“Are they doing alright in there?” Adela muttered unconsciously as she gazed at the walls of the White Peak Palace, gleaming white even in the dead of night.
It had already been over an hour since Leon’s party had entered the imperial palace. With six Aura Masters among them, few traps could even slow their advance. No matter how formidable the White Peak Palace was, it couldn’t hold out for long unless it t them head-on with full power. In fact, it should fall within half a day.
Even so, she couldn’t rest easy. Their enemy’s commander was none other than Morse, an evil that surpassed any within the Evil Order when it ca to dragging others into ruin. The mont they relaxed, he’d seize that opening.
Anna, seated beside her, turned her head with a knowing smile. True to her nickna, the Shepherd, she had a way of approaching anyone with warmth and ease.
“You’re worried about the Hero’s party, aren’t you, Adela?”
Adela gave a small nod and said, “There’s no way for to know what’s happening inside, even with my power. The Hero, the Saintess... they’re not even thirty, yet we’ve placed such a heavy burden on their shoulders. It’s hard not to feel frustrated.”
“Hearing that from you feels... weird,” Anna said and smiled awkwardly.
Adela, the Fourth Cardinal, and known as the Rampage, was among the three oldest cardinals in the hierarchy, but her youthful appearance often made conversations like this oddly dissonant.
Still, Anna agreed with her sentint. Neither she, who simply lacked sheer power compared to the infiltration team, nor Adela, who still hadn’t fully recovered from the earlier fight, could deny the sense of helplessness they felt.
While both Leon and Elahan were technically adults, they were still so young. As the Hero and the Saintess, the two young souls were burdened with a fate far too heavy for their age. No matter how divine their purpose, they could only look fragile in the eyes of their elders.
“It’s not that I don’t trust them,” Adela murmured. “I just... wish I could lighten their load, even a little.”
Her golden eyes dimd as she stared at the towering walls. Just imagining what could be happening beyond them made guilt coil up inside her chest.
She would rather have thrown herself into the fight like Irexana. To simply stand by and watch—it felt like the worst kind of cowardice.
“Hehe, you’re always like this, Adela,” Anna said with a grin.
“Like what?”
“You act like a child most of the ti, but when it matters, you suddenly overflow with motherly affection. You’re such a mom.”
“What nonsense is that, you brat?! That’s not sothing you say to soone who’s never been married!”
Adela smacked Anna lightly on the head, no force behind the bump. She hadn’t done it in anger but simply out of flustered embarrassnt.
Even the Holy Iron Inquisitors standing guard nearby couldn’t help but grin and shrug. It was a well-known quirk within the Church: the Fourth Cardinal often spoke to others like a mother—sotis even like a grandmother, caring and affectionate in her scolding.
The tension lifted as Anna burst into giggles. “Mommy! Mama Adela! I’m hungwy, feed !”
“Why, you...!”
Adela’s face turned bright red as she clenched her fists, trembling—but she only looked adorable, not intimidating. The air in the encampnt softened for a brief mont.
Then, out of nowhere, a deep tremor rolled out from beyond the White Peak Palace, spreading for kiloters, snapping everyone’s senses to attention.
Both cardinals froze at once. Their eyes sharpened toward the source of the mysterious pulse. A sickening chill crawled down their spines from the unmistakable rejection their souls felt toward exolaw.
An exolaw that flared with such a massive premonition before even activating was sothing Adela had never seen before.
“Anna.”
“Yes. I’ll get them ready.”
Understanding her intent in an instant, Anna began summoning the Holy Iron Inquisitors. They were far fewer than the Revolutionaries or Ferma’s army, so the call went out swiftly. Within monts, thirty armored knights stood assembled, faces grim.
They’d faced every kind of horror before, so they already knew what that wave ant.
Adela’s voice rang sharp as she sensed the surge approaching.
“It’s coming!”
At once, an imnse, formless force burst into the sky. The ominous energy was like a crimson mist that burned the eyes just by looking at it. The clouds drifting over the night sky blackened the instant they touched it. It was an exolaw of catastrophic scale—one that could easily devour an entire city.
Then, Adela saw the surface of that black fog twisting, for a fleeting mont, into the agonized faces of screaming humans.
“No... it can’t be!”
She had fought the Evil Order for years. If she had seen a spell even once, she could counter it, and if not, she could usually guess its nature.
And this—this Death Mask phenonon—she knew exactly what it ant.
“Anna! Raise the barrier now! The Sanctuary!”
“Got it!”
At her command, Anna and the Holy Iron Inquisitors moved as one. While the Revolutionary and Ferma soldiers could only stare in confusion, the knights ford their sacred spell circle and began channeling holy power.
Anna lifted her voice, guiding their prayer.
“O eyes of the Goddess, who watches over sun and moon, and all creation...”
anwhile, Adela stepped out of the formation, her gaze locked on the advancing darkness. Her pupils glead gold, piercing through the veil.
It wasn’t quite the power of the Stigma of the Observer, but by concentrating her divine energy into her eyes, a Cardinal could achieve such clarity with ease.
“Evil spirits... a swarm forged from ten thousand tortured souls...” Adela muttered and grit her teeth.
And how could she not? These were the souls of the innocent citizens of Calelum, people sacrificed to the exolaw without ever knowing why.
Their spirits had been twisted, enslaved, and turned into weapons. Righteous fury burned in her blood.
“Nowhere in the world can sin be hidden, and nowhere can rcy remain! Only those who walked the righteous path may stand unashad before her! On the day when sun and moon rise together, those who look to the heavens shall fall to their knees and pray!”
The radiance flowing from Anna joined with the Holy Iron Inquisitors, growing brighter and wider until it wrapped the land in a glowing wall of light hundreds of ters across. And as the holy brilliance reached its peak, Anna cried the final verse.
“The Goddess watches over us!”
Without a sound, the brilliant flash of divine radiance burst outward in all directions. The tide of darkness surging toward them was instantly driven back to the horizon.
For a brief mont, the land itself beca a Sanctuary, a holy ground that rejected evil. The mont the light struck them, the spirits let out a collective, bloodcurdling scream.
“Kyeeeeeeh!”
Their mories of life were gone, their sense of self erased. All that remained was the instinctive hatred of the living and of the light itself.
The wraiths hurled themselves at the Sanctuary, heedless of the light burning their incorporeal flesh. Their tattered, rag-like souls, more ragged than corpses, dissolved into nothingness.
Seeing that, the Holy Iron Inquisitors felt pity flicker in their eyes. To be murdered unjustly was one thing, but to be used even in death, desecrated and cast back into oblivion... and by their own hands, no less.
“Focus!” Anna cried, snapping them back to reality. “All we can do for them is return those poor souls to the Goddess’s embrace! Cast away every unnecessary thought! Think only of the enemies before you and the comrades fighting beside you!”
The knights’ eyes hardened once more. Every one of them was a seasoned veteran. Even without Anna’s reminder, they would have regained their resolve within minutes. It was just that they couldn’t afford to spare those minutes.
Thanks to the Sanctuary, the spirits could not even approach the Church’s encampnt. The Ferma and Revolutionary armies, however, were another story.
“Kyeeeeeeh!”
One wraith managed to slip past the barrier and screeched, revealing its jagged fangs. It streaked through the air like an arrow and struck a Ferma sentry who hadn’t even realized what was happening.
No. “Struck” wasn’t quite right. The mont the spirit pierced his body, the soldier convulsed violently, frothing at the mouth.
Seconds later, the soldier let out an incomprehensible cry.
“Grrrgh... grrk! Graaaaaaah!”
“Philip, what’s wrong—agh!”
Eyes bloodshot and veins bulging, he drove his spear through the comrade who had rushed to steady him.
That was only the start. It didn’t take long for one possessed soldier to beco ten, and ten to beco a hundred.
A trained warrior could repel spirits by cloaking their body in Aura, but ordinary soldiers could not. The Ferma and Revolutionary forces—tens of thousands strong—were soon overrun. The wraiths seeped into nearly ten thousand n within minutes.
The commanders froze in panic as their own troops turned into enemies before their eyes. Their only recourse was to cut down the possessed, one by one, blades slick with the blood of their brothers.
“Possession... A classic thod of taking over an army, sure, but to use it on this scale?!” Adela muttered, realizing the situation instantly.
The Inquisitors can hold out, but if we expand the Sanctuary any further, the drain will be too severe. The Aura wielders among them might survive, but the rest? They’ve got no chance.
Each Holy Iron Inquisitor fought at the level of an Expert. Even if a million spirits descended, they could still defend themselves.
However, over ninety percent of the Ferma and Revolutionary troops were ordinary soldiers, barely able to wield Aura at all. Only fully trained knights could resist possession, and even then, one against a hundred would be torn apart before long.
And to make matters worse, few had the heart to strike down comrades they’d fought beside just hours ago.
“Dammit... do we always have to be the ones to make sacrifices?”
From a strategist’s point of view, the smart move was to retreat and prepare for the final battle. The Revolutionaries and Ferma soldiers were, in the end, expendable pawns.
Whatever card Morse had yet to play, it made more sense to preserve the Holy Iron Inquisitors than to waste their strength trying to save the dood.
“Dammit all!”
But if one could’ve chosen that path, they would never have beco a Holy Iron Inquisitor, let alone a Cardinal. To abandon those dying before her eyes while preaching righteousness was perhaps the biggest hypocrisy a mber of the Holy Church could commit.
The Evil Order knew that well. They had built traps to exploit that compassion, manipulating the Church’s knights for centuries.
Adela clenched her fists and strode forward. A high-tier sacred spell could unleash shockwaves potent enough to purge even the spirits possessing human bodies.
Half will die, but at least the other half will live.
Cold calculation ran alongside her conviction. If she used up her strength here, she might not have the power left to breach the palace gates later. However, standing by and watching wasn’t an option. She let out a faint, rueful laugh at her own stubbornness.
Sorry, kiddos. Looks like I’ll have to leave the rest to you.
As she took a step forward with her hardened will, she froze. A chill crawled down her spine.
Sothing monstrous had appeared behind her. While the battlefield descended into chaos, a presence that should have been deep within the White Peak Palace erged through teleportation.
A man whose face could not be seen, as though his very being was woven from chaos itself: Morse, Bishop of Chaos.
Adela’s body tensed instantly, her voice sharp as she drew power to her hands.
“So you finally crawled out, you bastard! This ti, I’ll make sure you die!”
“They left a hog behind, huh?”
With that, Morse fell silent for a brief beat, then murmured to himself.
“A variable I hadn’t accounted for. Ah, so that’s it. The prince’s guardian knight... that old man reached the Master realm, then? So you were the reserve, the seventh. I thought I was one move ahead, but it seems they weren’t fools either. Or perhaps... just luck.”
Even faced with an unexpected foe, he grasped the situation in re seconds. Their eyes t—Adela’s burning with divine fury, Morse’s swirling with chaos.
They didn’t need words. Both could already sense the other’s intent.
Simultaneously, exolaw and Hyper Vibration detonated.
“Haaah!”
Adela lunged, thrusting her palm forward. Morse retreated a step, summoning writhing tendrils.
Flesh struck by Vibrato burst apart in midair, wasting just enough ti in favor of Morse. Behind the shattering corpse of a twisted monster, violet flas erupted skyward.
“It can’t be helped, then,” Morse said softly. “I’ll kill you here, Adela.”
“Hah! You talk big as if you’re not gonna just run off again!”
The two forces collided again, words dripping with murderous intent. In a battlefield turned into hell—a sea of soldiers consud by wraiths—the Fourth Cardinal of the Holy Church and the Bishop of Chaos charged at each other.
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