony in Black Castle Square this noon. According to custom, all nobles in Black Castle Town are supposed to attend the purification ceremony. Please make sure to be present."
Victor's heart stirred slightly, and he asked, "A wizard was caught? When did this happen?"
The so-called purification ceremony was the terminology of the Radiant Church; in reality, it was simply the Radiant Church burning people with wizard blood alive in the square with holy fire, refining their bodies and souls into ashes.
During every purification ceremony, the Radiant Church required local nobles and commoners to observe it, so as to demonstrate the church's justice and authority.
In Victor's memory, the Radiant Church had a history of more than 7,000 years, older than all empires in human history.
It could be said that the Radiant Church was the most powerful force in the human world.
As for wizards, they were people born with extraordinary powers. Before awakening, they were just like ordinary people, but once awakened, they possessed all sorts of abilities.
For example, elemental control, bodily mutation, animation of lifeless objects, manipulation of the undead, and so on.
Wizards' abilities were varied, strong and weak, covering all fields. Some wizards could move stars and shift seas, overturning rivers and oceans; some could spread plagues, slaughtering cities and wiping out clans; others could only play some little tricks, like lighting up a stone or something.
Regardless of which ability a wizard possessed, they were the mortal enemies of the church.
According to the Radiant Church, more than 9,000 years ago, the human world was ruled by wizards who mastered extraordinary powers. Some occupied a city or ruled a country, calling themselves Chosen Ones, exercising cruel rule over ordinary people, and from time to time conducting cruel blood sacrifices with the people under their rule in order to exchange for power from demons.
The wails and prayers of the people awakened the slumbering Lord of Radiance. Seeing through the true face of the Chosen Ones, He dispatched the twelve Radiant Archangels beneath His seat, lowering divine oracles to select saints among the people and establishing the Radiant Church.
The church led the people through decades of bloody battles, finally overthrowing the rule of the Chosen Ones, and declared the Chosen Ones to be wizards, spokesmen of the devils, and evil beings.
Over thousands of years, one human kingdom after another rose and fell, but only the Radiant Church always stood tall without falling.
The church's clergy healed illnesses for the people, mediated wars, raised orphans, and punished cruel lords to protect the commoners, which gave the Radiant Church immense influence among ordinary people.
However, the Radiant Church always spared no effort in annihilating wizards, even willing to make sacrifices without hesitation.
The wizard community was also unwilling to sit idly and await death. Over thousands of years, they successively established many organizations to resist the church, the most famous of which was the Pantheon.
1,500 years ago, the church fought a decisive battle against the two Archwizards of the Pantheon, the Blair siblings. The church sacrificed seven archbishops, one pope, one pontiff, and more than 3,300 clerics died in battle; in the end, six Radiant Archangels had to descend to purify the Blair siblings.
After this battle, no wizard organization could ever confront the church head-on again.
Although the Radiant Church destroyed the Pantheon, its own strength was more than half depleted, and its control over secular lords began to weaken.
Human kingdoms seized the opportunity to rise and began to make their voices heard more in the human world.
The hardliners within the church were unwilling to see their power weakened, and the conflicts between the church and the nobility became increasingly acute day by day.
300 years ago, a drastic change occurred within the church. The human nobility seized the opportunity to launch an attack, dispatching troops to Bright City, the royal capital of the Aier Theocracy, where the Holy See was located.
In the end, it ended with the compromise of the Holy See. Representatives of the Holy See and the human nobility signed the famous Bright Covenant.
The Radiant Church declared that ruling authority belonged to the nobility, and divine authority belonged to the church.
The Aier Theocracy was officially renamed the Aier Kingdom and incorporated into the Lant Empire.
The Holy See lost its ruling power over the church and the secular world, and the hereditary pope became a nominal title. The daily work of the church was managed by the pontiff and local bishops, the monasteries were managed by the Elder Council of the Hermit Order, and the Religious Inquisition was managed by the chief and deputy inquisitors.
Although the power of the Radiant Church was subjected to unprecedented constraints, the church's crackdown on wizards had never been interrupted.
This time, having captured a wizard near the Black Castle, the church, in accordance with the Bright Covenant, dispatched a high-ranking cleric to preside over the ceremony and requested the Black Castle Lord to sign the death warrant, demonstrating the Radiant Church's respect for the secular power of the lord.
The church would carry out the purification ceremony under the witness of the nobility to prove that the church had not abused divine power.
"My Lord, ten days ago, someone found three corpses in the basement of the Lamb Inn in Black Castle Town. After identification by the sheriff, it was deemed to be an evil demon-summoning ritual. The sheriff reported this to Father Ivan, the resident priest of the castle. The old priest held a demon-identification prayer and discovered that Will, the town's gardener, was an evil wizard. That was why the old priest invited Bishop Pelor to preside over the purification ceremony," the attendant answered Victor.
Victor's pupils slightly constricted; ten days ago was precisely the time he had transmigrated over.
He associated this with the demon god in his memory that shattered the Little Baron's soul; could there be any connection between the two?
"You just said Bishop Pelor came personally to preside over the ceremony?" Victor asked next.
"Yes, Your Excellency."
Bishop Pelor was a bishop in the west of the Gambis Kingdom, holding a lofty status. Generally speaking, an ordinary purification ceremony did not require him to preside over it personally.
Unless the wizard caught this time was extraordinary!
However, although the Centaur Hills were very large, the Radiant Church's influence in this newly developed land was still very weak, with only a few priests preaching in a limited number of places.
And this time, capturing a wizard and dispatching a bishop to preside over the ceremony to strengthen the church's influence over the new territory was also completely reasonable.
"Was the captured wizard someone who had just come to Black Castle Town?" Victor asked again, wanting to figure out whether the wizard captured this time was related to the death of the Little Baron.
"Your Excellency, the gardener Will has lived in Black Castle Town for three years. He is a commoner evacuated from the Eastern Province. It's just that no one knew he turned out to be a lurking wizard."
Dismissing the messenger attendant, Victor fell into deep thought.
Judging from the timeline, the wizard Will, who had lived here for three years, should not be the murderer of the Little Baron. Moreover, Bishop Pelor's arrival in Black Castle Town seemed to have no problems either.
Since he couldn't figure out any result, Victor put his thoughts aside and decided to go and take a look for himself.