At a glance, one could hardly imagine a more mismatched pair than the third and fourth cardinals of the Holy Church; Irexana the Calm Wave and Adela the Rampage.
A towering, muscular giant with dark brown skin and a child barely a ter tall walked side by side through the ruined streets, looking like a sight straight out of a fairy tale. Yet despite their contrast, the two were surprisingly close.
A gno and a half-dwarf—both long-lived races, both tied to the earth. Their temperants were opposite: one restless, the other calm. Perhaps that was what drew them together, like opposite poles of a magnet.
“Hey,” Adela called without even glancing back, and instead of answering, Irexana stopped walking. “Your eye holding up? The cutie didn’t seem to notice, but you still can’t see out of it, can you?”
“So you knew,” Irexana affird Adela’s suspicion.
“Fixing the outside doesn’t do much when your gaze won’t focus on moving things. Did you think you could fool , too?”
Irexana gave a wry smile and answered, “Of course not. I was going to tell you along the way. It seems his arrows were enchanted with so kind of magic that stunts healing. It’s not that recovery is impossible, but it’ll take quite a while.”
He brushed his fingers lightly across his left eye.
Robin El Stendal was a Bowmaster, nicknad the “Divine Archer.” One of his unseen arrows, swift enough to slip through even an Aura Master’s perception, had pierced Irexana’s left eye.
Fortunately, the shot had sacrificed power for stealth and speed. The eyeball was destroyed, but not his skull. Had it struck with full force, his brain would have been pulp.
“Well, it’s fine. Losing an eye doesn’t an I can’t fight properly,” Irexana said, casually.
“Did you really think I’d worry about that?” Adela scoffed.
For most people, losing an eye ant losing half their vision and depth perception, cutting their combat ability in half. However, Irexana was no ordinary fighter. Aura Masters stopped relying on re physical senses long ago. And as a half-dwarf, he had also awakened his racial gift of attuning to the ground and sensing the world through it.
As the two Cardinals moved toward the northern palace, Adela glared in its direction and spat to the side.
“Still, this is a real damn ss. That bastard Morse—I’ll tear him to pieces myself.”
Death didn’t bother her. Corpses didn’t either. But this scene—the streets turned into hell itself—was repulsive even to her.
Irexana clenched his fist in silent agreent and said, “Let’s hurry. If anyone’s still alive, every second matters.”
“Yeah. Nothing left to do here anyway.”
They crossed the lifeless streets and entered Calelum’s northern district. It was a private estate under direct Imperial control, where mbers of the Clyde royal family resided.
It wasn’t as important as the White Peak Palace, but it was still filled with subsidiary palaces and noble villas. Normally, the Imperial Guard would be stationed here—yet not a single one appeared.
Adela clicked her tongue at the sight before her. “Filthy swine. The money they wasted building this gilded palace must be worth thirty years of taxes.”
“Likely more than that,” Irexana murmured as he rolled up his sleeve.
The Stigma of the Guide, etched across his forearm like a vine, revealed its light. It shone bright in the direction of their enemy.
“That way.”
“Good thing you’re here. I’d be wandering around for hours otherwise,” Adela said in relief.
They sprinted through the maze of corridors toward the building marked by the shining sigil, but no one stopped them. No followers of Evil, no guards. The place was deserted like a dead city.
They ran through the lavish corridors of the palace and soon entered a grand hall that was once used for banquets. A faint scent of wine still lingered, stains barely wiped from the tablecloths.
“Any sign of life?” Adela asked.
“None. Either the hostages were moved, or...”
There was no need for Irexana to finish the sentence. Both already knew what it ant.
Then, a voice ca.
“I offer you my respect.”
It was dry and calm yet carried a seething disgust that made the air crawl. Both Cardinals were initially caught off guard, but they soon turned toward the sound, realizing who it had to be.
A masked man stood upon the dais, having appeared like a ghost without a single trace of presence. It was the Bishop of Chaos, Morse.
With his arms spread wide, he greeted them in mock reverence.
“To walk willingly into a place of death, dedicating yourselves wholly to faith... To face the abyss without fear—truly worthy foes! The holy apostles of justice, destroyers of evil itself!”
His voice rose theatrically, dripping with mockery.
Adela snarled, “What, did you swap your mouth with your ass since last ti? All that’s coming out of it is crap.”
“Now, now, don’t be so harsh,” Morse said lightly. “Adela, little and fierce ssenger of the earth—this is my way of honoring you.”
“Did you just call little, you piece of shit?!”
Before she could explode, Irexana stepped forward, keeping his composure, and asked, “Where are the hostages you’ve taken?”
“Do I really need to answer that?”
“If you didn’t plan to speak,” Irexana said evenly, “you wouldn’t have addressed us at all. Answer, and we’ll entertain your little ga.”
“Oh, I do like soone who understands,” Morse replied, smiling beneath his mask—a smile cold enough to be felt even without seeing it. “Perfect timing, actually. I’ve just finished disposing of those useless wretches. If you want to collect their corpses, check the attic in the left wing on the third floor.”
“Just now, you said?”
“There’s no reward for the defeated. They were worthless to begin with. rcy may be your virtue, not ours.”
Then, Morse’s tone changed. The pretense drained away, leaving only emptiness. His eyes went dull, losing focus, looking glassy and lifeless. It was the mont he revealed his true face.
“I’ll ask you one thing,” he said. “I was born hollow. I have never known joy, nor sorrow. I do not desire life, nor do I fear death. Nothing has ever moved . Nothing has ever broken . I am nothing—and I have always been so.”
There was a question that always arose when discussing human nature: When untouched by education or environnt, is a person born good? Evil? Or rely colorless and pure?
So said humans were born wicked, while so said they were born good. So said that it depended on what followed after birth.
“I once tried living by the teachings of the saints,” Morse continued. “I gave to the poor, healed the sick, and offered the dying a mont’s rest. I did all of that for decades... and felt nothing.”
Finding nothing in good, Morse rejected it and turned to evil. He crushed the weak, sickened the healthy, and drove the living to senseless deaths. He lived like that for decades, just as he had once practiced virtue.
“It was the sa,” he said. “Good or evil—it made no difference. Nothing in this wide yet suffocating world could make feel alive.”
That was the essence of Morse, Bishop of Chaos. He was neither kind nor cruel. He practiced good and evil alike for the sole purpose of understanding what he was.
When every effort ended in emptiness, he ca to a single conclusion: if the answer he sought did not exist in this world, he would have to find it beyond it.
That was how Morse, the first of the Nine Hell Bishops, had been born.
“Now, my question,” Morse said again, looking down at the two Cardinals. “Your world calls a sinner—an unforgivable evil. But if I were born as sothing that was never ant to exist, then is it not the world itself that is evil for creating ? I wish to hear your answer.”
Irexana replied without hesitation, “No. You may be hollow, but evil you remain. You have no right to pass your sins onto the world.”
“And why is that?” Morse asked, curious.
“If there were truly only emptiness inside you, you would have done nothing at all. A man who is truly nothing wouldn’t have sought to give his life aning in the first place.”
He went on, “We know you well, Morse, Bishop of Chaos. You are the one who stirs others’ desires and drives them to sin, rather than staining your own hands. After hearing what you’ve said, I now understand why.”
If Morse were truly hollow, then no one could condemn him. But he wasn’t. Sothing still lurked inside, faint yet undeniable, and Irexana had seen through it. He knew what it was.
It was evil.
“You wanted to make others suffer the sa tornt you did, the one you felt while wandering between good and evil, chasing aning you could never find. That’s why you obsessed over corrupting the righteous. You wanted to force your pain onto others, and that intent alone makes you evil. You had a desire that could not exist in true emptiness.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” Morse murmured. “Maybe it’s sothing I couldn’t see because I was too close to myself.”
His face twitched. Confusion and uncertainty distorted it. He didn’t even understand the emotion he felt now.
However, his question had been answered. The rest beca simple.
“I see,” he said quietly. “Then, I am, indeed, an evil man.”
Satisfied with Irexana’s answer, Morse began to rise. The masked man floated slowly into the air.
Irexana and Adela imdiately took their stances. The Aura bursting from their bodies blew away several tables; the sound of dozens of shattering glass echoed through the hall.
“I shall be true to my nature,” Morse said. “As one who is evil, I will pursue my own gain.”
Purple flas erupted beneath his robe, carrying no heat yet burning everything they touched. At the sa ti, dozens of writhing tendrils burst from beneath his cloak.
He was the complete opposite of Nekator, who had sought only strength. Morse was a monster who had modified and reforged his own body in the pursuit of forbidden power.
Adela cracked her knuckles and glared up at him.
“That’s plenty of bullshit,” she spat. “So your whole life’s been one long tantrum about why your mommy birthed you? You miserable bastard! I don’t know who raised you to turn out like this, but if it’s this bad, I’m sure they were just as dumb, too. You’re a bastard beyond saving.”
“Are you done...?” Morse asked.
“Like hell I am!” Adela flipped both middle fingers at him and shouted, “If you’re so grateful for our answer, how about I start by cutting off your arms and legs? Don’t you know what it ans to return a favor, you ungrateful piece of filth?!”
“That’s quite odd,” Morse said mildly. “To demand gratitude from evil itself.”
He raised his hand, and the tendrils answered, writhing violently. Waves of distortion tore through the air, and colors and sounds that didn’t exist in this world borrowed into the mind, trying to shatter sanity itself.
Even most Masters would have been enthralled by such madness. These two were, however, far from ordinary.
“Hah!”
Adela’s sharp exhale shattered the wave. That was the signal.
In re seconds, Morse completed a complex exolaw chant. As expected of a Nine Hell Bishop, his exolaw was far beyond the level of ordinary followers. What lesser heretics needed minutes to perform, he did in the span of a breath.
And this entire palace was already his domain. The marble floor cracked open, and from beneath it surged grotesque lifeforms—things that couldn’t be called animal or plant.
A mass of tentacles, unclear whether they were from an animal or plant, swallowed the room.
With the crushing pressure enough to warp adamantium and the fluids dripping from them that could lt the flesh of even an Aura Master, the tentacles were ranked S or above in danger. Fast, regenerative, relentless—they lunged to crush the two Cardinals in an instant.
“Vibrato.”
Then ca a sound like a swarm of bees. The tentacles convulsed, and a mont later, a blast tore through the hall, scattering thick, tar-like blood and chunks of at in every direction.
Creatures that could shrug off Aura Weapons had been obliterated in a single strike, and this ti, even Morse blinked in surprise.
From the center of the carnage, a small figure stepped forward without a speck of blood on her—Adela, her eyes blazing with fury.
“I’ve decided,” she growled. “That you die here, today.”
And with that, Adela the Rampage leaped, her killing intent blazing like fire.
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