In the small town, ten frail, feather-light corpses lay on the ground. Before them stood a squad of Holy Kingdom Knights.
They looked at one another.
"These are Dawn Followers. What do we do?"
"The Lord's power has guided them into the Eternal Kingdom of Heaven to welcome their rebirth."
The Holy Kingdom Knights' eyes were filled with envy. Although, as members of the Holy Kingdom Knights, their souls too were destined to return to the Kingdom of Heaven after death.
But these people had been personally guided there by the Lord.
"This is Ellis, a distant descendant of Elder Montoya. Back then, Elder Montoya nearly became a Cardinal Archbishop."
A Holy Kingdom Knight walked over to the corpses and found the man's name and origins from the tag on his body. He was a follower of the Church of Dawn, though he now called himself a Dawn Follower.
"His Holiness the Pope has not denied the identity of the Dawn Followers, so they are still members of the Church. But... we cannot send them to the Holy Mountain for burial."
"Then bury them in the church, beneath the Lord's feet."
After the knights came to a decision, they ordered the noble soldiers behind them to carry all the bodies to the church. Their graves would be beneath the cross.
Naturally, the church priest lacked both the courage and the strength to stop them.
No matter what their pasts had been, every Holy Kingdom Knight held an extremely high status. One could even look into their backgrounds—each Holy Kingdom Knight, taken alone, had powerful connections on the Holy Mountain.
The clergy in these remote regions could not compare to these knights in status.
Although, according to the Church of Dawn's hierarchy, priests were considered upper-middle ranks in the formal power