A Piercing Intrusion (7)
It wasn't Orin. Orin didn't have the ability to change its body color, and seeing Orin sluggishly crawling out from under the pillow, still half-asleep, confirmed it was a separate entity.
"Who goes there?"
"Lord Malik?!"
"Aigoo...!"
Her senses snapped awake, and she nearly bowed subserviently without thinking. But Sara stopped herself midway, head half-lowered.
Wait, I'm a goddess, aren't I?
That put her on the same level as Malik hierarchically, didn't it? Or rather, according to Lenoir, she was the true god, so Malik should be the one below her. Confidence surged within her.
Sara Lorojin was no longer that girl from Hilton Back Alley hawking three-card monte.
"Ahem...! What brings you here in the dead of night...?"
Sara's head tilted at the abrupt plea.
"Out of the blue?"
Truth be told, it was hard for Sara to wrap her head around. She'd fallen into a deep sleep knowing nothing, only to wake up to some puny glowing blob claiming to be Malik. And now it was jumping straight to "danger" without any context. Reacting with an immediate "What?! We have to go right now!" while grasping the full situation would be the weirder response.
But Sara was quicker to empathize than suspect. She knew no spirit other than these shady light blobs existed, the glow seemed too pathetic to be a threat, and despite the shrill tone, it felt desperately urgent. Something had definitely gone down.
"What's wrong with the saintess? Boobs too heavy?"
"Huh?"
Sara's expression hardened.
"...Kidnapping marriage?"
Something worse than the nomadic southerners' abduction weddings she'd overheard about once? Sara's eyes lit up. Justina's breasts were humanity's treasure—they couldn't belong to one person.
"Where?! Let's go save her quick! Oh, gotta tell Nari first!"
"Nari's there?"
It irked her that he'd gone off alone without a word, especially now. And imagining Lenoir struggling solo in danger spiked her anxiety. The emotions clashed, yielding one conclusion.
"...We'll talk on the way. Hop on my shoulders."
Malik and Orin clambered onto Sara's shoulders. She hastily threw on her outdoor clothes and rushed out toward the church.
Who else should she call for help? No, it was too late for that. Sara quickened her pace toward the Malik denomination's temple.
Only then did she see it.
What the heck is that...?
In the distance, toward the Malik temple, blue and golden lights twisted together like coiling serpents, clashing fiercely. It didn't look ordinary—Sara's face grew grave in turn.
The Pope appeared right after the spire crumbled. Unlike anything Lenoir had seen before, his face was frozen stiff.
"Thou hast a vile countenance."
The Pope replied, "Dost thou think such an incident in the heart of the capital permissible?"
"How might a shepherd be bound by the flock's rules?"
"He who built the church sought to live as one with that flock."
"I stood in the same place to rebuild the fence that guides those sheep."
"Must it come to this?"
"Thy purpose is so nefarious that it must."
Viscous darkness began pooling in the Pope's eyes.
"It concerns the sheep. The desperate flailing of poor lambs suffering from affliction of the soul."
"The problem lies in turning them into demigods."
"Why should that be a problem? They merely wish to live in some form."
"A sheep cannot become a shepherd. To force the impossible into possibility—is that not strange? Even setting aside what came before."
Humans overreaching to become demigods. An attempt to profane the laws etched into the natural order. Success or failure aside, it was something that should never be done. Was there room for pity in the process? No—at least not for Lenoir. It was a certainty born from his intimate knowledge of that forbidden art.
"The elixir of immortality cannot defy the practitioner's will. That was the safeguard my siblings built upon the vow of providence."
"Indeed, I sought immortality of my own accord."
"Yet now thou seekest to recant out of regret."
"If there's a better path, one ought pursue it rightly."
The Pope took a step forward.
"I have heard demigods exist to save mortals. Then thou shouldst not stand in my way."
"Salvation is purity forged from unadulterated benevolence. It cannot be called salvation if it demands sacrifice."
"I concede keeping a long-dead child alive until now."
"Had it ended there, thou wouldst have been pure."
Blue light enveloped the Pope. Even divinity gathered from mere spirits was still divinity. The vast power shook the space around them.
Lenoir realized he would not yield. He hadn't expected him to in the first place.
History brimmed with evils. None lacked reason. Yet the reason they were evil boiled down to one thing.
"How grotesque is selfish greed."
Lenoir raised his cane. He swung it like a sword, slashing through space itself.
Craaaaaack—!
The Pope—and the spot where he stood—were rent asunder by space itself. The Pope's body split in two, but both knew it wasn't over.
His true form was not flesh, but soul. A being who had transcended the body's limits by shifting through countless vessels. Though he gained no true sensation in any body, conversely, flesh was mere replaceable parts to him.
Thud, thud, thud.
Footsteps echoed. Soldiers approached from all sides, their eyes clouded gray-white, devoid of any life—like endless corpses.
Lenoir sensed the Pope in every one. Disgust twisted his features.
"Failed children, are you."
He'd heard the Pope had collected so many children afflicted with mana poisoning. Yet aside from Justina, their fates remained undisclosed even in the records' end. Now it was clear: they'd been processed into these soldiers.
Neither living nor dead, souls stripped away, puppets turned into the Pope's blades.
Lenoir declared, "Thou hast defiled life and soul alike. Thou shalt never return to the wheel of reincarnation."
The puppets drew their swords in unison.
There was more than one trick up his sleeve, clearly. And as the Pope said, dispatching them all would take Lenoir no short time.
Of course. Lenoir's power fixed fates. The higher its hierarchy among authorities, the more overwhelming the constraints compared to others.
First, all variables had to be under Lenoir's control. In other words, if any unknown variable lingered, the authority wouldn't manifest fully.
To annihilate the Pope's soul required every ability, every hidden trick, all gripped firmly in Lenoir's hand.
Kiiiiing—!
The halo spun, scattering the puppets' control, but it couldn't fully strip the Pope's soul from their bodies. He could brute-force variables with sheer divinity, but the cost would be too high. The Malik denomination's amassed divinity was that vast.
The puppets laughed in unison. The Pope's laugh.
A rare clue, but it stirred no emotion. None among his siblings would disagree.
That too failed to move him. If pressed for any feeling, perhaps...
"It has been some time."
An attempt to exploit his authority and strike unexpectedly—rare these days. And that was the end of it.
Lenoir acknowledged one fact.
"Indeed, too much time has passed for us to be mere memories."
An age where demigods were legends in tales. Even the few who remembered them hadn't truly witnessed them. Greatness is a feeling fully felt only in the moment one's eyes behold its splendor.
For too long, demigods had not proven their greatness before mortals.
Lenoir pointed it out.
"Thou seemest to have forgotten something."
His cane hummed. Golden divinity began coating it. His sunken golden eyes gleamed coldly.
"In my era, were there none who attempted as thou dost?"
There had been many. Especially at the myth era's end, dubbed the Age of Fanaticism, thousands were daily sacrificed on altars to profane Lenoir's halo.
"Yet none succeeded."
Thus, a fact he rarely voiced, deeming humility a virtue.
"That is why my siblings call me the greatest demigod."
As stark historical fact, Lenoir Astirnus had never once failed to be great in myth. That was his greatest pride.
"I shall not drag this out."
Three crimson thorns protruded atop the halo.