Ch.23Report on the Fall of Innocence (10)

Two masses blocked Kain and Lily’s path. The one on the left had devoured a servant, while the right one had consumed a brother. They looked like human-sized meatballs with people stuffed inside them.

Kain swung his staff. It struck the right mass in the side. Then the staff came down on the left mass’s waist, thigh, and knee joint.

The left creature wobbled and fell with a thud. The right mass tripped over the left one and toppled. The two masses struggled on the ground, trying to devour each other.

“Cut them down!”

Kain shouted as he jumped aside. Lily drew her sword. One horizontal slash above the Inquisitor’s head, then one diagonal cut across both shoulders. With just three swings, she severed the tongue vines binding the Inquisitor.

Black shadows poured out of the severed tongues with a gurgling sound. Haspel bowed his head and clasped his hands together.

“Your servant earnestly begs for your help, send down the fire that burns away filth, so that I may not suffer shame and disgrace!”

Flames erupted at Haspel’s feet. They were blue flames. The fire spread like it was flowing over oil, yet it didn’t harm Haspel himself, Lily, or Kain.

But when the shadows touched the flames, they ignited like oiled paper. Soon nothing remained but ashes.

The tongue vines trembled with their own nature, dripping saliva, darting about as if trying to taste something, but each time, Haspel’s fire surged up to protect everyone.

“This can’t be…”

Haspel staggered. Kain quickly caught him. The Inquisitor pointed at the Knight of Chastity with trembling hands.

“Ah. I… I… I failed to see this.”

“What didn’t you see?”

“Agent Kain. I was deceived. This is a terrible spell. If it can even be called a spell. No ancient incantation, not even the human sacrifice spell that supposedly burned a thousand people to gain enlightenment, is this twisted and sinister. The Knight of Chastity, Archbishop William, is cursed.”

“What curse?”

The pillar of fire blazed fiercely. The red flames were now turning white. The heat from the stone walls, ceiling, and floor grew more intense. Yet not a single foundation stone or pane of glass broke. They merely cracked and heated up.

“‘Mockery.'”

The priest lamented.

“Mockery. Mockery. It turns even the most sacred things into the most base, the most noble things into the most vulgar. When the power of good grows stronger, the vileness of mockery grows with it… I missed this. When we performed the purification and blessing ritual, the power of mockery grew alongside it. Look!”

The priest was furious. The tongues flicked about.

“Look at this obscene scene. See how the devoured people expose their private parts freely in the air! It’s the most vile mockery of chastity. All those countless accusations, all those countless humiliations… every single one related to sex…”

“What should we do?”

Kain grabbed the priest’s shoulders and shook him.

“How do we solve this? There must be a way!”

“Leave!” the priest shouted.

“Leave! Don’t listen to the words of mockery. Get away from the place of mockery! Mockery must be met with cold disregard and contempt.

Then, ridicule and derision with nowhere to go will eventually turn upon itself, and it will sadly curse and mock itself until it withers away!

But the more you engage with it, the more power it will gain!”

Kain looked at the knights.

The main force under Commander Marco was still pushing back the monsters in a tight formation. No matter how much the monsters wailed, the main force didn’t swing their swords or shields even once. They simply pushed forward with their shoulders, ignoring the creatures as they passed.

That alone was enough—the monsters couldn’t stop the knights’ advance. But that was as far as they got. The knights couldn’t advance any further either.

Archbishop William was rubbing his hands together, cackling, and repeatedly thrusting his hips forward. He shook his waist, pushed out his belly, and kept throwing his head back. It was an incredibly vulgar, obscene motion.

“Stop it!”

Commander Marco shouted.

“You were a noble warrior. The pride of the Mercy Knights! Remember your true nature, remember your goodness! Knight of Chastity!”

The Archbishop made a motion as if removing his pants.

But what peeled away was his flesh. From inside emerged a grotesque, obscene, exaggerated human-sized mass of flesh. It bobbed like a snake’s head.

The Commander wailed in anguish. Father Haspel gritted his teeth. He seemed to be enduring pain and suffering. Such blasphemy, the corruption of something once noble, was difficult even for him, an Inquisitor, to bear.

“Father, Father! You mustn’t lose your mind!”

“How could something that was chaste… how could it… how…!”

Archbishop William laughed as he waved the monstrosity in the air. The masses of flesh, the ones that had devoured people, grew more aggressive.

The tongues turned bright red and dripped thicker, stickier saliva. Though the stone walls were now too hot to touch, the tongue vines showed no signs of cooling, like unquenched lust. They would not stop until their desires were satisfied.

The knights shouted. They could no longer ignore it. The masses began dragging at the knights. They jumped on their heads, grabbed their legs, and tried to remove their armor. Some burrowed between their legs, while others kept pushing them toward the vines on the wall.

The tongues—bright red tongues with fully erect taste buds standing like spearmen awaiting a cavalry charge—raised their tips

The tongues—turning from bright red to dark and murky—using their tips to satisfy their desires by craving, tasting, and pouring out lust

tried to strip away the knights’ armor.

Father Haspel’s eyes became clear.

“Everyone. Remember what I say.”

The priest tore the emblem from his chest. It was the emblem signifying the crusade formed to fight against the Demon King. The priest handed it to Kain, who accepted it.

“When you escape from here, go straight to Magdeburg without looking back. It’s the headquarters of the Inquisition. Find Inquisitor Heinrich there. Tell him the job isn’t finished.”

“What job?”

“The Demon King.”

Father Haspel rolled up his sleeve. The burn marks on his arm caught the eye.

“The Demon King was an evil, evil being. His true power was corrupting people. The beliefs they held, the faith they followed… he flipped everything, mocked it, ridiculed it, and trampled it.

Even though an army was dispatched, only the Seven Heroes were able to defeat the Demon King in the end, because only they didn’t fall for his temptations…

But now. Two of them… have fallen like this. Temperance and Chastity have collapsed… Ah. What’s next…”

“How did he corrupt people?”

Haspel buried his face in his hands.

“…He didn’t plant something that wasn’t there. Instead, he distorted, twisted, and amplified the desires already within people. As if that were all there was to the world… What you see now is… that is…”

Kain understood.

So. This horrific scene was what the Knight of Chastity had secretly dreamed of. Though twisted and exaggerated, it had been breathing inside him…

“Agent Kain. When we searched the Archbishop’s sanctuary, we found letters and journals too disgusting to even mention. They were written by the Knight of Chastity himself.”

“What were they?”

“Records of women he had relations with. He even cut and pasted locks of their hair.”

Lily covered her mouth, as if afraid to even speak of it.

“You said journals…”

Haspel hung his head.

“Not just one volume…”

“You knew.”

Kain grabbed Haspel.

“You knew. You knew they weren’t just scandals. Those allegations…”

“Only a small part.”

Haspel looked at the Knight of Chastity with empty eyes.

“What I discovered was just a small part. Since it wasn’t the whole picture, I couldn’t make it public. That’s how I deceived myself. But the truth, the truth about me, was different. I couldn’t bring myself to expose the filthy secrets of someone I once believed in and respected as a hero.”

Tears flowed from the tired Inquisitor’s eyes.

“I lacked courage. You… all of you. I believe you’ll be different. If my eyes were wrong… though that’s impossible… I’ll still do my duty. The evidence of Chastity’s downfall is in my study in Magdeburg… go and see it. That emblem will open the way.”

He staggered as he walked.

“Where are you going?”

“To do my job.”

“What job?”

Kain asked. Haspel answered briefly.

“What an Inquisitor must do.”

Father Haspel quietly clasped his hands together. Strange language flowed from his lips. It sounded like a song, or perhaps sobbing.

The Inquisitor walked. Small flames rose with each step he took.

It wasn’t a raging inferno. It was like a candle lit at the bedside of lovers, a torch of hope on a snowy mountain path, a warm bonfire on a freezing winter day where one warms their hands while waiting for meat to slowly cook.

“Brother.”

The Inquisitor stood before Archbishop William, who was still performing obscene acts.

“It’s over.”

“Blessing…”

“There are no more blessings. Your suffering is over too. Warrior. Knight of Chastity. Inquisitor. Chastity, one of the Seven Heroes who received the Veneration of the Sword. Archbishop William. Do you truly want to live?”

“Life…?”

The masses stopped. The Archbishop repeated the word as if hearing it for the first time.

“Life. Life… life…”

“William. Comrade. Brother. Do you want to live? Do you truly want to live? If you want to continue living, let’s stop here. Commit no more sins. Don’t be captivated by darkness. Let’s go. There’s still a chance.”

“It’s too late…”

The Archbishop smiled. Only with his mouth. His eyes were trembling.

“It’s too late. Far too late. It can’t be undone.”

“I’ll help you. When I realized you were struggling with sin, I should have… pulled you out long ago. But I didn’t. Now, belatedly. I’ve come to pull you out.”

“No… that can’t happen…”

“You want to die embracing your sins?”

William’s body convulsed. Defiance filled his eyes.

“Everyone has sinned. Why ask only me…”

“What do you mean by that?” Haspel looked up at William. But William shook his head firmly.

“I asked why you’re only questioning me when everyone has sinned. I… I! I! I aaaaam!”

Bones protruded from William’s body.

“Uh…”

Haspel didn’t immediately realize what had happened to him. Not even that the bone growing through William’s body had pierced through his own body and emerged from his back.

The masses moved violently. They tore their bodies and pulled out bones. Knights impaled by bone spikes screamed in pain. The knights belatedly swung their swords, but it was too little, too late.

“I! Did nothing wrong! I! Am chaste! The sins! Were committed by them! They seduced me. They pushed me into sin. It’s all their fault! I am innocent!”

The Archbishop was in a frenzy. Now he had become something that could no longer be considered human.

“If that is truly your choice.”

Haspel’s voice was gentle and calm. Even though blood was flowing from his mouth.

“If that is truly your choice, God shall judge.”

The Inquisitor died with his eyes open.

As his last breath left him, Father Haspel’s body began to wither.

Soon his body became firewood offered to God. Flames erupted from everywhere at once. The fire clung directly to Archbishop William’s body.

Though he screamed and shouted, swinging his hideous mass of muscle, the flames calmly consumed his body.

The calm, warm fire spread throughout the chapel. The flames of maddening lust and the anger of the mocked knight both bowed before the gentle, caring fire.

Even the fiercest wildfire eventually becomes cozy embers. The tongue vines intertwined with each other before falling to the ground and burning away.

The masses knelt and collapsed one by one. The heads attached to the stone walls—the original owners of the masses—wailed in sorrow but also burned with gratitude that their suffering was ending.

With a bang, the chapel doors opened. Servants carrying buckets of water and squires with stretchers rushed in. They pulled out the injured, sprinkled water on burning areas, and dragged the wounded outside the chapel.

Kain and Lily also exited the chapel. Emptiness, frustration, and questions arose simultaneously in Kain’s mind.

“You fucking idiot!”

A thud came from somewhere. The rude red-haired knight, Aldric, was stomping on his squire. He wasn’t the only one. Other knights from the Mercy Knights were also scolding their servants and squires.

“You stupid bastards, we almost died in there! What were you eating outside that you couldn’t open the door? What’s so special about this damn door that you couldn’t open it?”

“Stop it!”

Kain tried to stop Aldric. An exhausted knight waved Kain away. It was Commander Marco.

“Leave them be.”

“Leave them?”

“The lack of discipline is real.” Commander Marco poured water brought by a servant over his head.

“My seniors were about to burn to death inside, while these bastards outside did nothing…”

Just then, someone shouted.

“We tried our best! We really tried our best, ready to die!”

It was Aldric’s squire. His hands were completely scraped and bleeding. The other squires and servants’ hands were in the same condition.

“We did everything we could! We tied ropes to horses and pulled, we all grabbed it and pulled together… but it wouldn’t open!”

“Ready to die?” But those words made Aldric even angrier.

“Ready to die? So who died? Who died? You should have saved people even if it meant dying! Are you soldiers? Are you monks? Will you tell the parents of those who died in battle that you tried but couldn’t do it?”

“What did we do so wrong? You knights couldn’t open it from inside either!”

“This bastard…”

Commander Marco rose with a hiss. But then he froze in place.

Shadows swirled beneath the squire’s feet.