Chapter 578: The Massacre of Faith (2)

Frey, Aegon—even Snow and Calistes—

all of them stared with eyes that held a dozen kinds of judgment:

contempt... hatred... pity... scorn.

Blattier no longer cared what his enemies thought.

Under the weight crushing him, with everything collapsing, facing the loss of all he’d clung to, he snapped completely.

Mouth gaping to its limit, Blattier bit into his remaining arm with everything he had. His teeth sank deep; a horrific wound flowered where he tore the flesh.

"Aaaaaaaaargh! Aarghhhhhhh!"

Once wasn’t enough. He ripped and gnawed, chewing through meat and bone until his own face was lacquered in his blood. He did not stop until he bit clean through his last arm—a feral spectacle that froze everyone where they stood.

Blattier clamped the severed hand between his teeth, breathing in ragged, ghastly groans no one would have believed came from a human throat. Slowly, he raised his head toward the heavens, lifting that hand high in his blood-slick jaws.

He was a ruin—limbs gone, chest gouged open, drenched in red—

but his eyes held a terrifying resolve that proved the high bishop had not yet fallen.

The instant he raised that hand aloft, it flared with an ominous crimson light. Blood runes ignited out of nowhere, and everyone understood the dying bishop was about to do something.

Three figures detonated the floor and rushed him at once—

Frey, Snow, and Calistes.

All three appeared before him and struck with brutal force.

Slash!!!

A storm of blood burst across the chamber as steel carved flesh—

but the flesh was not Blattier’s.

A man had hurled himself into the path at the last instant, shielding him with his body.

Frey, Snow, Calistes—all three halted, startled by Platini, who had leapt in front of Blattier and given them his back. The blow was overwhelming; Platini had no chance to survive—yet he bought Blattier a few scant seconds. Seconds enough to act.

"Blattier... I have followed you always. I have been with you longer than anyone."

When Blattier climbed to the seat of high bishop, Platini had ever been the right hand at his side.

"This place was crooked and dark from the start—but you kept this edifice standing. You built it. Without you, there is no Church."

Those were the words Platini wished to say. They never left his mouth. Their blades did not spare him, and life fled his eyes at once.

But before he died, he entrusted everything to the high bishop he had always respected.

"I offer up this paltry life for you. I bequeath my dream and my strength to you, my lord. It doesn’t matter how this day ends—whether the Church is erased or endures—but... let them know fear.

Show them the true terror of the institution for which we lived—and for which we now die."

Platini was gone. His body fell.

But his very being poured into Blattier—another sacrifice to fuel his master’s mad ambition.

"This Church is a part of me. If I live, it lives with me... and if I die, it dies with me!!"

Blattier roared, dragging the words up from his gut, from the bottom of his soul.

"One last time! Let me use it—once more!!"

The hand clamped in Blattier’s teeth detonated, and the stage was set.

At that same moment, far from them, a certain pair of eyes opened at last.

Within the spring where she had lain in her own blood, Uriel Platini awoke and opened her eyes—eyes once blue, now shining with a baleful golden glow.

Rising to her feet—her naked body still laced with dozens of blood-filled tubes—Uriel lifted her hand toward Blattier, and an uncanny aura gathered from nothing, bending to her will.

"Uriel... what...?" Frey breathed, stunned by the weight of the aura he felt.

Uriel Platini had laid her hand upon a vast power—an aura drawn from the golden World Tree shuddering above them.

In that instant everyone braced to fight, assuming that force was about to flow into Blattier. Because of that ..

Frey moved first at full speed.

With all his strength he struck at Blattier’s neck, taking his head cleanly before the old man could act.

Blattier’s head tumbled across the blood-wet floor.

It looked as if Frey had stopped him—but the scenario they all imagined had been wrong from the start. That power had never been meant for Blattier.

With a flick of her wrist, Uriel shaped the aura into a beam of blinding, immaculate white.

It shot skyward, streaking away to a completely different place.

Uriel herself wasn’t conscious; she moved like a machine now.

Her actions were strange—no one understood what she’d done.

What was that light? Where had she sent it?

No one knew, but the way Ramiel Calistes’s face went dark made it clear the result was catastrophic.

"Quickly! Kill the saint—now!"

Calistes flashed forward like lightning, striking for Uriel. His hand was inches from her when Snow cut in, severing that hand before it could touch her.

"What in hell do you think you’re doing?!" Calistes roared, as Snow planted himself between him and Uriel.

"That’s my question, bishop. You’d murder this girl after torturing her for years?!"

"Fool! You have no idea how grave a mistake you’ve just made!"

Calistes shouted on, panicked, trying to push past—Snow barred him completely.

Behind Snow, Uriel drifted slowly into the air as the sacred tree poured out a pure radiance that wrapped and shielded her.

Seeing it, Calistes wore a tragic look. "It’s too late..."

Hearing that, Snow slammed him to the floor. "Too late for what? Speak! What’s happening?!"

"For that light," Calistes laughed bitterly, eyes fixed on the saint. "It was the Light of Revelation."

"The Light of Revelation?"

At his words, everyone felt a peculiar tremor—like a distant earthquake rumbling somewhere far below.

Frey and Aegon in particular stared in the same direction, grasping part of what was happening.

That tremendous light had plunged downward at impossible speed—until it struck a certain place:

the Oracle Tablet.

The slab the Church had used for ages to receive the Lord of Light’s commands flared anew with fresh decrees.

Angels wheeled around the tablet, their eyes blazing as they scanned the lines inscribed upon it.

And in that same moment, all across the world—especially throughout the Empire—angels took to the air. Their eyes lit, and from those eyes bloomed two-dimensional projections displaying the tablet, shining with those orders.