Chapter 7: All of This Was Simply the Popes Command

Chapter 7 – All of This Was Simply the Pope’s Command

I’m not your “master”—not that you’ve ever called me that—but what’s with this woman?! Why isn’t she unconscious?!

Lin Wei was utterly stunned at the sight before him: the Saintess, standing there bright-eyed and fully alert. He had never expected things to unfold like this.

“Saintess? Wait, why are you with these cultists of the evil gods?” Lin Wei’s voice cracked, every word laced with disbelief.

Thank the gods he hadn’t gone for the kill just now. If the Holy Church’s Saintess ended up dead in Lotai, the Holy Cruch would turn the city upside down hunting for her murderer. And someone like him—who’d only managed to secure Imperial citizenship through backdoor channels—would be at the very top of their suspect list. There would go his hard-earned, peaceful life.

“I—I was planning to infiltrate the evil god cultist and lie low, so that at a crucial moment I could save these misguided cultists… and coordinate with the Holy Church’s operations as well,” Yalis stammered, her voice timid, her body frozen in place. Staring at the mysterious figure before her, her heart pounded wildly.

So this is what the legendary Holy Church Judgement Knights are like?

As the scion of a ducal house in the Empire, Yalis had dreamed since childhood of joining the Holy Church and becoming a knight. Just like the heroes in those old tales: brandishing a holy lance, cutting down evil, and forging a world bathed in the radiance of the Goddess Alicia.

Her father, after much pleading, had finally relented—though only enough to let her become a candidate for Saintess, not a knight.

She’d never imagined her chance would come so soon.

Undercover among the cultists of the evil gods… At the critical moment, she had cast aside her disguise and revealed her courage and resolve.

Now, faced with this mysterious figure—who had just unleashed a burst of pure holy light and was clearly a Holy Church Judgement Knight—she opened her mouth, ready to speak.

But in the very next instant—

“Mmfff—!”

An overwhelming, suffocating force exploded within Yalis, stealing her breath and sending pain lancing through her body.

It was a terrifying power she had no hope of resisting. Eyes wide with shock and terror, Yalis clutched desperately at her throat as her body was wrenched off the ground, lifted into the air, utterly beyond her control.

“Wh-what… are you doing…?” she choked out, confusion and fear flooding her eyes as she stared at the masked figure before her. In that moment, a tidal wave of mortal dread crashed over her, seizing every nerve.

She had never experienced anything like this. Her mind spun, dizziness washing over her as her consciousness began to slip away. She was like a delicate flower, long sheltered in a greenhouse, suddenly torn up and hurled into the heart of a raging storm—death looming so close, so real, so immediate.

“I’m no the Holy Church knight, little girl,” Lin Wei said, a cunning idea flashing through his mind as he held the Saintess suspended in midair. Suddenly, the notion of setting a trap for the Pope himself took root.

After all, the new Pope was infamous for her shaky foundation. Since taking office, disasters linked to the evil gods had surged across the land, and even the subjugation squad she’d personally led against the demon had ended in failure. It was as if the world itself was crying out: “Everything is the Pope’s fault!”

What if he seized this chance to lay a trap, pin the blame on someone else, and throw the Holy Church into chaos? Sow confusion, set the clergy against each other, and force them to turn on the Pope!

It didn’t matter if the plan succeeded or failed; as long as suspicion fell upon the Pope, it would be a win. Anything that brought trouble to the Holy Church was worth a try.

And right now, the Saintess dangling before him was the perfect pawn. The thought alone made Lin Wei’s eyes glint with cold calculation.

“You…”

Yalis’s consciousness was slipping away, her mind clouded with confusion and terror.

Not a Holy Church knight? That can’t be! He used holy light, didn’t he?

Only those who served the Goddess Alicia—only the clergy of the Holy Church—could wield the power of holy light. And that kind of pure, radiant energy, the kind she had just witnessed, was something only the highest-ranking priests or knights could command. How could he possibly not be from the Holy Church?

But in the next moment, her terror reached a new level.

The blade of holy light that had been driven into the evil god’s vessel suddenly began to tremble violently.

Before her disbelieving eyes, that pure, sacred light was swallowed by darkness in an instant.

It was a power that reeked of the same corruption as demon blood—

Cold, chaotic, depraved…

It was the mark of the evil gods, a force that only their followers could wield, the purest essence of blasphemy.

As that black energy spread, everything around them began to wither and die—plants, earth, even the very air seemed to rot away.

“N-no… don’t…”

He wasn’t a knight of the Holy Church. He was a cultist of the evil god!

Regret, bitterness, and despair crashed over her in waves.

If only I’d kept my head down… If I hadn’t tried to show off, none of this would have happened to me…

Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes, her courage completely shattered.

Just as her world faded to black, teetering on the edge of unconsciousness, she heard a faint, almost careless sigh.

“…Forget it. For the Pope’s sake, I’ll spare your life—after all, we still have a partnership of sorts.”

“Harming her people would only complicate things… Next time… stay away from us. And remember—keep this a secret.”

Thud.

Yalis, now completely unconscious, was tossed to the ground like so much rubbish by Lin Wei. He spared a glance at the distant blade of light, now twisted into something wholly evil.

With a casual wave of his hand, that familiar aura of holy radiance surged forth once more, cleansing the last traces of corruption. Satisfied, Lin Wei’s figure shimmered and vanished into a streak of light, disappearing into the sky.

Several minutes later—

Boom!

A golden brilliance, dazzling and fierce, came hurtling down from the horizon with a thunderous roar.

A storm of purest holy light erupted outward the instant it struck the ground, flooding the area in blinding radiance.

From within that pillar of light strode a woman clad in resplendent holy armor—a knight whose presence was both commanding and fierce.

Lightning crackled in a thousand threads around her sacred lance, the air humming with deadly energy. She swept her gaze across the scene, her very presence a dire warning.

“I am Meilin, Grand Commander of the Judgement Knight of the Holy Church! Lay down your arms at once, or face execution—hm?”

Her words were cut short by the sight before her.

Countless black-robed figures lay sprawled across the ground, utterly defeated. The air was thick with the stench of corruption, leaving no doubt that these were cultists of the evil gods.

But what truly drew the eye was the heap of corpses nearby—pinned to the earth by scores of radiant blades, each formed from high-intensity holy light. Even in death, these bodies were terrifying: black blood oozed from their wounds, exuding a malice so pure that even a glance sent a stab of pain through the body.

“A evil god…?!” Meilin’s eyes widened in shock, unable to believe what she was seeing. The monstrous aura radiating from the corpse was far beyond what the reports had described as a seventh-rank evil god.

No, this kind of blood—so foul it tainted even the air—could only come from an eighth-rank evil god, a calamity of the highest order.

Yet even such overwhelming power could not shake the holy blades pinning the evil god in place. The radiant swords remained utterly unbroken, exerting a complete and unyielding suppression over the corpse, as if sealing it beyond hope of resistance.

“To subdue an eighth-rank evil god so effortlessly… Even I couldn’t manage that under normal circumstances. Just who could have done this?” Meilin muttered, baffled by the scene before her.

She had no idea what had truly transpired here. Still, with so many evil god cultists left alive, perhaps she could extract some answers from them.

“Ungh… Am I dead?”

Suddenly, a faint, wavering voice reached her ears. Meilin’s vigilance snapped taut as she turned toward the sound.

There, lying on the ground, was a young girl—her face twisted in terror, yet somehow achingly familiar.

For a moment, the ever-stern and solemn Grand Commander of the Judgement Knights could only stare in disbelief.

“Yalis? What are you doing here?!”