“Thud.”
With a dull sound, Archbishop Duran’s body, which had already lost all vitality, crashed heavily onto the cold floor. His eyes were wide open, the murky eyeballs almost bulging out of their sockets.
In his gaze lingered the remnants of fear, despair, and a confusion he could not comprehend even in death.
At the corners of his mouth hung the dark green venom, his face turning a sickly blue-purple.
This archbishop, who had once wielded immense power in the Southern Diocese, had ended his sinful life in the most undignified manner.
In the midst of his inflated ambition and greed, he died from the antidote he had brewed with his own hands, dying from his own…
Eleanor looked at the corpse on the ground and let out a long sigh.
“It’s over.”
She felt no thrill of revenge, no joy of victory, only a deep exhaustion and relief.
For a devout saintess, witnessing the fall and death of a fellow colleague was a sorrowful thing no matter what.
But she knew this was not the time for sentimentality.
“Julius.”
“Take him with us. We’re returning to the square.” Eleanor turned around, her expression once again resolute, “And…”
She looked at Helos, her gaze landing on the large box filled with the Universal Antidote.
“The antidote… I’ll leave it to you, sister.”
Before Eleanor could finish speaking, Helos smiled lightly and handed the heavy box forward.
“You’re the saintess, everyone’s hope. If you distribute the antidote, you’ll calm people’s hearts the most, and it’ll make your plan go more smoothly.”
“As for me…”
The girl shrugged, looking completely unconcerned.
“I’m just here for the ride. Spare me the limelight and glory. I don’t want to be mobbed by people calling me their savior everywhere I go. That would drive me crazy.”
Eleanor was taken aback.
She looked into her sister’s clear eyes, a warm current surging in her heart.
Of course, she understood Helos’s intention.
Helos was pushing all the credit onto her, using this to help solidify her prestige as the saintess, and to help her establish a foothold in this diocese.
Eleanor’s eyes grew a little hot. She reached out and gently hugged Helos.
“Silly girl…”
“Thank you, Sisi.”
Helos awkwardly pushed her sister away.
“Alright, alright, enough with the mushy stuff. Let’s go. Those people are still waiting to be saved.”
Cathedral Square.
As the sun rose, the unrest that had been brewing again was somewhat subdued by the Holy Paladin Order, but the atmosphere of despair and panic still hung over everyone’s heads.
Just as everyone was on the verge of collapse, the poisoned crowd groaned in pain while their families wept and prayed beside them.
At that moment, that familiar figure appeared once again on the high platform.
Eleanor Olivias.
The staff in her hand still radiated a soft glow, but this time, she had an unexpected “companion” by her side.
Julius carried Duran’s corpse and tossed it into the center of the altar like trash.
A burst of exclamations erupted from the crowd.
“Is that… Archbishop Duran?!”
“How… how did he die?”
“Silence!”
Eleanor’s voice echoed across the square.
She pointed at Duran’s corpse and, with a tone full of grief and authority, revealed the truth to everyone.
“Duran betrayed his faith, betrayed the Church, and above all, betrayed all of you!”
“It was him! To satisfy his own selfish desires, he colluded with wicked heretics and poisoned the Holy Water!”
“It was him! He tried to use your lives to barter for his so-called power and status!”
“Just now, he tried to flee and attempted to poison again under the guise of an antidote! But his conspiracy has been foiled!”
“He died by his own poison! This is the Goddess’s judgment on the betrayer!”
These words struck the crowd like thunder. People’s expressions turned varied—shock, anger, but mostly disbelief.
Yet when they saw Duran’s face, dead with eyes wide open, and his blackened nails and lips, all doubt dissipated.
What replaced it was a towering fury.
“He deserved to die!”
“He dared to poison us!”
“Damn bastard!”
“He dared to poison us!”
“Everyone, quiet!”
Eleanor raised her hand again, calming the crowd’s uproar.
“Though the sinner has been executed, we must not let his evil continue to spread.”
She turned around and, from the huge box behind her, took out bottles of emerald-green potions.
“This is the antidote.”
The saintess’s voice turned gentle yet firm.
“This is the hope the Goddess has granted us.”
“Now, please form a line. We will distribute the antidote to everyone in need. Trust the Church—we will not abandon a single one of you!”
Cheers erupted once again, and the High Priests quickly sprang into action, distributing the antidote.
As the potion entered their mouths, the poisoned worshippers soon stopped convulsing, and their ashen faces gradually regained a rosy hue.
Helos’s antidote quickly took effect. In the face of this crisis, these people survived.
Seeing this, Eleanor finally wore a relieved smile, but she did not forget the one who had truly worked the miracle.
“Everyone!”
Once the situation had fully stabilized, Eleanor spoke again.
She stepped down from the high platform and approached the silver-haired girl who had been hiding in the shadows, trying to make herself invisible.
“I know you’re all thanking me, thanking the Church.”
Eleanor took Helos’s hand and, despite the girl’s struggle, forcibly pulled her into the center of everyone’s attention.
“But I must tell you all a fact.”
“The one who truly stopped Duran’s conspiracy was not me.”
“The one who truly worked day and night, risking her life to develop the antidote and snatch your lives back from the God of Death, was not me either.”
Eleanor took a deep breath and announced loudly:
“It was her! My sister! The second young lady of the Olivias Family! Helos Olivia!”
“If she hadn’t seen through Duran’s scheme, if not for the antidote she brewed, this place would have become a living hell today!”
The entire square fell silent for a second.
Then, even more fervent cheers exploded from the crowd!
“Long live Miss Helos!”
“Thank you, Second Young Lady!”
“The Second Young Lady is our savior!”
Countless gazes filled with gratitude, admiration, and reverence all turned sharply toward that petite and seemingly fragile figure.
Helos was completely dumbfounded.
She looked at the crowd surging toward her like a tide, listening to those deafening cheers.
Her face flushed bright red in an instant.
“S-Sister, what are you doing?!”
She protested in a small voice, flustered, trying to hide behind Julius.
“Didn’t we agree not to mention me? This is too embarrassing!”
She liked being praised, but being watched by tens of thousands of people, stared at like a monkey in a zoo, was far beyond her psychological limits.
“You deserve this.”
Eleanor, however, held her hand tightly and smiled brilliantly.
“You’re a hero, Sisi. Heroes should stand in the sunlight and accept everyone’s flowers and applause.”
Looking at her sister’s determined eyes, Helos sighed helplessly.
Fine, since she couldn’t escape, she’d just have to tough it out.
She took a deep breath, forced an aloof expression of “I really am this amazing,” and stiffly waved at the crowd.
This action drew another round of cheers.
Julius stood to the side, watching the girl who was bright red in the face yet still struggling to maintain her noble demeanor, his eyes full of amusement.
That’s right.
This is how she should be.
However, just as everyone was immersed in the joy of victory…
Little did they know, at the edge of the square, in that shadowy corner no one paid attention to…
A pair of emerald-green eyes were staring fixedly at the two sisters on the high platform through the layers of the crowd.
Miya stood in the shadows, watching the gold-and-silver pair on the stage, and the silver-haired girl surrounded by the masses, receiving the adoration of tens of thousands.
There was no anger on her face, no frustration at the failure of the plan.
Instead, the corners of her lips were curling upward little by little.
“Heh… heh heh heh…”
The girl let out a pleased laugh.
“That’s right. Just like that.”
“Well done, Miss Eleanor.”
She gazed at Helos and murmured to herself:
“Only by making Her Holiness the saintess’s name known to the masses…”
“Only by lifting her onto that high altar, making her everyone’s hope…”
Miya stuck out her tongue and licked her dry lips.
“Can she fall even more completely into our embrace.”
“After all, the higher you stand, the harder you fall.”
She didn’t continue, but the amusement in her eyes only deepened.
“Heh heh heh… It’s just a pity about that fool Duran.”
Miya glanced at the corpse on the altar, already long cold, and a flicker of disdain crossed her eyes.
“If you had listened to me back then, hadn’t secretly switched the Holy Water, and obediently drunk that blessed cup, then taken the antidote I gave you… maybe you’d have lived a little longer.”
“What a self-righteous fool.”
“But this works out too.”
Miya turned around and melted back into the deeper darkness.
“After all, no matter which ‘antidote’ they drink…”
“The result is the same.”
The girl’s voice grew ethereal, laced with a deep malice.
“The seed that was planted long ago is bound to bloom.”
“How could these foolish humans ever imagine…”
“That what ultimately gave them new life was never some so-called ‘antidote.'”
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