CH673 Sacrifice I

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"We are indeed Twilight Adjudicators."

The revelation itself felt surprisingly light to Alex and Eleanore. However, for the three BattleBane members seated opposite them, speaking those words aloud carried an entirely different weight—it felt liberating.

The BattleBane Guild Master continued, "Many of us accepted this power without knowing of the curse attached to it. But there were also some among us who knew the truth... and still chose to accept it anyway."

"Do you know why?" he asked.

Alex shook his head.

"Because the power was simply too tempting to ignore," the armoured man answered. "The power of the Twilight Adjudicators is a fusion of Combat Energy and divinity—a unique combination of characteristics that allows one to stand above others of the same rank and star."

"That is strange," Alex said, realisation flashing across his face. "If the Twilight Adjudicators possess such a unique nature, then shouldn’t it be easy for the clergy to track your people down? From everything you’ve told me, it sounds as though Twilight Adjudicators should be among the primary targets of every Temple."

Setting aside the ancient bad blood, the simple fact that inheritors of the Twilight Adjudicators also inherited fragments of divinity—making them potential candidates for godhood, and therefore direct threats to the current generation of Navi—was already more than enough reason for the Temples to relentlessly hunt them.

Alex would have been more surprised if there wasn’t a divine inquisition dedicated solely to hunting them.

Under such overwhelming pressure, how had the inheritance of the Twilight Adjudicators survived for so many centuries, especially when they possessed such an obvious identifying trait?

The BattleBane Guild Master—and even Dalton standing behind him—let out bitter chuckles.

"The divinity of we Twilight Adjudicators rests deep within our souls. Perhaps only if we stood directly before a deity would the divinity be truly noticed. Other than that, whether weak or strong, a Twilight Adjudicator’s divinity can only be sensed by another Twilight Adjudicator."

’That is... an interesting mechanism,’ Alex mused inwardly.

"So the curse afflicting your guild members is the divine curse placed upon the Twilight Adjudicators. But what about you? What is the other half of the affliction you carry?" Alex asked. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

"My affliction is not so much a divine curse, but rather the lingering sequela of an old injury caused by divinity," the BattleBane Guild Master revealed.

His gaze turned distant, touched by both remembrance and melancholy.

"There was once a time when I went by the name Saul Redwald. I was a High Priest of the Kirin—the consecrated Ancestral Spirit of the Oxborn Duchy, and of House Cyrindale."

"You were both a High Priest and a Twilight Adjudicator?" Alex asked, visibly surprised.

"I accidentally obtained the inheritance of a Twilight Adjudicator during one of my travels, after I had already become clergy of the Holy Kirin. Since the Holy Kirin held no hostility towards the Twilight Adjudicators, neither form of divinity conflicted with the other, and I was able to bear both," the BattleBane Guild Master explained.

He continued, "While serving as a High Priest, I had frequent contact with one of the heirs of Duke Cyrindale. After obtaining the inheritance of the Twilight Adjudicators, I realised that the heir was also an inheritor—though unlike me, his inheritance came by birth."

"The Ducal House?" Alex asked.

"No, his maternal bloodline," the BattleBane Guild Master replied. "I was able to come to terms with my identity as a so-called ’heretical’ Twilight Adjudicator largely because of the heir, and over time, we grew close, forming something of a mentor-and-mentee relationship.

"I had hoped to use my position as a High Priest to support his succession to the ducal seat, but the heir had no desire for his father’s throne."

Though hidden behind the helmet, the armoured man’s eyes betrayed the faint, nostalgic smile beneath.

He continued, "The heir possessed a deep passion for knowledge and the unknown. During his studies in a distant land, he came across a book filled with forbidden knowledge—knowledge unlike anything he had ever encountered—and he became completely enthralled by it.

"I later discovered that the book contained knowledge the deities themselves had deemed blasphemous.

"The heir was wise enough to keep his secret studies hidden. However, he was discovered by someone else—the ward of an Archbishop from one of the deity Temples. The heir had once offended that ward over a marriage matter, and the ward seized the opportunity to exact revenge for the slight.

"The duchy managed to bring the heir back home before matters spiralled completely out of control, but by then, the issue had already escalated into an international affair. The Temples, along with the nations aligned with them, placed immense pressure upon the Celahan Empire to hand the heir over for divine punishment.

"That, of course, could never be allowed to happen. And so, a compromise was reached to appease them. The heir was publicly declared dead—’killed’, never to appear before the world again.

"Furthermore, the divine energy of a high-ranking clergyman of the Holy Kirin was publicly purged by holy flames."

"What?" Alex and Eleanore were both shocked—and horrified.

Purging divine energy from a member of the clergy was never a simple matter.

The higher the rank of the clergyman, the more deeply that divine energy became intertwined with their soul. The connection granted them greater power, but it also made them far more beholden to their Navi or Spirit.

Most methods of purging divine energy left behind devastating backlash upon the soul of the clergy involved, and the stronger the divine energy, the more severe that backlash became.

As a result, the higher one’s rank within the clergy, the more difficult it became to abandon that path and sever oneself from divine worship.

This was precisely why betrayal within the clergy was so difficult. It often required another Navi to personally bear the burden of accepting and redirecting the divine backlash. Even then, such methods usually only allowed a transfer of faith—it did not truly free someone from divine worship altogether.

’I suppose this is why one has to respect the alchemists, healers, and researchers of Pangea. They eventually found methods to cleanse divine energy without inflicting irreparable damage upon the user,’ Alex mused inwardly.

The worst—and cruellest—method of expunging divine energy was known as Holy Flame Burning.

Contrary to its name, it did not necessarily involve literal fire. The exact method varied from Navi to Navi, and from Spirit to Spirit, depending on their elemental affinity and divine nature.

It was broadly referred to by that name because, regardless of form, it inflicted upon the bearer the unbearable sensation of being burned from the very depths of their soul as the divine energy was forcibly torn from their body.

In essence, it was using the bearer’s own divine energy to burn their soul.

There were countless ways to inflict unbearable physical pain upon a person, but all of them paled in comparison to suffering inflicted directly upon the soul.

Physical pain could, to some extent, be endured through tolerance, training, and sheer will. Soul pain was different. It bypassed such defences entirely. Even an Epic-ranked expert would tremble before true soul pain.

And among the cruellest torments that could be inflicted upon a soul, the agony of soul-burning ranked among the absolute worst.

It was a punishment usually reserved only for the gravest sins within a faith.

To have such a punishment carried out merely to appease another faith... Alex could only shake his head.

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