Faith

Amidst Dulin's roaring outburst of frustration, Tamik did not retreat, nor did he show anger. He simply stood straight, listened until the end, and gave Dulin his answer.

"Captain, I know that compared to you, and compared to many in the Knights Order, I am still weak and have much to learn. I truly do not understand many things, but the one thing I do know is this."

"As a knight, I must strictly follow the teachings of the Saintess. I must take Lady Stia as my role model. I must protect those weaker than me, I must stop the spread and ravages of the Corrupt Calamity, and I must hold fast to my faith!"

"This is what I know!"

The young knight puffed out his chest. Beneath his knight's uniform, the silver-gray holy cross seemed to shimmer faintly in the light, echoing his resolve.

What a pity.

"Heh, heh, heh. The Saintess? Teachings? I'm warning you, don't you dare mention the word 'Saintess' in front of me! There is no Saintess left in this world! Even if she truly still existed, she would have long since fallen, long since mingled with the dark and the ugly!"

"In my heart, the Saintess of the Holy Kingdom from five hundred years ago is dead. On this land today, faith no longer exists. The teachings and maxims you quote from Stia are a joke, understand? A joke!"

Dulin let out a hoarse, desperate shout, his face flushing red with the intensity of it. He had always held onto hope, however faint, fantasizing that the Black Cave was merely a remote place where that priest had found a loophole, preventing Lady Saintess's holy light from reaching here. He believed that one day, one day the wicked would face judgment and receive the punishment they deserved!

Yet, what was the result?

The result was that the priest had slapped him hard in the face today. The result was that even the direct subordinate of the Saintess, the "Light Bearer" to Lady Stia herself, had chosen to stand on the priest's side, abandoning faith just for the power of a "Relic."

At that moment, Dulin truly felt something break inside him.

If even the highest echelons of The Church had become like this.

Then what were they, these lowly figures at the bottom, still holding onto?

"Dulin, I need you to apologize to Lady Stia for what you just said!" This was the first time Tamik had addressed Dulin by his name alone, without adding the title of Captain.

On the young knight's face, a rare flash of anger appeared. Regarding Dulin, regarding his mentor, Tamik could tolerate anything, but he could not tolerate Dulin blaspheming the Saintess and insulting his faith.

"Ha, what? Angry? Your wings have hardened, and you want to fight me? Fine, come on! Let me see if your Lady Saintess can grant you the power to beat me into the ground!"

Seeing the two of them becoming increasingly confrontational, their out-of-control emotions threatening to escalate the situation to an irreversible point—

Creak.

The door to the hospital room opened a crack. A blonde woman in a hospital gown walked out weakly. She looked at the two knights, whose eyes were red with agitation, and shook her head at the older one.

"Dulin. Don't be like this."

If there was anything that could make this knight captain drop everything in an instant, it would only be his wife.

"Su, Susan! Why did you come out? Damn it! It's all my fault, all my fault for being too loud, I must have woken you up! Quick, go back! The doctor said you can't get out of bed yet!"

Susan did not listen to the anxious Dulin. The blonde woman, looking weak but still forcing herself to stay alert, turned to look at the other person present.

"Tamik, I—I'm sorry. No matter what your mentor said, I believe it was just words spoken in anger. I... I apologize to you on Dulin's behalf, and I apologize to Lady Stia for what he just said. Cough, cough, cough."

Susan ended with a fit of coughing. It was clear that her body was in a truly poor state; just supporting herself to reach the door and stop their argument had exhausted all her strength.

"No, no, no, no, Sister Susan, it's my fault. It's not the mentor's fault, it's me... I was too emotional, I knew too little, and I failed to understand Captain Dulin's words."

"I'm fine now, please, listen to Captain Dulin and go back to bed!"

Susan's status in Tamik's heart was clearly even higher than Dulin's. Under the blonde woman's gentle words, the young knight immediately stopped arguing. However, at the very end:

"Men—Captain Dulin, I won't disturb you any further, but I still want to tell you that I will not give up on the investigation into that C-rank Corrupt Calamity item from Kalleva and Mr. Liao Ji! If the Knights Order does not allow me to do so, then..."

"I will choose to leave the Knights Order! Even if I have to strip off this uniform, so what!?"

"Perhaps you are right. Lady Saintess is indeed gone, and Lady Stia can no longer protect us as she once did, but so what? What I believe in, what I hold fast to, and what I know is not the Saintess or Lady Stia herself, but her will—the determination she had five hundred years ago to drive away the Corrupt Calamity and carve out a pure land for us in the Holy Kingdom!"

"The flesh may perish, but the spirit of the Lady Saintess will never disappear. Even if everyone in The Church has forgotten, at least... in me, in me, Tamik, I still hold fast! Then the Saintess has not left, and Lady Stia still lives in my heart!"

"That is all! 287th Batch Probationary Knight Tamik, taking my leave!"

After delivering these words, the young knight gave Dulin a standard knight's salute, and without giving Dulin a chance to speak again, he turned and walked straight out of the hospital without looking back.

Dulin helped Susan back to her bed with a pained heart. After tucking her in, his hand was held by the woman.

"Dul, don't you think... he is very much like you?"

"What!? Susan, has your brain been fried by the fever? Me, like that brat? What a joke!" Dulin affectionately stroked the woman's blonde hair, feigning an exaggerated expression to try and make her laugh.

And Dulin did indeed succeed.

Pfft!

"Giggle... look, and you say you aren't alike. That stubbornness and sharp tongue of yours are practically carved from the same mold. Giggle... cough! Cough!"

"Susan, stop talking. You need rest right now. Right! Quick, take this medicine first!"

Seeing his wife start coughing again after only a few words, Dulin's heart felt like it was being twisted. He took out the medicine the priest had given him and carefully fed it to Susan with some water.

"Wife, don't worry! This is a special, highly effective medicine I went out of my way to find for you. As long as we keep taking it, your illness will definitely get better! How is it? Do you feel a lot better already?"

Looking at her husband, who was full of concern for her, Susan nodded at first. But soon, she shook her head.

She stared at the ceiling of the hospital room and suddenly murmured, "Dul, do you know? When I was in surgery today, I wasn't actually fully unconscious. I could feel that no matter how much the doctors tried to help me, my life force was draining away rapidly, like a... punctured balloon. At that moment, I truly felt that I was going to die. That I would never see you again... cough, cough."

"Wife, what kind of defeatist talk is that! Aren't you still here, perfectly fine! Trust the doctors of Chenhui! And stop talking, just close your eyes and rest!" Dulin scolded, a bit angry.

But the blonde woman stubbornly shook her head, forcing herself to continue despite her discomfort:

"Let me finish, Dul... cough, cough... just when I felt... like I really couldn't hold on anymore, do you know what I... what I saw? It was the Saintess, it was Lady Stia..."

"Susan, that's a hallucination, you should..."

"It's not a hallucination, because... cough, cough... actually, this isn't the first time. Every time my illness flares up, I can see the Saintess. It is she who wraps me in holy light, allowing me to be brought back from the brink of death time and time again, rescued from the edge... cough."

"Susan."

"Du, do you still remember how we met and fell in love? We met beneath the statue of the Saintess at The Church. I still remember that I was researching a thesis at the time. The title of the thesis was 'The Love History of Stia and the Great Emperor.' Cough, cough... thinking back on it now, youth was truly wonderful. Even something so embarrassing and childish, I could still throw my whole heart and soul into it."

"We agreed to meet every day at dusk to discuss my thesis. I still clearly remember how red your face was back then, arguing with me, insisting that your Saintess was pure and flawless, and that she would never fall in love. You even said Stia would never like that Great Emperor. Cough... cough, cough, cough."

No matter how much Susan coughed or how much she was tormented by her illness, she could not hide the beauty of the memories reflecting on her face.

"My true heart-fluttering moment for you was actually our first date. Du, I don't know if you remember me, dressed up so carefully and full of anticipation, waiting for you at our meeting spot for over two hours. In the end, the person who showed up was a dazed knight with bandages on his hands, covered in dirt, and with bloodstains on his clothes."

"You apologized to me endlessly, saying that because you suddenly received a report that a child had been taken by human traffickers, you only remembered our date after you led your squad to rescue the child from the criminals. Giggle, giggle, giggle. Every time I think of that scene, I want to laugh... cough, cough, cough."

"Yeah, I was thinking to myself back then, 'It's over, I've completely blown it.' I never expected that you, you actually..." Dulin was also drawn into the memories by Susan's words, shaking his head and sighing.

"Yes, I kissed you, Du. Because you don't know how dazzling you were in my eyes at that moment, how handsome you were. That is the Du I love—one who would argue endlessly with me to defend the Saintess, one who would cast our first date to the back of his mind without hesitation to protect the people."

"I'm saying all this because I want to tell you, Du, that I've read many books and found that before she met the Great Emperor, the Saintess was very fragile and incomplete. It was that Great Emperor who filled in the blanks for Stia. And now, five hundred years later, the disappearance of the Great Emperor, I believe, must have been a heavy blow to the Saintess. It's just like... if I were to disappear one day without saying goodbye, what would you do, Du?"

"I can feel that the power of the Saintess is fading day by day. Stia is struggling to hold on. At a time like this, we should not be blaming the Saintess for being unable to protect us or clear away the evil. We should be helping the Saintess. It is our turn to save Stia, just like that Great Emperor did back then. Cough."

"Stop talking, Susan. I... I..."

In truth, did Dulin not understand these things? He understood, but he was running away.

And the reason he was running away was...

Susan's hand caressed the knight captain's face, sliding across his cheek, sliding across his beard.

"Du, if one day you are forced to choose between your faith and me, I hope you choose the former."

"Because that is the Du I like, that is the Du I truly love."

After saying this, Susan's eyelids began to droop. Speaking so much in one breath had completely exhausted her energy, and with the medication taking effect, the woman's hand fell powerlessly from Dulin's face.

Susan tilted her head and fell into a deep sleep on the hospital bed.

All that remained in the silent intensive care unit was the knight captain, his fists clenched, his face filled with struggle and confusion.