our family is gone

Chapter 797: Raid on the Ruins
Martin listened to Lance's words and looked at the nameless tombstone in silence.

As a member of the upper echelons, although he was ostracized by other factions, he still knew that saints were a kind of inheritance. They had nothing to do with men, women, old or young. They were the apostles of holy light walking on earth.

The inheritance ceremony of the saints is also very complicated. The church selects holy sons and holy daughters who are close to the holy light to follow the saints. As for when to pass it on, it depends entirely on the saints themselves.

After the succession, the previous leader usually turns into ashes, and the ashes are finally collected in the shrine and buried in the temple. This has been passed down for who knows how many generations. Anyway, saints are almost the history of the church...

So what he was looking for was not the saint himself, but the inheritance, the connection between the holy light and reality, which was related to the survival of the church.

But what does a pile of ashes mean now? The saint is gone, and the heritage is gone!

He was a little overwhelmed by the ups and downs of his mood. He found it, and then he didn’t find it. What should he do?
"Your strength seems to be declining. It seems that this saint is very important to you." Lance suddenly said this. It was not an interrogative tone, but a direct statement of the facts.

Martin couldn't help but feel the decline in his strength, no wonder a bunch of people couldn't even take care of a church.

"We need to send the ashes of the saints back." Martin did not answer directly, but his already hunched body looked even older, and he had already given the answer.

"Okay, I respect your rights, but please don't disturb other places."

Lance seemed to understand something. The civil war in the empire was not only due to the conflict between the emperor and the nobles reaching an irreconcilable level, but was also a manifestation of the decline of the church's control.

Ever since the saint was reverse-sealed by the ancestor, the church should have started to decline after losing the saint, but it’s only now that the church has a strong foundation.

The failure of the holy war that Reynald participated in at the time was most likely related to Hamlet's change of heart, so those people conspired with Hamlet and the church together?
Otherwise it would be difficult to explain why those cults or ambitious people who realized the decline of the church earlier than himself began to emerge collectively. In comparison, he was just one of the fallen lords on the edge of the northern border, so the church did not care.

That is to say, what he encountered at the beginning was a half-crippled church, and by the time the church reacted and turned their attention to this side, Hamlet had already grown. At this point, it was already a struggle to mobilize an elite force.

The Church cannot control the empire, nor Totnes, and now Hamlet cannot control it either. This is the reality.

The only way they can turn the tables is to find the saints. Then the power of holy light will be restored and the church will return to its peak and be able to inflict great damage.

However, the saints were sacrificed by Lance and turned into divinity. After completely losing the saints, the church's strength began to decline further, which was reflected in Martin.

This is the disadvantage of using religion as a bond. It reminds Lance that after the eagles lost their natural spirits, they could no longer perform some secret techniques and could only rely on props.

Lance suddenly realized something. Could that saint be the "spirit of nature" of the church?

What is the so-called "holy light"?
"Hamlet's disaster back then was related to many people, but Hamlet and the church were the only victims. So who benefited from it?"

Lance had no intention of wasting time on them, so he left after saying a few words.

Martin came to his senses and understood what Lance meant. Hamlet was not an enemy of the church.

Soon the remaining members of the church arrived at the cemetery, and after listening to Martin's story, they all fell silent.

What is this? It makes their actions look like a joke.

"This must be the lord's conspiracy!"

A knight roared, he didn't believe these words at all.

"He could have just not told us this, we wouldn't have known anyway, but he did it anyway, without any conditions, just because these people are heroes."

Martin knew that it was difficult for everyone to accept this news, but he still helped Lance explain it. Even the candlelight priest who had remained silent added a sentence.

"You are not here, so you don't understand why this cemetery is called the Heroes Cemetery and who is qualified to be buried here."

"It's useless to worry about this now. Let's quickly dig up the ashes and send them back. The church should be able to find a way to prove whether they are the remains of a saint. Maybe they can find some clues."

The facts are before us, and the clues of the saints are more important. In a world where supernatural powers are manifested, nothing is impossible.

But Lance was not afraid of their investigation. The reason was very simple. The saints were sacrificed, and if they really investigated it, it was hard to say what would happen.

Reims has already assembled its personal guards, and there are also some seed players who need to be trained, such as Joan of Arc and other newcomers who have shown potential. Talent training cannot be interrupted.

"This time the target is the necromancer, a kind of evil existence that desecrates life. Most of them have broken free from the shackles of death, but unlike skeletons, they can bleed, so cutting weapons are useful.

Most of these guys use necromancy, attack your souls, and summon skeletons, but as long as you have a strong will, you can resist the fear.

Their weakness is probably that they don't have a very strong body, so they can't be interrupted by long-range attacks.

However, the skeletons they summon will not bleed, and some of the skeletons have very high armor, so we need to deal with them accordingly.

Last but not least, don't get entangled with those skeletons. Once you kill the Necromancer, they will lose the power to sustain themselves.

Also, the caster must die!"

Lance unfolded the map of the ruins. He had sent people to explore it a long time ago, and later Wangcai took action. The reconnaissance was basically completed, and the locations of those necromancers were marked.

Basically, they are all located deep in the ruins and are distributed among the buildings, which means that there must be a large number of skeletons protecting the surrounding areas.

And they were not just skeletons turned from ordinary people, they even dug up the ancestral graves of Hamlet's nobles.

The thirty new guards needed more combat strength, and a few others were called in, including the clown Sarmienti, Alhazred and Bigby.

Sarmienti's power can help everyone relieve stress, and his piano playing can also inspire people. Giving him a mission is to use money to keep people here.

And Alhazred's status as a mystic may be helpful in the fight against the necromancer.

As for Bigby, he was simply pulled here to level up and let him fight skeletons to get used to the strength.

If possible, Lance would like to bring Martin and the others along, but they are not his people after all.

Lance asked them to get ready and called a few carriages to pull people to the front line. He went to the town first to prepare to awaken the legion. This was a powerful force and full of hatred and evil. Lance was sure that they would join in if they knew the content of the operation.

However, he learned an interesting piece of news: a foreigner named Bacurus had been coming from the Eternal City of Romulus and wanted to contact the legion.

"Did he say why he was looking for it?" "It seems that he wanted to bring the legion back, but I don't know the specific situation."

"Call the man to me."

Soon a man wearing the same ancient empire style armor as the legion appeared. He had a strong build and a broad-bladed one-handed sword at his waist.

"Speak, tell me everything."

Lance took a look and didn't bother to talk nonsense and directly controlled him. He soon figured out why they were here.

Romulus is now a small country. For their king, the return of the legion can enhance their strength and help maintain their rule.

I guess it really has a bit of the flavor of seeking the heritage of the ancient empire. After all, many legends about the legion are related to it.

Because of the way information was circulated, by the time the news of the legion's appearance was passed back, the people had already left by the time they tried to find them. They did not have the strength to really look for them, so they could only drag it on. Now they finally caught them in Hamlet.

Lance also discovered something very interesting, that is, the ancient empire was really broken and they didn’t even know the origin of the legion. This action was completely self-indulgent.

Boring, waste of time...

"I know, let's go back."

Lance waved his hand to drive them away. If they had not come as a delegation and made it known to everyone, Lance would have sacrificed him directly.

Bakurus didn't even realize that he had been controlled until he walked out. In his memory, it was just a simple question and answer, but he couldn't remember the man's face.

Decadence, the so-called Tooth of the Empire, any one of the Empire's champions here is stronger than him, the sorrow of a small country is fully displayed at this moment.

Lance didn't forget why he came here, he found where the Legion was sleeping and woke them up, briefly explained that he wanted to clear out the necromancers in the ruins, and of course the situation that Romulus was looking for them.

"No matter who is fighting evil, we will help them. As for the others, we have already devoted our lives to the empire."

When the legion centurion Lanius said this, it meant that he had cut off ties with Romulus, and Lance could sense the resentment, so there must be some shameful love-hate relationship involved.

However, Lance was not very interested in this. Instead, he told them about the ruins and the location of the enemy.

The team gathered in the open space outside the town. There were eighty guards, ten legionaries, and heroes like Joan of Arc, so the number of people swelled to a hundred.

Lance did not divide his troops, but instead pushed all of them forward.

There was no way to hide such a team and Lance had no intention of hiding, so he entered the ruins.

Many adventurers have been picking up trash and catching rats in the ruins. They should have also heard about the Scorpion Mercenaries who escaped back in the early morning and described the horror of the ruins.

"The Lord must have heard that something happened to the church team and knew what kind of monster was hidden in the ruins, so he took action."

"You're reacting too quickly. In the past, when a monster came to our village, the village chief went to the town to call in some mercenaries, but they didn't come until more than ten days later."

"Could it be that they really have discovered some treasure? The church..."

No one cared about their reactions, and Lance obviously wasn't going to explain anything.

The snow has stopped for a few days. The calf-deep snow has melted under the warm sun. Some people have walked on the first half of the road, but you need to be careful when you go deeper.

He dealt with some skeletons he encountered along the way, passed through the once bustling urban area, and headed straight for the goal - the cemetery!
After the old man resurrected the powerful undead wizard and his apprentice whom he had just killed, they wandered in the ruins, reawakening the former residents of Hamlet who had been stripped of their flesh and blood by the old man.

Finally, it stopped at the place where the smell of death in Hamlet was the strongest, which was located in the northwest suburbs, equivalent to the history of Hamlet, in a large tomb where countless people were buried.

There, they desecrated the graves of the soldiers and nobles who had served there, and brought them back into existence as their undead legions.

Even before getting close, just looking from afar you can see countless skeletons wandering around, the density is several times that of outside.

What's even more terrifying is that there are no buildings to separate them. There are only countless crooked or collapsed crosses, or dug-up graves.

Under the cover of such a strong aura of death, the skeletons here are not afraid of the sunlight at all. In fact, their power is stronger and more active.

Now you know why Lance called so many people over.

"The guards come to assist, Isaac, you guys come here to take charge of aiming the artillery..."

Lance commanded the team, and then took out several cannons from the wizard tower. Perhaps they did not have the powerful isolation ability of the showroom, but a large space was good. Of course, it consumed a lot of spiritual energy.

Isaac's talent is not in direct combat. He has shown a very strong logical thinking talent and is even more sensitive to mathematics. Ballistic calculations that are difficult for ordinary people to understand are very simple to him, not to mention that he has also awakened his extraordinary talent and become a natural spellcaster.

But Lance still wanted to let him see and experience combat. After all, practice is the only criterion for testing truth.

The appearance of more than ten artillery pieces and boxes of artillery shells out of nowhere did not cause much reaction. The battlefield is a race against time, and those people have already started to take action.

The guards came over without Lance's command, picked up the props and began to set up their positions.

They knew how to use the artillery, and they had divided themselves into small teams. Under the command of the gunner, they pushed the artillery to the designated position, picked up props to load it, took aim, and prepared to bombard the large cemetery.

Those heroes protected the artillery position and took care of the scattered skeletons around to buy time for the artillery.

Lance had no intention of fighting head-on. The corpses that Hamlet had accumulated over hundreds of years had not yet been resurrected. You could imagine how many corpses were there. Even if a hundred people were thrown into the cemetery, not even a single splash would be made.

But times have changed.

"Report! Loading is complete and you can fire."

Lance looked at the skeletons coming towards them from a hundred yards away and already had the answer in his mind.

"fire!"