Chapter 28
Apostle Beris (2)
Inside a tent-shaped barracks large enough for four or five people, several female believers were spreading out their sleeping bags and preparing for bed.
Shaperia, who had finished settling in before the others, took out the scriptures and opened them.
Purifying one’s body and mind by ending the day with a reading from the scriptures was a long-standing custom of the Church of the Great Saint.
Shaperia read Chapter 8, Verse 7 of the Book of Piroemel.
—Saint Margiel said: The strength to uphold justice comes from unwavering conviction.
Shaperia closed her eyes and reflected upon her convictions.
Protect the weak and destroy evil.
When she had been a homeless child living on the streets, she had once been kidnapped by a wicked mage and nearly sacrificed in some sort of ritual.
Death had come right before her eyes, but she survived.
It was thanks to the sacrifice of an unknown holy knight.
Appearing without warning, he interrupted the profane ritual and fought the mage.
After a fierce battle, the holy knight ultimately emerged victorious, but he also suffered a fatal wound.
Shaperia asked the dying holy knight why he had risked his life to fight.
He could have survived if he had fled, so why had he continued swinging his sword until the very end?
Even as he coughed up blood, the holy knight smiled and answered.
‘We do not turn a blind eye to evil. No matter how great the evil before us may be, a holy knight can never show it his back.’
He continued to shine even as he died.
His noble conviction set Shaperia’s heart ablaze.
She remained beside him until the holy knight’s corpse had grown cold.
The other children who had been kidnapped with her had fled long before, but Shaperia alone refused to leave.
It was her way of paying respect to the man who had, for the first time, given a higher purpose to the life of a homeless child who survived from one day to the next.
Shaperia made a vow that day.
‘I will live like this man.’
She would help the weak and fight against evil.
At that moment, a five-pointed sacred mark appeared on the back of her hand.
The Great Saint Margiel had answered her.
From that day forward, she gained the ability to wield the Eye of Judgment and divine power.
Shaperia opened her eyes, emerging from her memories.
She read Chapter 8, Verse 7 once again.
—Saint Margiel said: The strength to uphold justice comes from unwavering conviction.
What would have happened if, at the lord’s castle, she had continued branding the vulnerable Ilea a heretic merely to conceal her own mistake?
Shaperia’s convictions would have been damaged, and the Great Saint would have taken away both her authority and divine power.
She had been reprimanded by the archbishop for correcting her mistake, but in the end, she had preserved her convictions.
She had heard that protecting one’s convictions sometimes brought great trials. This must have been one such occasion.
Shaperia released a relieved sigh.
It seemed she had successfully overcome her first trial.
Just as she was about to make the sign of the cross, a question suddenly occurred to her.
‘What kind of conviction does the archbishop possess that makes him protect the Church’s honor even at the cost of falsely accusing an innocent person?’
The answer was simple. It was already contained within the question.
‘The Church’s honor.’
The archbishop would do anything for the Church’s honor.
That was his conviction, and a believer’s strength grew by remaining true to their convictions.
‘We’re going to clash often from now on.’
A bitter look crossed Shaperia’s face. At that moment, one of the female believers began crying out in pain.
“I-I can’t breathe.”
She pounded furiously on her chest as though she were suffering from indigestion.
The other believers inside the barracks began exhibiting similar symptoms.
A strange pressure was crushing the entire space.
The situation had arisen without warning, but Shaperia did not lose her composure.
Following what she had learned from the training manuals, she unleashed her divine power. Pure-white light spread in every direction with Shaperia at its center.
The believers touched by the divine power managed to regain some measure of stability.
“W-What in the world was that?”
“I don’t know. I still can’t stop trembling.”
They all shuddered at the utterly unfamiliar sensation.
“It felt like a curse or some kind of magic… Could we be under attack?”
It was possible that heretics had launched a surprise attack in pursuit of the Great Saint’s remains.
Shaperia shouted,
“Let’s get outside first!”
Assessing the situation took priority.
She pulled open the entrance to the barracks.
Believers were also rushing out of the other tents.
Everyone’s gaze was fixed on the mountain peak opposite the ridge.
It was because of the demonic energy surging beneath the moonlight.
The owner of that demonic energy apparently had no intention of concealing his identity, as he continued openly displaying his presence.
A holy knight shouted,
“Everyone, consecrate your weapons!”
As he released his divine power, the recruits coated their weapons in pure-white light.
It was the process commonly known as consecration. Recruits who could not release divine power themselves borrowed the power of holy knights or priests to fight.
Pure-white light engulfed the ridge.
Nearly a hundred troops formed ranks, their bodies and weapons enveloped in divine power.
Their battle preparations were completed in an instant.
One of the holy knights approached the archbishop.
“Your Grace, do you know what that is?”
Archbishop Hiles, who stood at the front, shook his head.
“I have never encountered such evil before. That monster should not exist in the South—no, anywhere in this world!”
It was a being that made even an archbishop of such great attainment recoil in horror. It might have been a horned demon possessing several horns.
The holy knight swallowed dryly.
“…Can our current forces stand against it?”
The archbishop narrowed his eyes.
“If we cannot, will you run away?”
The holy knight immediately corrected his posture.
“I, Holy Knight Ailan, would sooner die than show the enemy my back!”
A halo of light surged from his entire body. The archbishop nodded in satisfaction.
“Prepare to intercept it.”
“I obey!”
The demonic energy began to move.
A darkness deeper than night itself was approaching.
The closer it came, the more its unfathomable presence crushed their entire bodies.
Had they not possessed divine power, every one of them would have fallen to their knees before that evil.
The holy knight shouted,
“Activate the divine magic formation!”
The priests began chanting sacred hymns.
“Archers, forward!”
The recruits nocked consecrated arrows onto their bowstrings.
Before long, the demonic energy entered their firing range.
The monster’s true body had to be hidden at the center of that condensed, surging mass of evil.
The holy knight drew his holy sword.
“Intercept it!”
Pure-white flames erupted from the ground. Consecrated arrows decorated the night sky.
The dark curtain of night became engulfed in divine light.
The surroundings grew as bright as the midnight sun.
The demonic energy gradually dispersed.
But that was all.
The presence concealed within the darkness remained completely unharmed.
“What a truly pathetic struggle.”
A grotesque voice crashed down like a thunderbolt. Everyone shuddered at the hideous cry that seemed to tear their souls apart.
The monster’s form slowly emerged through the dissipating demonic energy.
An Archdemon stood with the full moon behind him. The hem of his ashen robe fluttered as he looked down upon the ridge.
Crimson malice overflowed from his vertically slit eyes.
His unfathomable presence ravaged everything on the ground.
Everyone lost the will to fight and stared blankly into the air.
The Archdemon Beris twitched his nose in displeasure.
Mere mortals dared to gaze directly upon him.
It was utterly intolerable.
“That profane light remains unchanged, now as it was in the past.”
He swept one hand through the air.
At that moment, all the divine power covering the ridge vanished like a mirage.
Without divine power, mortals could not resist an Apostle’s malice.
Everyone collapsed. Their gazes were forced down toward the ground.
Overwhelming terror was paralyzing their minds.
Apostle Beris worked his tiny mouth and spoke.
“Surrender yourselves to your instincts, mortals. Feel no shame in bowing your heads before a demon. In accordance with the supreme order of existence, you need only beg for mercy before omnipotence. I swear upon my name as an Apostle: if you do not resist, I, Beris, Apostle of the End, shall grant you painless deaths.”
In the end, he still intended to kill them. Even if they bowed before him, they would not survive.
One might have expected them to choose an honorable fight since they were destined to die anyway, yet not a single person moved.
His promise to kill them without pain felt like boundless mercy to them.
It was because of the Apostle’s Word of Power.
A single utterance from a great being exerted an immense influence over mortals. It paralyzed their reason and crushed their values.
Unless one possessed extraordinarily strong convictions, it was difficult to resist an Apostle’s Word of Power.
Most of those present had already submitted to Beris’s words.
Beris raised the corners of his mouth in satisfaction. His tiny mouth instantly split open all the way to his ears.
“Behold, Margiel! Your servants have bowed their heads before me!”
The archbishop, who had spent his entire life fighting for the Church’s honor, was kneeling before the Great Saint’s enemy.
The holy knight who had sworn to destroy evil was begging a demon for mercy.
The priests who had vowed to illuminate the world were submerged in darkness.
The recruits who called themselves servants of the Great Saint were licking a demon’s feet.
Every one of those sights brought Beris pleasure.
Broken convictions were the greatest delicacy of all.
“My first feast in two hundred years! My patience has been rewarded!”
The demonic energy surged as though it were exploding.
Evil danced directly before their eyes, yet no one reacted.
Shaperia was no exception. Overwhelmed by helplessness, she could only ridicule herself.
“Is he truly an Apostle? Why would an Apostle…? No, that doesn’t matter. I’ve already fallen to my knees. I’ll never be able to rise again. I was truly an insignificant being.”
Similar mutterings could be heard everywhere.
Everyone murmured like people who had lost their minds.
Beris burst into wild laughter.
“Indeed! You humans are insignificant and pathetic creatures! You cry out about the illusion you call conviction, only to break in the end! Look at yourselves now! What could be more pitiful than this?”
No one could deny it. Some even began agreeing with him.
“…That’s right. I don’t deserve to live.”
“Kill me! Just kill me!”
As self-reproach and desperate screams echoed across the ridge, an earnest yet composed voice reached Shaperia’s ears.
“Saint Margiel, master of all sacred hymns, grant your servant permission to borrow your miracle.”
Shaperia turned toward the source of the voice.
Shock appeared on her face.
The archbishop was lying prostrate on the ground, yet he was reciting a sacred hymn.
‘How?!’
Sacred hymns were incantations used to activate divine magic.
In other words, the archbishop intended to fight the Archdemon before him.
Shaperia was deeply shaken.
He had managed to maintain his sanity even in the face of such overwhelming evil.
‘So this is what it means to be an archbishop!’
Until recently, Shaperia had secretly looked down on the archbishop.
He acted benevolent on the surface, but she had considered him a hypocrite who cared about nothing except preserving the Church’s reputation.
She revised that assessment.
‘…It wasn’t hypocrisy. The archbishop was merely acting according to his convictions.’
He would do anything to protect the Church’s honor.
He would preserve the Church’s dignity even if it meant falsely accusing the weak, and he would never kneel regardless of how powerful an enemy he faced.
After all, the Church could tolerate neither mistakes nor defeat.
His convictions might have been twisted, but there was no hypocrisy in them.
Still lying on the ground, Shaperia tightly clenched a fistful of mud.
‘I was the hypocrite.’
She had carried herself as though she alone were noble, only to kneel before a demon. Her vow to destroy evil had broken so easily.
She could not bear how pathetic she was.
As she berated herself, Beris’s wild laughter abruptly ceased.
Silence descended upon the ridge.
Startled by the sudden stillness, Shaperia raised her head.
Beris was approaching the archbishop with a rigid expression.
“O Saint of Evil’s Destruction, who ascended to the highest heavens, with your supreme omnipotence, strike down the evil before me…”
The sacred hymn continued.
‘Damn it!’
Beris had noticed him.
The archbishop was going to die.
At that moment, Shaperia recalled her conversation with Johan.
—Correcting one’s mistakes is among the teachings the Great Saint has always emphasized.
Every human being made mistakes.
But everyone was also given an opportunity to make amends.
Even if water was spilled, one could simply pour it again.
So long as one possessed the will, anything could be refilled—whether it was an empty cup or a lost conviction.
This was her opportunity.
Shaperia slowly lifted herself from her kneeling position.
‘I’ll do what I must.’
She intended to buy time.
At least until the archbishop finished his sacred hymn.
Shaperia shouted,
“Over here!”
Beris’s gaze turned toward her.
Malice fierce enough to incinerate her soul swept across Shaperia’s entire body.
A horrifying pressure crushed her.
Despite trembling violently, Shaperia did not collapse.
Beris frowned.
“To think I would permit mere mortals to display such irreverence. Is it because I was divided into ten fragments? It seems I must recover my scattered soul before anything else.”
Shaperia pointed her iron sword at Beris.
“You vile abomination! I will not turn my eyes away from you! Even if I die, I will not bend my knees!”
Divine power erupted from her entire body.
Her eyes blazed with pure-white light.
Beris watched her silently before splitting his mouth all the way to his ears in a hideous grin.
“Red hair. So you are Shaperia.”
At that moment, Beris swept his hand through the air.
Shaperia’s upper body was instantly ripped away.
Her remaining lower body swayed before collapsing to the ground.
“You broke after all. What a truly pathetic resolve.”