Chapter 96

Chapter 96: Scroll

The town of Red Creek is located on the outskirts of the Igewent County, quite far from the county seat, Igewent. Due to poor transportation and lack of main roads, it isn’t a bustling place, being less lively than towns like Wokan or Purple Shirt. Even the young people in this county often don’t know about this place, and those from outside the county are even less aware. It has always been a place with low visibility.

And yet, in this small town, a shocking discovery was made a month ago. Because of this discovery, the small church of this town attracted unusual people and led to an extraordinary tragedy.

Night fell over Red Creek.

Thick black clouds obscured the moonlight, while the scent of gunpowder and bl**d permeated the air. The intense gunfire and explosions had momentarily ceased. A fierce battle had just ended, and the battlefield was the very chapel where villagers usually prayed.

At this moment, the once peaceful church was in ruins. Corpses lay everywhere; some wore strange white robes, others were dressed as clerics or nuns. bl**d flowed and seeped into the soil.

The church’s fence was destroyed, the steles shattered, walls pierced, and rubble scattered over the corpses and bl**d, creating a brutal scene.

In the chapel, a cleric’s body, burnt and full of gunshot wounds, lay on the cold floor. In front of him, a pale-faced old man, covered in bl**d, struggled to breathe. Two masked men in white robes supported him, helping him sit on the ground.

“Sir Havdane, we succeeded. The heretics from Tivyan are all dead. Our hostage strategy worked well. This battle was on our side!”

Supporting the injured old man, one of the white-robed men said, and the old man trembled as he raised his hand and spoke with difficulty.

“Very… good… Their deacon is dead… But I… can’t last much longer… Still, it’s fortunate… that our people survived…”

bl**d trickled from his mouth, and he struggled for breath. With his last strength, he spoke.

“Bring back the heretics’ relics. The Radiant Glimmer is with us forever, and the Savior will elevate us…”

With that, the old man’s eyes widened as he stopped breathing. The two white-robed men called out several times.

“Sir Havdane! Sir Havdane!”

They called out, but received no response. After confirming the old man’s d*ath, they laid him down and slowly stood up, their movements awkward due to their injuries.

“Havdane has sacrificed himself, but the mission must continue. We go down.”

Nodding at each other, the two masked men descended a staircase at the edge of the chapel, reaching a basement. In the center of the basement, a large stone coffin was placed upright, its lid slightly open. It was clear that this was a small burial chamber, and around it were several smaller chambers.

“Now only the two of us remain. Hurry and retrieve the items to avoid complications.”

“Understood…”

They began to gather the items inside the stone coffin and nearby chambers. In one of the smaller chambers, a frightened young girl hid.

“Ahh, this voice… It’s those heretics! What happened to Mr. Rodri and the others? Could they have all been killed by these guys?!”

At this moment, in a corner of a small chamber, a young girl in nun’s attire, with platinum blonde hair and round glasses, around fifteen or sixteen years old, trembled while clutching a book, listening to the commotion outside with great fear.

Her name was Vania Chafelin, a nun affiliated with the Scripture Department of the Radiant Church of Tivyan and a member of Bishop Dikt’s relic recovery team.

A month ago, when the villagers were redoing the floor tiles of the chapel outside Red Creek, they accidentally discovered a basement beneath the church. Inside, they found it was a tomb containing a huge stone coffin.

Through the name inscribed on the coffin, the priest of the chapel realized this tomb belonged to a cleric named Dikt. Upon further investigation, it was revealed that he was a bishop who died during the heretic suppression campaign in Igewent three hundred years ago. Unexpectedly, his tomb was found here.

The priest of Red Creek immediately reported to the Igewent Church. The head of the Igewent Church then informed the Tivyan Diocese, which is the capital of Prit and the center of the entire Prit Archdiocese.

Soon, the Tivyan Diocese dispatched the relic recovery team to Red Creek. Among them was Vania, but they did not expect that when her team was retrieving relics in the tomb, they would encounter a sudden attack by the heretics.

The Savior’s Incarnation Sect is a heretical faction within the Radiant Church that does not obey the Papal Court of Sacred Summit. They reject the current mainstream doctrine of the Three Saints of the Radiant Church and directly worship the Savior of Radiance, claiming that the Savior of Radiance never had three incarnations. As a result, they were branded as heretics by the Sacred Summit and have been in constant conflict with the mainstream Radiant Church. Although they were once suppressed, they recently showed signs of resurgence.

This time, members of the Savior’s Incarnation Sect attacked the relic recovery team to seize Bishop Dikt’s remains. From the battle situation, it appeared that the sect used underhanded tactics to achieve a narrow victory, suffering significant losses in high-level combatants, with most personnel dead. Only two injured fighters remained.

On the other side, the relic recovery team fared even worse, leaving only Vania alive.

Vania was an apprentice-level “Lamp” illuminator. Though she was an extraordinary being, she was not a combatant and had no professional training. She performed clerical work in the church.

Vania belonged to the Scripture Department of the Radiant Church of Tivyan, specializing in studying scrolls and relics. She became an extraordinary being to better use extraordinary items related to the “Lamp” for research and authentication. Given the historical significance of this relic retrieval involving a figure from three hundred years ago, Vania was included in the recovery team.

At the onset of the battle, Vania, who was initially extracting artifacts in the tomb with no combat experience, immediately grabbed a secret transmission scroll taken from the stone coffin and hid in a small chamber beside the tomb, praying desperately for victory outside. However, to her dismay, the outcome was a complete annihilation of her team, leaving her feeling utterly hopeless.

“Virgin Mother, please show mercy and save me. Let those heretics leave quickly!”

Vania prayed in desperation, but there was no response. She could still hear the sounds of the heretics rummaging through things on the other side of the wall, occasionally hearing the sound of something smashing, indicating the rough handling by the two men.

“Be careful! These are precious artifacts!”

Hearing the clanging noises, Vania wanted to shout angrily, but realizing that going out now would be s*icide, she had to suppress her anger.

“Oh… No, it’s too late for anger. Virgin Mother, Holy Son, Holy Father, Savior, please save me!”

She prayed to almost all the objects of worship in the Radiant Church, but received no response. Instead, the destructive sounds grew closer, suggesting that the searchers were approaching her chamber.

Desperate, Vania had no choice but to act like a regular Radiant Church clergy member and seek answers in the “Glorious Holy Scripture” she carried.

Unfastening the “Glorious Holy Scripture” from her waist, Vania opened it, hoping to find an answer in the revelation.

In a sense, this was already a form of giving up.

“God, please give me a revelation. What can save me…”

Praying, Vania opened the daily scripture reading, but saw something peculiar this time.

On the page she had opened, at the blank margin where text should not be, a word in stark contrast to the script was printed.

It was spelled in the Prit language.

“Knowledge.”