Chapter 93: Fanatical Blindness (Patreon)

Elsewhere, after Emilia and Julius had spent a good while draining the pond to catch every fish, the Witch Cult's hidden forces in the royal capital were, if not wiped out entirely, at least reduced to one in ten.

So late that night, only a handful of people were left at the Witch Cult's gathering in the chapel in the slums.

Every one of these surviving cultists had been rescued, with the Witch's "all-out" effort, from the encirclement of Julius and the Iron Fang, and each carried wounds of varying depth.

One man's arm was hastily bandaged and still seeping blackish-red fluid. Another was covered in burns, with only half his face left intact. In a word: brutal.

"Lady Witch!"

A cultist dropped to his knees before Emilia, his voice gone shrill with rage and hatred.

"Those lapdogs of the Kingdom... they're hunting us through the city like rabid dogs! Most of our comrades have died at their hands! We can't go on like this!"

"Yes! We can't go on like this!" Another cultist raised his head, his face full of frenzied bloodlust. "Please lead us in a counterattack! We'll take the heads of those lapdogs and wash away this disgrace with their blood!"

"Please lead us, Lady Witch!!"

The remaining cultists fell to their knees one after another and begged in unison.

Emilia stood quietly in the center of the chapel. The dim candlelight stretched her shadow long and made it look somewhat savage. She looked at these people, hatred and madness having wholly clouded their minds. She felt a certain revulsion, but she also knew that this was the perfect moment to strike while the iron was hot.

"You're right, my beloved followers. We must counterattack!"

Emilia spoke slowly, her voice echoing through the empty chapel with a hair-raising allure.

"But not on the surface. My servants tell me that tonight the Sword Saint will set out with House Karsten to subdue the White Whale. The royal capital's defenses are at their emptiest, so this is the perfect time for us to act!"

"However, if we act rashly, we may draw out those fellows from the Royal Guard. Heh heh... We don't just want to cause chaos. We want to deal them a fatal blow!"

She turned her head and let her gaze fall on a hunched cultist standing to one side.

That was Petelgeuse's "Finger."

The Finger slowly raised his head. A strange light glimmered in his crimson eyes, and a twisted smile hung at the corner of his mouth.

"Oh my... Lady Witch, what brilliant plan do you have in mind? Lord Petelgeuse is most eager to prove his 'Diligence' to you! We shall give it everything we have!"

Emilia walked up to him and looked down on him from above. A flash of disgust crossed her pale violet eyes, but her tone was utterly firm.

"Tell your master Petelgeuse that tomorrow at dawn, when the first light of morning illuminates the royal capital, he is to launch the all-out assault from the royal capital's sewers, as planned."

"I will personally wait for you at the central hub of the sewers. Then we will strike from within and without, and turn this hypocritical city into a bloody altar."

Emilia leaned slightly forward, her voice low and dangerous.

"Tell him this is the command of 'Envy.' There must be no mistakes. If he dares to be late, or dares to defy me while feigning obedience... I promise you, he will lose the Witch's love forever."

At the words "lose the Witch's love," the Finger's body shuddered violently.

A look of utter terror surfaced on his face. It was the violent surge of emotion felt by Petelgeuse, far outside the city, as he received this command.

"Ah... Ahhh! The Lady Witch's command! Sacred guidance!!"

The Finger shrieked in a hoarse, grating voice, his fingers clawing at his cheeks and gouging bright red streaks into his face.

"I obey! I obey! I obey! We shall follow your will! We will launch the all-out assault punctually at dawn! For the Lady Witch's love! For the advent of the Dragon of Finality! We will surely be Diligent!!"

"Very good."

Emilia looked at him, and the ice in her eyes froze solid in that instant.

"Then you may shut up forever now."

"Huh?"

The Finger froze for a moment, and a flicker of bewilderment crossed his crimson eyes.

Before he could react, a terrifying cold burst outward from Emilia in an instant.

"Crack, crack, crack—!!"

A harsh sound of freezing rang through the chapel. In the blink of an eye, bone-piercing ice raced up from the Finger's ankles and froze him whole into an ice sculpture. Even the horror and confusion on his face were stuck in that moment.

The few remaining cultists around him were completely stunned. They stared blankly at the sculpture, then at the coldly composed Emilia, trembling like sieves.

"L-Lady Witch... You..."

"He was far too noisy. I prefer a little quiet."

Emilia slowly withdrew her right hand without even glancing at the sculpture. She turned her back on the cultists and continued.

"Remember my words: tomorrow at dawn, the sewers. Now, get out of my sight!"

Not one of the survivors dared say another word. They scrambled out of the chapel on all fours, terrified that if they were a step too slow, this fearsome Witch would turn them into frozen statues too.

When the chapel fell quiet again, Emilia's body swayed slightly. At last she allowed herself to sag against a stone pillar beside her, drawing in great gulps of air.

Emilia had gone without rest for far too long. Clearing out the Witch Cult's forces in the royal capital had kept her awake for the fourth day running, and even a half-elf's constitution could hardly withstand such sustained, intense activity.

"Lia..."

Puck flew out of his crystal and landed on her shoulder, looking at her with concern.

"You did well just now, but your body is nearly at its limit. You have to get a good rest tonight!"

"I'm fine, Puck."

Emilia raised her head and looked at the ice sculpture, which gave off a faint blue glow in the moonlight. Resolve shone in her eyes.

"Once tomorrow's sun rises... everything will be over."

At the same time, deep in the royal capital's sewers, in a relatively spacious underground water-collection hub, faint magical fluorescence barely lit the surroundings.

Clarissa the "Shatterer" stood quietly at the edge of a stone platform. As one of the few surviving Beloved Children in the royal capital, and the first to have contacted Petelgeuse, she should have played a more important role in this affair. But over the past few days, events had completely overrun her expectations.

The informants and noble puppets they had struggled to plant in the royal capital had been scrubbed out clean within a few short days. Even more unsettling, the Sloth Sin Archbishop, who should have been obediently waiting outside the city, had now appeared here ahead of schedule.

"Ah... Ahhh! Love! This is love!!"

Amid shrill, hoarse bellowing, Petelgeuse Romanée-Conti practically tumbled and crawled into the water-collection area.

He looked ten times more insane than usual. His ten fingers were chewed down to bloody pulp, his face was caked with dried blood, and his eyes, nearly bulging out of their sockets, glittered with a hair-raising excitement.

Behind him followed several dozen black-robed Witch Cultists. Even though their robes hid their expressions, their fanaticism was plain to see.

"Petelgeuse?"

Clarissa frowned slightly. She flicked her body off the platform and landed lightly in front of him.

"Why have you brought people in now? Crusch's expedition army has only just left the city, and it's still hours before the battle with the White Whale begins!"

"Bringing people into the sewers now, do you want to expose us early and let the Royal Guard catch us all in one net?"

"Exposed? Exposed! Exposed!!"

Petelgeuse snapped his head up, his twisted face almost touching the tip of Clarissa's nose. He screamed hysterically, spittle flying.

"What a Slothful thought! What a foolish challenge! You ignorant, arrogant, loveless woman! You don't understand! You understand nothing at all!!"

He whirled around, held his Gospel high with both hands, and spun in circles on the spot.

"This is the Lady Witch's will! The oracle of 'Envy'! She has descended in person! She carries the sacred Gospel, and she bears the purest, most abundant love!"

"This is her will! When dawn breaks and the first light of morning illuminates this hypocritical Kingdom, we shall launch the most magnificent, the greatest holy war from these depths!"

"The Lady Witch's will? 'Envy'?"

Clarissa's pupils shrank to pinpricks.

On her ordinarily expressionless face, an utterly stunned and disbelieving look appeared for the first time.

"What nonsense are you babbling, Petelgeuse? The Witch of Envy's Witch Factor has never even been separated! The Witch Cult has no Sin Archbishop in charge of 'Envy' at all!"

"No! She exists! She exists! She's right there!!"

Petelgeuse madly rammed his head against the stone wall beside him with dull thuds, and in an instant his forehead was streaming with blood.

"I saw her with my own eyes! My 'Finger' saw her with his own eyes! That silver long hair, that half-elf appearance, that noble, cold, brain-trembling majesty!"

"And that Gospel... that genuine Gospel! Who but the great Lady Witch could carry herself that way? Who else could give us such profound love!!"

He stopped abruptly, his crimson eyes locked on Clarissa, and his mouth stretched into a horrifyingly eerie grin.

"Just yesterday, she personally decreed it: the sacrifice to the Dragon of Finality must be made bigger and stronger, and reach new heights of glory! Whether we of Sloth or you of 'Lust,' we shall all receive the highest love at this feast!"

Looking at the man before her, who had utterly descended into madness, Clarissa felt a chill crawl up her spine. Somehow he seemed even more abnormal than usual.

Truth be told, from their very first negotiation, the fellow's ravings had put Clarissa firmly on the back foot. Back then, though, he could at least keep his logic in order.

As for now... Petelgeuse seemed to have sunk irretrievably into a fervor over the sacrifice to the so-called "Dragon of Finality." Still, every Sin Archbishop had their own aims. She hadn't asked much when she first heard about this, and had simply assumed he'd changed his main objective on a whim.

Clarissa finally couldn't help wondering: what in the world was this "Dragon of Finality"?!

What was even more outrageous was that silver-haired, half-elf-looking girl. The Beloved Children had long since figured out that she was the so-called "half-demon," a pitiable creature who merely looked uncannily like the Witch of Envy and was so naive it was laughable.

Yet that very girl held a Gospel and gave off thick Witch's miasma. How could she be a mere royal selection candidate? She was practically the Witch of Envy descended from the heavens!

From what she'd learned, the girl called herself the Witch Cult's Sin Archbishop in charge of "Envy," and in a very short time had taken over every Witch Cultist in the royal capital with absolute authority. Even more frightening, according to some of the hidden Beloved Children remnants, Elsa and Meili seemed to have already pledged their loyalty to her.

How was that possible?!

If that person were truly the Witch of Envy, the seal at the Evil Sealing Stone Shrine couldn't have stayed completely silent. But if she wasn't, where had the Gospel in her hands come from? And what was that Witch's miasma on her, one that even Petelgeuse could not question?

More importantly, why would this so-called "Witch" issue such a near-suicidal order?

At the break of dawn, gather all the Witch Cultists and the Beloved Children's forces into the cramped, enclosed sewers, and launch a so-called all-out assault?

That was clearly... driving every last one of them into a dead end with no escape!

Suddenly, a terrifying possibility, one that made even her soul tremble, flashed through Clarissa's mind.

"Could it be..."

Clarissa swallowed with difficulty.

"Mother... isn't dead at all?"

Once the thought took root, it spread through her like wildfire, impossible to put out.

Yes, their Mother, the Sin Archbishop of "Lust," Capella Emerada Lugnica.

Capella's "death" or "disappearance" had been riddled with doubts from the start. Combine that with the mysterious silver-haired half-elf who claimed to be in charge of "Envy," and the answer practically announced itself.

The Emilia still moving about the royal capital was nothing but Capella in disguise! Their plan to avenge Mother had been a joke all along, because she had never died. She had simply moved into the shadows to carry on with her plans.

With Capella's near-miraculous shapeshifting, disguising herself as a half-elf would be child's play. And as a Sin Archbishop, getting hold of a Gospel or faking the Witch's miasma would hardly be difficult either.

That might explain why Elsa and Meili had defected. But Clarissa couldn't understand why Mother hadn't told her loyal children. Why overturn her own earlier arrangements one by one through such a vicious purge?

Could it be... that everything was merely Mother testing her children's loyalty by faking her death? That anyone who dared act on their own would have no chance of surviving?!

"Mother... is watching us."

Clarissa murmured to herself, her face drained of all color.

She seemed to see, in the boundless darkness of the royal capital's sewers, a pair of eyes full of mockery and ridicule, coldly watching her.

This so-called "sewer assault" was nothing less than a massacre, meticulously designed by Capella to purge the children who had "acted on their own and tried to betray her"!

She knew very well that contacting the Sloth Sin Archbishop on her own initiative constituted grave overreach. Whatever the purpose, even with the justified reason of avenging Capella, it was a sin worthy of death!

And now she and the madman she had summoned were about to die here together!

"N-no... We can't go..."

Clarissa took an involuntary step back, her fear no longer hidden in her eyes.

"Oh my? What are you saying? 'We can't go'?"

Petelgeuse stopped abruptly. His head, bent nearly to the breaking point, twisted eerily toward her, and his eyes locked on Clarissa. His voice was filled with chill.

"Could it be... that you intend to defy the Lady Witch's oracle? That you would display your Sloth at such a sacred, momentous time?!"

The surrounding Witch Cultists turned their heads as well, and in that instant the temperature in the air dropped to freezing.

Clarissa looked at the madmen around her and knew she had no way out. If she refused now, Petelgeuse's followers would tear her to pieces without hesitation.

And if she went along... what awaited her was a death trap Capella had carefully prepared.

Dead either way. What else could she do?

All she could do was take it one step at a time.

"...No."

Clarissa forcibly suppressed her fear and made her voice cold again.

"I was only thinking that since it's the Lady Witch's command, we naturally must give it our all, and proceed with caution."

"Ha! Hahahaha! That's more like it! This is love! This is Diligence!!"

Petelgeuse burst into mad laughter again. He turned around, waving his arms, and led his followers deeper into the sewers.

Clarissa silently followed at the very back of the procession.

She looked at the foul water dripping endlessly from overhead, and felt that every single drop was a funeral bell tolling at the end of her life.