Tifa prayed in a daze, but he had already performed the rite of confession many times before. Though his words were somewhat halting, they were largely correct.
"Impossible!" "Found him!"
But after the confession, Tifa suddenly felt the atmosphere around him shift. Numerous wolf-like gazes all converged upon him, making every pore on his body tense up.
"What's going on?" Tifa looked up in confusion, only to see the milky white glow atop the altar had now turned into a bewitching dark red!
"Heretic!!!"
Tifa felt his neck tighten as his entire body was lifted off the ground. The old bishop's face before him was now utterly savage.
Vaguely, he saw his father crying and screaming before being struck to the ground. Even the nearby villagers immediately retreated, distancing themselves from his family as though they carried the plague.
"No!! Do it again! Please, try once more! My Tifa could never be a blasphemer against the Goddess!"
The wailing echoed in Tifa's ears, but the hand around his neck only tightened further, leaving him on the verge of suffocation.
"Speak! Heretic, how did you violate the Goddess's teachings!"
At that moment, the grip loosened slightly, allowing long-overdue fresh air to rush into his windpipe. Tifa's tears and snot flowed together.
Seeing the heretic in such a state, the bishop's eyebrows furrowed slightly.
The opponent's power was far too weak — nothing like the powerful heretics of the past. A threat of this level clearly couldn't warrant the Goddess descending a divine commandment.
"Word of Truth!!!" A point of golden light shot from the bishop's hand and sank into Tifa's forehead.
Then Tifa found his mouth moving beyond his control, answering every question posed to him without fail.
Tifa's life up to that point had been thoroughly ordinary — so mundane it was boring. But when the interrogation reached his daytime exploration, the bishop's breathing noticeably quickened.
"Hurry! Surround this family's back kitchen!"
A tremendous force sent him flying. Tifa felt his body soaring through the clouds before crashing into what felt like an enormous iron vise, leaving his entire body aching unbearably.
Under the escort of numerous guards, Tifa and his family were brought before their own home.
Then wave after wave of knights, as if facing a great enemy, charged inside and retrieved a rusty iron sword.
"My Lord Bishop!" The lead knight respectfully presented the iron sword with both hands.
The intense evil energy clinging to the iron sword made the bishop frown deeply. "An artifact of a false god? Or a devil's **? Even the Appraisal spell has no effect."
Though he didn't know the item's exact properties, the bishop already understood his objective this time.
"If I can purify this item, the divine grace and favor I receive should be enough to elevate my priest rank by one level, shouldn't it?"
A faint glint of intoxication flickered in the bishop's eyes, followed by a devout confession: "Great Spring Goddess, please forgive your servant's greed..."
For reasons unknown, the iron sword harboring
"This child's soul has been contaminated by heretical power..."
The bishop stood before the altar and delivered his final judgment upon Tifa.
"Burn him!" "Burn him!" "Burn him!" Before Tifa could even react, the villagers were already roaring with savage fury.
That fanatical atmosphere, along with the grotesque faces so unlike their usual selves, scared Tifa into tears.
Even his family was seized by the enraged villagers and bound to hastily constructed wooden crosses.
What was about to happen gave Tifa a terrible premonition.
"No! Please, spare them. I... I didn't do anything! I only picked up an iron sword! I'm willing to confess!!!"
Tifa cried out, making one final plea. "For the Goddess's sake! If you must punish someone, punish me — but please, spare my family!"
"The family of a heretic must also receive 'purification'!"
But the only answer was the bishop's cold, stern face.
Then, amid a roar of flames and the screams of children, Tifa passed out in terror.
"Great Goddess! Your servants humbly invite your descent..."
After Tifa's family had been burned at the stake, the bishop and the other priests began to pray devoutly before the altar.
As the prime culprit of this incident, Tifa and the iron sword tainted by the false god had to be personally dealt with by the Goddess.
"Hmm... so this is the Path of Faith?"
Meanwhile, the Soul Seed within the iron sword continued observing their actions: "Through religious rituals, inciting fanaticism while collecting the extreme emotions and spiritual power that leak from the believers..."
Leylin analyzed calmly.
In his current state, he had virtually no power to resist, so he devoted all his energy to gathering intelligence.
Through his observations over this period, the surface-level conditions of the
"First, the environment here — supernatural power has been restricted to an extremely severe degree. Then, the ordinary people here, even the most mundane farmers, have average physical qualities far exceeding those of the
From these priests, Leylin could clearly sense the power of another set of laws at work.
While this path was quite similar to the sacrificial way of the Infernal World, there were also differences.
The greatest difference was that this power of faith was applied with astonishing breadth — and from merely a fleeting glimpse, Leylin had already discovered a vast number of so-called priests.
And these numbers were clearly only those gathered from the nearby area.
If one were to add them all up, the power needed to empower all these priests would probably bankrupt numerous Infernal Sovereigns — yet the gods accomplished it with ease.
Moreover, unlike the equal exchange of the sacrificial path, the worshippers here all considered themselves servants of the gods, placing themselves in a position of extreme humility.
All of this made Leylin intensely curious to understand the inner workings.
"Furthermore... since the numbers are simply too vast, those gods couldn't possibly maintain attention on every believer — unless they were to actively request it, or a case of soul blasphemy was encountered..."
Leylin watched the bishop begin his prayers, and the sensation of a law-bound existence about to descend began to permeate the surroundings.
"I have to act now!"
He made the decision immediately, then turned his attention to Tifa, who lay nearby.
Leylin, whose true form was nothing more than a broken sword, found it extraordinarily difficult to resist — he needed some kind of medium.
And now, this boy seemed perfectly suited for the role.
Blood and fire! The savage smiles of the surrounding villagers, knights, and priestly lords — this was Tifa's dream.
A crushing sense of oppression, like the weight of a mountain, had utterly devastated the child's spirit.
Under such circumstances, manipulating the boy was the easiest thing in the world for Leylin.
"Hey! Kid! Want revenge?"
Countless motes of fire suddenly burst forth, coalescing into a massive face that stared down at Tifa.
"Yes! I don't care what you are! Even if you're a devil or a demon — you can have my soul if you want! Just give me the power to take my revenge!"
Tifa knelt down in his dream, tears streaming from his eyes.
"What a wonderful resolve! I like it!" The fiery face grinned wickedly, then transformed into a massive winged serpent of flame that sank into Tifa's body.
"Remember this! My name is
A voice rang out from the depths of Tifa's heart. Then he felt as though his body had been set ablaze, searingly hot.
"What's happening?" "This kid is burning hot!"
The noisy surroundings forced Tifa to open his eyes again, but the charred burning stake not far away brought tears streaming down his face once more.
The searing heat showed no sign of subsiding. Tifa stared blankly at his own palm — it was no longer human. Grotesque scales wreathed in flames, like a hand of vengeance from the depths of hell!
"So... none of this was a dream!"
At that moment, the bishop and the knights were also shocked by Tifa's appearance. In their eyes, the boy had suddenly been engulfed in flames, then transformed into some kind of demon from hell.
"Kill him!" Several knights wreathed in holy radiance charged forward with their greatswords raised.
"Aaaargh..." Tifa roared. The seals on the broken sword that Leylin had previously inhabited crumbled layer by layer, and it flew into his hands.
"Die!" The broken sword traced several eerie red lines through the air, and the knights' bodies split apart, blood and organs spraying in all directions amid the terrified screams of the villagers.
Seemingly inexhaustible power flowed continuously from the broken sword's hilt into Tifa, making him seem like the Grim Reaper harvesting the lives of the knights around him.
"The aura of life around him has grown even stronger — equivalent to at least a fifteenth-level professional!"
"By the Goddess Risi, how is this possible?"
"
But Tifa no longer cared about anything. His mind was entirely consumed by his thirst for revenge.
One enemy after another was destroyed beneath his blood-red vision, until finally it was the bishop's turn.
"Mm!
At Leylin's command, Tifa's hand seized the bishop's shoulder.
Then the bishop's flesh began to dissolve at a speed visible to the naked eye.