Vane first secured the Devil Fruit in his hand, then stepped out from the treetops and in an instant appeared beside the king and queen consort.
The church knights had been suppressed, and the king's eyes were filled with terror.
"Don't kill me, I—I can give you a lot of money."
"That won't be necessary. I already took it."
"???"
"Get lost. I'm not interested in trash like you."
Vane waved a big hand and sent the king flying several meters away.
Humiliated, the king turned his head in grief and fury. This damned devil was actually reaching toward his beautiful queen consort—his most beloved woman!
Vane grabbed the queen consort by the throat. At that moment she lifted her head, and a faint white glow appeared in her eyes, as if to drag a person's soul in.
The queen consort slightly parted her lips: "Submit to me."
"Why should I!"
The haki within Vane surged and steadied his mind. The hand gripping her throat suddenly lifted—refer to the scene of Blackbeard grabbing the Empress by the neck.
"Impossible."
Her face was full of disbelief.
"A Devil Fruit user—your ability works on other people's minds… what a pity. Someone like me is the least likely to be affected by you."
Haki can negate Devil Fruit abilities, especially this kind of mental attack; for Conqueror's Haki, defending against it isn't that hard.
This woman is a Paramecia user of the Hypnosis-Hypnosis Fruit, able to hypnotize hearts and control human desire.
The real ruler of this country was actually her; the king was nothing more than her toy.
She used this country's religious faith, followed their emotions, and planted suggestions in many people.
The reason those knights were unafraid of death and so frenzied was because she used hypnosis to make them believe they were protected by the Divine Tree, firmly convinced that even if they died they would ascend to the divine kingdom.
Fearless of life and death, forgetting pain, their combat power skyrocketed.
"Hehahaha—kill me, kill me!"
As if resigned to her fate, the queen consort shouted for Vane to kill her.
"Oh? Won't you pray to your god?"
Her eyes were filled with madness.
"God is fake! They're all idiots! God is fake—only idiots believe there are gods and devils in this world!"
Her crazed voice was loud, and a great many believers around them heard her clearly.
Setting the clergy aside, most of them knew there were no gods; they merely enjoyed the power that came with their status.
But those church knights, and some of the citizens, were hearing their worldview shatter for the first time.
"Go on, keep talking!"
Vane loosened his grip so the queen consort had the strength to continue.
"You idiots—god is fake! It's just used to scam your money!"
"Make you keep your heads down, make you keep your heads down for your whole lives!"
The divine-looking garments on her body, paired with her stream of vulgar curses, made the scene truly very "chaotic."
Someone asked cautiously, "Then… why were people hanged, drowned, burned as 'devils'?"
In the name of god, over the past year the kingdom had executed quite a few people—most of them women.
The queen consort's eyes went wide, really giving off a possessed-by-a-demon vibe.
"Because I felt like it!"
"What's with all of you looking like victims! Didn't you love burning people!"
"What, after a few years you forget what you did yourselves?!"
"The Holy Water Festival three years ago! Right here, in the name of executing devils, you burned five people to death!"
"Several tens of thousands of you shouting together, 'Burn the devil!' Weren't you shouting happily? Why is it not okay when the fire is on you!"
Three years ago!
The memories of the people present were quickly stirred. That year's Holy Water Festival, the kingdom captured five 'followers' of devils. Their skin was terribly frightening; judging by appearances, they really did look like devil worshippers.
Under an atmosphere of extreme fanaticism, everyone unanimously decided to burn the devil worshippers to death in the square.
"You burned my family to death! They just had a skin disease and had been hiding in the countryside, afraid to contact people! Did you listen to their explanations?!"
The five who were burned to death were all the queen consort's family. They had contracted a skin disease that spread easily and were driven away by villagers.
After the symptoms healed, irreversible skin damage remained. Because of that, people treated them as monsters who would still spread disease. One day they were seen again and reported; the kingdom arrested them as devil worshippers and burned them alive in public.
The queen consort, because she had not been infected, escaped that calamity.
Amid the frenzied believers, she watched her family beg in agony and be burned to death by the flames.
From that day on, she decided to take revenge on the entire Holy Church Nation.
Perhaps the Hypnosis-Hypnosis Fruit heard her prayer and was obtained by her.
She used the fruit's power to get close to the king step by step and become the queen consort, using these people's faith to plant deep suggestions in them.
As an outsider, Vane listened to all this.
"Interesting—really interesting. These people aren't all innocent, are they?"
"You worship a god that doesn't exist, so I'll oppress you in god's name! You deserve to be oppressed by god!"
"You burned my family in god's name, so I'll burn your families in god's name! Don't you worship god? What objections do you have!"
On the level of reason, the queen consort, who should have been vicious, actually seemed to hold the moral high ground at this moment.
On the religious level, these people once firmly believed flames could send people to the divine kingdom; now the queen consort was "granting" them the chance to go there.
You can't believe flames send others to the divine kingdom when they're burning someone else, and then stop believing when the flames are on you, right?
On the personal level, the queen consort's reason for revenge was very sufficient: you killed my family, I'll kill your families—very reasonable.
Moria laughed darkly. "Keh heh heh heh~ Captain, I told you, didn't I? Don't be fooled by how they look now. Back then, there were plenty of fanatical believers in the Holy Church Nation."
Before coming, Moria had tipped Vane off: at least half the citizens of the Holy Church Nation were fanatical believers.
After Vane landed on the island, he found that the truly voluntary believers were at most a tenth.
It seemed that after the queen consort took power, the high-pressure policies made even those believers start doubting their lives and thus stop trusting the church.
"I thought they were gentle. Didn't expect they were this venomous."
"Woman, I very much agree with your eye-for-an-eye approach, but these tens of thousands are a bit too many. I'll give you one hour. Find the group you think most deserves to die, and go all out."
"Only one hour."
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Pls Drop some Power Stones
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