Against the Wickedness that Defiles Purity (3)
The Orin Church was a denomination meticulously constructed under the leadership of Pope Marsilio. In other words, both the religion and the god encompassing it had been born through his hands. It was the most modern religion, and at the same time, the most pragmatic one. It calculated efficiency even in the very act of gathering faith, making its growth rate unparalleled among all the kingdom's churches combined. With such a church, how immense must the pope's power be? How fierce the loyalty of its followers? They feared not even those who wrought unknowable miracles. The strength they had amassed was so formidable that defeat seemed unimaginable. Given enough time, becoming the kingdom's most powerful church was a foregone conclusion.
Thus, none among them could comprehend it. Thud! Boom! Why the holy knights, who had taken Orin's divinity into their very bodies, were charging forward only to tumble headlong. Why they lay there as if they had lost consciousness, unable to rise. And why the man stood there so aloofly, as if it were all a matter of course.
Marsilio was especially baffled. W-what...! It was uncanny. Or rather, divine would be more fitting, though to his hostile eyes, it felt only ominous. Each time the golden halo rising behind him spun like flowing water, reality itself seemed to be rewritten. The holy knights' sudden collapse was an inexplicable phenomenon that felt just that profound.
"You're wielding sorcery!!!" Marsilio bellowed in desperation, unleashing his divinity. Orin, the heart of the church, bestowed upon his body a dazzling crimson aura. Kaboom! It was a ferocious wave that manifested physically. As it enveloped the holy knights, those who had fainted stirred and rose. Madness gleamed in their eyes—no reason remained. It was berserk frenzy.
"You seize and shatter spirits! How about this!" As he cried out, Lenoir's eyebrow twitched.
"All things under heaven exist where mine eyes fall, so how could a blind sword frighten me?"
"Attack—!" To Marsilio, it seemed a technique to subdue the mind, so he had stripped them of reason and turned them into berserkers. But this time, an even stranger phenomenon unfolded.
"You resort to futile tricks."
Creeeeak! The holy knights flew back as they approached him, their limbs shattering. Marsilio swallowed hard. The same phenomenon. But far more violent than the mere fainting before.
Marsilio's head spun. Even amid it, he ceaselessly raised the fallen holy knights and hurled them forth again. To buy time and find a solution. There must be a way to counter it...! He admitted the man was no mere charlatan but one who embodied a god. Yet that very fact made defeat unthinkable for Marsilio. Among those who walked the same path, the one who had pondered deeper designs should prevail. Marsilio had honed his scholarship his entire life to build this church. The investment of time was worlds apart.
What is its underlying principle? All supernatural abilities followed rules. Formulas set since creation. Amid the grand currents defining the world's providence lay tiny gaps. The mercy granted by primordial creators to mortals—manifesting desired phenomena by inscribing them within those rules was called magic. Divine spells were, at root, a branch of magic. Thus, this man's miracles could not stray from such rules, Marsilio reasoned.
And his judgment was correct. Lenoir's miracles deviated not from common sense as Marsilio knew it. It was merely so versatile, rooted in his goddess's power, that it defied easy reckoning.
I must find it! I must...! Then surely...
"You can seize the advantage. Is that what you think?" Marsilio flinched. Lenoir gazed at him quietly, his expression one of pure disgust, as if regarding a worm.
"I see in thy countenance a meager hope. Thus I ask: dost thou believe that knowing the principle alone allows thee to unravel it?"
"...Of course! If one hides behind a veiled blade like a coward, one need only expose that vileness to the world!"
"Thou imposest thine own shame upon others. Are not 'vile' and 'cowardly' words more suited to thee?"
"Insolent babble!"
"Fate."
Lenoir stated abruptly. Marsilio's face twisted grotesquely.
"...What didst thou say?"
"O irreverent one, thou asked, and I answer. The power of the miracles I wield is fate."
Lenoir advanced step by step, cane in hand. Marsilio retreated unsteadily, bolstering the holy knights further. At the same time, he tried to lift the priests' restraints. Not all—he freed only their mouths and hands.
"What are you lot doing? Hasten and form the ritual array!"
"In mercy to thy ignorance, first."
Whiiiir! The halo spun fiercely.
"All phenomena of the world are causality. Cause, process, and result."
Ching! The priests' restraints bound them anew. The holy knights halted in unison. An eerie stasis, as if time itself had stopped. The halo's light filled the space.
"As the first son of fate and executor of Her beloved currents, I ever revere causality. Thus, upon my path shall remain only the natural law."
Marsilio's thoughts began to turn pure white. Even at full power before, he could not withstand that force.
"Thus, second, my law stands blessed by the goddess. All my actions proceed from lawful cause through rational process to inevitable result. Long ago, I posed a question here."
The halo spun faster. Then, atop it, a faint, sinuous crimson needle pierced through.
Thok! Marsilio's body stiffened. It felt as if a serpent coiled around him, pressure and exhaustion surging in tandem. His gaze fixed on Lenoir. Unmoved by the changes, the man continued.
"If causality be so perfect, what need have I to tediously repeat the process?"
Golden eyes engulfed Marsilio. Vast information hammered into his mind—an awe-inspiring, infinitely distant vision.
"Ah, aah...!" In that instant, Marsilio glimpsed the future within those eyes. There, he unleashed every desperate struggle at his disposal. Every authority he could wield to press the man, even schemes of mutual destruction staking his life. Yet every frenzy ended in utter defeat.
The moment he realized it, the divinity Marsilio had amassed drained to nothing. Only then did he understand. Why he called his power 'fate,' and how it operated within providence.
The halo was causality. Endless currents bore cause, process, result—circles forming rivers of time flowing with consequence. That sinuous crimson needle was the stake. Fixing cause and result, erasing the process to reach the end most swiftly.
"Uh, uheuh, uhehehaha..." Marsilio collapsed to his haunches, laughing madly. His eyes trembled, reason fled. By then, Lenoir stood before him, looking down.
A power fixing cause and result, deleting the process. It wielded too exalted a providence. But what truly despaired Marsilio was something else. It interfered with reality itself. The activation principle was the constraint. The condition too explicit: it triggered only when victory in all possibilities was presupposed.
"...There was none. There was never a way to win."
As he said, to him, this assault and its outcome were utterly inevitable. Repeating the process was pointlessly futile.
Lenoir offered no answer to that realization. As if deeming it worthless.
"Thou hast failed to prove thy purity to the end. That thou choosest madness over assured defeat is proof thereof."
Who was this man? What allowed him to wield such unreason and vastness? In anguished fury, Marsilio found the answer.
"Demigod. Thou art a demigod."
"Knowing Him proves not thy purity."
"So that's how it was..." Marsilio chuckled raggedly. For the first time, regret pierced his every life.
It had to. "This land was your playground all along. From the beginning. There was never any freedom...!"
"Your?" Lenoir's brow furrowed.
Marsilio gave no reply. He throttled himself. Converting life to divinity, he wrought a phenomenon. Pressure rose from his throat, swelling his head. As every orifice dulled, the world went black.
Splat! The instant his head burst felt eternal despite its brevity. Yet Marsilio felt liberation. His life flashed like a sunbeam. Clutching his starving belly as a child, praying to survive the day. Then, the teachings of a wandering rogue.
—Child, dost thou not crave glory?
—...Would it fill my belly?
—Thou couldst claim anything, so long as thou forgettest not that thy piled glory is but a sandcastle.
He learned faith. The use of divinity, depravity. Thus, the life of avarice. He recalled the man who taught such and vanished.
—Who art thou?
—A child abandoned by parents. No different from thee. Offspring of a dead god.
Only later did he realize that phrasing. He had lusted and grasped per those teachings all his life, reaching here—only to fall by one's like. Was not his entire existence a pawn swept by their whim? All his glory, truly a sandcastle. Only death was freedom, release.
Thus, in dying, Marsilio felt distant hatred and liberation entwined. Plop, plop. Chunks once a man's head fell. None, not even a drop of blood, touched Lenoir's garments—a mercy he knew not, fortunate indeed.
Lenoir stood motionless there, quite for a long while.