Piercing the Temple's Veil (2)
Lenoir walked through the temple. As was usual for the times when he did not deliberately reveal himself, no one noticed him no matter where he went. Thanks to that, he could leisurely survey his surroundings. The temple itself was so vast and complex that finding his way was no easy task, however.
The spaces for parishioners and priests are separated, it seems. The areas accessible to ordinary believers held nothing special. There were only the halls, chapels, dining rooms, gardens, prayer rooms, and confessionals one might find in any temple—that was all. So he ventured deeper inside.
The priests' quarters were filled with those who held actual roles in the church, coming and going purposefully. Straight ahead, he spotted two men in priestly robes embroidered with blue threads.
Lenoir attuned his ears to their conversation.
"I heard a guest from the Goddess Church arrived?"
"Wonder what that's about. Trying to build a rapport with the Saintess?"
"It could be a personal overture. If it were about church cooperation, they'd go straight to the archbishops or His Holiness, wouldn't they?"
"True, the Saintess is..."
It was a discussion about Sara's visit. He sensed a peculiar discrepancy in their tones.
They hold no great reverence for the Saintess. It was not hard to understand. From his investigations, Justina ranked among the highest priests in the Malik Church hierarchy, yet she held no real duties. A figurehead. That seemed to be the upper echelons' view of her.
And there—a clue.
Does the Malik Church stand in a similar position to the Orin Church? Normally, saintesses were revered as mortals favored by the divine. In the Mythic Age, they symbolized purity itself, exalted apart from practical roles. But not here.
The high-ranking priests wandering the corridors observed proper decorum toward Justina, yet without true adoration. It meant Malik's favor held little weight. Or perhaps, as an artificial apostle, the very concept of divine favor did not apply to her.
Something was amiss, and his conviction grew stronger. Lenoir's steps led him deeper still—to the priests' dormitories, their lounges, and the library of general doctrinal texts. He tried to press further, but halted.
His brows furrowed.
A ward. A membrane of divinity etched itself across Lenoir's retinas. An exceedingly advanced incantation—and one that stirred nostalgia. It was a method favored by high priests of the Mythic Age.
The first harvest.
Connected, after all. A demigod was undoubtedly behind this affair. Lenoir pondered briefly. But as always, he reached a conclusion.
Why drag my feet?
He was reaching out to unravel the incantation when—
"Believer, how did you come to enter this place?"
Lenoir paused, his hand freezing mid-motion. Turning, he saw a man beaming with a cheerful smile. Soft-featured, with red hair and blue eyes. Someone other than Sara had called out to him. An extraordinary occurrence.
He pierced my perceptual distortion? One of two possibilities. Either he possessed enough divinity to peer beyond the veil, or he harbored a pure soul. Lenoir regarded him intently. The latter was the likelier extreme, yet amusingly, he was neither.
"...Thou art engaged in foul deeds."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Thy schemes are insidious. Didst thou think me so blind as to overlook thee?"
The man's soul was not pure. Nor was it corrupt. It hovered endlessly close to the average mortal's measure, as Lenoir knew it. Yet how had such a one breached his distortion? The answer lay in the spirit's divinity cloaking the man's eyelids, forming a lens of purity that allowed him to perceive Lenoir.
"Dost thou hide behind false radiance to claim that authority? Thou dost not merely mock faith—thou defilest it."
It was a method Lenoir despised, for it deceived purity itself.
"Speak."
"Of what do you speak?"
"Give me one clear reason why I should forgive thy licentiousness."
The man smiled.
"Is it not you, believer, who came to a place barred to outsiders?"
"There is no place on this earth I cannot enter."
"Yet the heart of this library is the domain of our lord Malik."
"That spirit is not greater than I."
Words that might seem arrogant at first glance, yet they were mere statements of fact. In this age when all gods had vanished, nothing surpassed a demigod in existence. No matter how exalted Malik's divinity might be arrayed, it could not transgress a demigod's innate hierarchy.
As Lenoir glared, the man spoke.
"Indeed. How could anything greater than a demigod exist on this land now?"
Lenoir's eyebrow arched.
"Thou knowest of demigods."
"Know? Far more than that."
"Thy manner suggests thou hast met one."
"Did you not come knowing?"
"Insolent repartee."
The standoff sharpened. At its edge, Lenoir realized without thinking.
"Thou art the Pope."
"Inadequate as I am, I oversee this church."
"A 200-year-old monster dons the guise of youth."
"How shall I respond when a demigod says as much?"
Lenoir let out a hollow chuckle. Audacious, displeasing. The Pope of Malik. Information on him was scarce, with no mention of him being an ancient freak. Rather, the papacy had been passed every thirty years until now. The implication was clear.
"A body-swapping art, is it?"
He gleaned intelligence there.
"I remember now. A technique Hailerr devised at the era's end. Is Hailerr the mastermind behind all this?"
Among his siblings, if any were plotting, Hailerr was the prime suspect. Contemplating traces he might leave, one that surfaced was the art of immortality. A divine spell he had once taught a subordinate apostle, allowing the soul to shift bodies.
Lenoir clenched his fist in the air. The man's throat crack!—was seized by an unseen force.
"Guh...!"
The grip on his neck was one he could not break, even reborn a thousand times. Lenoir spoke lowly.
"Where is he?"
"Kuh, guh...!"
"I know thou canst still speak in that state. I know thou feelest no pain. Cease thy needless theatrics."
The art of immortality granted mortals long life, but with one flaw: imperfect unity of soul and flesh. Thus, with each transfer, sensations dulled—a side effect that eventually turned one into a puppeteer manipulating a marionette. No improvement was possible. Eternity itself defied providence; it was the inevitable end for any who pursued it.
His guess proved true. The Pope rolled his eyes ruefully, smacking his lips in regret.
"Well... deception won't work after all."
"I ask once more. Where is Hailerr?"
"What relation do you suppose he bears our church?"
"Someone schemes, creating a world rife with proliferating churches for some experiment's sake. I judged thus, deeming a fellow demigod the culprit. Thou fit every clue. Even crafting artificial apostles like that—what point in denial now?"
"You saw that far."
"Answer."
Crunch! He tightened his grip further.
"Pain or no, thy flesh's destruction will trouble thee. Forget not that I know how to bind thy soul from escape."
The Pope looked troubled.
"Must you go this far?"
"Thou art still at ease."
"Merely composed. He foresaw that his brothers would one day seek him. To me, this is but the expected."
"Hailerr did?"
"Who can say."
Meaning-laden words. Yet Lenoir deemed this tale worth hearing further.
"What did he say?"
"First, he said one of three likely seekers would come: the brother who cherishes what he holds dear above all, the brother who hates incursions into his domain more than anything, the brother peculiarly rigid. If I may be so bold, you seem the last."
"Likely true. Even then, my brothers called me rigid."
"He left a message."
Was that the Pope's lifeline?
"What is it?"
The Pope replied.
"How would a mere messenger know more? I shall relay it verbatim."
"Do so."
"I have found the way. So, Lenoir, dear brother—pray do not block my path."
Lenoir's eyes narrowed. Weighing it, the words ill fit Hailerr's temperament. He was impulsive, egocentric, and shunned no confrontation. Time might have changed him. Yet pinning it solely on him felt forced; it could truly be another brother.
He wanted to know who. But instinct told him unraveling it now would not be simple. A tattoo surfaced on the Pope's forehead.
A seal. A knowledge seal. One of the methods his Mythic Age siblings had devised together to punish sinners who acquired forbidden lore. The bearer could not access that knowledge, even from their own mind. He could not recall which demigod he had met.
"Thou..."
Not a subordinate. More like a slave, used for a purpose. Lenoir's expression soured. The Pope said,
"Shall we speak further?"
Lenoir released his hand.