Chapter 42: Sacred Mark, The Girl Ablaz

The Weight of Power

A mosquito’s leg is still meat. Wenger didn’t think 1% was insignificant, especially with multiple units stacking. Though limited now, hadn’t every blessing started small and grown over time? Without [Affinity], her magic’s potency would likely be halved. Vague descriptions without clear numbers were the most daunting. Everything had gone almost too smoothly… But she’d made it through.

The girl’s heart eased, though not entirely unburdened. A faint premonition grew stronger, and with her clearer consciousness, fleeting memories let her grasp something elusive. Wenger moved swiftly, a breeze lifting her body with newfound ease. Ascending to the fortieth tier, over two hundred years had finally touched the realm of the sky.

Flying wasn’t like sprouting wings—it was indescribable. Perhaps due to [Affinity], each step felt like walking on solid ground. In moments, she was back at the treehouse. Glancing at a treehouse midway up the giant trunk, she dove downward. She landed silently on the platform.

Controlling magic was as simple as moving her hand. With the qualitative change in mana, the elements she could wield surged. But that wasn’t her focus now. Pushing open the door, she flipped through The Enchanter’s Guide again. Without clear pointers, she had to reread from the start.

Seconds later, her movements halted. Her fingers rested on a passage, the accompanying illustration strikingly clear. “Runes for sealing magic…” When something seemed complex, it was often even more so. She knew it looked familiar.

In the stone forest palace, she’d seen such patterns on the walls. Time’s erosion made them hard to discern, but her advancement’s memory flashes let her spot the connection. Though fragmented, she confirmed the illustration matched the complex pattern in her hand. Magic-sealing pillars… to bind that sword?

Her memory held no sense of suppression, as if proving why she’d easily drawn the sealed Nameless Sword. This might really be trouble. If the stories in the texts were true, the curse was real. [Sacredness] hadn’t reacted at all. Did a higher priority bypass it? If she died suddenly one day, there’d be no chance to cry.

Her unease grew, overshadowing her oversight of the ritual’s impact. Minutes ago, everyone had stopped their tasks, looking up as the “black star” shrouded the sun, fear gripping the world. Doomsday prophecies, devoid of morality, became reality today. At the war-torn borders, the brief darkness fueled fiercer slaughter.

The Sacred City

In the eastern outskirts of the royal city, among gently rolling hills and plain white buildings, a grand palace rose. A faint, towering silhouette seemed to pierce the heavens. Four massive pillars stabbed into the clouds. Crowds bustled to and fro. Streets and alleys hummed with mundane chatter and daily life. Holy knights strolled past corners, casually discussing sunrise and sunset with common folk.

A nun, her headscarf tightly wrapped, wove through the crowd toward the mountain-like sacred hall. Twelve spiraling paths formed 137 steps to the hall, each taller than a waist. Ordinary people had to climb; those with physical limitations could take a sloped path. It signified that, whole or broken, all could find redemption.

Every person in Irandell said that reaching the hall’s base, from any direction, led to the divine sanctuary. The nun ascended the steps, knowing the path clearly, summoned to offer divine blood. The 137 steps, about 110 meters, forbade magic or shortcuts—acts deemed blasphemous. The heart was the compass to the sanctuary; devotion, the key to miracles.

She stood on the steps, gazing upward. Countless figures streamed into the hall, while just as many, blessed, left with tears in their eyes. The divine cared not for sincerity. The Lord cared not for blasphemy. All, believers or not, rested under the Silent Lord’s wings. The woman paused her thoughts—this might not be true.

Those abandoned by the divine did exist—she’d seen it. Before the hall’s towering stone gates, a knight stood with bowed head, hands steady on a holy cross staff, awaiting the summoned. The saintess, bearer of divine blood, destined to sacrifice for it… Mithril armor gleamed faintly in the pillar’s shadow, like a resolute stone’s roar.

Roger stood firm until the girl passed without hesitation, then turned to follow. The hall’s divisions were complex, its center off-limits to ordinary folk—not out of discrimination… She lowered her hood, revealing a figure Wenger knew well, standing thousands of kilometers from Greenmbark, in the historic heart of Irandell’s Burning Wood Sanctuary.

At the hall’s center, a massive furnace burned, its flames so small they seemed ready to die. The bishop approached with heavy steps. Roger turned decisively, guarding the entrance. Rella shed her outermost black robe, the pristine inner lining sliding down her back, revealing a distinct, dark mark like tangled tree roots, with blood seemingly flowing within.

The bishop tapped his staff twice on the ground, the stone tiles ringing crisply. Ripples spread across the polished floor, and the hall’s light dimmed suddenly. All eyes saw only the burning flames. Rella bit her lip to stifle a sound as the “branches” on her back began to blaze fiercely, the pain nearly shattering her consciousness.

Returning life to the Lord was her inescapable mission. So… no matter the pain, she had to endure. The knight never turned, though a stir came from beneath his armor. The bishop sighed, tapping his staff again, restoring calm. He gestured for Rella to adjust her clothes, his gaze shifting to the basin-like furnace.

“Go back, child. Your heart is pure enough, but not clear enough.” His words were both salvation and a cruel verdict. Rella lowered her head in guilt, then quietly left. Roger glanced briefly at the bishop, seeing his aged, hunched figure in white robes. Duty must be upheld, no boundaries crossed.

Alert, he left the hall to catch up with Rella, who stood dazed outside, gazing outward. Her eyes held words that couldn’t capture decades of experience. The bishop wasn’t wrong. But it was a merciful excuse—a lie. She’d traced hints of the Moon and Harvest Goddess but never considered changing her faith.

The power of the law waned daily, unable to offer the Lord’s scattered strength in the world. The World Tree would one day wither. The world would perish, and the continent of Imelmik would cease to exist. The meaning they’d clung to collapsed in an instant. She couldn’t accept it, nor her cowardly escape. In that moment of contemplation, Rella watched the sun be devoured by darkness…