A cultist came over and told Ansu that Elder Samantha wanted to see him.
Ansu and Cecilia exchanged glances. Cecilia looked toward her teacher, her brows furrowing slightly.
"I'll go with you."
Ansu nodded, and went with Cecilia to stand before Samantha.
"Are you the operative Cecilia chose?" Samantha looked Ansu up and down, then asked coolly, "You've been hiding at the school all this time. How much have you learned about this Chosen One?"
Ansu lowered his head. "I'm sorry, Elder Samantha. I couldn't find the Chosen One."
The Chosen One was like a thorn buried in Samantha's heart. Her expression turned cold, and her tone grew confrontational. "The Chosen One is hiding somewhere on campus. I gave you so much time, and you still haven't found out anything?"
"Teacher, this isn't his fault!" Cecilia knew her teacher well and realized she was taking her frustration out on Ansu. "The Chosen One is very good at hiding. Even I couldn't..."
"Enough!" Samantha shot Cecilia a cold glance. "Cecilia, I'm very disappointed in you. I entrusted you with this most important mission because I trusted you, but not only did you fail to carry it out, you also led the Order into such danger!"
Ansu raised his head, looking at the acting leader of Echo of Truth with considerable speechlessness.
Wasn't this all because she'd been careless and deceived by the traitor in the Order, which had led to the Church of Holy Light baiting them into a trap? And now she was trying to shift the blame?
Ansu glanced at Cecilia, who had fallen silent, and spoke up on her behalf. "Elder Samantha, I believe the whole matter of the Chosen One has been a conspiracy from the very beginning."
"That's why Lady Cecilia and I didn't go looking everywhere for this so-called Chosen One. The news that the Chosen One was at the school was completely false!"
"Oh?" Samantha's brows knitted together. "Go on."
Ansu immediately explained, "Even within the Church, the Saintess who heard the so-called divine revelation only believed that the Chosen One had appeared in Benalu City. Nobody thought the Chosen One would appear at the Royal Academy! It was a false lead!"
"Th-that's impossible!" Samantha seemed to have great faith in her source of information. She immediately asked, "How can you be sure?"
"Ansu is friends with the Church's Saintess, so he can get some information from inside," Cecilia said. "Teacher, I can vouch for Ansu. He's telling the truth!"
"That can't be..." Samantha furrowed her brow in thought, still seemingly unable to accept the answer.
"Elder Samantha, why is that impossible?" Ansu was even more baffled than she was. Why was this old woman so stubborn?
"Whoever told you the Chosen One was on campus, whoever made you rush over here today—that person is the traitor in the Order! I don't understand why you trust that traitor so much, but refuse to believe Lady Cecilia."
"That's right, Teacher!" Cecilia swept her gaze over the few trusted followers behind her and said coldly, "Who was it that informed you?"
"It wasn't them..." Samantha waved a hand. "Besides, the revelation that the Chosen One had appeared at the Royal Academy came from a divination spell. I performed the ritual myself."
Ansu's heart suddenly sped up. That divination spell really does have something to it. It actually managed to detect me...
If Samantha really had performed the divination ritual alone, then there shouldn't have been any way to fake it. Surely Samantha herself wasn't the traitor...
But Ansu still held firm. "Then who informed you?"
The person who'd summoned Samantha here at short notice must have been sent by the traitor. It reminded Ansu of the last time Elder Hall had tried to recruit him.
"It was... Simon." Samantha's expression was a little strange.
"Elder Simon?" Cecilia gave a cold laugh. "I never thought he'd betray you, too, Teacher."
Ansu didn't know why the two of them were reacting this way. Was this Elder Simon unusually close to Samantha?
But before he could ask, a cultist hurried over.
"Elder Samantha, reinforcements from the Church's Inquisition have arrived at the Royal Academy. And..."
He looked visibly nervous. "The holy relic kept in the Cathedral in the royal capital has also been brought here by those archbishops!"
The few trusted followers behind Samantha all looked just as tense.
Samantha furrowed her brow and immediately ordered, "Prepare the blood sacrifice ritual! Only power of equal strength can withstand Divine Descent!"
"Yes!" The cultists nodded.
Then they began setting up an enormous, intricate black magic circle in the center of the auditorium.
Of everyone there, Cecilia was the least perturbed. She glanced at Ansu's strange expression and explained, "Holy relics are sacred artifacts left behind by the gods in the mortal realm. They retain a trace of Divinity, and through certain means, the Church can temporarily borrow the power of a mighty god. That's what Divine Descent is."
Ansu already knew about Divine Descent. His reaction just now had been one of sudden realization. So this is how the 'cult's sacrificial ritual' in the story comes about.
Echo of Truth's blood sacrifice ritual was a large-scale sacrificial black magic spell. Its purpose was to borrow the power of the fallen deity—in other words, the evil god Ersos.
The orthodox Church summoned a god, and the cult did the same. Next came a clash of gods, in a manner of speaking...
While the cultists hurried to prepare the sacrificial ritual, Bishop Terry led the Inquisition in gradually surrounding the area around the auditorium.
"Quick! Surround that auditorium! Not a single one of those evil-god-worshipping cultists can be allowed to escape!"
Bishop Terry gazed at the auditorium with a cold smile, then gave instructions to all the Church's powerful fighters beside him. "According to our intelligence, Samantha, the leader of Echo of Truth, is here as well. The goal of this operation is to decapitate the cult!"
The clergy looked mostly grave and solemn. Everyone present knew the name Samantha, of course.
That three-hundred-year-old witch had lived through the reigns of five popes of the Church of Holy Light. The cult she led, Echo of Truth, had caused the Church countless troubles and was its number-one enemy.
"Once Samantha is dead, Echo of Truth will never be able to cause trouble again!" Bishop Terry said with a confident smile.
He was in complete command of the operation. He would be the Church's foremost hero for wiping out its greatest cult!
And with such a feat to his name, he would rise above the other two candidates for pope!
He was already letting his imagination run wild...
Wondering how he would wear that papal crown, the symbol of boundless glory, in the future...
Before you continue