My sense had been right.
After all, only that esteemed person could wield her power.
The girl walked straight toward the stone coffin.
Her crystal-fine low-cut holy boots clicked against the floor of the secret chamber. The silk ribbons tied around her pale ankles drifted gently as she moved.
At last, the girl stopped directly in front of the coffin.
She took off her gloves. Her smooth, jade-like hands formed a stark contrast with the rough, battered coffin, its surface covered in the charred ashes left by a great fire.
But the girl seemed not to notice. She paid no mind to the dust, simply laying both hands on the coffin and stroking it gently, head bowed.
Behind her, the three nuns suppressed the urge to remind the Saintess.
As far as they were concerned, the Saintess was sacred and immaculate. How could she just touch something so filthy? And she had even taken off her gloves!
Yet—
If this sight alone had made Maria and the others uncomfortable, the next one was enough to make all three nuns cry out in alarm.
The girl seemed to feel that stroking the coffin wasn't enough.
Not nearly enough.
Her figure flashed—and in the next instant, she had climbed inside and stretched her entire body out in the stone coffin.
"Saintess!"
Maria, the archbishop, could no longer stand by.
The thought of their most sacred and noble Saintess pressing her whole body against such a filthy, broken coffin made Maria feel as though ants were crawling all over her.
The archbishop hurried forward, trying to stop the Saintess.
That was what it meant to become someone's faith. You had to maintain a good image in public.
And for centuries, the girl had done just that.
She had given refugees hope for a life.
She had shown the lost the way.
She had brought people joy.
She had become their faith.
But today—
This time—
The girl lying in the coffin no longer radiated a sacred glow. Instead, she seemed to merge with the darkness inside it.
Her clear, sapphire-blue eyes shifted at the instant Maria moved.
In that moment—
They turned scarlet.
Humm!
Outside the coffin, Archbishop Maria froze mid-step. Pain twisted her face. She opened her mouth as if to cry for help, but no sound came out, as though an invisible hand had clamped tightly around her throat.
The two nuns behind her noticed what had happened and hurried to help, but the crosses on their chests began to shine. This time, the holy light was no longer on their side. Instead, it pinned them in place, leaving them unable to move.
The distractions were gone.
At last—
The girl in the coffin could indulge herself to her heart's content.
She twisted her graceful body as if she weren't lying in a cold, rigid coffin, but on an unbelievably soft and comfortable bed.
The girl—
No.
Stia writhed inside the coffin and drew a deep breath over it.
A rosy flush appeared on her snow-white skin. Her pure, saintly face took on an expression of rapture and abandon.
That's right.
This scent... this scent!
The girl gasped.
Stia drew several more deep, forceful breaths.
Beneath her holy robes, her ample bosom rose and fell with every heaving breath.
That familiar scent, that familiar feeling, that familiar smell.
There was no mistake.
This was—
Lord Ash!
Her Lord Ash!
Stia's body trembled uncontrollably as she lay in the coffin. Her icy-blue eyes were clouded with delirium. She reached out and ran one hand along every inch of the coffin's inner walls, as if stroking the person who had once lain inside it.
"Five hundred years..."
"Five hundred years, Lord Ash. You... you've finally..."
"I knew you were still here. I knew you'd come back. Lord Ash... Lord Ash..."
The girl inside the coffin kept muttering, her words growing faster and faster.
Outside, the three nuns remained immobilized, but their senses were intact. Hearing the girl's murmurs from within the coffin, they looked alarmed. A powerful sense of estrangement crept over them. Was this really their Saintess?
Fortunately, the coffin wasn't transparent. If Maria had seen the girl's series of contortions inside it, her faith would have shattered completely. She would have thought the world had gone mad.
But—
Even the girl's voice was growing more and more unsettling.
"Why? Why did you disappear so suddenly? Did Stia do something wrong? Did Stia make you angry?"
"Why... why did you abandon us? Why did you make Stia endure five hundred years of torment? Why? Why?!"
In the ears of the three nuns, in the quiet of the secret chamber, the girl's voice from inside the coffin grew more and more frantic and shrill.
At last, it transformed into a crazed laugh so alien to Archbishop Maria that it filled her with fear and sent a chill deep into her heart.
"Hehehehehe..."
"I understand. Lord Ash, you must have disappeared to evade those four, right?"
"You made them think you were gone, so you could be with me—so you could be with Stia forever. Then no one would ever come between us..."
The girl's voice was still as clear and ethereal as ever.
She sounded thrilled and delighted, like a little girl about to open a display cabinet and bring home the toy she had long awaited and loved most.
Stia smiled as she lay in the coffin. It was a smile of pure happiness.
Her eyes brimmed with anticipation for the beautiful future ahead.
In her eyes—
A mad, blood-red hue filled them.
"Lord Ash, don't worry. This time, Stia won't leave you again. And I won't let you leave, either. I'll keep you by my side forever, so you'll belong to Stia alone."
"This time, no one will take you away from me again. Not even... you yourself, Lord Ash."
"Let's be together forever and ever. Hehehehehe..."
The girl's sea-blue hair turned dark red.
The holy boots on her feet became blood-red high heels studded with spikes. The religious hood on her head transformed into a crown of thorns. Her pure white ceremonial dress was swiftly dyed the darkest black.
A powerful wave of Corrupt Calamity burst from the coffin, warping the entire chamber. Under the impact, the two weaker nuns—both Corrupted—fainted on the spot. Maria, the archbishop, struggled to hold on, but soon blood seeped from her facial features and she crumpled to the floor.
Beautiful moments never lasted long.
The girl's true body was still thousands of miles away, in the Confession Room of the Holy Kingdom's great cathedral. The Stia here was merely a temporary projection, a shadow cast through a believer as a medium.
This projection was beginning to break apart.
It could no longer withstand her power.
The girl reluctantly rose from the coffin.
She didn't spare a glance at the three believers lying on the chamber floor.
She looked toward the chamber's exit.
That was the direction Liao Ji and Irin had gone.
The girl wanted to hurry after them, but she didn't want Lord Ash to see her in such a wretched state. She had to appear before him in her most perfect form.
So... not yet.
She still had to make some preparations.
But it wouldn't take long.
Very soon, they would meet again.
Please wait a little longer, Lord Ash.
Stia suppressed her longing and urgency.
The girl reached behind her neck.
Through the dark-red Corrupt Calamity spreading around her, a mark could be seen on the back of Stia's neck. It had completely faded, worn and broken by the passage of time.
It seemed to be the girl's most precious possession.
And this time—
She wouldn't let "them" share this precious thing with her.
After all—
"Lord Ash's Contract can belong to Stia alone—and only Stia!"
With a smile on her lips,
her blood-red heels clicked along in a jaunty rhythm.
Through Archbishop Maria's blurred vision, she saw the "Saintess" finally walking toward her. But the "Saintess" didn't help her up. She placed a hand on her head instead.
"You've worked hard all these years, Maria."
"So get some good sleep."
"...Good night."
Before you continue