Chapter 18
To Oakhaven Province, Megalith City was frontier territory.
To Megalith City, Ignis Town was the real frontier.
The town bordered the Pyreflame Woods. Any cultist who attacked it could vanish into the forest afterward with almost no effort.
That was why Ignis had already been hit once, two months ago. And now that the Convergence of Planes had begun, it remained a perfect target.
Inside Ignis's Church, Hadrian—newly advanced to High Cleric—stood with a deep frown.
His heart ached.
He could see cultists setting fires across the town.
He could hear civilians screaming.
He wanted to charge out and save them, but he could sense the aura of a Prime Second-tier Awakened out there.
Hadrian knew perfectly well that if he stepped outside, he would die.
Then the cultists would use his death to sow greater fear and more slaughter, driving everyone in town deeper into pain and despair.
But if he stayed inside the Church, the dense light-attribute mana gathered here offered some protection. That Prime Second-tier Awakened wouldn't risk attacking the Church directly, not even a small risk.
Yet as long as Hadrian stayed put, the cultists could do as they pleased.
Advance, and he died.
Retreat, and Ignis died slowly.
Trapped in that torment, Hadrian almost wished he could simply martyr himself and be done with it.
"God," he prayed, "please tell me what I should do."
After advancing to High Cleric, he should have been bound for the kingdom's Academy of Light.
But before the handover could be completed, this had happened.
"Help!"
"Ah—!"
"You villains will burn in hell!"
"Hahahaha! Suffer! Despair! All of it feeds my ascension!"
Faint voices drifted in from outside.
Inside the Church, one Awakened could bear the torment no longer. He bowed once, then charged toward the light of the flames.
The Awakened who remained were not cowards.
They simply understood that staying inside the Church was the more painful choice.
...
On the main road of Ignis Town, Gullos and Lia walked cloaked through blood and fire.
Gazing at the civilians collapsed along the roadside, Gullos drew a sick, delighted breath.
"The scent of destruction."
"You lunatic," Lia snapped, her hair flashing bright with anger. "The Church of Light will be here soon."
"Lia, can you smell the aura of death?" Gullos didn't care. He threw his head back and laughed. "That's exactly who I'm waiting for. Those hypocrites from the Church."
He pulled back his hood, revealing a face webbed with black veins. Even his eyes had grown unfocused and glazed.
"This isn't enough. The aura of destruction still isn't strong enough."
"I need to kill those Church hypocrites in front of these wretches."
"A Second-tier Cleric at minimum. A knight would do just as well."
"Once these people taste true despair—once I kill them and let destruction descend—"
"I can attempt my ascension to Destruction Bishop."
As his excitement mounted, his unfocused eyes seemed to pull back into focus. Madness burned in the depths of his eyes.
Lia could only listen, helpless.
She believed in the Undying God, but she had never deliberately manufactured death-attribute mana environments.
With grandfather watching over her, if Lia wanted to advance, she could simply travel to the Kingdom of Ayx—that kingdom of death.
Gullos couldn't.
If he chose a place like Ayx for his advancement, others walking the same path would happily turn him into prey.
By contrast, if he and several cultists struck peaceful towns at the same time, his odds of success climbed far higher.
So now Gullos waited.
He was waiting for the Church of Light to send a Second-tier Awakened.
Then he would forge his breakthrough from slaughter and destruction.
Elise and her teacher, riding hard for Ignis, understood the game as well.
Cultists always played the same hand.
But when the Church of Light was stretched thin, that same hand worked again and again.
That was why every cultist attack cost so many lives. The Church of Light produced waves of newly advanced Clerics and knights every year, yet it could never keep its numbers whole.
As believers of the Light God, light-attribute Awakened were nearly always the ones on the front line.
When Elise arrived outside Ignis, she saw hell on earth.
Screams filled her ears, reminding her over and over that the road ahead was a battlefield.
"Holy Light!"
While Elise was still taking in the town, Helena had already hurled a Second-tier [Holy Light] into the streets.
The spell eased the civilians' terror, if only a little.
It also announced to the cultists: The Light had arrived.
Once the cultists knew Church Awakened had come, they would slow their slaughter—they had to be ready to flee at any moment.
But if the Church's rescue team was killed instead, all of Ignis was finished.
"The hypocrites are here."
"Damn Church. I was so close."
"Knights and Clerics have come!"
"God, please protect us."
"The Church sent help!"
Cultists, civilians, and Church personnel alike turned toward the light at the town gate.
"Elise, the Church first," Helena said without hesitation.
"As you command."
Elise spurred her horse after her teacher.
Passing through the gate, she looked out at the town where she had first appeared after transmigrating, and her heart clenched.
The peace and warmth she remembered were gone.
The whole town was bleeding and weeping.
Corpses lay in the streets. Buildings burned.
Every so often, cloaked Awakened appeared between the houses, watching them with naked malice.
Elise followed Helena toward the Church, meaning to link up with High Cleric Hadrian and the others before purging the cultists from the town.
But at the halfway point between the gate and the Church, Gullos stepped into the road and blocked their path.
He pulled back his hood.
Black veins writhed across his face, radiating a vile aura. His unfocused eyes studied Elise and Helena like goods on a shelf.
"Heh heh heh..."
"One First-tier. One Second-tier. Good."
Gullos was deeply satisfied.
He was a Prime Second-tier High Cleric, and his mana carried both darkness and destruction.
As long as his opponents lacked Third-tier combat power, he felt no threat at all.
He had only stepped into the open because he'd seen exactly who was coming.
"A rat from the gutter," Helena said—the Church of Light's most common insult.
"Hahahaha! Fat Cleric, you're only Second-tier, and you dare say that to me?" Gullos howled with laughter. "Did Light God never teach you to respect the strong?"
"Elise, run!" Lia finally seized her chance to turn on him. "He's Prime Second-tier—"
"Lia."
Elise felt a headache coming on.
Finding Lia in a place like this meant the girl would never clear herself of suspicion.
And if Megalith City later had to argue the matter with a Fourth-tier Archbishop, the headache would only get worse.
As for the Prime Second-tier Awakened blocking the road...
Elise glanced at Helena.
Grand Knight Holmes had sent them to Ignis. Surely he hadn't sent them here to die.
Anyone with eyes could see that a place like Ignis was liable to draw a Prime Second-tier enemy.
And not just any Prime Second-tier.
Someone qualified to attempt the breakthrough to Third tier.
As the most talented Cleric in the Megalith diocese, Elise refused to believe the Church's leadership would send her here as a sacrifice.
"Elise," Helena said, turning to her, "activate your Holy Light Ring."
"My Holy Light Ring? But that's First-tier..."
Elise's heart began to pound.
Wait.
No way.
Gullos sensed something wrong too.
He wanted to ask one very simple question.
The Church couldn't possibly have prepared a Third-tier extraordinary item for a First-tier Cleric... could it?
One that could hide from the senses of a Prime Second-tier Awakened?
Unfortunately for him, his luck was exactly that bad.
Why had Bishop Almus dared to let Elise join the mission to purify a lifeform from Hell?
Why had Grand Knight Holmes dared to send her to Ignis Town?
Why had Helena, her own teacher, raised no objection?
Because Megalith's Church of Light had equipped Elise with a rare, vanishingly rare Third-tier triggered transcendent item.
The Third-tier Holy Light Ring was not merely a rare single-use protective treasure. It was also engraved with alchemical arrays that masked its mana fluctuations.
On paper, something like it might be worth only a few thousand gold coins.
But no amount of money could buy one. The materials were simply too rare.
Elise raised her hand.
The Holy Light Ring on her finger erupted in blinding radiance.
Ignis Town was bathed in holy light.
"Damn it! Church of Light!"
"You filthy hypocrites!"
"I won't accept this..."
Gullos nearly lost his mind.
He knew Elise was the genius of the Megalith diocese.
But he had never dreamed Almus and the others valued her this much.
A Third-tier, triggered, single-use extraordinary item.
Posted as a bounty, that kind of wealth could have hired Third-tier Awakened to eliminate several targets.
And the Church had handed it to Elise as a defensive trinket—just so she could gain firsthand experience purifying a lifeform from Hell and purging cultists.
This wasn't training.
This was the Church stacking the deck in her favor.