The Church of the Moon
The moment the black-clad man finished speaking, what the Pope felt was a wisp of magi.
At the same instant, the two colossal arms he had conjured let out a shriek—as if their very existence recoiled from it.
"...Are you a demon?"
"Haha, a demon? She would be heartbroken to hear you say that."
With that, he flung the Pope's two arms aside as casually as bouncing a ball. Despite weight that could never be called light, he handled them like a child's playthings—and at the sight, the Pope clicked his tongue and brought the arms crashing down once more.
Of course, something had changed. Unlike before, the holy power composing the two arms had hardened to an incomparably greater density, and their weight had grown accordingly. He had accelerated his manipulation of that holy power as well, so the arms—wrought of holy power alone—moved far faster than they had moments ago. The force they delivered was greater weight multiplied by greater speed. Arms wielding power of an entirely different dimension from before came slamming down once again.
The Church grounds were already sheathed in a reserve layer of holy power against the possibility of the earth giving way entirely, so even a full-force blow would not bring it down.
"Hmm, this might get a little dangerous.."
"I did not expect this much from the Pope."
"Ha..haha.. w-well, if it's Lord Hercal, I'm sure he'll manage.."
Watching the arms come surging toward them, the black-clad man, the old man, and Antonio spoke in turn. The first two remarked on it as if it were nothing, but for Antonio, the sight was genuinely staggering. He had once studied holy power and served as a priest, after all—to him, that spectacle was all but impossible.
Merely raising the density of holy power to that degree was a realm no human should be capable of. And he was accelerating his control of it on top of that? Anyone who had ever set foot in the Church and learned to wield holy power would understand how much concentration it takes to increase one's speed of manipulation.
But was concentration alone enough? That, too, had to be answered with a no. No matter how rigorously a person trained their body and drilled a technique, could they will their own blood to flow faster through their veins? A hundred out of a hundred would call it flatly impossible—and the speed at which holy power could be wielded was no different.
And so, unlike Antonio, who watched in pure admiration, the Pope performing the feat was in considerable agony. Carrying out both feats at once was every bit as difficult as Antonio imagined. He had made it possible only by infusing a staggering quantity of holy power into his body, and even then the strain was far from trivial. It felt as though every corner of his body was bursting at the seams, as though each fine nerve were being stabbed with needles.
'..I have to end this quickly. The Saintess may be tangled up with those bastards too.'
"For the sake of the Empire's peace, you will die here and now."
"Haha.. this was never the power I meant to spend today, you see—"
He never heard the rest of what the black-clad man—still the very picture of composure—had begun to say. At last the two arms came down with a thunderous boom, blasting the wreckage of the floor outward in every direction.
And that was not all. Mid-strike, the Pope had detonated the high-density holy power. Arms of such mass and density made for an explosion whose force defied imagination. The beautiful stained glass and scattered debris were shattered and ground to pieces beneath the blast, and the smoke billowing up from the detonation—not the mere dust of before—engulfed the interior of the Church before slowly seeping out through the gold inlaid in its walls.
Clapping a hand over his flying hat, the Pope brushed the dust from his dirtied white robes and offered a brief silent prayer where he stood.
"Since a peaceful sleep beneath Her name would be wasted on you, kindly go to hell.."
Not that the prayer held a single word of mourning for them.
His internal injuries were grave enough that he could barely move, yet the Pope was deeply satisfied. For wounds of this price, he had wiped out the bastards who appeared to be the architects of this entire atrocity. At the very least, he thought, it might bring some comfort to the souls of the believers who had died.
With that thought, he resolved to go in search of the Saintess, hauling his staggering body upright. If that traitor's words earlier were true, she was being held in their clutches.
So, turning his back on the smoke that now seemed nothing but thick and acrid, he made to head for the exit—when a sudden prickle of warning shot through him from behind. The sensation of something cleaving through the smoke, hurtling straight at him. Without turning, he sheathed his whole body in holy power, and with a sharp ring at his back the thing was deflected, falling to strike the floor.
"Oho.. now that is genuinely impressive."
"..How are you still alive?"
The smoke parted a second time. This time, however, nothing came flying out; rather, something within the smoke seemed to cut it open from inside. It cleared in an instant, and there stood the black-clad man and his companions, looking utterly unharmed.
"Answer me. How are you still alive?"
"Oho, so now you're even radiating killing intent?"
"Cut the useless chatter and answer..!"
As if in answer to the Pope's mounting bloodlust, a black haze began to writhe in the man's hand. The difference from the magi before was that this darkness coveted holy power. No—was devoured the more precise word? At the fringes of the black energy, as though mouths had sprouted there, it drank in the surrounding holy power, and everything it consumed could no longer be felt anywhere at all.
"Truly remarkable, I must say. To think that even after using this, I still needed Hercal's help."
"What is that thing?"
"A grace bestowed upon us. Might you be interested?"
"Get lost."
Startled he may have been, but he refused to dwell on it. If one strike wasn't enough, he could simply strike again, as many times as it took. Once more, enormous arms bloomed behind the Pope's back and reached for them. He could no longer manage the fine control of moments ago, but they were far from weak enough to be dismissed—he could hold out somehow.
That thought evaporated at the sight before his eyes. From behind the man standing directly in front of him, arms identical to his own had erupted outward and caught the attack.
The brilliantly hued arms that had felt sacred to merely behold were gone—and in their place, black arms so deeply wrong they raised gooseflesh across his entire body. The Pope's mouth fell open of its own accord, and the black-clad man, seeing it, grinned in evident delight—looking so happy it was hard to believe he was the author of such carnage.
The Pope found that profoundly distasteful.
"What in the world is so funny...?"
"Heheh... ah, my apologies. Have I offended you?"
"My mood has been foul from the very start. Just answer the question."
Barely keeping his blazing fury off his face, the Pope forced the conversation onward—and the black-clad man laughed yet again at the sight. At that, the Pope's expression began to curdle anew. And beholding a scowl the Pope could no longer hide, the man abandoned all pretense and burst into open, roaring laughter.
"Kheheheheh.."
"What..exactly..is so damn funny..!!"
"Ah, but is it not amusing? To watch the technique you believed only you could wield, your jaw hanging wide open as you gawk?"
It was certainly enough to astonish anyone. He could not fathom the true nature of that black energy, but the Pope's techniques were, almost without exception, arts founded upon holy power and faith. Even granting that the man had somehow obtained holy power by coveting it—power no one but a priest could ever handle—shaping it and commanding it should have been impossible. To wield holy power is to rely upon faith.
No matter how much holy power he possessed, without faith it ought not to respond at all. So—did the man have faith? That seemed equally unthinkable. To be sure, the world held countless gods, and among them might dwell deities even the Pope himself had never heard of—but faith, in the end, is reverence for a god. Could a man who revered some god reduce the church of another to this? Judging by everything the man had done, he ought to have no holy power whatsoever.
Then how, in all the world, was he using the very same techniques?
"..You there. Your name, and the church you serve."
"Hm? Whatever do you mean?"
"Don't play the fool. I have never once laid eyes on a believer like you in this church. Which would make you a priest of some other god, I take it."
"For otherwise, you could not wield holy power at all." As he pressed the point, the man answered with a bright, easy smile.
"Hm, it's true we never did introduce ourselves. My apologies."
A faint gust stirred at his back as he spoke, and before anyone noticed, the old man called Hercal and Antonio had taken up positions on either side. At a flick of the black-clad man's eyes, they bowed their heads slightly in turn and began.
"Antonio, a believer of the Church of the Moon, Seombaek division."
"A priest of the Church of the Moon, Half Moon division. Hercal, if you would.."
"..What did you say?"
The Pope's stunned reaction was only natural. Befitting a man called Pope, he had committed the names and titles of nearly every god to memory—and nowhere in that knowledge did a god of the moon exist. He naturally took it for a refusal to surrender information, and was about to carry on the fight—when the sight before him stopped him cold.
The black-clad man at the center had begun to step forward. At that stride—so brazenly confident—the Pope let out a scoff.
"A religion I've never heard of in my life, calling itself the Church of the Moon. Divisions no one could begin to parse—Seombaek this, Half Moon that. And what next, are you going to tell me you're one of the Seven Deadly Sins?"
"Hm? However did you know?"
"...?"
It was not the reaction he had been expecting. At the man's response—confirming it as though it were the correct answer—the Pope's brows drew steadily tighter. Paying no mind to the Pope's steadily twisting expression, the man kept his faint smile and continued his introduction.
"I am Greed, of the Church of the Moon's Full Moon division—the 'Apostle' charged with the sin of Greed among the Seven Deadly Sins, Your Holiness."
"Saintess, bandages and medicine over here too, please!!"
"S-Saintess, me..too..aagh..!"
"Yes! I'll be right there!!"
Pandemonium—no word could have suited the scene better. And through it moved the Saintess, her small frame weaving nimbly from one patient to the next. No one knew why, but the number of black-clad assailants had been dwindling rapidly; the situation had abruptly tilted in the Church's favor; and with that, a measure of leeway had emerged at last—enough to treat the wounded in safety.
Even so, the injured remained beyond counting, and screams filled every direction. Everyone with strength to spare threw themselves wholly into the work of healing—and the Saintess was among them. Whether because of the bracelet locked around her wrist, her holy power would not come, and for some reason the thing refused to come off, so direct blessing or healing was beyond her. Even so, she had taken charge of the endless small errands—fetching wet cloths and the like—and in that way was still lending her strength to the treatment.
And not only that. The sight of her scurrying about on those little legs, straining to be of use, stirred respect in the priests and holy knights—and lifted their morale along with it.
"The Saintess.. she cannot even call upon her holy power, and still she works so hard.."
"If the Saintess is giving it her all, how can we just stand here?!!"
"We can't!!"
The resolve of the knights guarding the perimeter and the priests tending the wounded surged of its own accord—she was, in effect, an area-of-effect fatigue cure. But that warm atmosphere lasted only a moment before an explosion thundered from somewhere.
From the direction of the cathedral—the place most familiar to them all.
"Kghk—they've even laid hands on that place?!"
"Have these fiends no fear of God whatsoever?!!"
As priests and holy knights alike seethed at such utter villainy, a sound drifted in from somewhere nearby—the clatter of bandages and medicine striking the floor.
"The Pope..?"
Accompanied by eyes trembling with all their might.