Chapter 100

Matheos was the fire of the gods and the hammer of the gods.

Originally, he was more adept at purification than healing.

It was something he would not know, but the reason he was chosen as a saint more than ten years earlier than the history before the return was the same as before the return.

Anger towards the corrupted friend.

“Lord, grant me the power to burn that sinner.”

He remembered the words he had said when he saw his old friend, who had become a terrible monster in the underground sewer that day.

As time passed, he became a more skillful purifier.

However, what this monastery needed was not a purifier.

“Please answer me, Saint.”

The abbot, who had lived his life serving the light, appealed with tears that had long dried up.

“What was I supposed to do?”

Matheos felt an overwhelming sense of frustration.

It was as if something was stuck in his throat, and he could not swallow it.

He realized he felt as if he might faint.

Those who know the light were transformed by the light.

“Why is there no answer?”

As he drew the emblem and looked up at the golden cross, an indifferent, clear, and straightforward answer returned.

He is one with indignation, and he does not forgive those who compromise.

What needed to be done was clear.

Burn the abbot to death and purify the corrupted duke.

If the duke dies because of that, it can’t be helped.

Even the count or the duke himself wouldn’t think it strange.

It was literally something that could not be avoided.

Suddenly, Matheos thought.

What would Lord Argos have done?

What would Duke Valencius have done?

If it were those two, they would have certainly acted this way.

They would have killed the abbot, purified the duke whether he lived or died, and investigated everyone in this monastery.

Then they would contact the nearby archdiocese to request a new abbot or personnel and possibly keep an inquisitor to manage any potential dangers for a few years.

It was a sad thing, but they would do it somehow.

Lord Argos would mechanically act and shed a single tear once everything was over, and Duke Valencius would likely smile while doing so.

He, too, had to do the same.

“You are a cruel one.”

Matheos sighed and gazed out the window.

The sky was hidden by dark clouds.

Swoosh!

The early spring rain began to fall mercilessly.

It soaked the black stones and green grasses.

His ability to purify rather than heal stemmed from valuing principles over mercy.

The principles Matheos pursued were justice, unlike the arbitrary principles of Valencius.

Even calling it justice, it was the justice of a saint from a seminary who had not yet turned thirty, so it was not that great.

Just a wish that the world would be one where goodwill is rewarded with goodwill and happiness.

For that justice, he sought to purify many people who killed or tortured for immortality, gold, or the wicked who had made contracts with the old ones.

The evildoers he encountered upon becoming a saint were somewhat different.

The fat evil noble sought health and immortality for his daughter, who had an incurable disease, and the miserly judge accepted a bribe to buy medicine to heal his brother’s leg.

There were fewer who committed wicked deeds merely for their own sake than he had thought.

Only after learning this did Matheos understand why the Lord had chosen fire and the hammer.

Even knowing this, someone was needed to judge.

Principles were needed, and goodness was needed.

He needed a flame to stop those who would tear at the hearts of others to fill the emptiness in their own.

He needed a mechanical purifier.

He squeezed his eyes shut and spoke.

His black hair obscured his view.

“Hans, for the sin of holding hands with the old ones, I discharge you from the Alchenberza Monastery.”

“Yes.”

“Hans, for the sin of holding hands with the old ones, I excommunicate you from the Church of the God of Radiance.”

“…Yes.”

Hans’s face trembled.

Three seconds was enough for the life he had devoted to monastic living for sixty years to become meaningless.

“Hans, for the sin of holding hands with the old ones… according to canon law, I sentence you to be burned at the stake.”

Matheos’s voice trembled.

“…Yes, Saint. I will accept it gladly. But please answer me. What was I supposed to do?”

Hans did not resist.

Matheos could not respond.

To give a proper answer, he could just say to ask the diocese.

The Church was an organization, and what mattered in an organization was reporting, sharing, and consulting.

That way, he could avoid responsibility.

If he followed orders, he bore no responsibility.

However, just because responsibility was gone did not mean that the problem disappeared.

Suddenly, Matheos looked up at the sky outside.

“God of Radiance.”

Boom!

There was a loud sound, and the cathedral shook violently.

With the sound of stones crashing down, the floor of the abbot’s office split, and they rolled out of the cathedral.

Matheos instinctively grabbed both Hans and the duke as they landed.

“Ah.”

The transformed Sister Telera and Vice-Abbot Odan were in a fierce brawl with Valencius.

* * *

At the end of winter, cold rain fell.

The platinum-haired man was soaked by the rain, and mud splashed onto his white robe.

Water flowed from his beautiful but arrogant and pale face, as if he were weeping.

Valencius cursed with words that even decent thugs would hesitate to utter.

“The world!”

It was difficult to deal with the transformed Sister Telera alone, and now Vice-Abbot Odan had joined in.

The vice-abbot, who had a stubborn impression with square glasses and a defined jaw, had transformed into a giant corpse of a crow.

He was smaller than a wyvern, but his wingspan seemed to exceed ten meters, armed with black feathers, a metallic beak, and claws.

Through the sparsely missing feathers, white bones were visible.

The transformed Vice-Abbot Odan had no flesh.

“Caw!”

His mental waves converged into a point and flew toward him.

Even a considerable Valencius would stagger if struck directly.

Though he had activated the Asha and his mental strength had increased, his senses had also sharpened, intensifying his pain.

“Sharply piercing flames!”

Valencius’s vertically slitted pupils glinted as he unleashed magic.

Lance-like flames began to rise into the air.

However, the flame lances could not pierce Odan.

Every time he tried to aim his magic, a giant claw was descending toward him with the intent to flatten him.

“Your Excellency!”

The transformed Sister Telera charged with a massive arm nearly four meters long and a hand the size of a bed swinging wildly.

Valencius took a step back, retreating down the sloped path of the cathedral.

Sister Telera, with red eyes glinting, charged on all fours.

In that moment, he leaped back up the slope.

Duck to evade the giant claw while simultaneously lifting his sword to slash at Sister Telera’s finger joints.

Slash!

The golden mana blade shimmered, and her finger, thicker than his thigh, was severed.

He spun around, grabbing Sister Telera’s back and attempted to slash behind her knee.

Thud!

“Damn it!”

A huge black feather fell from the sky, engulfed in a red aura.

The feather, over two meters long, carried enough force to bury its root into the ground.

“Caw!”

Once more, the mental wave concentrated into a point and rushed towards him.

Valencius grit his teeth and stood his ground.

Since he had activated the ritual, he would no longer be forcibly corrupted.

“How dare you attack royalty! Depart! You ugly crow. You have no flesh, so you cannot even make broth!”

His vertically slitted golden eyes sparkled as the longest lance among the flames he had created shot towards the rain-drenched sky.

Swoosh!

Thud and boom!

The flame lance, racing through the air, pierced between the wings and chest of the transformed Vice-Abbot Odan, exploding.

Odan staggered and fell like a moth to fire.

“Ha, haha! …!”

At the same moment, Sister Telera’s claw grasped Valencius and pinned him to the ground.

Crack!

The force could not be blocked by the liquid metal armor, Aquatec.

Even in the midst of shock, Valencius realized he was about to become like a squeezed fruit.

He also recognized that the black blood flowing from Sister Telera’s severed finger was soaking his body.

‘Well, at least this side has blood.’

Gritting his teeth, he relied on the mental power accelerated by Asha and recalled the incantation.

‘If she knows I’ve used blood magic… she’ll be angry.’

Jeilliris had warned against many royal families, and especially warned against the royal family’s blood magic.

When he heard the reason before the return, it was because blood magic was a product of the old ones’ vampire clan and using it made one vulnerable to corruption.

Though the noble magicians didn’t fall into that category, the old ones continually monitored even the slightest emotional crack of royalty, the peak of bloodlines, so the logic to be perpetually cautious was regrettably correct.

“Bloody Expansion!”

Valencius used magic, relying on memory without the incantation or gestures.

Massive mana surged from his heart, and dozens of black blood thorns erupted from the severed fingertip of Sister Telera, stabbing into her palm.

Sister Telera shrieked and raised her hand, and in that instant, Valencius stood up and prepared for another attack.

Imperial Swordsmanship, Step Three, Jariita.

A technique that strikes first despite a late start.

When combined with Asha, it created even more synergy.

Sister Telera tore apart all the blood thorns and began to summon white feathers to heal her wounds.

At the same time, her opposite arm, swirled with red aura and black feathers, swung like a claw, devastating the ground.

Crash!

Valencius quietly observed that overwhelmingly powerful attack.

With his vertically slit eyes flashing.

Eventually, as the cold spring rain rolled down his platinum hair, across his forehead, and dripped down to his eyebrows.

He mercilessly cut upwards with the sword he had drawn.

‘In the end, you chose a different path than us.’

Slash, slice, slash!

It was a perfect series of attacks timed perfectly with Sister Telera’s movement as she swept the ground.

Both white exoskeleton and iron-like black leather needed the essence to move the muscles, and Valencius’s swordsmanship was delicate and persistent enough to target that essence.

Bloodlines were drawn along his wrist and forearm, and blood splattered.

It wasn’t a deep attack, but he never intended to make a deep strike in the first place.

“Bloody Expansion!”

Valencius groaned under the tightening pain in his heart as he shouted the activation words.

Bam!

Sister Telera’s black feathers and blood became thorns that plunged deep into his body.

Valencius decided that his current injury meant he wouldn’t be able to lift that arm anymore.

“Die! You terrible monster!”

He unleashed a string of horrendous curses that he couldn’t even bear to repeat.

Thud, thud, thump!

He stomped on Sister Telera’s hand and elbow as he leaped up.

He stabbed his sword into her long collarbone, pulled it out, and opened a gap with Bloody Expansion while drawing forth the energy of incantation.

This time, it was not a mistake.

“Sticking Flames!”

As his hand rippled with scales, flames burst forth from within Sister Telera’s body.

“Caw!”

Sister Telera collapsed to the ground and thrashed wildly.

Valencius jumped down from a height of four meters, slipped in the rain on the slope, and tumbled down.

“Ha.”

As his speed decreased, he spread his limbs and came to a stop, letting out a deep sigh as he saw the mud staining his white robe.

He was soaked and felt cold.

He would have felt cold even if he hadn’t gotten wet.

The blue eyes of the young sister were still vivid in his mind.

“Your Excellency?”

At first, he thought that voice was an auditory hallucination, and only after hearing it a second time did he see his surroundings.

“The world.”

Logically, there was no way the people sleeping through this uproar could remain untouched.

Logically, it was impossible for corruption not to spread when the infiltrators were rampaging like this.

Even though the mental waves were concentrated on the attack, they were lethal to ordinary people.

“Come quickly!”

“This way!”

“Protect the children!”

Holy knight candidates, priests, and sisters were shielding the children as they retreated below.

Among them, some had already begun to sprout black feathers.

Valencius unconsciously glanced upward.

“Matheos….”

His voice trembled, which was uncharacteristic of him.

* * *

Matheos looked around with a feeling of despair.

On this rain-drenched day, the awakened children had to leave their homes again, and the monks had to accept the reality that the three senior members had all vanished.

Two burning infiltrators illuminated the night with smoke and unquenchable flames, while Duke Valencius sat exhausted, breathing heavily, and slumped.

Not wanting to blame anyone, he felt merely sorrowful.

“Duke.”

The rain made his ceremonial robes wet.

He couldn’t tell whether it was tears or raindrops that ran down his face, which gave him a sense of relief.

“If the duke hadn’t left the castle that day, what do you think would have happened?”

The heir of the count house, who was probably the starting point for everything, answered with dead eyes.

“My father, Baron Antares, eventually agreed, but it seemed Count Dorkaisis had a slightly different thought.”

“….”

“My family was in a position to gain a slight advantage regionally. Count Dorkaisis likely thought I would be ‘selling’ my daughter and ‘begging’ for peace while ‘losing’ my family.”

“God of Radiance.”

“That area was not one where the undead appeared very often. It was far from the battlefield as well.”

An undead hunt.

It was entirely possible.

Matheos let out a deep sigh.

He could not allow this nameless count heir to die.

“I’m cold.”

“I will… hold your hand.”

If he died, another war would break out, leading to thousands more children like these.

There were those who had become more noble than others by inheriting rights and powers through blood.

In the presence of the Radiance, all lives are equal, yet now it was a night when the sun was not rising.

Matheos shed tears of blood as he thought.

“Please hear my prayer.”

If it were a world where goodwill was not rewarded.

“Weren’t you the one who chose me as your agent?”

If it were a world where each person’s goodwill collided and turned into malice.

“Grant me the miracle they desire.”

If a being who knows the light bears the shadows because of it.

It must be changed.

“Grant me a miracle!”

If it were a world that would not change as it always had.

He declared that he would perform miracles like a saint.

With hands raised, radiating divine power, Matheos grasped the heir of the count house’s hand.

Despite potentially dying from the purification, he did not refuse that touch.

The thin and layered powers of healing and purification were unleashed.

The divine power shone like a lighthouse in the darkened sky.

A hot yet simultaneously cool flame enveloped the heir of the count house.

Finally, as the flames receded.

“Saint.”

The heir of the count house clasped his clean hands together and fell at Matheos’s feet.

It was the miracle wrought by the saint.