A Star Admiral's Leap of Faith: Man! What Can I?

The Lightforged Fleet's commander, the Army of the Light's star admiral S'fraelx, had locked herself in solitary confinement for five full days.

The admiral's adjutant publicly claimed that Lady S'fraelx had received "enlightenment from the Holy Light" and needed somewhere quiet to reflect and contemplate, so the Lightforged all offered blessings for their commander.

Well, the Army of the Light's warriors rarely doubted one another.

It was not blind faith, but a spiritual symbiosis born from the "faith system" built around the Naaru as nodes.

Brothers-in-arms could entrust their backs to one another on the battlefield, and in daily life they were as close as family. They firmly believed that, under the Holy Light's guidance, they were striving toward one shared and great goal.

They believed they had abandoned the selfishness and cowardice of human nature, and naturally believed every brother-in-arms in the Army of the Light was trustworthy.

This unconditional trust founded on shared faith could certainly grant the Warriors of Light formidable combat strength in war, but it also produced some unnecessary "side effects."

Precisely because of that unconditional trust, some unsavory people could easily muddy the waters and fish for profit.

Yura's boyfriend, Malas, was one such exception. He was a member of the Lightforged Fleet, but a rare ancient Eredar who had never undergone Lightforging. Though assigned to the fleet's logistics department, he always took advantage of wartime to conduct some "Black Market dealings."

By all rights, that should have been easy to expose, yet Malas had relied on the mutual trust between brothers of the Holy Light to make his Black Market business flourish.

Of course, the Naaru saw everything Malas did. They tolerated it because someone like Malas, with his connections to the Consortium, could provide the Army of the Light with many intelligence