Having steeled herself for the fate of the defeated, Sylvia seemed to have already foreseen what she would experience next.
As a cleric, she had been defeated before her god.
Defeated by a demon-entwined boy, without the slightest room to resist.
Then, what awaited her next was that she would inevitably become a toy in the hands of this demon boy, to be used at will.
Her soul would be tainted by filth, her body ravaged by demons.
In a room where sunlight never reached, dim as hell itself, she would be punished day and night without distinction.
Ah… could she really endure it?
Having lost the duel before her god, just how long could the remnants of her already-fractured faith still hold out?
With her eyes tightly shut, Sister Sylvia swallowed hard in "nervousness".
...
"Huh, you really aren't going to do anything to me?" Sylvia said, finding it hard to accept.
"Relax. I won't do anything to you," Miles promised helplessly.
What exactly did this lewd nun take him for, anyway?
Ever since being defeated, she had been lying on the ground with her eyes half-closed, muttering some incomprehensible lines under her breath, her face flushed red all over.
No matter how you looked at it, it was way too improper.
"But… aren't you a demon?"
"Is there some rule that says anyone who uses 'Fiend' monsters must be a demon?"
"No…"
There truly was no such rule. After all, across the entire Spirit Continent, Duelists who used Fiend monsters as their main force were far from rare.
If merely using Fiend monsters was enough to define someone as a demon who defied the will of the gods, that would be rather hasty.
As a nun tasked with carrying out divine duties, Sylvia would certainly not make such a rash judgment.
The reason she had perceived and concluded that multiple Fiend Kings were entwined within Miles's soul was because Sylvia's eyes were able to see through the sins hidden deep within every person's soul.
Of course, Sylvia's eyes were classified as top-level secrets within the entire Imperial Church.
Out of the gods' tolerance, the Church allowed Sylvia to use this power of faith bestowed by the gods, but on the condition that she must never reveal the secret of her eyes to anyone.
"Even if there's no rule, I'm not going to fall for it!"
In Sylvia's view, everything Miles said was nothing more than the whispers of a demon.
Using an appearance that directly struck her XP to entice her, then defeating her and doing nothing afterward, putting on a lofty, aloof attitude… playing hard to get.
This proved that the demon boy before her wanted more than just her.
He was certainly greedily seeking even more targets, dragging even more devout believers of the gods into the abyss of corruption.
As a sacred and proud cleric, she had to stop the spread of such evil deeds.
As the saying went: 'If I do not enter hell, then who will?'
If the demon wished to harm other believers, he would have to let her fall first!
"What exactly is your goal? You can just come at me!"
"Really? Then I'll say it. To be honest, I really did come for you."
"Huh, you really did come for me… you're just saying it outright like that?"
Sylvia blinked her round eyes in confusion. Just a moment ago, the demon boy had still been hiding his desires behind a gentlemanly attitude, yet now he had suddenly bared his fangs.
As for Miles's goal…
He truly had come for Sylvia.
More precisely, at the very beginning, Miles had wanted to find a cleric inside the cathedral in order to learn the origins of that mysterious God Card statue.
And as it happened, Sister Sylvia was the only cleric Miles could currently find at the scene.
And so, Miles spoke his purpose to Sylvia, who seemed to have misunderstood something, her expression caught somewhere between fear and anticipation.
"You want to understand the god we believe in… that's it?"
Just listen to that… does that sound like something a cleric should be saying?
Faced with someone sincerely wanting to understand the god of her faith, her first thought wasn't preaching, but "that's it".
What Sylvia was actually considering was why this demon-possessed boy would be interested in her god at all.
Anyhow, this was undoubtedly also an opportunity. If she could use this chance to help the demon boy understand the greatness of her god and willingly abandon his evil ways, it would not be a bad deed at all.
The confession booth's operations were temporarily suspended for the day. Sylvia's reason was that she wasn't in very good condition.
The devout believers all expressed their understanding.
After all, the sister had just lost a duel and surely needed time to recuperate and adjust her state.
Without complaints or commotion, the people who had come to the church to confess left without a word after offering their blessings.
"Come with me, Miles. If you want to understand the Dreamlike God, Lord Numerounius, there's a more suitable place."
With that, Sylvia prepared to guide Miles toward a room deeper within the church.
"Wait!" Irena and Nova spoke in unison. "We're coming too!"
There was no way the two of them were going to just watch this inexplicably lewd nun take Miles alone into some suspicious room deep inside the church.
What if she crushed Miles by accident? That absolutely wouldn't do.
"They are?" Sylvia asked.
"Companions. Like me, they're students from Fusion Academy," Miles introduced.
"Then come along together. The more people who listen, the more Lord Numerounius's great radiance can shine upon the world."
At that moment, Sylvia, who was earnestly preparing to preach, finally showed a bit of what a dedicated cleric should look like.
Following Sylvia's footsteps, Miles and the others arrived deep within the church, into a pitch-black room where one couldn't see their own hand in front of their face.
As Sylvia lit the wall torches one by one, countless exquisitely detailed relief murals appeared before Miles and the others.
"According to church regulations, the exhibition hall isn't open this week. Today counts as a special exception to bring you in."
"Exhibition hall?"
Sylvia explained, "Every mural here depicts one of Lord Numerounius's divine miracles."
There were seven murals in total, starting from the first at the entrance and extending all the way to the seventh at the end of the room.
But from Miles's perspective, although the murals were exquisite, the content they displayed looked less like divine miracles and more like rampant destruction.
The first mural depicted something akin to the God Card statue within the cathedral descending into the human world.
However, the human world carved into the mural had an architectural style totally different from that of the Spirit Continent.
Skyscrapers rose everywhere, a forest of steel and reinforced concrete—leaning far more toward a modern city like those from Miles's original world.
From the first mural, the descent of Numerounius, to the second mural, where Numerounius began to scorch the earth and tear the sky apart…
With each mural passed, the overall form of Numerounius underwent subtle changes.
By the seventh mural, light and darkness alike had perished, everything returning to chaos. Numerounius, pitch-black from head to toe, no longer retained even the slightest trace of its original form.
"This is Numerounius. A legend passed down from a prehistoric civilization. The tale of the seven-day destruction of the world."
"Seven-day destruction of the world?"
The Creator took seven days to create the world, while this "god" took seven days to destroy it.
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