Blood Holy Scripture: True Ancestor Charlotte de Castel
Chapter 506: -31- Cooperation between the Royal Family and the Church_2

Chapter 506: -31- Cooperation between the Royal Family and the Church_2

Indeed, that was the case.

Shortly after the order was issued, the Kingdom Nobles gathered in Lutecia began to protest in succession, claiming that such rigorous investigation was a violation of the "Holy Contract," the act of a tyrant, and "unlawful." Some of the Great Nobles even publicly refused to allow the Guard Knights and Church Knights to enter their families.

The Central Council hadn’t even started, but the Royal Family and the Nobles had already prematurely become antagonistic.

Especially the Gaston family, this Great Family known for its neutral stance in the Kingdom, this time raised strong protests against the investigation by the Royal Family and the Church. Duke Gaston, the Family Head, even became the leader of the opposition with strength nearing Legendary.

According to Duke Gaston, while condemning evil is important, the rights of the Nobles are also protected by the "Holy Contract," sacred and inviolable.

Even the Church couldn’t perform such strict scrutiny of the Nobles without cause, solely based on flimsy suspicions.

After Duke Gaston’s remarks spread, it received the agreement of the vast majority of Nobles. For a time... the atmosphere in Lutecia grew even more delicate.

From the Royal Family and the Church announcing a lockdown for investigation, to the displeasure and protests of the Nobles, less than a day had passed.

All sorts of rumors also began to spread in Lutecia...

Some said that the Royal Family had betrayed the Nobles and turned to the Church; some speculated that this Central Council session was a conspiracy of the King against the Nobles, among other things.

Panic spread throughout the Royal Capital and quickly turned into anger.

The Nobles refused to cooperate and showed trends of uniting to resist the investigation.

However, what happened next surprised many...

The Legendary...acted again.

The Great Judge Bernard of the Holy Royal Court, Demon Hunting Cardinal Joseph, personally led the team to investigate the Gaston family.

On the night when the investigation order was issued, a terrifying surge of energy erupted once again from the Inner City district of Lutecia, or more precisely, ripples of battle.

The scale of magic power in this battle was far less than the Legendary battle the day before, but it still covered nearly half of the Inner City’s skies.

This was a fight involving Blazing Sun Level combatants.

The battle came quickly and ended quickly. Though the intensity of magic power reached the Blazing Sun, once the dazzling divine light descended like the wrath of a deity, the battle was swiftly concluded.

Along with the end of the battle, came even more detailed news that shook the Nobles—

One of the New Moon Kingdom’s nine dukes, the one most likely to step into the Legendary as the next High Tier Transcendent—Duke Gaston...had perished.

And the one who killed him was none other than Great Judge Bernard from the Holy Royal Court’s New Moon Diocese.

Promptly, the Investigation Team carried out a thorough search of the Gaston family, found a plethora of evidence of collusion with the Blood Demon Church, and arrested more than a dozen members of the Gaston family who had become Blood Demon Cultists.

This included, even the direct heir of the Gaston family, Richard.

When this news spread, all the Nobles in the Royal Capital became cooperative.

No one anticipated that the Church’s Legendary Clergy would actually take action, nor that they would do so so mercilessly when they did.

And at the same time, such precise investigation and judgment also made the Nobles realize something—that the Royal Family and the Church... had already mastered quite a bit of information.

This was a well-prepared audit!

Many had an epiphany.

For a time, the number of resisting Nobles rapidly decreased, and some families even actively admitted their wrongdoing, providing the Church with quite a bit of intelligence about the Blood Demon Church.

The Investigation Team formed by the Church and the Royal Family was also not idle. They continued to screen and accurately identified the Noble families colluding with the Blood Demon Church, suppressing them with the force of a thunderbolt.

Even within the Holy Royal Court, more than a dozen priests were arrested on the spot and taken to the Judgement Court for charges of corruption.

For a time, the whole of Lutecia was amidst dramatic changes.

And in the Inner City, Charlotte’s estate also welcomed an inspection, though it was relatively lenient.

Only the stores of the Castel family, due to previous involvement with Blood Demon Cultists, underwent a more rigorous examination.

Of course, after the inspection, there were no issues, and any potential exposure was easily resolved under Charlotte’s "Divine Technique Counter."

Charlotte wasn’t particularly concerned about the Church’s scrutiny; as the instigator, she knew that the investigation into her own family would probably just be a formality.

She figured the Church’s targeted investigation must have gotten hold of the list she left behind.

After inquiring specifically, Charlotte matched it with the list she had recorded...

Clearly, the investigation began tentatively, but after verifying the list’s authenticity, it was no longer just an investigation, but a process of arrest then judgment according to the list.

However, Charlotte also noticed that among the nobles arrested for colluding with the Blood Demon Church, not only were there those recorded on the list, but also some well-known opposition figures among the nobility, who were always at odds with King Louis V.

Observing everything from a bystander’s perspective and combining it with her own intelligence, Charlotte soon realized the truth.

Thanks to the Blood Demon Church, the Royal Family and the Church had indeed teamed up this time.

The Royal Family supported the Church’s scrutiny and arrest of the nobles involved with the Blood Demon Church, and the Church condoned the Royal Family’s suppression of the opposing nobility.

Although the New Moon Royal Family and the Church had always been at odds, at this time they spontaneously formed an unspoken agreement.

Charlotte clicked her tongue.

When it came down to it, this unspoken agreement was something she, this little butterfly, had stirred up.

However, combining what she had observed after arriving at the Royal Capital with the Church’s undercover agents within the Blood Demon Church, she had also guessed that the Royal Family and the Church probably intended to work together in the first place.

The Third Prince Philip... he had likely been given up by the Royal Family long ago.

This meeting... its true purpose was probably not for the nobility and the Church to join forces to weaken royal authority, but for the Royal Family and the Church to unite and suppress the nobility, strengthening centralization and religious faith!

However, perhaps the Royal Family and the Church had originally planned to act when the Blood Demon Church made its move, or more precisely, during the Central Council meeting, but her disruptive actions had exposed Albrecht, leaving the Blood Demon Church bare, and brought everything forward...

It could be foreseen that after this turmoil, King Louis the Fifth’s centralization might advance further, and the Holy Royal Court’s control over the New Moon Diocese’s faith would be stronger.

The injured would likely be only the New Moon nobility and the troublemaking Blood Demon Church.

Of course, this had little to do with Charlotte now.

As a rising noble of the Kingdom, Charlotte’s interests had not yet come into direct conflict with the Royal Family.

She had not shown hostility towards the Royal Family, and as they had clearly given up on the Third Prince, she wouldn’t be suppressed as long as she did not pose a threat to them.

As for Albrecht’s subordinates being wiped out in one fell swoop...

Honestly, Charlotte didn’t care in the slightest.

She knew all too well what kind of stuff the Blood Demon cultists were made of, and even if they allowed Albrecht to infiltrate the Blood Demon Church, it did not mean she would welcome any devils or demons.

Such chaotic scum, judged, was it; it was a good chance to "clean house" with the Church’s help.

The joint investigation by the Royal Family and the Church was likely to continue for a few more days, and the chaos in Lutecia would probably not end so soon.

But again, this no longer concerned Charlotte.

Her objective had been achieved, and what remained was to wait for the storm to pass, attend the meeting, then pack up and head home.

If her predictions were correct, this Central Council meeting would likely just be a formality. Since the Church and the Royal Family were cooperating, the Third Prince’s fate had probably been sealed already, reduced to nothing more than deposition and house arrest.

What Charlotte truly needed to do probably consisted only of meeting the King and conducting business with the other nobles.

Not a bad thing in itself.

This purge would inevitably lead to changes in the nobility’s power within the Kingdom, and with the ebb and flow, it would also leave behind numerous power vacuums.

Perhaps... this was convenient for rising Kingdom Nobles like Charlotte to expand their influence.

Having figured everything out, Charlotte stopped paying personal attention to the investigation and merely instructed Sebastian to collect relevant information, treating the whole affair as a daily spectacle.

On the fourth day of this "Great Purge," Charlotte finally received the summons from Albrecht.

More precisely, it was a sacrifice.