What makes humans human is their ability to create and use tools.
What earns humans the right to be called human is their humanity.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, whom the Holy Church had forcibly recruited for cooperation, was indeed a man with humanity.
Or rather, he cared more about his position, status, and authority as Archbishop than about sacrificing himself to God or dying alongside the Agents.
Human greed is also a part of humanity.
But alas, as a Secular Church Archbishop, he couldn't resist the transformation and control exerted by a certain Dead Apostle among the Agents.
"You... what exactly do you want?!"
Originally, the Archbishop of Canterbury was a man with snow-white hair and deeply etched wrinkles. After his transformation, however, he reverted to his appearance from his forties. This rejuvenation, fueled by the youth coursing through his veins, coupled with his forced servitude under a Greater Dead Apostle, reduced the unfortunate Archbishop to little more than a grumbling puppet, feigning indignation.
To survive and maintain his restored youth, he complied when ordered to administer the Spiked Communion.
"You'll soon understand our plans, Archbishop of this Heretic Nation."
"How laughable! You arbitrarily label us 'heretics'! As both a Dead Apostle and one of the Agents, you can't possibly believe in the Lord, can you? This so-called 'Lord' is nothing more than a pathetic wretch, crucified and powerless to save even himself."
"Archbishop of Canterbury, you blaspheme!"
"You transformed me into a Dead Apostle and forced the Secular Church to war against an entire nation! That is the true blasphemy!"
Religion can shape hearts and minds, blinding people with dogma. But the Archbishop of Canterbury, as one of its highest-ranking scribes, would never worship the wooden and clay idols they themselves had crafted, painted, and invoked, all in the Lord's name, while perpetrating demonic acts.
If that wretched fool truly became a god, and the Church's doctrines were as they claimed, then the Church itself would be the first to face reckoning.
"Heh, heh heh heh..."
They locked eyes, suppressing their laughter. The Greater Dead Apostle controlling the Archbishop of Canterbury had seen through his thoughts.
After his laughter subsided, he spoke: "Alas, the Lord does indeed exist. Under the right conditions, we can invoke a Divine Descent using Spirit Summoning Magecraft refined from Mages' techniques. But as you suspect, the Lord is not the image the Church has fabricated."
They believed in God yet blasphemed Him. After another lingering gaze, the collared, suicide-bound Greater Dead Apostle grew increasingly audacious.
"Archbishop, one question: How many have received Holy Communion?"
"Approximately three hundred..."
"So few?"
"In a single afternoon, how many do you expect? Besides, I can't risk being exposed to sunlight again!"
The Agents had been under surveillance the moment they entered the city, barely daring to act. Thus, they had preemptively cast the Ancestor Blood Poison into the river before their arrival.
They needed to exploit the Ancestor Blood Toxin immediately, before the river's current diluted it and before those who ingested it metabolized it.
Thus, they came, initially planning a risky operation. But when Guinevere attempted to draw the battlefield out of the city, they found themselves with more favorable conditions for preparation.
The Agents who had been following, throwing themselves to their deaths, were genuinely meant to make Guinevere believe her fishing expedition had succeeded, hoping to delay her return to the city.
With only Priest Andrew restricted from intervening, he concluded that no force other than himself could pose a threat to Guinevere.
"Archbishop, look! The moon has risen!"
Dead Apostle is a collective term for all creatures that sustain themselves by consuming the blood of living beings. In the European context, it typically refers specifically to vampires.
They are ageless and immortal, yet maintaining their physical form requires regular consumption of human blood. In essence, vampires are humanity's natural predators, locked in a predator-prey relationship.
Only with the development of human technology, Magecraft, and faith did this simple predator-prey relationship gradually evolve into a mutual predation between the two species.
As enemies of humanity, vampires' most terrifying trait is their infectivity. Lacking natural reproduction, they convert humans by injecting their blood, replacing reproduction with transformation.
However, vampires rarely seek offspring. Their conversions almost always serve to create servants or for mere amusement and slaughter.
In the latter cases, the resulting creatures are often mindless Living Corpses, driven solely by an insatiable thirst for human flesh.
Now, catalyzed by the Spiked Communion, guided by the rising moonlight, and recently having drunk river water, the traces of Ancestor Blood Toxin within the populace began to surge, irreversibly transforming them into Living Corpses.
Slaughter, death, agony, screams...
As the transformation began, as the slain citizens stirred again, their eyes burned with an insatiable hunger for living flesh. They first pounced on their own families—parents, spouses, children—within the same dwelling.
First, flickering sparks of fire, then coalescing into a raging inferno, until the catastrophe engulfed the remaining ordinary soldiers and Knights.
Had they not witnessed it firsthand, no one would have believed that the Agents who fought to eradicate Heretics could descend to such depraved depths.
Even with constant surveillance of the Cathedral, the observing Knights and Mages had yet to connect the spreading Living Corpse plague to the Church's Holy Communion.
"Rest assured, Archbishop," the Greater Dead Apostle said, his form beginning to dissipate within the Cathedral. "I will bear the full weight of this burden. And I shall be the vampire nurtured by the Enchantress Queen."
Within the Cathedral, the Greater Dead Apostle's form began to dissipate, leaving only the Archbishop of Canterbury in a state of panic, utterly lost as to what to do next.
-
"George, what's wrong?"
"Thomas, did you eat something bad?"
Within Camelot City, a chorus of anxious inquiries echoed ceaselessly as those fortunate enough to partake in the Holy Communion within half a day underwent gradual transformations.
Among them, no distinction was made between commoners and nobles, only between the physically strong and those with sufficient Mana to resist the effects.
Ultimately, even the Ancestor Blood Poison, when diluted in the river, had become nearly undetectable.
In the end, many knights consumed the Holy Communion, yet none showed signs of infection.
"Sir Tristan, we..."
Amidst the wails of despair and the relentless march of death, Tristan and the knights were completely stunned. They immediately sent out distress signals.
Tristan's second command was for all knights to prepare for battle, assemble their forces, and await further orders once the situation became clearer.
His approach was arguably sound. With the enemy unidentified, pockets of chaos erupting across the city, and fewer than three hundred knights available, dispersing their forces would have left them vulnerable to being picked off piecemeal.
However, Tristan's caution and correct tactics ultimately cost them the precious time needed to swiftly quell the crisis.
The diluted Blood Poison was weak, and the creatures it spawned were the lowest-tier undead: Living Corpses and Ghouls.
(Spy-Technically the living corpses are called "The Dead" in the wiki but for flow sake it will not be used. Also the people here wont know the wiki accurate name for these things anyway)
A defining characteristic of vampires, regardless of their rank, is their extreme infectivity to humans.
The initial three hundred quickly swelled to three thousand, then gradually spread to ten thousand, transforming district after district into death arenas.