The prayers were endless.
"May the Perfect Lord forgive our incompleteness. May our suffering bring Him joy. May our offerings elevate our lowly souls..."
Gaia suddenly remembered the Mass that the monk, who had seemed so much like a cultist, had invited them to attend.
The unceasing prayers struck against the fog clouding her thoughts like a series of crushing hammers, smashing through the barrier in her mind.
"I think I know where we need to start."
she murmured.
That respected veteran Knight, De Orik Magris, had casually mentioned one detail while describing Swuvi's desperate situation to her:
"The old High King was struck by a sudden grave illness and left at death's door. He was later saved by a lady from the Ecclesiarchy."
And that raised a question.
Which Ecclesiarchy had he meant?
The true Ecclesiarchy of Holy Terra, beneath the skull-banner of the Imperium?
Or the so-called "Ecclesiarchy" spoken of by that strange monk?
Gaia's gaze sharpened.
She had already suspected that something was wrong with the faith on Swuvi.
And now, that suspicion, absurd as it had first seemed, was looking more and more like the truth.
With that thought, Gaia fixed her eyes on the open area in the distance, where violet-pink radiance shimmered strangely against the dark night.
The ethereal bells and the eerie prayers had come from that very place.
Was the Mass the monk had mentioned to them when they first arrived on Swuvi taking place there right now?
"Gaia, what are you looking at?"
Solomon looked at her in confusion.
He had heard the six tolls of the bell, but he had no idea where they had come from.
Other than that, he had neither seen nor heard anything unusual.
"You see it, right? The light over there is strange."
Gaia pointed toward the area shining with that vivid purple-pink glow that made her heartbeat quicken, her tone full of dry disbelief.
In her view, if something like that had appeared in a hive world, she might have brushed it off as some unusually colored neon lighting.
But this was a knight world, a place where everything, other than giant war machines, was practically medieval.
Seeing this sort of purple-pink light pollution here felt absurdly urban.
As Gaia kept watching the swaying glow, Solomon followed her line of sight and stared and stared.
But no matter how hard he strained his eyes, he could not see anything remotely strange.
In his vision, the dark night spread across the city like a great curtain, and apart from the scattered lights of ordinary lamps, there was nothing there except oppressive darkness.
So Solomon honestly said what he saw:
"If by strange light you mean something other than the scattered lamps over there, then to be honest..."
"I don't see anything at all."
"No matter how I look at it, all I see is darkness. And beyond that darkness, only deeper darkness."
Though his voice still carried his usual playful edge, Gaia could tell from his expression and emotional state that he was being completely sincere.
In other words, Solomon was not lying this time.
He truly could not see it.
And if what he was describing was real, then a new question immediately arose.
Why was what Gaia saw different from what Solomon saw?
Even if her altered senses gave her a much broader visual spectrum than a normal human, that still should not result in the exact same stretch of sky appearing ablaze with lurid color to her while remaining pitch black to an ordinary mortal.
At that realization, Gaia's heart shuddered.
If this difference was not caused by anything physical...
Then the only remaining explanation was interference from the immaterial.
As someone with psychic potential, Gaia was constantly brushed by influences from the other side.
The clearest sign of that had always been the invisible whispers that never ceased in her ears.
And now she suddenly realized that if her hearing could be tampered with, then what about her other senses?
She kept staring at that region of pulsing violet haze, and her breathing grew heavier.
If the interference from the other side had truly reached all of her senses without her noticing, then she could not begin to imagine how many things she might already have experienced under the influence of some malicious power.
Had she been seeing things for a long time now, sights and phenomena that no normal human could ever perceive?
Grinding her teeth, she took a deep breath and forcibly steadied her thoughts.
At least so far, this non-auditory interference did not seem to have caused her any direct harm.
So the most urgent matter right now was still the problem in front of them.
As for these disturbing questions, she could only hope that if they survived Swuvi's crisis, she would later have time to think through a solution.
So Gaia turned to Solomon and said,
"If you can't see it, then come with me."
"Let's have a good look at what exactly is so special about the 'Ecclesiarchy' Mass on this knight world."
Solomon nodded in complete agreement.
"And maybe we can pick up two bits of Mass money while we're at it."
Faced with Solomon's refusal to let go of the money even now, Gaia was left speechless.
She rubbed her temples, considered it for a moment, and in the end still took Solomon with her toward the plaza that, in her eyes, was radiating that purple-pink light.
...
The central plaza beside Hecius Grand Cathedral.
During the day, the pyre platform used by the preachers of the Cult of the Perfect Lord to denounce the crimes of heretics now held the slender and beautiful figure of a woman.
Even the loosest and plainest sackcloth robe could not conceal the fullness of her body. Beneath the stiff folds of the cloth, the curves that could stir the blood of any grown man appeared and disappeared with every small movement.
Her skin was pale and luminous like moonlight. Her long, light-purple hair had been carefully tied into a single braid over one shoulder, and the soft strands draped down along the line of her chest, swaying gently with the movement of her body.
No extravagant decoration.
No thick cosmetics.
She wore only the plainest of robes, and yet she displayed the most flawless side of femininity.
Her pink eyes carried a warm smile, and her gentle gaze drifted over the countless believers below who stared up at her in a daze.
She did not need many words.
Her smile alone was the greatest encouragement.
The long-malnourished followers, as though injected with pure fervor, shouted the prayers of the Cult of the Perfect Lord without any sign of fatigue.
Only after they had repeated the prayer six times did the peerlessly beautiful woman finally part her crimson lips:
"Thank you for your devotion, my dearest believers."
"In the name of the Perfect Child, I have learned that the God-Emperor has heard your cries."
"Now, show me a deeper level of your resolve."
She gave a slight turn of her delicate wrist, and at once the crowd below understood.
The believers, faces full of mania, stripped off their ragged robes and exposed thin, weak bodies covered in scars.
Then, in the very next instant, those people, lost to some kind of frenzy, seized whatever they could use as instruments of penance and began whipping and mutilating themselves without regard for pain.
Fresh blood splashed across the plaza before the cathedral, and the heavy scent of it drifted into the shrine lit by sacred candles.
The heat from those candles caused the blood-scented air to rise, and it gathered around the statue of the God-Emperor.
Under some strange effect of condensation, two streams of blood collected in the statue's eye sockets, then slowly spilled down its face like tears...
(End of Chapter)
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