CHAPTER 189: | HOLY WAR | 4

  In the western battlefront, where the forces of the Holy See could be seen gathered in vast arrays, such clerics, nicknamed the bringers of life, stood ready, for their spells could regenerate even severed limbs instantaneously, or worse, they could reanimate their fallen brothers and sisters, resurrecting them so that they might fight in another battle, again and then again.

  Their nicknames as bringers of life were not earned lightly, since their abilities to resurrect the fallen were far from unfounded.

  For as long as they could muster the last bits of divine energies bestowed upon them by their god, these clerics could theoretically raise their dead allies again and then again, until insanity claimed them, broken and shattered, for they were the bringers of life, the clerics of the immortal legion serving under the pope.

  These clerics formed a perverted cadre of divine necromancers, capable of theoretically resurrecting their comrades infinitely, so long as they retained access to those sacred divine energies.

  Yet, compared to the priests or priestesses, who possessed the capabilities to cast divine spells that could unleash a divine calamity, or even to the extent that they could create sacrificial circles to summon mighty figures from the past, the clerics seemed almost modest.

  Not in modest numbers, but theoretically, they could summon all of the Holy See's previous popes, or perhaps even previous emperors of the empire, or indeed all the historical powerhouses of their world.

  So long as these powerhouses answered their calls, the priests and priestesses could practically summon a legion of such figures in the hundreds...

  No, in an infinite number, for as long as the clerics continued reviving the priests and priestesses again and then again, in an infinite cycle, until their will, until their soul, until their sanity were left utterly broken.

  Just for as long as they could be revived, their broken capabilities would persist in summoning these mighty figures from past eras, figures theoretically stronger than the emperor of this current era...

  Nope, perhaps not, since the emperor of this era was essentially a demigod, possessing the potential to ascend as a new god in their world, rivaling the old god Izrael himself.

  Perhaps not, since none of these foolish theory crafters truly knew the prowess of Izrael, or even I, the narrator, for I had yet to witness it. But let's be patient and wait for his battle against the 'Multiversal Villain' himself, got it?

  Now, where were we? Yes, we were at the part where I am bragging about the priests' and priestesses' capabilities to perform a mass summoning that could practically be infinite, so long as they could withstand the act of being resurrected again and again by the clerics.

  But who's sane enough to undergo even three revivals? Even an emperor wouldn't endure a hundred resurrections when these entities possessed mental capacities akin to that of a god?

  Well, perhaps these priests and priestesses could be revived five times on average before succumbing to the backlash of the sacrificial circles, which equated to death and resurrection by the clerics, which equated to another backlash even stronger than the sacrificial circles themselves.

  Perhaps it was only a matter of time until they were left broken. But for as long as the head of the Holy See, Pope Astros, commanded them, all of these clerics and priests or priestesses wouldn't even hesitate to abandon their humanity, committing these acts of insanity without a second thought.

  "ANASTASIA!!!"

  The cries of the pope, who was seated at the highest pedestal in the Holy See, echoed with all his might, in spite of the fact that his daughter had repeated the same path as the woman he had loved with all his heart yet hated with every fiber of his existence.

  His cries were a plea... a plea for his obedient daughter not to delve too deeply into this path of sin, just as her mother had plunged into it... a path of sins, a path where even his authority as the highest in the Holy See hierarchy did not grant him the mercy to spare his wife, branding her as a heretic, chaining her hands to imprison her so that she might live to watch their daughter grow.

  Astros stared at his daughter's figure standing before him, wielding a sword with clear intent to kill him. It greatly pained him to see her like this. If desperation had an incarnation, then perhaps the face Astros made right now was that very incarnation of desperation, as he reached his hands toward the once little girl who used to sing right next to him while he worked in his office.

  "Anastasia!!! You're not beyond saving, so PLEASE!!! AT LEAST SAVE YOURSELF, PLEASE!!! DON'T DIE A POINTLESS DEATH LIKE HER!!!"

  The desperate cries of Astros could be heard resounding, as even those who followed him knew of the tragedy their great leader had endured, and all of them wanted nothing more than to help this man, their savior, to at least rescue his daughter from the clutches of the devil.

  "Father, you are wrong. I am already beyond saving. Even if I returned... the choices that I made are already irreversible."

  Her voice was extremely cold for her father to hear. Astros, who had already become faint-hearted at the death of his beloved, nearly dropped to his knees when he heard his daughter's voice.

  But before he could refute her words, Anastasia looked at him dead in the eye, and without even waiting for her father to refute her words, she dashed through the blood-soaked sands with the intent to kill her one and only relative left in this forsaken world, as she grabbed the hilt of her sword and drew it.

  The subordinates of the pope could only watch in hopelessness as the daughter of their beloved pope rushed at him while he was disoriented by her choices, with the intent to kill him in one painless strike.

  The situation was too painful to bear for the followers of the pope, more so for Astros himself, who was already on all fours as he stared at the red-soaked ground with despair.

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  The head priest, witnessing the deteriorating situation, took a step forward, as did the other priests. With a wave of his hand, all of the priests faithfully cast a divine barrier, as the head priest said coldly.

  "Let there be light."

  To the dashing Anastasia, whose single step brought her sword inches away from the divine barrier, she clenched her sword with all her might as she unleashed a single strike that should rend these barriers of their divine energies.

  But to her surprise, the attack she unleashed at the barrier didn't even leave a dent nor a scratch in the divine barriers cast by the combined strength of sixteen priests.

  Her resolve to end this accursed fate of her family hardened her resolve the more she thought of the nights where her father had gone crazy from the delusions of her wife's death due to his guilt of not being able to stop it, a nightmare that she herself wanted to resolve by granting her father an eternal rest, which was death in itself.

  Today was the day her nightmares would end, so she changed her grip on her sword, then for the second time struck the divine barrier with all her might, again and then again, until her hands bled, until her palms were shredded, and until her sword broke.

  Then she brought another one from her storage ring, then proceeded to ram her blades barbarically as the head priest, along with the other priests and clerics inside the barrier, trembled at the beastly sight of their pope's daughter, whom they had played with when she was young, whom they had taken care of when she visited her father from time to time.

  Tears welled in their eyes as all of them couldn't believe this scenery of their young lady battering the divine shield that they had cast, which was said to be the strongest shield in the empire, even when her hands bled, even when her palms were shredded until only her bones remained.

  These priests and clerics couldn't help but chuckle in remorse, since how could they not? When the ending of these two people that they had respected was such a profound tragedy. But none of them spoke, nor did any of them move, as they watched their young lady's futile attempts in a daze, in tears.

  Noticing how futile her attacks had been, she sighed, then let go of her sword, storing it in her storage ring as she backed out from the priests' kill range.

  She repositioned herself in a calculated move, and without wasting a single second, Anastasia controlled the natural lifeforce in the atmosphere as she conjured tens of thousands of blood needles from the empty air, then rained them down at the divine shield with all her might in barrages.

  The head priest, still hesitating in their decisions inside the barrier, stood solemnly as they were unable to decide whether they should attack their pope's daughter or not. But then all of them snapped to reality as Pope Astros' ice-cold voice reverberated through their spines.

  "Cease your thoughts, Garfield... I am here to persuade my daughter to atone for her sins, not to kill her, so cease your barrier."

  He was the pope of the Holy See, the holiest of men in the empire, while also the one who held more authority than the emperor himself. Yet ironically, he couldn't save himself from this pit of despair called authority, called holiness, for his duties as the pope wouldn't allow him to spare the heretics, even when he held the most power in the Holy See. For it wasn't just for him to side with someone merely because they were relatives.

  "Where had I gone wrong? Is it an inevitable fate where our family would end up in such a situation? Oh, how I wish all of this was a nightmare, Oira... I truly wish it was, for how could I have the heart to kill my one and only child? Such fate is cruel, too cruel for a father like me..."

  His voice was filled with sorrow as he stared at the sky with despair written on his face.

  Astros smiled emotionlessly as he walked out of the barrier that the head priest stubbornly maintained despite his commands, as he let the blood needles pierce through his skin, which then regenerated in the next instance, as his divine energies along with his skills passively healed him.

  "Father, you may stop now. You may rest in an eternal sleep... I don't blame you for mother's death, for it is inevitable, as she foolishly joined a heretical order like I have done... but now that I have the strength to put you to rest, then please rest."

  Her voice was soft as Anastasia poured more effort into her creations of the blood needles. She stood next to her father, her hands on his cheeks as she caressed his tired yet battered self, which Astros gladly received.

  "Hmm... indeed, you have obtained the strength to finally put me into eternal rest, but... daughter? Are you sure on this path? Are you going to tread a difficult and more painful path than what you've already treaded before?"

  His voice was soft to the point it was angelic as he stared at his daughter for the last time, only to see that the small girl who used to sing next to him had already grown into such a fine young lady. Astros smiled, then continued as he stared at his men.

  "Then there's no need to talk if you've already decided it."

  "You lot, hurry and convert yourselves into a worthy inheritance for the heiress of our clan... Ohar."

  The head priest along with the others nodded in acknowledgment as all of them killed themselves in a single thought, as swords made of divinity decapitated their heads.

  Their bodies turned into motes of light that then gathered into Astros' hand... no, to Astros Lie Ohar, the leader of the barbarians, the common enemies of all mankind in this world that the Holy See had created with Astros Lie Ohar as its central figure.

  "Hmm, I see..."

  Maybe this was the final time that Astros could chuckle in his life, for he couldn't help himself but do so, since the most arrogant man, the flamboyant mage Lupin, the bastard who dared to covet his daughter so lecherously, had already died in the Evernight Castle in his attempt to infiltrate and kill the mastermind of this debacle, so pitifully.

  He truly couldn't help himself but chuckle for another time as he heard that one of the greatest rankers in the empire had died in such a dog's death, through their link which connected all of the empire's most powerful figures' consciousnesses to report their situations or ask for backup and such.

  Then also, when one of those connected to the link died, a video of their final moments would be sent to the others to inform them of his death, like what Astros did right at this moment, as he ripped his heart out then squeezed it until it exploded.

  His body turned into a mote of light that then combined with the others' motes of light, which were the head priest and others' inheritance, into a single orb that then hovered into Anastasia's hands.

  This was the will of a father; it was their combined inheritance, for their god had already informed all of them that they were merely projections of the past, used to test the adventurers who delved into these so-called miniature worlds, which were dungeons.

  For Astros did not find this shocking, since he remembered their ends in the old world, and he hated that to the point that he wished his daughter wasn't even here.

  He hoped that the Evernight Cult would have the capacity to kill their emperor and their god Izrael, who also wanted to die, and finally, he hoped they would have the capabilities to kill the Dragon God, a god beyond gods, that even their god could only lower his head to.

  He wished those things, Astros wished that the adventurers this time would have the power to do those feats, so that at least his daughter could leave these godforsaken lands and venture out to the real world.

  Thought it was regretful, that he didn't even got the chance to say his final words to his daughter, as he left his child baffled, confused, angered, then in tears, which Astros's fading remnant soul merely found amusing, that his mischievous little revenge at his rebellious daughter had succeeded.

  "Child, you should not have such treacherous thoughts as to rebel against your paren...."