hotmtlnovel Chapter 119: The Mad Trial
Chapter 119: The Mad Trial
What is a god?If Maria von Cainhurst were to judge, the divinity she envisioned most closely resembled the Great Ones. No reason was needed, just as the sky was blue, the water clear, and the trees full of green. The gods, too, should simply be.
That was what she called a true god.
Without realizing it herself, a seed had taken root deep in Maria’s heart, a seed of arrogant ambition. Perhaps it was the lingering influence of a higher being’s power. Maria had yet to fully return from that detached, transcendent state. At that moment, the busty and ever-playful Liline seemed to sense something amiss and looked toward Maria in alarm.
One glance, just one.
She caught sight of Maria’s half-lidded crimson eyes.
Liline immediately looked away, lowering her head in silence. Maria’s eyes weren’t merely calm, nor cold, but something else entirely. There was no condescension, no weight of dominance, yet that gaze felt as though it reached through her soul.
It was unbearable.
Out of instinct, Liline sought comfort from the Lady of the Lake, the goddess she served. Yet for once, that divine voice did not answer her. In the dead quiet of her prayer, Liline could feel only the faintest trace of fear, and that fear was not hers, but the Lady’s own.
That realization alone was absurd.
And then, at last, the Lady of the Lake responded, not with words, but with a vision. In her mind’s eye, Liline saw a human idly glancing down, watching blades of grass beneath their feet. The image made her scalp prickle.
Just moments ago, Maria had looked at her in the same way.
“Have you all rested well?”
The sudden voice made Liline nearly jump from her seat, her ample chest trembling violently from the motion.
It was the man in the black coat, the officer of the Military Intelligence Department, freshly returned from overseeing the cleanup of the Khorne daemon’s remains. His mood seemed quite good. Removing the iron gauntlets from his hands, he stepped silently into the tent, the scent of blood heavy around him. His gaze immediately found the black-robed nun.
Clearly, Maria’s performance on the battlefield had left a deep impression.
“Thank you for your concern. I’m fine now.”
Maria rose slightly and gave a courteous bow. It wasn’t as though the mute Arthur or the scatterbrained Liline were capable of handling the conversation.
“Good. Time is short, so let’s keep this brief.”
The masked officer nodded and sat at the head of the table. There was an unmistakable edge to him, the kind born from too many battlefields. He flicked three scrolls across the table, one to each of them.
Single-use spatial seal scrolls, used for storing things that weren’t meant to be seen. Things like the remains of a daemon of Khorne.
“We’ll take the main bulk. The three of you can divide what’s left. No objections, I trust?”
His tone was rough and direct. Clearly, he had no particular fondness for daemon corpses. If not for an order from the high council of the Weavebinders, he wouldn’t have bothered cleaning up that heap of corrupted flesh at all.
Arthur and Liline were quick to retrieve their scrolls. The gods behind them were always interested in the byproducts of Chaos.
Maria hesitated, then took hers as well.
She’d seen too much of this sort of thing in her previous life, daemon flesh, Chaos relics, blighted ichor, none of it had much use. The creations of Nurgle and Slaanesh in particular were hideous beyond measure. Looking at them too long could make anyone doubt their own sense of beauty.
“Fire is fading. The next Kindling is being prepared.”
The broken rhythm, the heavy voice, Maria immediately recognized Arthur’s tone. For someone as taciturn as him, speaking this much was a struggle. Yet in this moment, it had to be him.
“What did you say?”
The man in the black coat straightened instantly.
Fire is fading? The First Flame itself? That was the stuff of myth, not something that was supposed to actually happen.
Maria glanced toward Liline.
No surprise. The busty priestess didn’t seem shocked at all, as if she’d known. Indeed, among the higher divinities, the fading of the flame was hardly a secret. Still, it wasn’t considered an urgent matter. Long ago, the Sun Gods had used the First Flame to separate the divine realm of Lordran from the mortal plane. Its waning held little meaning for the human world, at least compared to what it once symbolized.
“The fire fades, and a new saga is soon to be written.”
Liline’s tone grew solemn, almost reverent. The age of myth was never truly gone, merely veiled beside the light of civilization.
“Kindling…”
The officer muttered the word, and though his face was hidden behind a mask, Maria could sense his seriousness. Many scholars had long suspected this day would come, but none had expected it so soon.
“What do your patrons say of this?”
His voice had turned formal, posture rigid. The answer of these three might decide the fate of the world itself.
“The Lady’s decree: the flame burns unending through the deepwood.”
“God has spoken: there is sin.”
Before Maria could even react, Liline and Arthur had each spoken the divine words of their gods.
Three gazes turned to Maria.
By all official accounts, she was a vessel of the Radiant Lord, the heir to the Sun’s dominion, once called the Lord of Sunlight by the faithful of Lordran, a god whose name had long been whispered as Gwyndolin. But in truth, she had never once received a revelation. She wasn’t even part of the Radiant Church’s hierarchy. A fraud, tolerated only because the Radiant Lord had never bothered to expose her.
What now?
Should she make something up? Or admit ignorance of her supposed god’s will? Fabricating divine speech was outright blasphemy, and the penalty for that was divine punishment.
Even Maria, usually calm to the core, felt her breath catch.
“The Radiant Lord is omnipotent.”
Her voice took on a solemn, radiant tone, echoing the reverence her father, Pastor Lynn, had once spoken with.
She hadn’t actually said anything at all, merely affirmed the obvious. If the Radiant Lord was truly all-powerful, then He would decide as He saw fit.
And indeed, the words had their effect. Arthur and Liline both smiled faintly, satisfied. To them, it was an answer full of faith and wisdom. The man in black, though no cleric himself, accepted it as well. After all, divine speech was meant to be obscure.
'I didn’t actually say anything' , Maria thought, lips twitching faintly. You’re all just filling in the blanks yourselves.
She felt the faint thrill of danger.
Standing at the very edge of divine retribution, Maria von Cainhurst was once again testing the patience of the gods.
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