Boom!
The spear forged from the Will to Exterminate Evil slammed into the ground and instantly unleashed a storm of divine power.
The sacred energy healed the wounds of the nearby imperial guard knights while mercilessly slaughtering the black knights—beings twisted into demons by black magic and curses.
“Y-Your Majesty the Emperor!”
Aren Valerian, a paladin of the Imperial Church, was overwhelmed with near-ecstatic emotion at the near-miraculous feat performed by the emperor who had once lived as a notorious wastrel.
The paladins of the Imperial Church were already infamous for their fanatical devotion and loyalty to the Felberg imperial family.
Even during the long centuries of decline when no imperial bloodline had awakened a sacred mark, they had never wavered.
Even when the falling imperial house flailed and tried to exploit the Church’s influence, these paladins had distanced themselves from the court but never abandoned their loyalty.
Aren Valerian—a paladin from an ancient religious order whose worship bordered on madness that defied understanding—felt his eyes once again dye with brilliant golden light, radiating splendor.
Witnessing the miraculous sight wrought by Cain, emperor of the Felberg Empire and heir to a great bloodline, Aren Valerian gained yet another enlightenment.
“Long live His Majesty the Emperor!”
Intense divine power gathered around the greatsword in Aren Valerian’s hand with overwhelming momentum.
“Receive His Majesty the Emperor’s wrath!”
With the paladin’s roar, the golden divine energy extending from his swung greatsword butchered the remaining black knights.
“After centuries of solitary endurance, at last! A true emperor has appeared in the Felberg Empire!”
The Meister-class paladin roared like a beast, unable to contain his surging emotions.
The black magicians hiding in the shadows could only panic as the emperor—who until now had been essentially treated as “out of the fight”—suddenly wielded divine power strong enough to dominate the battlefield.
“Did the emperor of the Felberg Empire possess such a powerful sacred mark?”
Yet among them, some recognized the nature of Cain’s power.
The authority of Onisia, passed down since the mythic era, was far too iconic to those who knew its true identity.
“It seems he has awakened Onisia’s power. If he has claimed the sacred mark of evil extermination, it will be difficult for us to oppose him at our level.”
“Captain, facing Onisia’s power is impossible. We must retreat.”
Their original objective had never been something as trivial as assassinating the emperor.
It was to locate the ancient ruins where Onisia’s power slept and verify the state of its seal.
Thanks to the demon god’s apostle known as Ancient Oblivion, the paladins’ oath to awaken Onisia’s power had been forgotten by humanity.
But for the black magicians who followed the apostles, it had never been forgotten.
Based on fragmented knowledge passed down from distant antiquity, they had searched underground ruins to more firmly seal Onisia’s power.
Recently, while exploring north of the capital Granada, they had detected the emperor’s suspicious movements, followed him, and ended up here.
To black magicians who wielded impure mana, Onisia’s power was a grave threat.
Yet if the emperor of the Felberg Empire had truly claimed Onisia’s sacred mark, they should have been even more determined to eliminate him.
Seeing two subordinates cower and show negativity, the elderly black magician called “captain” flew into a rage.
“How can you call yourselves members of the Black Legion? For the millennium-long plan to succeed, Onisia’s power is dangerous. We must kill the emperor here.”
Despite his subordinates’ pleas to flee immediately, the old black magician began gathering dark mana to curse the emperor.
But to the current Cain—who had invoked the Will to Exterminate Evil through Onisia’s sacred mark—the movements of dark mana needed to cast black magic were far too clear to ignore.
“Found you.”
Cain’s eyes gleamed sharply as he targeted beyond the thick veil of darkness.
Sacred power already swirled around him like a tempest.
Pure white energy symbolizing Onisia’s untainted divine power overflowed from Cain’s entire body.
A mental fulfillment he had never experienced in his life.
Cain slowly raised his left hand to clear away the enemies before him.
The divine power of evil extermination gained from the sacred mark moved according to his will.
The moment he thought to dispel the darkness hiding the black magicians, dazzling white light swept away all the shadows that had infested the vast underground ruins.
“M-My god…”
“His Majesty the Emperor protects us!”
It was a sight none had ever witnessed before.
Moreover, it was divine power of a purity they had never felt.
The imperial guard knights, Aren Valerian, and the paladins of the Imperial Church were all left speechless by the emperor’s new appearance.
Originally, Onisia’s sacred mark granted overwhelming power only when facing impure beings such as black magicians, necromancers, demons, or demonic creatures.
But since only Cain—the bearer of the Evil-Exterminating Oath—knew these details, to everyone else it simply looked as though a great constellation had descended.
As light covered darkness, the black magicians who had been concealing themselves beyond the pitch black realized their forms were exposed and panicked greatly.
But even that alarm did not last long.
“R-Run… Gah!”
A young black magician tried once more to urge retreat, but he could not finish his words.
He collapsed vomiting blood, a spear of light thrown by Cain embedded in his chest.
“W-What…”
Before another black magician could react, a second beam of light blew his head clean off.
Even his dying scream was buried in the light as he met his end.
The elderly black magician, now standing alone until the very last, gazed at the brilliantly shining new emperor—Cain Felberg—and let out a hollow laugh.
“So the prophecy was true…”
Soon, a baptism of light poured down upon the old black magician who had sensed his impending doom.
“Heresy! Heresy! Heresy!”
It was late at night, past midnight.
From the pre-dawn hours awaiting morning light, a clamor of shouts battered their ears.
Those who had been camping in the darkness without even a campfire began to rise one by one.
“Damn it, another fit?”
“Calm down, Hound.”
The priest better known by his nickname “Beheading Priest” than his actual name, Podric Kendal, soothed his direct executor called “Hound”—Bellikian—before turning his gaze into the darkness.
“H-Heresy! Heretic!”
Not far from the Beheading Priest, a middle-aged man revealed his face under faint moonlight.
Wearing a black eyepatch over his left eye, he rolled his remaining blue eye wildly while continuing to shout.
“Heresy…! G-Great!”
A former ranger from the Vizendium Kingdom, known as One-Eye or Parrot—his name was Torres.
He was traveling as a direct executor under the Beheading Priest.
While his combat ability was negligible, he possessed the sharpest detection skills among Podric’s direct executors.
As a former ranger, he was naturally a master tracker, skilled at seeing far and wide and reading signs.
But after ingesting a cursed drug while pursuing a mad alchemist, he lost much of his speech ability.
Of course, the drug had instead heightened his sensitivity to detecting the aura of heretics—black magic or demonic energy—so Podric kept Torres around like a “human alarm.”
“This bastard! Looks like he got drunk again and malfunctioned.”
Bellikian, nerves already frayed from the grueling journey and interrupted sleep, growled through gritted teeth.
Yet amid this, the Beheading Priest calmly asked Torres.
“Are you certain? There’s a heretic?”
“Heretic! Heresy!”
Torres repeatedly shouted “heresy” while pointing south.
Podric asked.
“What’s to the south?”
“The capital of the Felberg Empire—Granada.”
A high-ranking mage also called “Raven,” Cecilia Wonderbell, conveyed the information in a calm voice.
Now awake, she had already donned her trademark raven mask.
With a wide-brimmed black hat added, she cut quite a terrifying figure.
“The aura of heresy has been detected from the direction of the capital Granada.”
“Captain. It’s still several days to Granada. Our Parrot is excellent at sensing black magic, but I don’t recall him ever detecting anything from this far away.”
Hound Bellikian attempted a rather logical persuasion, uncharacteristic for a mercenary.
However, the fact that a heretic might be alive and breathing nearby had already burrowed deep into the Beheading Priest’s mind.
“It doesn’t matter. Granada is our destination anyway. Arriving a few days early won’t be a problem.”
“B-But… Captain!”
“Bellikian!”
“Y-Yes, sir.”
If there was a problem, it was only one thing.
The wretched reality that a heretic was living and breathing somewhere here!
Podric raised his voice in fury.
Bellikian realized that the appearance of “heresy” had flipped a switch in the Beheading Priest’s head and calmly composed himself.
There was a reason he was called the Beheading Priest.
Podric Kendal hated without exception anything defined as heresy—black magic, demons, demonic creatures.
Once his switch was flipped, there was no stopping him.
He would not rest until he eradicated the heretic’s existence.
“Raven.”
“Yes.”
Sixth Diocese executor Cecilia Wonderbell awaited the Inquisitor’s orders.
“Use Grace to open a dimensional gate. We’ll close the distance to the presumed source of the heresy in one go.”
Grace.
An extremely concentrated pellet of divine power created by the Ellington Holy Alliance using holy water.
It was used to supplement insufficient divine power when casting large-scale dimensional gates.
Though not a holy relic, it was treated as highly valuable, manufactured and managed directly by the Second Diocese.
Only strictly selected personnel were granted usage rights, as those lacking qualification could not control the backlash on their body.
“If I use Grace now, I cannot guarantee my body will withstand the recoil.”
“Raven” Cecilia had already used Grace to open short-range dimensional gates for rapid travel here.
That had been mere days ago.
As a mage rather than a priest, she was not skilled enough with divine power to use Grace consecutively.
Thus she expressed difficulty with continuous use.
But.
“There is a heretic, is there not? Every minute, every second is urgent. Executor, hurry and use Grace to open the gate.”
The Beheading Priest’s eyes were already rolled back in fanaticism.