Crusade against the Pope

Chapter 2: The Torn Kingdom

The rainstorms in the Levantine wilderness came violently and went away quickly. The day before, they seemed to fill up the Dead Sea, but the next day, the sky cleared up with not a single cloud in sight.

When Suno, or rather Gailis, opened his eyes again, he realized that he was lying on a straw mat, resting in the shadow of the carriage.

As Garys tried to sit up, the pain from torn muscles came back. His eyes widened, his face turned pale, his teeth clenched, and he almost screamed out.

Obviously, his physical fitness has not been significantly improved due to the time travel, but he can break the self-limitations of the human body in a short period of time.

In that state, Garys possesses extremely powerful dynamic vision and extraordinary human reaction abilities, and can exert muscle force recklessly at the cost of self-injury.

Just as Garys endured the pain and managed to sit up against the wheel of the carriage, he heard two people discussing something not far away.

"What should we do now? If we continue to delay and don't reach Jerusalem quickly, Guy will announce that Her Highness Isabella has given up on choosing a king! If that happens, how can we be worthy of King Baldwin!"

"But can we leave? So many people died, and those who survived were injured. Even Garys has been unconscious for a whole day. If we don't find a place to recuperate, we will die!"

Was he unconscious for the whole day? Gellis thought to himself, then he gathered his thoughts and reviewed the current situation.

In 1099 AD, Jerusalem was captured and the blood of Muslims flooded the ankles of the Crusaders in the Al-Aqsa Mosque. It was also in this year that a new kingdom was established, named after Jerusalem.

The Kingdom of Jerusalem, excluding the original uncrowned king and guardian of the Holy Sepulchre, has had seven kings so far, for a total of 87 years.

During these 87 years, successive kings seemed to be cursed, their dynastic lineages were repeatedly cut off, and having no children or grandchildren was the norm.

Even the case of the elder brother succeeding the younger brother happened twice, and the seven generations of kings belonged to three dynasties.

The current Anjou-Jerusalem dynasty is destined to be cut off with the death of the Leper King.

After all, the House of Anjou-Jerusalem now has no male heirs, and only a pair of sisters are left in the world, becoming victims of the ambitious struggle for the throne.

How did Gillis know so much? Did he read a lot of books in his previous life? More than that, it was because Gillis himself was an eyewitness to this.

After the death of the Leper King, he pledged his allegiance to Isabella of Anjou-Jerusalem, one of only two surviving members of the dynastic family.

Combining the information he learned in his previous life, Garys weakly expressed his opinion.

"Jerusalem! You can't go!"

The voice was very soft, but the firmness in the words attracted the attention of people around.

"Gallis!"

"Great! He's awake! Garys is awake."

For a moment, the survivors of the convoy were rejoicing, as if they had found their backbone.

"Alright, alright, keep your voices down. Don't disturb Garys. Let us hear what he has to say." An older knight with a hideous scar on his face came forward to calm everyone down.

Perhaps it was because of the miracle yesterday, Gailis could feel that he now had a lofty status in these eyes. They looked at him with great respect. Resurrection had a unique divinity for Christians.

"John, your Highness's fiancé is a coward. If he knew that we knights who are loyal to your Highness suffered heavy losses, he would definitely break the engagement and would not stand up for your Highness and participate in the king selection."

Gellis was well aware that the political model of the West was completely different from that of the Celestial Empire. For example, the Franks had always had a strong tradition of electing kings and did not exclude women from serving as monarchs.

However, although they do not rule out women serving as monarchs, they do not think that a female monarch is a qualified monarch. Compared to letting the queen rule directly, they often believe that it would be more reliable to let the queen's husband rule as co-king.

Therefore, it would be more accurate to say that the king was being chosen between the husbands of the two sisters from the House of Anjou rather than between the two sisters from the House of Anjou.

Today, Her Highness Isabella, to whom Gellis serves, is engaged to a "young hero" among the nobles in northern Jerusalem.

Isabella's sister married Guy, a French nobleman.

With these two Angevin husbands and future husbands as the core, the entire kingdom was torn into two factions. One faction was the local Jerusalem nobles faction centered on Isabella's fiancé, and the other was the foreign nobles faction from Europe headed by Isabella's brother-in-law Guy.

Garys came from a lower class in history in his previous life and had a strong interest in history, so he naturally knew the outcome of the fight between the two factions.

Isabella's fiancé looks handsome and like a talented young man, but he is actually cowardly and incompetent. At the time when the competition for choosing the king is the most intense and other local nobles are planning to swear allegiance and nominate him as king.

That guy actually abandoned his followers and Isabella, and came to Guy at night to indicate that he had no intention of fighting for the throne.

After this betrayal, the local aristocratic factions of the Kingdom of Jerusalem naturally felt at a loss as to what to do.

As for someone like Gillis, whose name has not even been recorded in history, even if he had escaped the Arab attack this time, he would most likely have been submerged in the subsequent purge.

From both an emotional and logical point of view, Gailis did not think that it was a good choice for them to continue to go to Jerusalem to participate in the king selection in their current state.

The few surviving knights around were a little overwhelmed after hearing Gairis' words, and some of them instinctively wanted to refute Gairis.

But when he thought about how it was Garys who performed a miracle to save the team last night, he shut his mouth again.

Only the older John, who was lost in thought and thinking carefully about what Gellis had said, continued to ask: "So what should we do now? Retreat to Karak Castle?"

Karak Castle was the castle where Isabella originally lived temporarily, and it was also where these knights were stationed.

Although we are now some distance away from Karak Castle, it will only take two days to turn back.

But at this time, Gailis said again: "No! We cannot return to Karak Castle before our injuries are healed. The original owner of Karak Castle is a foreign noble from France. It is too vague whether he supports Your Highness in choosing the king."

Gailis could feel that this Arab attack was very strange. Isabella's trip to Jerusalem to participate in the king election was not a big deal. Apart from the knights who escorted them, only a few people knew the route.

After traveling through time, Garys' mind was full of thoughts. Although he was weak, it was not difficult for him to figure out the mystery.

Why did the Arabs dare to set up an ambush in the rainstorm and deliberately avoid damaging the carriage Isabella was sitting in? This was clearly an attack launched by the Arabs in order to eliminate the knights like Gairis who were directly loyal to Isabella.

Among those who have both the ability and the motive, Reynard, the owner of Karak Castle, is obviously the most suspicious.

The few surviving knights around were somewhat at a loss after hearing what Gailis said. It was neither possible to advance nor retreat, so how should they deal with the current predicament?
In this regard, after realizing the special respect that people around him had for him, Garys already had a vague idea in his mind, but he had to wait until he recovered his basic ability to move before he could implement it.

"If there is a village nearby, we can go there to get some food and water, and then let the injured brothers recover in the village."

What Garys didn't say was that if he could only recover half of his power from last night, there would be no one he couldn't kill within a hundred steps.

After regaining such a powerful ability, Garys naturally no longer has to worry about being purged.

Before the group set off again, the survivors of last night's bloody battle buried the bodies of their friendly soldiers, with sadness that was hard to conceal on their faces.

When they set out, there were a total of twenty knights, more than thirty squires and servants. After the ambush attack last night, only five knights and seven squires and servants were left alive.

Some of them surrendered shamefully, while others fainted from injuries in the melee and were unable to fight again. But no matter what, at least they were still willing to follow the team.

And the common point was that all of them looked at Garys eagerly, even though the nominal leader of the team was actually the girl in the carriage.

But for everyone who witnessed the miraculous resurrection, Garys, who was resurrected by God's grace, was the unquestionable core.

They had repeatedly asked for Gillis's hair and kept asking about Gillis's vision of heaven.

When asked, Garys, who was impatient, opened his mouth and said, "There are many men in heaven, all of them are brothers; there are many women in heaven, all of them are sisters. The whole world is one big family of the Heavenly Father, the Lord, the Supreme God. In heaven, no one is selfish, and everything belongs to the Lord, so the Lord can use it. In heaven, the family is equal, nothing is lacking, and everyone enjoys happiness."

After Garys said this, the knights looked at each other in silence. Garys's description of heaven was indeed something they had never thought of before.

However, there was a different light flashing in the eyes of those servants.

(End of this chapter)