After being forced to step down, the once-annoying nun eloped with me.

Joseph suddenly noticed the chaos above.

Although he didn't know exactly what had happened, he realized that this might be his and the demons' only chance to escape.

Perhaps because these demons lost their ability to resist after their head organs were removed, these barbarians did not put them in shackles. Even Joseph's family was only taken away for their valuables—this was really great.

With his hands and feet still mobile, Joseph endured his excruciating headache and moved everything he could to block the cellar door. Then, turning to his wife and daughters, and addressing the demons who seemed to have realized something and had spontaneously risen to their feet, he shouted:

"Help me, everyone! Hold on a little longer! Just a little longer and we can escape!"

Whether we can escape alive, who knows?

But this is an opportunity. Opportunities are only for those who are prepared.

Chapter Twenty-Five: The Last Bell Tolls

After the Golem breached the city gates, the Khagad were destined for annihilation.

Even after their villages are breached, the barbarians will still fight the invaders to the death with any weapons they can find.

The Khagads, however, after the city fell.

They chose chaos, and final indulgence.

With no other option, Khagad III concentrated all his remaining troops in the church for defense. The civilians who had been armed dared not advance toward the breached city gates to stop the stone giants with their own flesh and blood, nor dared to open the other two city gates to escape without knowing the situation outside.

When faced with no way out, the will to survive and despair eventually turned into madness and brutality before the end of the world.

Seeking revenge before death, committing wanton adultery in despair, or, clinging to a sliver of hope, embarking on a massive robbery, all in the hope of escaping and becoming incredibly wealthy.

Naturally, it wasn't that no one intended to put up a fight—but faced with Golem's heavy stone fists and thick tree trunks in his hands, the resistance of the vast majority of militiamen was futile. The best outcome was that they became corpses stuck to Golem's body, and the worst outcome was that not even their bodies or limbs were left.

Unable to expand their formation on the narrow streets, the golems, in an endless stream, trampled the corpses on the street into a sticky pulp.

The sewage in the drains turned crimson, and the giants' clubs ripped some people off the rooftops—the Listeners' goal was to rescue their children, and the Khagards who plundered their kin for gold and a bountiful harvest would eventually pay the price.

However, only a fool would give up the fight. King Khagad III was clearly not a fool.

He transformed the church into a formidable fortress in a very short time, but even so, the stained-glass windows and various corridors that were meant to showcase the church's splendor, which had now become points of entry for the enemy, still became defensive gaps that he had to painstakingly overcome.

More men must be added to the front lines, and we must hold out until reinforcements arrive—Count Khagad desperately grabbed the collars of the mage and the remaining priest squires, forcing them to help stop the stone giants' attack.

But this is not an easy thing.

Leaving aside the priest's retinue, the mage's tearful state could not be alleviated by words.

Just as the Roman Empire perceived mages—as the only geniuses capable of competing with priests who wielded the power of the gods, mages relied on [magic power] to unleash all their magic.

With the portal destroyed and the magic within Khagad territory almost completely burned to ashes by its destruction, mages are utterly powerless to offer any help!

“If those antlers were still there, I might be able to control the surrounding magical remnants through them.” The mage struggled, on the verge of tears, trying to get Count Khagad to release his grip. “But the problem is, those antlers have already been sold to the parish, not a single one is left! Now, even if I recover my magic at top speed, I simply can’t cast a single fireball before dawn!”

"What about the priest's retinue?! What about you?! Aren't you all sufficiently devout to the God of Light at this very moment?! Why can't you wield divine power like the priest?!"

“Because not everyone can become a priest!” The priest’s squire also seemed desperate. “We squires simply cannot master lethal divine magic, and to put it bluntly, the believers outside the church are being slaughtered right now, and our divine power is gradually fading away!”

The priest is very powerful.

But a pastor's power is built upon his believers.

Generally speaking, the range of a priest's spells is directly proportional to the number of believers around him—the more believers there are, the larger the range of the spells the priest can cast, and the more destructive they are.

Although a priest's casting of divine spells only consumes physical strength and the divine power of the god he believes in, and at most there will be times when he has to stop and rest, unless it is in a place of divine manifestation, once the number of believers begins to decline rapidly, even the most powerful priest will not be able to cast powerful divine spells.

Mages rely on magic, priests rely on their followers. But now, the former have lost their magic, and the latter's followers have lost their priests. Count Khagaard is left with only flesh and blood and swords, only one trembling guard after another, policemen, and militiamen wielding pitchforks to fight against the impending giants.

How are we supposed to fight this?! Who on earth is attacking Kargard?! Where is their commander?!

If Count Kagard were given a chance, he would surrender immediately, even if it meant turning everyone in Count Kagard's territory into slaves. As long as he could surrender and save his life, everything would be fine.

But for the people of Count Khagad, their atrocities will not cease regardless of whether Count Khagad surrenders or not.

The stone giant was getting closer and closer to the cellar where the sacrifices were imprisoned.

Some people wanted to escape underground because the stone giants seemed unable to enter the narrow spaces.

Some fanatical believers stubbornly believed that as long as the offerings inside were pulled out and immediately offered to the God of Light, then the great God would send down his power to slaughter all the stone giants.

But when they rushed to the cellar entrance, unlocked the door, and pushed it in, they discovered—the door was blocked from the inside!

"Open the door! Open the door! If you don't open the door, we're going to die out here!"

Some believers pretended to be women in need of refuge, and in fact she was a woman, but the sickle she was holding made her disguise look extremely clumsy.

"Open the door! Open the door!"

Some believers even kicked out with their big feet, but instead of opening the door, the act of kicking attracted the attention of the stone giant who was searching around the street not far away.

The stone giant's slow approach only fueled their panic. Now, forget about pleading; they even produced a large wooden hammer from who-knows-where and began relentlessly pounding on the wooden door leading to the cellar.

Before they could even celebrate the creation of a breach, salt and shards of chopsticks were thrown out, causing the person at the very front to cover their eyes and scream as they retreated.

"Fuck you, you beasts!" came Dr. Joseph's booming roar from inside. "You shameless bastards! A bunch of ungrateful barbarians, a bunch of animals who repay kindness with enmity! You can all die out there! Don't you dare think about getting in!"

"Please! Those monsters are coming! If you don't open the door, none of us will survive!" A farmer turned around and looked desperately at the stone giant that was less than fifty meters away, kneeling and kowtowing towards the cellar entrance: if the people inside didn't open the door and let them in, they were doomed! "Please—please!"

"You were planning to burn us alive tomorrow anyway, we were already doomed anyway, and now that we can drag you down with us, I'm more than happy to do it!"

Negotiation was out of the question. These madmen could only continue trying to break down the door with their hammers.

But how could it be so easy?

Even if the wooden door was broken open, the obstacles made up of pots and pans inside still only allowed one person to crawl in and out. Even if someone from the outside tried to climb in, they would be met with a barrage of thrown farm tools and cooking utensils.

Not to mention that Joseph's skillful wife also found a ceramic plate in the cellar. After breaking the plate, she combined the triangular pieces of the plate with the cooking utensils to make a short spear, which she then stood on the side of the cellar entrance.

Whenever someone enters, she uses all her strength to stab the spearhead into their neck or armpit. If given the chance, she will stab them several more times to make sure they are dead before stopping to rest, panting, and letting a seemingly healthier demon take their place.

Having followed her husband in practicing medicine for many years, even as a woman, she knows which parts of the human body are fatal.

After paying the price of several corpses, a cultist of the Church of Light, who was struggling to crawl into the cellar entrance, suddenly crashed into the cellar and was crushed into a bloody pulp by external force.

Mr. Joseph couldn't dodge in time and his face was smeared with scarlet sauce. He didn't understand what was happening, but when he turned his head blankly to look at the cellar entrance, he didn't see those hideous believers, but rather a large stone hand.

The demons wept with joy at the sight, while the giant hand dug at the entrance to the cellar, quickly creating a path that allowed people to pass through.

A demon who looked similar to the demon next to Mr. Joseph jumped down from outside, except that he had deer antlers on his head.

Upon seeing her kin, her face initially lit up with joy, but as she noticed the missing items on their heads, her anger intensified, threatening to engulf the three humans in the cellar—

The victims in the cellars were muttering something Joseph couldn't understand at all. Just as he, his wife, and daughters were huddled together, trembling, the demon who had come from the surface nodded to him and then spoke in the difficult Common Tongue:

"...You are not bad people. Come, come with us. Humans."

"Who...who are you? Who directed this attack?"

Joseph breathed a sigh of relief, but he was still wary of it—this was not his fault. His faith had been shattered by the people he had promised to protect, so how could he unconditionally trust his wife and daughters when he was with them?

"We are the Listening Clan. Our leader is the clan chief, and also humanity."

"Humans?"

The demon who called herself a member of the Listening Clan nodded. Then, after pondering for a moment with great distress, she uttered a name that shocked Joseph:

"His name is Yang Hao. He's a good person."

"—Yang, Yang Hao?!—?!"

Upon hearing the name, Joseph paused for a moment.

Then his voice suddenly rose three octaves:

"Your Majesty?! Your Majesty the Regent?!"

In the entire Roman Empire, there is only one person named Yang Hao.

He really did... return like lightning!

Joseph held his wife and daughter and wept uncontrollably, but he quickly calmed himself down, wiped the sauce off his face with his clothes, and tidied himself up as best he could.

"I understand. Let's go."

He held his head high and, with his wife and daughters, followed the Ling tribesmen out of the cellar where they had been imprisoned for so long.

............

Upon entering the city, Naruja, who was behind Yang Hao, paused for a moment, her antlers gleaming with a yellow light.

"...The children have been rescued. Three humans were also rescued along with them."

"Three humans?"

Yang Hao simply looked at the church in the distance, which was being used as a last bastion to put up a stubborn resistance.

How could there be humans here?

"...The children said it was a doctor who tried to treat them—and then he and his family were taken in. Is this someone you know?"

"...Perhaps. But now is not the time for a reunion."

He smacked his lips as he watched Golem hurl a massive foundation stone he'd dug out of the nearby building ruins like a cannonball.

The stone projectile struck the church tower. With a deafening roar, the tower collapsed. The church bell tower plummeted downwards, finally crashing through the inner walls with its own weight, smashing down the high-rise platform where arrows were still being fired in vain, destroying the internal organ which emitted piercing tones, and finally completely crushing the dome, which was already teetering on the brink of collapse from the golem's attack, burying almost all the humans inside alive before crashing to the ground.

Inside the ruins of the bell tower, the church bell, miraculously preserved intact, rang out one long, drawn-out chime after another as it was shaken.

The last stronghold of Khagad has fallen.

And now.

It was 11:47 PM.

Chapter Twenty-Six: The Carnage of Khagad

When Count Kagard was pulled from the rubble by a giant stone hand in a daze, there was no living person around him.

Theresa disappeared with two Golems and a Listener, and Yang Hao was happy that Theresa was gone for the time being—because he was about to do something terrifying.

He didn't want Theresa to see what was about to happen. So he was glad Theresa left.

However, there were still some things that Yang Hao didn't understand.

After all, the charge of "massacre" could not be simply leveled against him—it had to have actually happened for it to be documented locally before it could be used as a charge against him.

A massacre that never happened cannot be used as a charge against him. No one would be that foolish.