Depraved Noble: Forced To Live The Debaucherous Life Of An Evil Noble!-Chapter 521: Nun Or Executioner?

The stage where Lord Reinhardt and Lady Helena had stood in their false splendor was no longer a stage.

It was a butcher’s block.

Reinhardt’s head was the first to go.

The blade caught him mid-scream, cleaving through collarbone, sternum, and spine in a single diagonal arc.

His body split like firewood, top half sliding away while the bottom half remained seated for one grotesque heartbeat before toppling.

Helena lasted longer.

Joy took her time.

She hacked off the hands that had burned and beaten her mother.

Then the arms that had held Maria down.

Then the legs that had kicked her when she fell.

Helena’s final scream was cut short when the axe buried itself in her skull and kept going, splitting her torso down to the navel.

The two legitimate children never even had time to cry.

Then Joy turned to the crowd.

Uncles. Aunts. Cousins. Nephews. Grandparents.

Every branch of the Hawthorne bloodline that had watched Maria suffer and done nothing.

She moved through them like a pink-haired reaper, the axe rising and falling in perfect, tireless rhythm.

Limbs flew.

Heads rolled.

Torsos were bisected with merciless accuracy.

She also found the women who had spat on her mother in the streets, who had whispered ’harlot’ and ’whore’ behind pious hands.

Their mouths were silenced forever.

She even found the priests who had stripped Maria of her habit and cast her out.

Their holy robes were painted red.

Every single person who had played a part, no matter how small, in creating the hell her mother was forced to endure, became an offering on the altar of her rage.

The survivors on the other hand stared at the young girl before them in disbelief.

They did not see a child anymore.

They saw something unearthly, a being born of wrath and sorrow, standing amid the wreckage like a vision from their darkest prayers.

And in that single, terrible night, the child, no older than ten, systematically slaughtered over one hundred and thirty-four souls.

When it was over, Joy let the axe fall with a clang.

She was drenched head to toe, pink hair now a deep, wet scarlet. Her simple dress clung to her small body like a funeral shroud.

And she was hungry.

She walked calmly to an untouched table, picked up a loaf of honeyed bread, tore off a piece, and began to eat.

Just a little girl having supper amid the slaughter.

It was in this moment, amidst the pools of gore and the silence of absolute terror, that Maria arrived.

She had worried about her daughter attending the festival alone and stepped carefully through the square, only to freeze, her gaze taking in the spectacle: the dead, the paralyzed, the destroyed stage, and her daughter, sitting amidst the slaughter, chewing bread with quiet exhaustion.

But in that moment of ultimate horror, Maria did not scream. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

She did not cry.

She simply closed her eyes, and a quiet, profound prayer left her lips, asking the Goddess to protect the only person in the world she truly loved.

Then, she walked forward, stepped over a mangled body, and dropped to her knees.

"Joy, darling..." She whispered.

Joy turned, the bread crumbling in her fingers and instantly the coldness in her eyes shattered, replaced by an overwhelming, agonizing grief.

She launched herself into her mother’s waiting embrace and for the first time in years, the brave, broken girl wept, soaking her mother’s dress with tears as Maria held her tightly, oblivious to the blood now staining her own clothes.

But sadly...their moment was brutally interrupted.

The heavy clang of steel announced the arrival of the city authorities, a troop of royal guards and several accompanying priests.

And seeing the scene—the mass slaughter, the unmoving victims, and the blood-soaked child—they roared, raising their pikes and swords, ready to butcher the demoness.

Maria also stood instantly, ready to sacrifice herself, dropping to her knees to beg for mercy, pleading for them to take her life instead.

Joy, however, did not beg.

Her face hardened, the tears drying on her cheeks as she snatched the massive battle axe back up, preparing to fight to the last.

But as the confrontation reached its climax, a light, more profound and impossible than anything earthly, intervened.

A single, focused beam of brilliant, golden light rained down from the heavens, striking Joy alone.

Instantly, the square was bathed in blinding radiance.

Angelic choirs thundered from nowhere and everywhere.

A halo of blazing light crowned the blood-soaked child.

Seeing this miraculous sight, the priests dropped to the ground.

The soldiers fell to their knees.

One elderly high priest, trembling, raised shaking hands to the sky.

"A miracle...the Goddess has chosen..."

The light lifted Joy inches off the ground.

Her bloodstained dress fluttered as though in an unfelt wind.

The axe dissolved into particles of gold, reforming in her hands as a weapon of pure divine light.

And a voice—not hers, yet coming from her—rolled across the square like judgment itself.

"This child is mine."

"She has borne the sins of the weak and the silence of the righteous."

"From this night forward, she is my Avenging Blade."

"My Hammer of Justice."

"My Saintess of Wrath."

The light faded and Joy stood alone in the center of the square, halo dimming, eyes glowing faintly with divine fire.

And in her presence, the soldiers wept and bowed.

The priests prostrated themselves, chanting her name.

Maria herself smiled through her tears, knowing her daughter was safe.

And from that night on, the Church had a new Saintess.

But she was no gentle healer.

Joy—now called Saintess Joy, the Crimson Saintess, the Child of Divine Wrath—traveled the empire with an axe of holy light and a heart forged in her mother’s pain.

The furnace of hatred she carried for the world had not been extinguished by divine light; it had merely been given a sacred purpose and a holy weapon where bestowed judgment upon sinners and deviants.

Criminals trembled at her name.

Corrupt nobles barricaded their doors.

Slavers were found hacked apart in their own dungeons.

Rapists were left in pieces for the crows.

Entire bandit armies were reduced to red mist beneath her axe and hammer.

She did not preach forgiveness.

She preached justice.

Mercy was a word she had forgotten the meaning of.

And wherever sin raised its head, a little girl with pink hair and eyes of frozen fire would appear, dragging judgment behind her like a banner.

The Church called her blessed.

The people called her their savior.

The guilty called her the end.

And in the darkest corners of the empire, they whispered a new prayer:

"Goddess have mercy on my soul."

"Because the Saintess will not."