The Prayer That Abandoned God

Not even the faint morning light that pierced the dawn mist could thaw the chill of the Grand Temple's Holy of Holies.

Beneath a domed ceiling that soared a hundred feet into the air, a colossal statue of the Main God, carved from pure white marble, gazed down upon the altar with a smile of infinite mercy. Silver censers lined the floor, sending up coils of lily incense said to purify the soul, the smoke thinning and vanishing into the cool dark.

A woman knelt ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠on the freezing marble below the altar.

Her priestly robes were a white so pure that not a single speck of dust clung to them. Hair black as pitch spilled down the slender line of her collarbones, and a sacred golden radiance haloed the hands she had folded so neatly before her.

She was Seraphina, the Saintess—the Church's one and only living miracle.

She prayed with her eyes closed, without so much as a tremor of movement. To any who looked upon her, it was a silence as perfectly distilled as a sacred fresco: a scene of sublime faith that no one would dare to trespass.

But her heart was anything but at peace.

It had been the day of the final battle in the western continent, when they brought down the command tower of the Demon King's army. Seraphina had unleashed a forbidden high holy art to save every last one of her allies, and for that she had incurred the Main God's wrath.

A brand of Divine Punishment that no mortal soul could bear had been carved deep into the very center of her spirit. A searing heat that burned her bones and marrow white. A sharp tinnitus and a chorus of hallucinations that scraped at her brain without rest, night and day.

The priests had called it a holy mark of martyrdom. They whispered that it was a merciful trial, sent so that the Main God might gather her into heaven, and they told her she must not cease her prayers even in the midst of the agony.

The Church left her to suffer. The cardinals had concluded that to lift a punishment sent by God with human hands would be blasphemy.

She had been abandoned, lying alone in a tent while her soul burned down to ash.

Then one morning she opened her eyes—and the hellish fire that had been devouring her body was gone, washed away as if it had never been. The heat gnawing at her marrow had vanished. The tinnitus that had deafened her had fallen silent. The Church proclaimed that the Main God, moved by the Saintess's profound faith, had granted a miracle. Tens of thousands of believers dropped to their knees and wept at the greatness of divine mercy.

Seraphina had believed it too. She had believed that the god in the heavens, to whom she had devoted her entire life, had finally answered her prayers.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Urgent footsteps shattered the heavy silence of the Holy of Holies, ringing down the corridor. The massive bronze doors swung open, and a gasping priest crawled on his belly toward the foot of the altar.

"Your Holiness! Something terrible has happened!"

Seraphina slowly opened her eyes. In the gloom, her irises were a clear gold from which every last trace of feeling had been excised.

"It is the hour of morning prayer, Brother Johan. Within the Holy of Holies, one is to listen only to the voice of the Main God. What could possibly be so urgent as to make you rush about so irreverently?"

The voice was quiet and gentle—and cold enough that it allowed no contradiction.

"Forgive me, Your Holiness! But a state of emergency has been declared at the Imperial Palace! Her Highness the First Imperial Princess Veronica has enacted Class-One martial law across the entire southern highway and sealed every checkpoint!"

"The Church has no reason to be shaken by Her Highness's secular decisions."

"That isn't all! Commander Elena deserted on the very day of the victory parade! They say she cleaved the iron bar of the South Gate with her magic sword and is racing south alone!"

Seraphina's head tilted, just slightly, to one side.

"The Sword Saint has deserted?"

"Yes! The entire Imperial Court and the Knight Order are in an uproar! No one has any idea what happened inside the expedition!"

"And the cause?"

Seraphina asked it softly.

"Pardon?"

"There must be a reason the Empire's two pillars have lost their reason so completely. What moved them?"

"They say a man who was conscripted as a baggage handler and low-ranking healer for the expedition vanished from his manor last night! Her Highness called him a national asset of the highest order and commanded a search—and the Sword Saint has gone racing south after him!"

The priest's words had barely ended when something lurched, grotesque and violent, in the deepest part of Seraphina's chest—at the bottom of the soul where the scar of Divine Punishment still lingered.

A thud.

A familiar and terrible ringing brushed past her ears. From the very place where the flames of Divine Punishment had once burned, the pulse of a foreign stigma rose like a heat haze.

Seraphina rose slowly to her feet. She took the silver flask of holy water from the altar and poured the clear liquid, unhurried, over her own palm.

The instant it touched her skin, white steam boiled up. The droplets seethed on her hand and lost their transparent light. The silver-clear holy water turned a dark, blood-red in a heartbeat and ran down between her fingers.

This was no divine grace.

It was the ancient heretical brand recorded in the Inquisition's classified archives, inscribed on the forbidden list of apostates. The cursed miracle the Church had condemned as the most heinous of blasphemies.

Seraphina's clear ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠golden eyes trembled.

The fragments of memory fell into place.

The days of the expedition. Every night, as she writhed and wept with her whole body burning, the man who had sat beside her in silence and wiped her forehead with a damp cloth.

A low-ranking healer. A man the bishops dismissed as lowborn, a man the knights treated as a mere baggage handler because he had no strength to fight.

Every dawn after he had kept watch at her side and gone, a faint scent of iron and blood had always lingered on the backs of his hands. The reason he always let his sleeves hang long enough to hide them. The reason he always swallowed his coughs and secretly wiped away black blood in the corners.

God had never saved her.

The Main God had merely sat upon his high throne and watched, cold and remote, as her soul burned to ash.

The one who had pulled her from that dreadful inferno was not the god in the heavens. It was that frail human being—who had coughed up blood as he silently gathered her Divine Punishment into his own soul.

"Ah..."

A thin sound slipped from Seraphina's lips. It was not despair. It was the rapture of a fanatic who, after long wandering, had at last ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠found her true god.

"Your Holiness?"

The priest still prostrate on the floor sensed something amiss and cautiously lifted his head. Seraphina did not look at him. Her gaze was fixed on the colossal marble statue of the Main God that towered at the center of the altar—that loathsome stone figure looking down upon the world with a smile of mercy.

"You did not save me."

Seraphina's voice rang through the empty cathedral.

"You were silent. You stood by. You merely took pleasure in watching your little lamb burn to death in the flames."

"Your Holiness! What blasphemy are you speaking?!"

"There was no true grace there."

Seraphina slowly raised her right hand. From her fingertips, not the pure white of holy power but a dark, near-black crimson mana began to coil and seethe. It was a heretical authority—the remnants of Divine Punishment tangled with the pulse of the stigma.

At last she spoke the name aloud. It was a tone more sacred, and more blindly devoted, than any hymn that existed in the world.

The entire Holy of Holies shuddered as if a massive earthquake had seized it. A pillar of dark crimson light erupted from Seraphina's fingertips and struck the altar dead-on.

A deafening blast.

The colossal marble statue of the Main God, which had reigned as the Church's sanctuary for thousands of years, shattered into pieces with a single blow. Fragments scattered in every direction and smashed against the floor. The statue's head, still wearing its benevolent smile, broke off and rolled across the stone.

"Gah—! Blasphemy! The Saintess has gone mad!"

The priest's face went ashen as he screamed and stumbled backward. Dozens of holy knights and high-ranking bishops waiting outside the cathedral burst through the doors, startled by the thunderous crash.

"Your Holiness! What's happening?!"

"The statue has been destroyed—what heretical assault is this?!"

From the thick dust, Seraphina walked out slowly. Beneath her feet, the fragments of the shattered statue were crushed to powder. She looked down at the bishops as she mercilessly ground the statue's face under her heel.

On her face there still hung the gentle, sacred smile unique to a Saintess. But in her golden eyes surged a pure madness that only one who had abandoned God could harbor.

Seraphina whispered it softly.

"From this day forward, only one name shall ascend the altar of this Church."

"Your Holiness!"

A cardinal cried out in horror.

"This is blasphemy! Even a Saintess cannot escape the Inquisition!"

Seraphina flicked her finger, almost idly. The cardinal who had been speaking was crushed by an invisible pressure and slammed into the cathedral wall. As he slumped, coughing up blood, the holy knights drew their swords as one.

"Sheathe your blades, lost lambs."

Seraphina murmured it. Behind her, six fallen black wings unfurled in a shape of pure mana. An overwhelming distortion of holy power. Every knight and priest in the cathedral was crushed by that murderous weight, driven to their knees on the floor, bleeding.

"I have not come to burn the Church. I have come to set the Church's mission right."

Seraphina walked toward the Grand Inquisitor, who had sunk to the floor.

"Grand Inquisitor."

"Y-yes! Your Holiness!"

"Issue a decree at once to every diocese and monastery under the Church."

Seraphina made the sign of the cross over her chest. But the gesture was not directed at God. It was a vow toward a man who had gone south.

"Establish free Church clinics across the entire Empire—especially in every rural fief and mountain hinterland of the south. Cast a vast net without a single exception."

The Grand Inquisitor asked in a trembling voice.

"Clinics, Your Holiness? What are they to do there?"

"Collect every rumor of a healing miracle that arises in each region. Even if it is nothing more than a paltry cold remedy or an ointment—if anyone displays medicinal effects that defy the common sense of medicine, their treatment records are to be sent to my office immediately."

The corners of Seraphina's mouth curved into an arc.

She knew. Elena would carve a path with force, and Veronica would block the borders with power and administration. But that man was not a fool. One who had erased his traces so thoroughly would never use a checkpoint or a highway. He would hide. He would hole up in some deep rural corner where no one would look, and quietly wait for death.

But he possessed one weakness he could never conceal.

"He... can never pass by those who suffer."

Seraphina whispered, her voice steeped in rapture.

"Even in the moment His ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠own body is breaking and He coughs up blood, if He sees someone groaning before His eyes, He will always reach out and soothe their wounds. That compassion is His stigma—and His only shackle."

She intended to cast a net of clinics. As long as he drew breath, he would inevitably treat someone, and the rumor of that miracle would have no choice but to catch in the Church's net.

Then a priest still prostrate on the floor asked in a trembling voice.

"But Your Holiness—what if He severs all contact with people entirely, and hides on an uninhabited island or in a deep valley where there is not a single patient? If no miracle occurs, the clinics will be useless."

At that question, the air in the cathedral froze for an instant.

Seraphina stopped walking and slowly turned around. The benevolent smile on her beautiful face deepened further. But in her golden eyes nestled a malice so cold it sent a chill down the spine.

"There is no need to worry, priest."

Seraphina whispered. The voice was so gentle and so low it sounded like a saint's prayer of blessing.