"Bishop Marian..."
Marian, seated in the chair at the center of the hall, shuddered. Looking at Lin Fan and Inquisitor Omar's grim faces, all he showed was pain.
"You know, don't you? Even if the people still believe in The Emperor, they no longer wish to believe in priests and sisters like you."
"I... know..."
Marian spoke those words slowly. Every one of them felt like insects tearing at his heart.
No civilians were willing to trust priests like them anymore. They had gone from proclaimers of The Emperor's will to butchers who had destroyed the hive city. Even though Marian had not been deceived by demons, he still felt agonized by the Ecclesiarchy's failure.
"Then do you have any objections to your sentence?"
"I... have no objections at all."
"Good. Pack up and go serve your sentence."
The great doors closed, leaving Bishop Marian standing despondently outside.
No, he should be called Marian now. Everything he had possessed had been stripped away. Only a copy of the Holy Words accompanied him beneath his faded, repeatedly washed robe.
As he walked down the streets, people on both sides were clearing rubble and various white powders left behind. Marian knew those were the ashes of the burned dead.
From time to time, he saw people collapsed before great piles of ash, weeping bitterly. Marian tried to comfort one of them, only to be roughly shoved away.
"I don't need you! I'll pray to The Emperor myself!"
His mouth opened, but he did not know what to say. Marian could only continue onward. Along the way, nearly everyone avoided him as if he were plague-ridden.
Sometimes, he saw sisters clearing rubble. They were covered in sweat and mud, their trained physiques noticeably more robust than those of ordinary people.
Sister Superior Selina