The small parish located to the east of the duchy still bore visible traces of the attack. Part of the roof had collapsed, the side walls had been reinforced with temporary beams. Yet the inner courtyard was packed with people.
Entire families had co. So from the poorest neighborhoods of the duchy, others had traveled several days by road. There were the injured, the elderly, children carried in their parents’ arms.
In the center, on an improvised platform, Scarlet was seated.
She wore a green dress with golden embroidery, elegant but sober, which recalled a noble more than a religious icon. Her short green hair frad her face lightly, and her golden gaze was calm.
When she spoke, the crowd fell almost imdiately silent.
"Many of you have suffered in recent days. So have lost their hos. Others have lost loved ones."
Her voice was strong...
"I do not claim to understand all your pain. But I know one thing. Misfortune is not inevitable."
Murmurs of approval ran through the courtyard.
Scarlet continued:
"The Prophecies of Nostradamus have taught that suffering is not divine punishnt. It is a trial that reveals the truth about our world."
She paused, letting her words sink in.
"We have been accustod to believing that to receive blessing, one must pay. That to be saved, one must offer. That grace can be bought."
A few gazes hardened at that allusion.
"But if you do good while expecting a reward, then it is no longer a pure act. When one does good, one does not need a reward from others. For in doing good to others, one does good to oneself."
An old man nodded with emotion.
A mother pressed her child closer to her.
Scarlet continued, her tone slightly firr:
"Faith should not be a burden. It should not empty your purses while your children go hungry."
A heavier silence settled. Everyone understood whom she was referring to.
The Holy Cathedral demanded weekly offerings, even in tis of crisis.
Scarlet did not na them directly, but the jab was clear.
Off to the side, near a still-cracked pillar, The Predator observed the scene.
He had his arms crossed, his mask hiding his true expression.
He was genuinely surprised.
The courtyard was overflowing. People crowded all the way outside the enclosure.
So were taking notes.
Others wept silently.
’Dude... Don’t tell I just created a shady cult?’
Originally, his goal was simple. He wanted to create a revolutionary democratic movent... A current of ideas capable of weakening the excessive influence of the Holy Cathedral and rebalancing the forces in the Empire.
Promoting Prophet Nostradamus was rely a strategic lever to gain other abilities...
But what was unfolding before his eyes was taking on a clearly religious dinsion.
Scarlet, for her part, was not playing a role.
The Prophecies of Nostradamus had deeply marked her recent days. She had read them, reread them, ditated on them. Certain phrases had shaken her, others had soothed her.
She sincerely believed she had been chosen.
"This power I have received," she continued, slightly raising her hand, "is not a privilege. It is a responsibility. It was given to to offer a second chance to those who have been abandoned."
A man on his knees murmured:
"Saintess Scarlet..."
She slowly descended from the platform to approach the crowd.
People naturally parted to let her pass.
"Nostradamus does not ask you to kneel before him," she continued. "He asks you to open your eyes."
The Predator sighed inwardly.
’Dude, I don’t want Julius Paladin full power up our asses in two days for heresy.’
He could already imagine Julius’s outraged look, his speech on the purity of faith, and the accusation of divine usurpation.
Yet...
A slight smile spread under his mask.
Because deep down, what he was seeing was no longer re manipulation. ’And if everyone believes I am a god? Won’t I beco one??’
Scarlet placed her hand on the head of a sick child. Runes briefly appeared along her wrist, invisible to most but perceptible to those sensitive to mana.
The fever disappeared.
The mother burst into sobs.
The crowd, already won over by her words, was now convinced by the facts.
The Predator slightly straightened his head.
"Well..." he murmured under his breath. "If we have to overthrow a system, might as well do it properly."
He knew the Holy Cathedral would not remain passive.
But for now, in this half-destroyed parish, amid these ordinary people, sothing had just been born.
And it was not in the plan...
That day, when she had felt her mana waver, fragnts had almost resurfaced. A mory she could not quite grasp.
She had co very close to retrieving it.
But The Predator had been there.
His presence had stabilized her mind. He had contained the overload. And the wave of mories had receded.
So she had interpreted what was happening to her differently.
The sudden appearance of The Predator at that precise mont in her life. The Prophecies of Nostradamus she had read the day before the attack. The sentences that seed to describe her ability exactly.
She rembered word for word a passage:
[Give salvation to the afflicted and corruption to the impious, and it shall bring a new Era.]
It was obvious. It was she who would bring this new Era.
Her ability was not re healing. She absorbed the corruption of so and could redistribute it to others. In short, salvation for the afflicted and corruption for the impious.
Everything fit in her mind.
In reality, that phrase could just as easily refer to Raphael, the Seraph of healing. A celestial entity whose existence was ntioned in ancient texts, but who had never made contact with mortals.
Soone like The Holiness would naturally have favored that hypothesis.
But Scarlet sincerely believed she had been chosen by Nostradamus.
As she prepared to speak again, agitation stirred at the back of the courtyard.
A figure slowly advanced toward the central area, his mask hiding his face imdiately recognizable.
"It’s him..."
"The leader of Black Neon..."
"The Predator..."
Scarlet noticed the commotion. She searched for the cause, then her eyes fell on the masked man.
She rose gracefully.
She was about to descend from the platform.
But before she could do anything, The Predator knelt before her.
There was silence... One could even hear the rustle of the wind...
"Please bless , Saintess..."
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