Some deaths are lighter than feathers. Others, you punch someone in the face and suddenly your death matters a whole lot.

  Norton's death caused barely a ripple in the Church. He was just another tool rolling off the assembly line, nothing special. People like him died every day. No one was unique.

  But Father Mia getting punched in the face? That was a big deal.

  First, it exposed a major flaw in their whole system. A tool mass-produced on their assembly line had developed a working brain and rebellious thoughts. This proved their methods needed adjustment—harsher, more oppressive measures to crush every last thought out of these priests, ensuring no more Nortons ever popped up.

  Second, Father Mia getting punched damaged the Church's authority. More importantly, it was the ultimate insult to God's holiness!

  In a Church that worshipped God, one of God's own servants got decked. Wasn't that basically saying God couldn't protect his own people?

  Blatant humiliation. Norton was beyond unforgivable.

  Crackle...

  The sound of burning wood mixed with thick black smoke rising from the back of the cemetery.

  The body strapped to the wooden cross had already burned to charcoal. The smell of roasting meat had faded into smoky ash.

  A crowd of missionaries surrounded the burning cross, heads bowed, murmuring the Bible like a swarm of flies—bzz bzz bzz—nonstop.

  Father Mia stood nearby, one eye socket purple and swollen, watching the flames consume the body. His face was dark with fury. Beside him, Bishop Rosen's expression suggested he found the whole situation slightly amusing.

  But this was far from over. Norton's rebellion had consequences that reached way beyond him. Every missionary and priest from his training cohort, plus the six Church Knights involved in the incident—all of them needed thorough cleansing to ensure no future rebellions ever happened again.

  Rebellious thinking was terrifying. Not because you could kill the rebel and be done with it. No—the real horror was that once rebellion existed as a concept, people realized there were options besides running.

  Norton had set a terrible precedent. After twenty years of oppression and enforced emptiness, his actions were the ultimate mockery of the system.

  Where there's one, there's two. First Norton stands up, then another Norton follows. If the higher-ups—the Cardinals above Bishop Rosen—weren't worried about killing so many priests the Church couldn't function, they'd have ordered St. Peter's Cathedral completely purged.

  Burning bodies didn't smoke at first. Only after the meat cooked through, then burnt, did the flames catch and black smoke rise.

  As the thick smoke began to curl upward, Norton's barbecue was finally done.

  Thanks to the era's primitive technology, even the animal-fat fuel they'd poured on couldn't completely reduce a human body to ash. Norton's corpse remained—mostly.

  Thump!

  Five Church Knights hauled over wooden buckets and doused the remaining embers. Then they moved forward together and pulled down the charred cross with Norton's blackened body still attached.

  The fire had cooked Norton thoroughly. His entire body was dry, brittle charcoal. When the Knight dropped him on the ground, he landed with a sharp crack.

  One blackened arm snapped off clean at the shoulder.

  Father Mia felt a twinge of regret, but honestly? Burned like this, there was no need for dismemberment. This level of incineration made vampiric transformation completely impossible.

  Better than dismemberment, really.

  Still, they'd hammer in the wooden stake. Had to go through the motions.

  "No coffin. Norton's soul was defiled by demons. He doesn't deserve God's forgiveness or an honorable burial.

  Dismember him anyway. Leave nothing to chance with a demon!"

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Father Mia's voice was ice. Then he turned and walked away from the Ascension Ritual site.

  His eye socket throbbed with pain. He needed some comforting. From a boy.

  Bishop Rosen's dark gaze swept over the remaining Church Knights. "Dismember the body and dump it outside the city. When this is done, those six Knights come see me."

  The Knights had no idea what waited for them. They just kept doing their jobs.

  They hammered a wooden stake into Norton's charred chest.

  There was already a hole there—the sword wound from before. The fire had shrunk and widened the opening, exposing the roasted organs inside.

  Made hammering the stake in especially easy.

  If this crispy corpse could still become a vampire, the Church could throw a thousand years of research straight into the latrine.

  They dragged over a small cart. Two Knights grabbed Norton by the shoulder and leg to lift him onto it.

  But the moment they applied pressure, Norton's roasted right foot fell off.

  "... " The Knight assigned to dismemberment realized he might not need to do much more.

  He grabbed Norton by the thigh—more meat there, less thoroughly cooked—and loaded the crumbling corpse onto the cart.

  Creak... creak...

  The cart's wooden wheels groaned with every rotation. Norton, in this Central European Papal States, finally got his second chance to go outside.

  First time, he walked out.

  This time, they wheeled him out.

  ---

  The Papal States had ruled for centuries. How many centuries exactly? Even the Pope himself couldn't say.

  And the Papal States' territory was enormous. How enormous? The Pope didn't know that either.

  Because thousands of years ago, when the Holy Church first formed, it had rapidly consumed the entire continent. Vampires made recruiting believers laughably easy.

  As the Church's influence grew, its status rose steadily. By a thousand years ago, they'd reached "divine right of kings" territory. Every kingdom's ruler needed the Pope's blessing to be a legit king.

  Over time, successive Popes got bolder. They started with Church Knights, gradually built up to a full-fledged kingdom. By now, though the Papal States hadn't expanded to become the only power in the Western continent, the other kingdoms were crawling with believers and churches. Even some kings were the Church's most devoted followers.

  So the Papal States' actual territory was fuzzy, but one thing was clear: it was the strongest nation in the Western continent. And the Holy Church stood at its highest peak ever.

  But the Church's prosperity didn't mean national prosperity. Quite the opposite. Thanks to the Church's various bizarre policies, the entire Western continent was a mess. People were starving, dying off, populations dwindling.

  Norton's city was a perfect example.

  The cart carrying Norton's charred corpse creaked its way through the muddy streets toward the city limits.

  The houses lining the road were a chaotic mix—some elaborately carved, absurdly luxurious; most so dilapidated they were painful to look at, collapsed roofs just part of the scenery. But here's the thing: whether luxurious or crumbling, every single house grew beautiful flowers out front.

  Ever since St. Peter's Cathedral ordered everyone to rip out their vegetable plots and plant flowers instead, the whole city had taken on this weirdly cheerful, springtime aesthetic. Gotta give them that.

  Unfortunately, the dead bodies slumped in alleys and the shit caking the streets kind of ruined the effect.

  No worries, though. Every corpse could be stripped clean—by people, not animals—then hauled to the Westside mass grave. That's where they were dumping burnt Norton too.

  The smell of scorched meat had caught the attention of the poor along the way.

  Norton, roasted to charcoal, wouldn't even tempt a stray dog. But the poor? Their eyes went green. They trailed behind the Church Knights like hungry ghosts.

  The Westside mass grave was basically the city dump. Trash, bodies, everything ended up here.

  This was a Central European fantasy world, so the garbage and corpses didn't spawn ghouls or goblins. But mutated dogs, rats? Plenty. And maybe, just maybe, a vampire hiding somewhere.

  The cart reached the edge of the grave site. The Knights stopped, grabbed Norton's charcoal body, and tipped him off.

  Crack.

  The sound of breaking charcoal. Worthless Norton landed in a heap at the outermost edge.

  "You handle the dismemberment. I'll turn the cart around."

  The two Knights responsible for corpse disposal exchanged glances. One of them had something flickering across his face.

  Not embarrassment. Not exactly. More like... hesitation. Uncertainty. Written plainly on his features.

  Pretty remarkable, really. Church Knights were supposed to be cold machines, bred through rigorous indoctrination. Human emotions weren't part of the package.

  But that lifelong brainwashing also meant they couldn't hide what they felt. It showed on their faces whether they wanted it to or not.

  The other Knight—the one who'd been expressionless throughout—nodded at his partner's words. He unslung his greatsword, raised it high above Norton's charcoal form.

  Shink.

  A sharpened wooden stake punched through the gap in a pure white helmet. Blood sprayed instantly. A scream followed.

  The Knight who'd been about to chop Norton stumbled but didn't fall. Years of training kicked in—even with a stake through his eye, he maintained combat readiness.

  He lunged forward, stomping right through one of Norton's crispy feet, yanking himself off the wooden stake in the process.

  "Traitor! Heretic!"

  The blinding pain and lost eye didn't faze him. One scream, then he clamped down. He whirled on his attacker, greatsword rising.

  Blood poured from his empty socket, painting the inside of his helmet red, dripping out onto his armor.

  The Knight behind him—the one who'd just shoved a stake through his comrade's face—had undergone the exact same training. Whatever thoughts had stirred in him since Norton's punch, he still moved with machinelike precision.

  His stake hadn't killed. Fine. He raised his own sword and swung.

  CLANG!

  Two greatswords collided, metal screaming. Normally they'd be evenly matched, but the surprise attack should have given him an advantage. It didn't. The wounded Knight hit harder.

  One eye gone, agony flooding his skull, but seeing a heretic before him? His faith and fury peaked.

  "Heretic! Heretic! HERETIC!"

  He roared, swinging wildly. No defense. Just blow after blow raining down on his former brother.

  The Holy Church might be garbage at raising stable humans, but their steel armor? Top notch.

  The two Knights hacked at each other, swords denting plate armor but not quite piercing. They could batter each other into internal bleeding, but limbs stayed attached.

  The faithful Knight, fueled by rage, was slowly losing to blood loss and blurred vision. His strength ebbed.

  Finally, his blade—already chipped and curled from the abuse—caught his opponent square in the helmet.

  CRACK.

  The Knight's dazed brain couldn't handle that impact. His body jerked straight for one frozen moment, then toppled backward.

  THUD.

  A couple hundred pounds of armored knight hit the ground, snapping what was left of Norton's left shin. Then—silence.

  The heretic Knight stood swaying, still in his dented armor. His arm hung limp. Probably broken from the force of those blows. But he made no sound. Just stood there, breathing.

  He turned to look behind him.

  The poor who'd been trailing them? Gone. Scattered to the winds.

  Heretics were worse than infidels. Just like Norton's rebellion meant purging his entire cohort, anyone who witnessed a heretic and didn't run would be "cleansed" too.

  Faith hadn't given these people full bellies or warm clothes. But it had taught them what was forbidden.

  So the moment they saw what was happening, not a single one lingered, no matter how hungry they were for burnt human flesh. They fled without a word.

  Report it to the Church? Please. You walk in and say "hey I saw a heretic" and next thing you know, your mind's "contaminated" and your head's rolling.

  Why didn't you fight the heretic?

  But even with everyone running, once word reached the Church, the whole city's poor would face a purge from hell itself. A thorough cleansing.

  All to drive home one point:

  The Church shall not be defied.

  Huff.

  The heretic Knight didn't spare a glance at the body of the man he'd just killed. No need to confirm. He took one steadying breath, gripped his greatsword in his remaining good hand, and walked—quickly—deeper into the mass grave.

  He was going to run.