Chapter 643 Rhine's Machine
Rhine City.
The capital of the empire, a miracle city built out of thin air, a paradise for factory owners and new nobles, and a holy place for the Mechanical Temple.
Of course, these are all old titles. Since the Queen was assassinated, these names are rarely mentioned.
Originally, this place was built by the royal family. In order to support the Mechanical Temple to compete with the Candlelight Society, the royal family's investment can be said to be regardless of cost.
Rhine did not disappoint people's expectations. As bags of Rio were poured down, a large number of factories sprang up, and a new aristocratic class centered on factory owners emerged. The old aristocrats also gradually extended olive branches, and many people even lowered their status and opened factories themselves.
Back then, this place was full of vitality. Although the lower-level workers were still consumables, at least the nobles were willing to share some of the scraps from the profits, using them as carrots dangling in front of their eyes to lead people forward.
At that time, the city was huge, disorderly, dangerous, but also full of opportunities.
But gradually, everything began to sink, and there was no looking back.
When Frey arrived in front of the Rhine City, he thought he saw the corpse of a giant.
This is the gate of Rhine City. Frey pulled up his stained hood and carefully stuck his head out from the team.
He took an airship and traveled within the empire with Zoe and her group for a while, then found a secluded place to land secretly, and the two sides then acted separately.
In addition to him, there were several soldiers under Erwin. Those people were mainly going to contact the Ash Alliance, while he wanted to try his best to blend in with his own identity.
This was not difficult. Frey had been hanging out on the streets since he was a child and was already familiar with how to deal with all kinds of people.
With the fake identity obtained from the Ashes Alliance and a few bags of Leo's funds, it would be easy to sneak into Rhine.
——That’s what he originally thought.
Frey was standing in the queue, looking at the city guards and the supervising priests in front of him, with a look of disbelief on his face.
The queue he was waiting in wasn't long, at least compared to a large city like Rhineland, it shouldn't have so few people.
But Frey was not surprised at all. He even thought it was a miracle that there were so many people.
Simply because the search into the city was too bizarre.
Frey has dealt with the city guards many times. They are a group of greedy wolves. When they set their sights on you, you can neither have nothing nor be too fat, otherwise you will get into trouble.
But the people in front of him completely overturned Frey's cognition.
A priest in a long robe was holding a long whip in his hand and was whipping the person kneeling on the ground with an excited look on his face.
"Memorize it! Memorize it! You have to memorize the Candlelight Prayer. If you don't recite the doctrine, how can you know the greatness of the Church?"
Bang!
The whip fell, leaving a white mark on the man's back. It immediately swelled up and turned into a glaring purple-red color, with blood faintly oozing out.
If you want to enter the city, you must recite the teachings of Candlelight.
The priest whipped with a grim smile, and the people in the queue were silent.
Frey opened his mouth to say something, but in the end he just adjusted his hood and hid his expression in the shadows.
What kind of outrageous request is this?!
Even in Whitestone Castle, the greedy soldiers only wanted Leo, and they could buy peace in exchange for money.
And here, the priest seemed to simply enjoy torturing people.
——The man was not incapable of reciting the doctrine. He was reciting it with great difficulty, but with each sentence, a sound of breaking air could be heard, and soon a bloody mark appeared on his back. The priest's words, accompanied by his sinister smile, echoed at the city gate:
"Everyone has sinned and must atone for their sins. Hahahaha, recite it quickly!"
"This flame is not the burning leftovers of the sun, but the light of the ceremony. Ah!"
"Damn it! You rubbish! Who allowed you to tarnish the teachings of Candlelight with your vulgar words!"
"Let the candle tears wrap your eyes, let the candle wick nail your tongue, do you feel the sacredness of the candlelight?"
Frey looked at everything in front of him in shock. The priest seemed to neither want money nor care whether the person in front of him was pious. He just wanted to vent.
Frey's eyes fell on the man who was kneeling and chanting. He was thin, with a miserable face and tattered clothes.
But these tattered clothes were probably very important. He was reluctant to have them torn by the whip, so he carefully put them aside and used his flesh and blood to welcome the beating.
Perhaps the priest was tired, he whipped for a while longer, put the whip on the table beside him, and shook his hands.
"Next."
Another person came up, just as skinny, just as poor, as if they were carved from the same mold.
He took off his clothes and placed them aside gently, then knelt on the ground with his head lowered, chanting a prayer incoherently.
The priest waved his hand: "I'm tired."
After saying that, he sat down on an armchair at the side with a parasol over his head. The soldiers guarding the gate quickly surrounded him and offered him drinks.
Frey's eyes rolled. Perhaps the man was just unlucky, and the priest just happened to be looking for someone to vent his anger on.
"Hurry up and bring the machine up!"
A soldier who looked like a squad leader was fanning the priest while yelling at the soldiers next to him.
Soon, several soldiers brought over a large iron machine.
Frey carefully looked over. He had been following Castel's envoys for the past few days and had seen many different machines. He was particularly impressed by the steam engines that could curse people and even spray coal balls when anxious.
But the machine in front of him still made him a little confused.
He looked at it for a long time but still couldn't figure out what it was used for.
It seemed to be a wheel, with cylindrical grooves on the rim, connected in the middle by a crankshaft, and an exquisite handle at the other end.
It looks a bit like the flywheel on a steam engine, but there are always subtle differences.
The soldiers moved the machine over, placed it in front of the priest, poured fuel into it, and the wheel slowly began to rotate.
Perhaps it was a fan? Frey had seen similar structures on airships. To keep cool, some stokers would add a few gears to the steam engine to create a simple gearbox, then attach a fan to it using bearings. This way, once the steam engine started, a breeze would blow.
Of course, if you make the steam engine angry, you can just wait for the typhoon to pass.
"Sir, please~"
The soldiers set up the machine, and the squad leader handed over the priest's whip in a handkerchief.
The priest only hummed, casually inserted the whip into the rotating wheel, lay comfortably in the armchair, and turned the handle on the other side.
The wheel turned and the whip cracked, so he could whip the believers kneeling on the ground without any effort.
(End of this chapter)
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