Chapter 690: The Procession (2)
The collapsed, ruined convent.
On top of the debris, over a hundred surviving nuns knelt, joining their hands in a gesture of affirmation.
“We… we believe…”
Upon hearing this, the being that had promised glory and grace smiled, and the nuns rose in unison.
The nuns, standing, clasped their own heads with their praying hands...
Jwaaaaaa… Chwaaak!!
...and pulled them off.
They removed their heads with their own hands.
Without uttering a single scream.
However, this was not the end.
Though they should have collapsed, having lost their lives by pulling off their own heads, the nuns remained standing, still on their two feet.
Then, as if nothing had happened, their headless bodies moved and began grooming the heads they had just removed with their own hands.
Puk-! Shriiik… Chwaaak!
Clink, clink.
Their fingers dug into the eyes and pried open mouths, in a manner akin to preparing fish, but with blood staining their hands.
The blood was thick, almost black, and viscous.
Blood that had been dripping from their hands suddenly hardened into crystals, extending into long poles that held their heads aloft toward the sky.
The heads hung in the air, swaying.
Soon, light glowed within each head, illuminating the surrounding darkness.
Like lanterns dispelling the night.
The headless nuns held the lanterns crafted from their own heads and soundlessly assembled behind the woman on a camel.
Some of them, carrying heads that had transformed into bells instead of lanterns, took their places in front of the woman on the camel and shook the bells made from their heads.
Deng… Deng...
A clear, resonant chime echoed in harmony.
The frogs, lice, and swarms of flies that had filled the Holy See State parted like the Red Sea in response to the chimes.
Thus, the widest path from the convent to Saint Hall was revealed.
Deng… Deng...
The headless nuns, ringing bells crafted from their own heads, moved forward to open the way, and the woman on the camel advanced, lighting up the Holy See State with the nuns bearing lanterns.
The sight resembled a royal procession.
An unstoppable royal procession, one with towering dignity and authority, one that none could block or halt.
At that moment, a Holy Knight called out to the procession.
“Please answer me!”
It was Joanna, the Holy Knight who had lost her powers.
“What do you mean by that? If he wishes for it... Do you mean... that he desires death?”
At Joanna’s cry, the procession halted, and the woman on the camel turned to look at Joanna.
[You ask what you already know.]
The worst possible answer that Joanna had hoped against, while secretly fearing, came.
Yet, knowing it was futile, Joanna began moving to stop the woman on the camel.
Though she knew better than anyone that it was in vain, she couldn’t simply stand by and watch.
How could anyone bear such sorrow?
As Joanna, deprived of her powers, was about to take this seemingly suicidal action, Kevin grabbed her shoulder and shook his head.
His expression was one of fierce determination.
Seeing this, Joanna collapsed to her knees as the woman on the camel smiled and moved forward.
Deng...
Deng...
The bell tolled as they continued onward.
As the chimes grew fainter, Joanna, still kneeling, asked,
“Why… did you stop me?”
Joanna knew. She understood just how foolish and selfish her question was.
If Kevin hadn’t stopped her, the only thing she would have lost was her own life. Kevin had saved her life.
Yet, Joanna questioned Kevin, the very person who had saved her.
She simply couldn’t endure it. She couldn’t bear her own helplessness.
In the end, she should have sent Oliver no matter what. She should have refused when he requested her prayers.
As the weight of self-reproach bore down upon her and she was about to break into tears, Kevin spoke.
“Something similar happened in the past.”
“...?”
“The capital of Gallos, Laville. When Zenon fought against the Flesh Chef there. Back then, I went with the party to help Oliver, but we were blocked by the Puppet. He wanted us to leave without helping Zenon.”
“What did you do?”
“We complied. At that time, there was nothing we could do. We had neither the strength to defeat nor the confidence to evade the Puppet. So, we chose instead to do what we could.”
“I see.”
“Some people called me too wise. They were mocking me, of course. But it doesn’t matter. No matter what my feelings were, if it couldn’t be done, then it couldn’t be done. In that case, one must do what can be done, no matter how frustrating or bitter reality may be.”
“What… can we do now?”
“We can retrieve the Archpriests buried beneath these ruins.”
Kevin, his eyes gleaming with the power of a warlock, pointed to a spot amidst the surrounding debris.
“I intend to rescue them first. We may find a way out afterward. What will you do, Holy Knight? Will you remain there in despair, or will you try to do something?”
Kevin asked, and after a moment, Joanna rose from her place.
...
Deng...
Deng...
Deng...
The path through the Holy See State’s residential district, where frogs, flies, and lice had run rampant.
From afar, the chimes could be heard.
The sound seemed to strike directly at the mind.
Deng...
Deng...
In response, the citizens of the Holy See State, who had fainted amidst the swarms of frogs and flies, began to awaken one by one and stepped outside.
Among them were ordinary people providing labor to the Holy See State and others from noble families who had come from foreign lands to raise their children as high-ranking priests.
Although Pater Church typically emphasized love and equality, the two groups were subtly divided.
Distinctions were made by the presence or absence of servants, attire, and the jewelry adorning their bodies—an invisible wall, as it were.
But now, in a twist of irony, that invisible wall had been torn down.
Blood had turned to water.
Frogs covered the ground.
Lice crawled everywhere.
Swarms of flies descended from the sky.
The deadly plague and toxins carried by the flies.
In the face of these calamities, everyone appeared genuinely equal.
This truth was illuminated by the faint glow visible in the distance.
Light?
As light returned to the city darkened by catastrophe, people simultaneously turned their gaze toward the source of the glow.
And they realized two things.
The frogs, flies, and lice that had threatened their lives were now gone.
Deng...
Deng...
Someone was approaching.
The chimes and light drawing closer attested to it.
Those who had narrowly escaped death in the disaster stared at the advancing chimes and light as though enchanted, and soon, they saw it.
A massive procession coming toward them, with something enormous at its center.
It was hard to discern because of the backlighting from the lanterns illuminating the procession, but the shape was that of a woman mounted on a four-legged beast.
A woman crowned.
Yet it could not truly be a woman. It was enormous, as if composed of scores of people, and, above all, it exuded an aura unlike any human’s.
What in the world could that be?
This question was answered soon enough.
Even as they pondered, the procession drew closer, near enough to be seen with the naked eye.
“Gasp…”
Everyone who beheld the procession drew in a sharp breath.
The headless nuns in procession, and the woman riding the camel among them.
Overwhelmed by the sheer, blasphemous unreality of it...
These entities strode confidently down the main thoroughfare of the Holy See State, at the very heart of Pater Church.
Deng...
Deng...
Even in this moment...
The scene, defying all common sense, spread a fear greater than the previous disaster throughout the Holy See State.
Though there was no threat or pain, everyone felt terror.
An all-consuming terror, the sense of being completely paralyzed and unable to flee, yet desperate to escape.
The answer was simpler than expected.
“She… She’s an Apostle of God…”
Someone murmured softly.
“An Apostle who has driven away the calamity…”
Through conjecture or instinct, one person murmured an understanding that the woman on the camel had driven off the calamity from the Holy See State.
And then, some began to kneel, bowing their heads in reverence.
The easiest way to escape fear was to revere it.
Oddly enough, without anyone explaining this truth, everyone understood and made the same choice.
Rather than facing the unknowable terror, they knelt and bowed.
Laborers of the Holy See State, nobles who had come to raise their children as high-ranking priests, and the wealthy alike.
“What… what are you all doing?!”
A voice shouted from amidst the crowd.
A priest with crimson-edged robes—none other than an Archpriest.
Amidst the chaos of the six calamities that had descended upon the Holy See State, he alone had led his followers down to this district to rescue the people.
Though he hadn’t been able to do anything against the unending waves of calamity, he could at least prevent those driven by terror from bowing to a demon.
“Stand up, all of you! How could you call that an Apostle of God?!”
Though he felt the same fear as everyone else, the Archpriest shouted at the blasphemers to stand.
What Apostle of God would appear in a form crafted from human flesh?
Having devoted his life to the church, the Archpriest instinctively shouted to stop this atrocity unfolding before him.
He knew, as a matter of instinct, that the faith of all people here was being tested.
Success or failure was not what mattered; something far more fundamental was at stake.
At the Archpriest’s cry, the Holy Knights and servants, covered in boils, began to gather and barricade the thoroughfare to block the nuns’ procession.
There was no way they could simply stand by and watch as such an unholy entity approached Saint Hall, the sacred dwelling of the Divine—
[Do you believe in God?]
The woman on the camel halted the procession and posed a question.
To the Archpriest, who stood ready to stake his life to oppose her.
In response, the Archpriest shouted,
“Do not test my faith, demon!”
With all his devotion.
But the woman simply smiled gently in the face of his hostility.
[Then, would you kindly step aside? I am here by His command, after all.]
“How dare you…! Do not utter God’s name with such blasphemous lips...!”
[Shall I show you proof?]
The woman on the camel said this as she looked at the people who had bowed before her.
Simultaneously, they stood up, shivering slightly, and their chests bulged outward, transforming as their insides and outsides seemed to invert.
They took on the form of grotesque knights made of blood, flesh, and entrails.
The Holy Knights and Archpriests, wielding divine power to block the demon, looked upon the knight-like beings that had emerged from the believers as sacrifices.
And then, the grotesque knights proved themselves as something more than mere semblances of knights.
Chwaaak!
A yellow light shone from the edge of their swords, demonstrating the use of Holy Magic bestowed by God.
The woman on the camel asked,
[Do you still believe in Him?]
With his resolve breaking, the Archpriest answered without realizing it.
“No…”
His voice held a trace of despair, an acknowledgment that even his unwavering faith had been shaken. He had never imagined that he, who had devoted his entire life to the church, would come to doubt his own beliefs, even if just for a moment. And yet, here he was, confronted by something so twisted that it forced him to question everything he had held sacred.
As his voice trailed off, he could feel the eyes of the grotesque knights—those horrific beings fashioned from the people he had once sworn to protect—fixed upon him. Their hollow gazes seemed to penetrate his very soul, mirroring the torment he felt within.
The woman on the camel looked down at him, an amused smile playing on her lips. Her gaze was neither compassionate nor mocking, but held an unfathomable depth, as if she were witnessing something inevitable.
...
Meanwhile, Joanna stood in silent anguish as she watched the scene unfold from afar. She felt the weight of her helplessness more acutely than ever, her heart twisted with the knowledge that there was nothing she could do to stop this procession of terror. And in that moment, she realized that Kevin’s words had been true—some things were simply beyond one’s power to control.
Kevin, observing her despair, placed a hand on her shoulder and spoke softly, “Even if we can’t change what’s happening, we can still make a choice. We can still act within the limits of what we’re able to do.”
Joanna looked up at him, her face etched with sorrow, but also with a flicker of renewed determination.
The procession continued its relentless march through the Holy See State, the tolling of the bells and the glow of the ghastly lanterns illuminating the path ahead, leading them ever closer to Saint Hall.