Chapter 48: Assault on the Sanctuary

If the Felberg Empire had a national event called the “Founding Festival,” the Ellington Holy Alliance had a holy commemoration known as the “Day of Blessing.”

This was a memorial day to remember and reflect on the victory in the “Black Holy War,” where constellations of the divine lineage took the lead against the evil apostles of the demon god in the ancient mythic era. 

In the six dioceses that formed the foundation of the Ellington Holy Alliance, they commemorated this Day of Blessing in their own ways, such as performing rituals befitting their doctrines or offering prayers with pious hearts.

And today.

In the Second Diocese, which handled the production, management, and distribution of “graces” treated as “strategic assets” by the Ellington Holy Alliance, Archbishop Alberto Schuheim was gathered in the diocese cathedral with his attendants to offer prayers with pious hearts in commemoration of the Day of Blessing.

“Archbishop, have you heard the recent rumors?”

At that moment, Auxiliary Bishop Fleming, who was particularly fond of chattering in the Second Diocese, casually addressed Archbishop Alberto Schuheim. 

Alberto, who had been focusing on prayer and was reviewing delayed reports during a brief break, sensed that Fleming’s chatter was about to begin and wore a tired expression.

“What is it this time, Auxiliary Bishop Fleming?”

“The rumor about the holy war army being mustered.”

Auxiliary Bishop Fleming glanced around once and spoke in a rather tense voice.

“Auxiliary Bishop Fleming, taking too much interest in matters pushed by the Holy War Office will only tire you out.”

Alberto advised sincerely. In the Ellington Holy Alliance, there were two organizations that could lead to great trouble if one got involved more than necessary: the most infamous was the Sixth Diocese in charge of heresy inquisitions, and the next was the Holy War Office, which held the authority to declare holy wars.

The auxiliary bishops appointed to assist the archbishops in each diocese were by no means low-ranking positions, but they weren’t authoritative enough to avoid problems if entangled wrongly with the Sixth Diocese or the Holy War Office. In fact, was there anyone in the Holy Alliance who could get involved with them without fear?

“Could it really be that the holy war army is being mustered?”

However, as if a button had been pressed by Alberto’s words, Fleming’s eyes sparkled with curiosity. 

Most clerics in the Second Diocese were so immersed in the production and management of graces that they had little interest in external affairs and often ignored incoming rumors, but strangely, Fleming enjoyed hearing such things and lightly wagging his tongue about them.

“That’s not something I can speak on.”

“Summoning the holy war army… means a large-scale heretical sign has been detected, doesn’t it?”

Alberto neither affirmed nor denied clearly, but that only made Auxiliary Bishop Fleming find the topic more intriguing. 

He reached his own conclusion after deducing in his way, but Alberto shook his head with a tired expression and gathered the reviewed reports separately.

“Shall we resume the prayers soon?”

Fearing that continuing the conversation would lead to trouble, Alberto hurried to declare the resumption of prayers and tried to return to his seat.

However.

“Cough, cough!”

With a hideous blade of the abyss piercing through his chest, Alberto wore an expression of disbelief as he spat out dark red blood.

“A-Archbishop!”

“Enemies!”

“Paladin order!”

The clerics were horrified. This was the First Cathedral of the Second Diocese, located inside the “sanctuary” that served as the capital of the Ellington Holy Alliance. 

Just what demonic force had secretly infiltrated this far, and how? 

It was utterly unbelievable, but the gruesome scene before their eyes was undoubtedly reality, not a dream.

Even as the archbishop of the Second Diocese, he couldn’t escape the shadow of death with his heart pierced. He staggered, gushing blood from the hole in his chest, and collapsed.

“E-Enemies! Assassins! Call the paladin order!”

“What is the paladin order doing!”

“We need to request support!”

Assassins clad in black, imbued with the darkness of the abyss. Using some bizarre stealth technique, their forms were so blurred that they were indistinguishable as they infiltrated the sanctuary and revealed themselves in the Second Diocese’s cathedral. 

The blades of these uninvited guests soon began slaughtering the clerics who were calling for the paladins.

“Aaaargh!”

“Aaaah!”

The paladins directly under the Second Diocese quickly entered the cathedral and surrounded the unexpected intruders, but it was futile. When the assassins gestured and a black wind blew, it was the paladins’ blood that stained the marble floor red instead.

Dozens of paladins in gleaming silver armor and white capes advanced in unison, but they couldn’t fend off the massacre by the assassins who had swallowed the abyss.

Before the paladins could even muster their divine power, a black wind assailed them, and the corpses of the mercilessly torn paladins piled up in the cathedral. 

But the deaths of these sacrificed paladins were not in vain, for while they bought fleeting moments with their lives, the auxiliary bishops—who had been too panicked by the archbishop’s death to counterattack—were reorganizing their stances and preparing divine prayer incantations.

“How did you crawl into the sanctuary?”

The vice-archbishop of the Second Diocese muttered with a pale face, and Auxiliary Bishop Fleming, standing right beside him, was silently condensing divine power in his hands. 

He was famous for being talkative usually, but upon realizing that the intruders’ realms were far above his own, he could only swallow his tension in silence.

The other two bishops were the same. They were all high-ranking clerics capable of wielding immense divine power, but even after reorganizing, they couldn’t easily step forward.

They had just witnessed dozens of paladins being slaughtered en masse with their own eyes.

“I’ll take the vanguard.”

The leader of the paladin order directly under the Second Diocese stepped forward.

“Don’t let your guard down; be cautious.”

The vice-archbishop, still with a pale face, warned the paladin leader with a stiff expression. And the next moment.

Slash.

In the instant the assassins’ afterimages seemed to flicker, with a chillingly cruel cutting sound, the paladin leader’s body collapsed. His neck was severed, his legs amputated, and his arms cut off.

His severed head rolled powerlessly beside the body that fell without even a scream.

“P-Paladin order, hurry and form up…!”

“Aaaargh!”

At the paladin leader’s helpless death, the remaining combat priests and paladins seemed to hastily launch a counterattack, but before they could form a defensive formation, blades of darkness raged like a storm.

Every time the assassins’ afterimages flickered, fountains of red blood spurted from the knights’ bodies. 

A black blade lodged in another knight’s neck, and a fountain of blood also spurted from the vice-archbishop’s neck, who had been standing right beside Auxiliary Bishop Fleming.

“Gurgle!”

As the vice-archbishop spat blood from his mouth, abyssal beings approached from the darkness. Auxiliary Bishop Fleming retreated hastily with a terrified expression. 

Rather than chasing the frightened Fleming, the shadows began tearing apart the other clerics who still clung to life.

“S-Save… Guh!”

A blade embedded in the body of a young cleric who had tried to flee until the end.

Yet, the shadows that had been mercilessly slaughtering the clerics suddenly began disappearing one by one from a certain point.

Then, when even the last remaining assassin was melting into the darkness, Archbishop Alberto Schuheim—whom they had thought dead—slowly rose and grasped the shadow’s ankle with his emaciated hands.

“S-Stop…!”

With his final strength, he pulled out a crystal containing “grace” from his bosom and activated it by infusing a trace of divine power.

The archbishop’s life was fading, but the power of the “grace” within the crystal he drew forth unleashed a dazzling flash, stirring a storm. 

Blades of light began raining down on the shadow that had started vanishing silently. And finally, the divine power of punishment, completed based on the grace, shredded the shadow.

But that was the end. The archbishop of the Second Diocese, Alberto Schuheim, ultimately lost his life.

News from the Ellington Holy Alliance spread quickly across the entire continent, and it soon reached the capital Granada, quite distant from the sanctuary.

Having risen early in the morning for an intense physical training session with Viscount Heinrich Denver, the wastrel-turned-emperor, Cain—who was leisurely munching on a sandwich while cooling off in the garden with his weary body—heard the news not long after the incident.

The sanctuary of the Ellington Holy Alliance had been breached, and not only the archbishop of the Second Diocese but also numerous clerics who had been offering prayers in the same place had turned into corpses!

Upon hearing that fact, Cain reflexively uttered a curse.

“Damn it.”

Cain couldn’t help but be angry.

According to his memories from his developer days, in the world setting, the barrier of the Ellington Holy Alliance’s “sanctuary” was nearly invincible. Not only could evil beings never breach it, but even if an unauthorized intrusion succeeded, in the event of combat, the heretical forces would naturally be overwhelmed by the sanctuary’s abundant divine power.

But such a catastrophe had occurred within the Holy Alliance’s barrier? Thinking simply, there was only one cause.

It doesn’t make sense unless they let their guard down.

Cain could understand their position to some extent. In the setting, unlike the past, the Ellington Holy Alliance had been quite passive in heresy hunting over the recent decades and centuries. 

This was because, unlike before the ancient mythic era, the scale and threat level of heretics had greatly diminished across the entire continent.

Even though the Beheading Priest Podric had tracked and executed many heretics, compared to past records, it was a drop in the bucket. 

The true era of heresy hunting had waned, and living in a time without the worst heretics emerging, they had become steeped in peace.

The clerics of the Holy Alliance must have been greatly complacent.

In the setting, maintaining the massive barrier protecting the Ellington Holy Alliance’s sanctuary requires offering a large amount of divine power as sacrifice every day. 

They must have started feeling the resources were wasteful. It’s not like heretics show their faces often, and the ones caught passing by would have been small fry.

It wasn’t entirely incomprehensible if they judged that wasting the headquarters’ resources on such things was regrettable, or that maintaining the barrier to that extent was overly paranoid.

They could substitute with “graces” or “holy water,” but fundamentally, both items were difficult to mass-produce on a large scale. 

Even in the era of heresy hunting, hundreds or thousands of clerics gathered daily to offer pious prayers or divine power to maintain the sanctuary’s barrier.

From the looks of it, they intentionally neglected it until the barrier’s performance dropped to less than thirty percent.

But in the end, this incident had erupted.

“This is quite troublesome.”

Thinking that there might be a hitch in his plans, Cain first summoned the Beheading Priest Podric.