Elsewhere —
Before the Tower of Judgment, a biting cold wind swept up the dust, howling as it blew across the desolate stony plain.
A squad of well-equipped, shining-armored Church Knights escorted a black carriage adorned with the Church’s thorned cross emblem, slowly making its way along the winding road to the Tower of Judgment.
Leighliv rode atop a tall white warhorse at the very front of the procession.
The brand-new insignia of the Captain of the Holy Shield Knights gleamed coldly on her breastplate.
That heavy badge symbolized not only her status and authority but carried the entire weight of her family’s redemption.
Her fingers unconsciously traced the cold edge of the insignia as her sharp gaze swept over the ragged, vacant-eyed refugees lining both sides of the road, her thoughts drifting far away.
The fragments of memories she had deliberately buried surged uncontrollably to the surface:
Eileen’s gentle, forgiving golden eyes, shattering in trust the moment the truth of the rumors was revealed;
Helga’s furious accusations;
Selena’s resigned smile, firm in dissolving the Rainbow Bond;
… and herself, choosing silence for this brilliant future, for the family’s future, even pushing the tide at critical moments.
“Sorry, Eileen… but this is all I can do…”
Leighliv silently screamed within her heart.
But that apology was like a stone cast into an abyss—no response came.
She could only bury it deep, wrapping that heart, battered by betrayal, within an even harder shell.
To cleanse her father’s monstrous stain—his collusion with witches and failed assassination attempt on the Pope—and to restore her family’s standing in the Holy Capital, she had to become the sharpest, most loyal, and unassailable sword.
His Holiness the Pope’s trust, given despite past grievances, was the Eisenhart family’s last lifeline. She could not afford a single mistake; she must… kill that indecisive, guilt-ridden “heart.”
“For the family… for atonement…”
She muttered silently, her eyes gradually hardening to match the icy steel of her sword’s hilt in her grasp.
At that moment! An unexpected change erupted from the refugee crowd beside the road—
“Kill that dog Heinrich!!!”
“Avenger for the innocent children who died wrongfully—!”
“Return my daughter!! Let this devil taste the pain of losing family unjustly!!”
Roars thundered like explosions from behind the low piles of rubble flanking the road!
Dozens of ragged, maddened refugees crawled out like vengeful demons from hell, brandishing rusted machetes, pitchforks, even sharpened wooden stakes, eyes bloodshot, recklessly charging toward the black carriage at the heart of the procession!
Their target was clear—the Inquisitor General, Heinrich!
Leighliv’s heart clenched sharply!
She recognized several faces—they were relatives of villagers from a border town in the south, months ago massacred under Heinrich’s orders on fabricated charges of “harboring witches” and “mass corruption,” slaughtered by the knights and inquisitors alike!
She had witnessed that tragedy firsthand: children’s cries pierced by cold blades, desperate mothers falling atop their husbands’ corpses consumed by flames, elders cowering in corners trampled alive.
That hellish scene haunted her countless sleepless nights, drenched in cold sweat.
And back then, she had chosen silence.
Now, the victims’ kin’s hatred burned her nerves like tangible flames, the shock instantly stiffening her reins-holding hand, blanking her mind.
That forcibly suppressed guilt and conscience surged like a flood breaking through the cold dam she had just erected.
Killing her own ‘heart’ was no easy feat!
“Captain!” The adjutant’s urgent shout snapped her out of her momentary daze.
At this critical moment, a cold, bony hand wearing a black leather glove silently rested on Leighliv’s shoulder.
The biting chill pierced through her heavy armor, raising goosebumps all over her body!
Leighliv whipped her head around to find Heinrich, the Inquisitor General, standing silently beside her horse without her noticing.
His face, weathered and wrinkled like dried orange peel, betrayed no expression. Through his monocle, his murky gray eyes calmly observed her as if watching a farce.
“Captain Leighliv,” Heinrich’s voice was low and flat, “What is happening here? These… mobs, why such agitation?”
His tone was as mundane as a question about the weather, as if those bloodied, tear-stained accusations pointed at him had nothing to do with him.
A cold shiver shot to the top of Leighliv’s head!
She could distinctly feel Heinrich’s gaze like a venomous snake coiling tightly around her neck.
He was testing her! Testing her loyalty to the Church, probing whether these “slanders” would shake her!
Shake? What would that mean? It would mean questioning the divine oracle, challenging the authority of the Inquisitor General, betraying the hard-won trust of the Pope!
It meant… repeating her father’s path to endless ruin!
“Protect the Inquisitor General!”
Leighliv’s voice suddenly rose, tinged with a sharp hoarseness that instantly drowned out the tumultuous storm within.
She abruptly drew her sword from her waist, the tip aimed at the onrushing avengers, the last trace of hesitation in her eyes utterly crushed, leaving only a cruel numbness.
“Holy Shield Knights! Form up! Counterattack! Kill without mercy! Protect the Inquisitor General at all costs!”
The command struck like a cold iron hammer.
The disciplined knights immediately formed a steel wall, lances leveled, heavy tower shields smashed into the ground, a chilling aura of deadly intent spreading instantly.
What followed was a one-sided massacre.
The fire of vengeance proved as fragile as paper against finely crafted armor and weapons.
The knights moved like cold war machines, efficiently and mercilessly reaping lives.
The clash of blade against flesh and bone, agonized screams, and curses of despair interwove into a cruel symphony.
Leighliv sat tall in the saddle, her body rigid like the perfect knight sculpture.
She parried an arrow aimed at Heinrich with precise, ruthless swordplay.
Yet her gaze was hollow, staring past the battlefield as if her soul had departed.
Each fallen figure struck her heart like a heavy hammer; she forced herself not to meet the dying eyes full of hatred.
Her heart, in ultimate numbness, slowly froze into ice.
The battle ended swiftly.
The avengers lay dead or wounded, with only a few battered survivors roughly pinned to the ground by the knights and dragged before Heinrich and Leighliv.
“Inquisitor General!”
A knight kicked a captive’s bent knee, forcing him to kneel.
Heinrich methodically adjusted his impeccably neat black Inquisitor’s robe and stepped forward, looking down at the faces twisted by hatred and fear, a faint hint of pity and confusion on his face.
“Poor souls… Tell me, why attack the servants of the divine, the Lord’s messengers? What seduction have you fallen under?”
“Sedition?!” A middle-aged man, bloodied and filthy, raised his head, eyes burning with deep hatred, shouting hoarsely, “You devil! You burned our entire village! My wife, my son, my daughter! They were so young! What wrong did they do?!”
“Witches? It’s all lies you fabricated! You’re the demon who deserves to go to hell! Divine punishment should fall upon you!”
“Die, Heinrich! You demon who slaughters innocents under God’s name!”
Heinrich tilted his head slightly, a faint trace of confusion flashing in his gray eyes, as if truly trying to recall:
“Burned? Which village? Oh… It seems a few places were thoroughly corrupted by darkness. To purify, some… necessary measures had to be taken. All for preserving the glory and purity of the divine, a just sentence, the… flame of righteousness.”
His tone was calm, as if recounting an insignificant matter, even imbued with a sense of divine righteousness.
“Righteousness?! Nonsense!!” Another captive shouted in a rage, struggling, “We did nothing wrong! We just wanted to survive! It was you! You, the demon in human skin! You deserve to be torn apart!”
The compassion vanished instantly from Heinrich’s face, replaced by an offended, icy rage!
His gaunt frame seemed to swell with invisible pressure, his voice suddenly sharp and oppressive:
“Impertinent! We are the executors of the divine! To oppose God’s messengers is to oppose God himself! How dare you blaspheme the sacred?!”
He whipped his gaze toward Leighliv, frozen like an ice statue beside him, his gray eyes locking onto hers:
“Captain Leighliv! For assaulting and insulting clergy and attempting to assassinate the Inquisitor General, what punishment does the ‘Sacred Code’ prescribe?”
Leighliv’s body trembled almost imperceptibly.
She forced open her mouth, her voice dry and gritty like rubbing gravel:
“According to… the law… the sentence shall be… quartering… or… execution by fire…”
Those last two words were nearly ground out through clenched teeth.
“Good.” Heinrich nodded with satisfaction. The icy fury receded like a tide, replaced by the same lifeless calm.
He gave Leighliv a long, meaningful look, containing praise, warning, and a faintly discernible… mockery.
“It’s in your hands, Captain. I trust the Eisenhart family’s devotion will render the judgment most aligned with divine will. Please do not disappoint His Holiness the Holy See.”
With that, he no longer glanced at the despairing captives, turning calmly to re-enter the black carriage that resembled a moving coffin.
The heavy door closed, cutting off all outside noise.
Leighliv stood rooted, as if all her strength had been drained.
The blood-red sunset stretched her figure and the winding bloodstains on the ground long and far.
She looked at the dragged-away captives, their eyes completely extinguished, at the shattered weapons and blood-stained stones on the ground, then at the surrounding refugees—huddled in distant corners, their eyes filled not only with fear but with a deep-rooted, wildfire-like suppressed hatred.
That hatred was not only aimed at Heinrich but also at her, and at the knights under her command representing the Church’s violence!
An overwhelming guilt instantly ensnared her heart, making it hard to breathe.
She felt herself standing at the edge of a bottomless abyss, at her feet the cries of countless wronged souls.
They slowly reached out their hands, trying to drag her down into eternal damnation.
*****
Night deepened. The vast, grim black silhouette of the Tower of Judgment seemed to swallow the stars.
Leighliv returned alone to the Captain’s resting chamber in the tower’s lower levels.
The heavy stone door closed behind her, shutting out the footsteps of the guards in the corridor and the faint, indistinguishable wails within the tower—whether wind or lamentations, no one knew.
She leaned against the cold stone door, her body slowly sliding down until she sat on the cold floor.
The bloody scenes of the day, the captives’ desperate screams, the refugees’ hateful gazes flashed repeatedly through her mind.
“Ugh…” An intense nausea surged up her throat. She dry-heaved several times but expelled nothing, only tears streaming uncontrollably.
She pounded the cold floor with clenched fists until her knuckles turned blue and purple.
Suddenly, she stood unsteadily and staggered to the corner of the room.
There hung a specially made whip with tiny barbs—her secret tool of “purification” prepared after becoming Captain.
Whenever guilt crushed her breath, only physical pain could grant her a fleeting, false peace, as if the lashes could cleanse the soul’s filth.
Swish—!
She roughly tore open her breastplate and inner garment, exposing a back scarred with fresh and old whip marks.
Those wounds resembled ugly centipedes, telling the story of countless sleepless nights of self-torment.
Crack!
A crisp, fierce whip crack shattered the silence of the stone chamber! The barbed whip lashed mercilessly onto the already battered skin, tearing flesh and drawing a spray of tiny blood droplets.
Leighliv gritted her teeth, stifling a painful groan as her body trembled violently from the agony.
The fresh pain temporarily dispelled the mental images, bringing a near-masochistic relief.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
The whip fell again and again, relentlessly.
Sweat mixed with blood slid down her taut back.
Her eyes squeezed shut, yet before her mind’s eye appeared moments with Eileen, Selena, Helga, and Roswither during their adventures.
Sunlit forests where they fought down a giant bear, Eileen clumsily dressing her wounds, Selena laughing loudly nearby;
By the campfire, Roswither softly humming hymns, Helga studying newly found magic scrolls, and Eileen dozing on her shoulder;
At a lively town festival, releasing river lanterns together and making wishes…
Those brief, pure two and a half years shone as the only warm light in her dark life.
No family chains, no shadow of the Church, only trust, support, and laughter among companions.
“Eileen… sorry… sorry…”
She whipped herself, hopelessly confessing deep in her heart.
To climb upward, to gain the Church’s approval, she had not only betrayed that precious friendship but even fanned the flames of rumor storms, pushing the person who trusted her most into the abyss with her own hands.
Every compromise, every betrayal, was branded onto her soul like these whip marks.
“What… what am I even doing…”
Leighliv finally could not hold on, dropping the bloodied whip and curling up on the cold floor, whimpering like a wounded beast.
Blood spread into a dark red patch on the smooth stone tiles.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
In this deathly silence of despair, a clear yet restrained knock sounded at the door.
Leighliv stiffened, her sobs stopping instantly.
She jerked her head up, eyes wide with shock and a hint of panic at having her secret exposed. Who could it be at this hour? Could it be that demon Heinrich?
Frantically, she grabbed the garments and breastplate from the floor and hastily put them on, trying to cover the mess on her back and tear-streaked face.
The sharp movement pulled at her wounds, making her gasp sharply.
“Who is it?” she tried to keep her voice steady, though it trembled with a faint hoarseness.
A silence followed, then a clear, familiar voice, now tinged with subtle exhaustion and travel weariness:
“It’s me, Roswither.”
Leighliv’s heart felt crushed by an invisible hand.
She stared incredulously.
Roswither?! How could she be here?!
She opened the door to find her familiar companion standing close, wearing a gentle smile.
“Your final ‘Saint Maiden Trial’… is right here beneath the Tower of Judgment. The four of us candidates will… undergo the ultimate trial.”
*****
Aya stood before a makeshift altar, her youthful face still unblemished, but her eyes heavy with sorrow and resolve.
The clan elder and the Shadowfang wolf had been destroyed in battle.
Now, all surviving Gravekeepers, young and old, silently watched her, their gazes filled with pain-wrought confusion and uncertainty for the future.
“The clan chief’s duty… I will take it on.”
Aya’s voice was low but clearly echoed through the silent valley. “The holy sword has returned to its place, and the hero has embarked on their journey. Our… Gravekeeper mission, passed down for centuries, has finally been fulfilled. We…”
“Are free.”
Suppressed sobs arose among the crowd, mourning the departed and questioning the meaning of their own existence.
Centuries of guardianship, now over—where would they go?
Eileen stood not far off, watching these scarred yet resilient warriors, her heart full of emotion.
She stepped forward and gently patted Aya’s shoulder, her gaze sweeping over the tired, confused faces.
“Aya,” Eileen’s voice was soft yet firm, “what do you plan to do next?”
Aya lifted her head, genuine bewilderment in her eyes. She smiled bitterly and shook her head:
“We have lived here for generations, isolated from the world. The outside… is a strange wilderness to us. Beyond fighting and guarding, what else… can we do?”
Her words voiced the true feelings of all Gravekeepers.
A sly glint flashed in Eileen’s eyes as a thought quickly formed.
Her territory was in ruins, desperately in need of manpower—especially strong, disciplined, hardworking warriors like these.
It was a godsend!
“If that’s the case,” Eileen’s face blossomed into a sincere and inviting smile, “why not… move to my lands? My territory is… quite large…”
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