Upon hearing those words, Ellis revealed an expression of disbelief.
“His Holiness the Pope is a… sinner of the human race?”
She found it somewhat difficult to accept, so her first reaction was to refute it.
“Impossible, absolutely impossible!! His Holiness the Pope is the most devout believer of the Lord. The war should have been launched by the demonkin. It was the demonkin who wanted to invade our human world!
Sophie, have you lost your mind? Have you forgotten His Holiness the Pope’s teachings to you? Speaking on behalf of the demonkin—this is betrayal of the Holy Land!
Without His Holiness the Pope, the human world would have already fallen into chaos long ago. How could he possibly be a sinner of the human race?”
The reactions of most of the clerics were the same as Ellis’s.
Within the Holy Land, almost no one would doubt the character of the Pope. Everyone believed that everything Altes did was for the sake of the human race.
“The war between the demonkin and the human race was deliberately provoked by Altes. This is absolutely true. The previous Demon King Ville once wished to establish peaceful relations with the human race. He accepted Altes’s proposal and came alone to the human world without carrying any weapons to meet with him. As a result, Altes went back on his word and attempted to ambush and kill Ville. Although he failed, he succeeded in making Ville harbor hatred toward the human race.”
Sophie explained the truth regarding the war to everyone.
“Later, in order to control the Silver Sword Princess, he sent people to Selina’s hometown. Disguising themselves as a demonkin army, they slaughtered all the innocent people in Selina’s hometown and framed Ville for it, all for the sake of being able to manipulate the direction of the war.”
Ellis felt greatly shaken. She had never considered these possibilities before.
“His current actions are equally hypocritical. He keeps saying it is for the future of the human race, but in reality he wants to obtain the power of the angel. My mother, Sylvia, inadvertently learned of his true purpose and was deliberately set up and assassinated. He left me and Via behind precisely because we were possible vessels capable of carrying the angel’s divine power, which would allow him to achieve his ambitions.”
When Sophie spoke of these matters, she almost could not control her emotions. Her words were filled entirely with hatred toward Altes. Everyone knew how deeply Sophie, as Sylvia’s daughter, respected her own mother. She would absolutely never speak nonsense about this matter.
“Sophie, do you have any evidence for the things you said? These… couldn’t simply be your one-sided speculation, could they?” Ellis raised a doubt.
“Evidence, is it…”
“Yes. You can’t just defame His Holiness the Pope like this, right? Can this be proven?”
Sophie slowly raised her hand and released the angel’s divine power.
Although the incomplete angel’s will had already been destroyed and she had lost the vast majority of the angel’s power, a portion of divine power still remained within her body.
This was energy even more sacred than holy power. The clerics present could only faintly sense a trace of it in the depths of their hearts when praying to the god.
Yet the divine power Sophie displayed here had already surpassed any prayer the clerics had ever experienced in the past.
“This is… divine power!!”
Ellis revealed an expression of shock.
The look in her eyes as she gazed at Sophie completely changed, as if the one standing here was no longer an ordinary human but a representative of the gods walking upon the mortal world.
This highly matched the angels of legend.
The clerics who had just been demanding proof all shut their mouths. No one dared to raise further doubts.
In the hearts of the clerics, if one were to speak of weight, the god of their faith was certainly far greater than the Pope of the Holy Land.
“I also discovered Altes’s secret. He did not kill me the way he killed Mother. He left me behind precisely because he wanted to use my body to control the angel’s divine power. And he did exactly that. The incomplete angel’s will forcibly took over my body. He called this so-called ‘awakening.’ If Via had not defeated the angel, I would still be under control right now.” Sophie said angrily.
“Could it be… that His Holiness the Pope truly…”
Even Ellis, who was extremely loyal to the Holy Land, fell into wavering when faced with the facts.
During the civil war in the capital, an angel had indeed descended. However, the angel had not been as benevolent as we imagined. Instead, it had wanted to destroy the capital. Many innocent people had died within the angel’s divine light.
A cleric who had survived the civil war spoke up at this moment.
This caused even more clerics to begin doubting Altes.
The divine power Sophie had displayed could not be faked.
“No! This is the sacred Holy Land. How can we allow a fallen one to set foot here? Regardless of whether the angel cares about us humans or not, we must still uphold the principles of the Holy Land!!”
The situation fell into a state of tearing. The clerics had already formed opinions that could not be unified.
“What exactly should we do?!”
This was the question in the hearts of many clerics.
“If everything Sophie said is true, then just let Via and Sophie go meet His Holiness the Pope together and have both sides confront each other, right~?”
Nana voiced her own opinion.
“Sister Nana, this of yours…” Ellis was somewhat hesitant.
“Both sides contradict each other, so one of them must be lying. Truth cannot become falsehood, and falsehood cannot become truth. So just let both sides distinguish the truth and falsehood themselves. We are outsiders and originally cannot see clearly anyway!” Nana said with a smile. “What we need to do is wait for the result and then make the correct choice!”
This was still…
Ellis felt greatly troubled. After becoming a cleric, this was the first time she had been so lost.
“Let Via and Sophie go meet His Holiness the Pope. This was never something we should be the ones to judge.”
Mia agreed with Nana’s proposal.
Ellis raised her head and gazed into Sophie’s eyes. Within those red eyes, she felt firmness and sincerity.
These were not the eyes that a fallen person ought to possess.
In the end, she raised her sword and thrust it into the steps.
“Make way for Via and Sophie. Let them go meet His Holiness the Pope!”
“Holy Radiance Knight, this is inappropriate!” a cleric holding the opposing opinion proposed.
“This is my choice. If Via and Sophie are deceiving me, and I am later convicted as a heretic and accept punishment, I will not raise any objection! If anyone wishes to obstruct them, then I am willing to use this sword to open a path for them!”
Ellis declared in a ringing and powerful voice:
“What we should uphold is the conviction in our hearts of protecting the human race, not unconditional loyalty toward a specific person. Think carefully about what we are fighting for!”
Many of the clerics present were moved by Ellis.
Combined with Mia’s support, the opposition could no longer form a force.
On this day, the Holy Land formed the most peculiar scene in its history. The clerics actually cleared a path leading to the Holy Mountain for a “traitor of the Holy Land” and the king of the demonkin.
Seeing this, Via’s impression of Ellis changed. She had originally thought this was a blindly loyal holy knight, yet in reality the other party also possessed her own convictions within her heart.
When she passed by Ellis’s side, she even heard a soft apology.
“Via, I previously held many misunderstandings toward you. I am truly sorry. I hope that in the actions that follow, you will be able to prove yourself.”
Via nodded. “Mm. I will let all of you see everything about Altes clearly.”