Fanatics Blinded by Heresy - 5
The earth embraces all things and forms our dwelling place. Our Lord is the earth, the parent of all creation. How could mere words ever express His grace and majesty?
How could a scorching sun that merely gazes down from on high claim to be the parent who watches over all things? Only our Lord, Rahandar, is the true god.
This continent has no need for the dawn of a rising sun. When twilight—when the sun sets—illuminates the land, the true Lord shall reign once more.
"It's a pity we won't be there to see it."
In a gathering of every combatant the cult could muster, the man who bore the title of Cult Leader let slip words he never should have spoken. But what else was there to say? It was cruel, yet it was reality.
Despite their true and faithful belief, their Lord's silences had grown longer with each passing day. Though each of their individual faiths could stand against a hundred others, set against the entire continent they amounted to little more than dust.
And the sun's treacherous lackeys had never hesitated to erase their name. No matter how faithfully they spread the true teachings across the continent, the Dawn Church smothered those teachings underfoot. Truly, they were people who deserved divine punishment.
"We, too, have inherited the sacrifices of those who came before us. Now it is our turn."
An elder broke the silence with a gentle smile. Yes—this, too, was the teaching of their predecessors. The previous generation had also given up any hope of seeing the Lord reign in their own time, yielding that glory to those who would follow. Now it was their turn to step aside for the next generation.
Day by day the Dawn Church grew stronger; day by day their own side sank further into disadvantage. They had reached their limit. Three years ago they had briefly tasted hope after succeeding in a great undertaking, but reversing the tide of the board had been impossible.
"We will carve our name into the continent."
If they simply stayed still, they would quietly drown. In that case, they would become a brilliant blaze instead—a blaze so dazzling that the wicked heretics could never cover up their martyrdom.
That was why they had thrown every last scrap of their strength into targeting the Dawn Church's next Saint. Chances of success? Not high, by any measure. But if they waited until the odds improved, they would be the ones to fall first. Even if the probability was low, the time had come to stake everything on the challenge.
Even if they failed, an attempt on the next Saint's life in the very heart of the continent's strongest nation was an incident that could never be hushed up. Their name would resound across the entire land. People who shared their ideals would appear.
That would be success enough. Even if they died, their will would live on in the next generation.
...But what in the world was this situation?
"Large silver coins! Large silver coins!"
"G-Give me your head! Hand it over right now before I kill you!"
Have they lost their minds?
He knew the heretics called them fanatics as a pejorative. But then shouldn't they at least refrain from fielding lunatics of their own? To become no different from the enemy—was the Dawn Church in such dire straits as well?
For a fleeting, absurd moment, he even wondered whether, if they had simply held on a little longer, they might have watched the Dawn Church collapse. That was how spine-chilling the madness before his eyes had become.
"The one in the brown robe is the Cult Leader!"
"Hah."
A hollow laugh slipped out of him. The grace their Lord had bestowed no longer manifested properly. Of course, he had braced himself for that the moment the next Saint came into existence. He had intended to clash head-on rather than by ambush, so he held no regrets.
But a barrier that felt like being sealed inside a box, mana freeze that rendered even magic scrolls useless, and—decisively—a body that had grown as heavy as if an invisible hand were pressing down on it. The triple blow left him reeling.
As filthy as ever.
Every cheap, disgusting method of binding an opponent.
He cut down one of the soldiers charging at him like a madman. Irritating, but hardships of this level alone could never stop their advance. The experience they had accumulated while wandering the continent had made them strong. The weak simply did not survive among their kind.
At the very least, these small fry would make fine companions on the road to the afterlife. The more of them that came, the more he would kill.
What?
Then the anomaly occurred.
A soft green light began to spread across the ground from far away, washing past where he stood and continuing behind him before he realized it.
"Aaaagh!"
A comrade's scream rang out. He whipped his head around in time to see a fellow cultist collapse after being stabbed by one of Enen's fallen lackeys.
They got back up?
The thick armor had kept him from killing the man in a single stroke, but he had at least inflicted wounds severe enough that the man should not have been able to move. And yet he had risen again?
A glance around told him it was not just one of them. One by one, the heretics who had fallen from their injuries began to stand.
"There! The large silver coins are moving!"
"No."
The thunderous roar from a man who had been wheezing just moments earlier made his head feel like it might freeze solid. Had these Dawn Church bastards actually laid hands on forbidden alchemy?
But the vile creatures did not even give him time to entertain the question.
"Cult Leader!"
At the elder's cry he snapped back to himself—just as a silver sphere came hurtling toward him from the direction the green light had flooded in from. What now?
He did not know what it was, but getting hit did not seem like it would end cleanly. Instinct was screaming as much.
Damn it all.
Alien phenomena never recorded in their histories kept pouring down on them.
"So you're the Cult Leader!"
A man whose eyes burned with exceptional heat charged in.
"Taste the grudge of my rank insignia!"
Hell. Who the hell was this one?
The temporary headquarters where the forces that had escorted Tanian from the Academy were stationed together with Mukgwangdae.
What a dirty way to play the game.
In the nearly empty room I could not hold back my praise for Tanian. He was playing the game like an absolute bastard. Thank the heavens he was on our side and not the enemy's.
"The Lord said, 'Little lamb, where do you go? I watch over you wherever you are, so why do you wander in fear?' And he answered, 'Lord, grant Your faithful servant the courage to stand against Your enemies. Bestow upon him valor...'"
I glanced sideways and found Tanian on his knees, rattling off prayers like a machine gun. It was almost frightening.
Still, they said a proper prayer matching the situation was required to activate holy arts, so what could one do? He did not actually need to speak that fast, but Tanian was pouring out holy arts with no cooldown whatsoever.
The poor bastards.
I had wanted to tear the Twilight Cult limb from limb, yet now I almost felt sorry for them. From the reports coming in from the front, the Twilight Cult were no weaklings either. Quite a few of the Holy Knights and Imperial troops had gone down as well.
But right now Tanian had laid down an area-of-effect recovery field. As long as it was not an instant kill, people healed up almost immediately and went right back to thrashing the Twilight Cult. On top of that, he was occasionally whipping up those weird, hazy spheres and hurling them as well.
"A Saint must not intervene in conflicts between humans."
Tanian's words just before the operation began floated back to me. True enough—if a Saint stepped into a war, it would be nightmarish. A supporter who could see the entire map like a wallhack and slap down a floor that kept the whole army fighting indefinitely unless they died instantly. Just imagining it was terrifying.
And that supporter was also lobbing artillery-level damage from out of sight.
What even is a Saint?
I had thought they only got the map hack. Who could have predicted he would suddenly pull out surprise holy arts like this?
"Isn't the Twilight Cult also a conflict between humans?"
"Haha. It's fine."
A Saint who must not intervene in human conflicts. In truth, the last time a Saint had taken the field had been in the distant past, when they purged the undead.
Seeing Tanian grit his teeth and go all-out against the Twilight Cult in defiance of that precedent made me curious enough to ask.
"The Twilight Cult are not human, so intervention is permitted."
"...Right."
So he said.
Yes—heretics were not human. In that case, a Saint could kill them personally without any issue.
I decided to think of it that way starting today.
"Remarkable."
"Ah, Your Excellency."
With Tanian throwing himself so actively into the battle, the Demon Duke—who suddenly found herself with nothing to do—approached while letting out a small murmur of admiration. Under normal circumstances she would have been pouring every scrap of mana into bombardment magic by now.
Still, the reason the Twilight Cult could not flee even after they started getting one-sidedly pummeled was thanks to the Demon Duke. That alone meant she had more than done her part.
"Records of Saints are scarce, you know. The last time one participated in a war was eight hundred years ago."
"You mean the campaign against the Death King."
Perhaps because she was bored with nothing left to do, the Demon Duke continued speaking.
The Death King—or King of the Undead. Once the continent's greatest headache, until the Saint of that era beat him senseless and forced him into enlightenment. After that, there had been no records of a Saint fighting in person... but I never imagined one would fight this well.
"If a Saint can intervene even in wars between humans, the borders may need redrawing."
I found myself nodding before I could stop it. A single superhuman could not defeat an entire force alone—but if that one superhuman made every single ally stronger, the story changed completely.
Not long after, a light mixed of brown and black surged up from the combat zone, and silence settled over the field.
"It's finished."
Tanian rose from his seat with a satisfied expression, and at the same moment light flared in the communication orb I held. Map hacks really were terrifying. Once everyone was down, they simply dusted themselves off and stood up on their own.
"This is the Audit Department Chief."
"—Senior Commander Francis Neville here. Of the thirty-two, twenty-four slain, eight captured alive. We have also succeeded in capturing the Cult Leader."
It was a complete victory.
Twenty-four heads and eight captives including the Cult Leader. We had spent forty-three large silver coins, but I still had the ten gold coins the Crown Prince had given me, so I felt secure.
"You've worked hard."
"I only did what needed doing."
And the hero of the hour who had seized the Cult Leader was the former corps commander. Having personally caught the greatest grudge of his life, his expression was the very picture of mild contentment. Congratulations—bucket list complete.
I handed over the large silver coins as promised, though a man who had once commanded a field army—even after a dishonorable discharge—was hardly the type to get worked up over five large silvers. To him it was probably more like a commemorative medal than money.
"Brother."
Once the former corps commander returned to the Holy Knights without a backward glance, Tanian quietly approached. He, too, wore the gentle expression of a man who had finally set down a lifelong burden.
"Thank you for granting such an unreasonable request."
Then he bowed at the waist, which left me a little flustered.
"Don't. If the Holy Knights see, they'll make a fuss."
"There is no problem with a human expressing gratitude as a human."
Honestly, he always picked the replies that were hardest to argue with.
"Should anything arise from today's events, I will do everything in my power to defend you."
"Right. Thank you."
I nodded and answered with moderate gratitude—at least the words themselves were welcome. I would probably hear some grumbling, but nothing serious would come of it. The matter had already been coordinated with two ministers, after all.
Even so, knowing I could use the next Saint as a shield in an emergency was more than enough to bring peace of mind.