Episode 193
“Your existence is a lie.”
The angel with six black wings spoke, her voice as dark as her appearance. It was Lady Shadow, Aurelia.
“Perhaps you’re right.”
The pure white-winged Saint Aurelia stood before her, unfazed.
“But my lie is truer than your truth.”
”…!”
“You, who have succumbed to the ugly truth and surrendered yourself to corruption.”
The white Aurelia smiled gently.
“Would you kindly step aside, for the sake of our ideals?”
“Ideals, you say?”
“To save the Kingdom of Britannia from the Empire’s tyranny and uphold the goddess’s will. Surely you haven’t forgotten the suffering of our people on the island of Britannia?”
Her expression was resolute, devoid of any doubt.
“I intend to carry out the beautiful lie you couldn’t uphold.”
The white Aurelia declared, while the black Aurelia remained silent. Ugly truth versus beautiful lie.
Just as the Shadow Lord was about to intervene, the black Aurelia raised a hand to stop Dale.
“Do you speak of ideals, knowing the outcome they brought to Britannia?”
“Who brought about that outcome? Was it you who massacred our people? No, it wasn’t.”
The white Aurelia questioned, as if unable to comprehend.
“It was the Empire.”
”…!”
“Our ideals were beautiful. It was the Empire and the puppet you chose to serve, the Shadow Lord, who trampled on that noble conviction.”
“Oh, Saintess…!”
Beside her, Gilles de Rais knelt as if in prayer. Dale couldn’t even muster a smile at the sight. Yet the white Aurelia continued to speak.
“Are you trying to blame the defeat against an irresistible evil on the good?”
The white Aurelia asked. Lady Shadow bit her lip.
“That is the truth.”
“Indeed, it is. The truth that we can only be defeated by an irresistible evil.”
”…”
“Did you kneel before evil for such a trivial reason, holy maiden?”
The white Aurelia’s question left the black Aurelia speechless.
“Why should we feel responsible for the bloodshed? Wasn’t it the Empire that trampled our homeland and slaughtered our people from the start?”
It was impossible.
“Even if my existence is a lie, even if our fate is to be defeated by an irresistible evil, I will believe in my conviction.”
The white Saintess declared with determination.
“Even if it is a good destined to fail, I will not cease to resist evil.”
Dale, too, was at a loss for words.
As the Shadow Lord, he could see the truth hidden within the white Saintess’s shadow.
If she were a creature of pure darkness, the story would be simple. But she wasn’t. The white Aurelia, created by three demons, was…
──undeniably real.
“I will fulfill my mission. So step aside, truth that is closer to a lie than a lie itself.”
“I cannot.”
It was the Shadow Lord’s duty to stand in her way.
“Officially, your existence ended with your execution by fire in the frozen lands of Saxon.”
“Ah, even to the end, you think only of yourself.”
“I must.”
The Shadow Lord replied.
“Nothing is more important than my own survival.”
“How shameless.”
“Do you think so?”
The Shadow Lord sneered.
“My life is no longer just my own. The lives tied to the Shadow Lord’s existence far outweigh the blood you shed on Britannia. That is the weight of my life.”
Dale spoke.
“I will survive to gain power and bring down this Empire. I cannot afford to die easily.”
“Then there’s no choice.”
Finally, the white-winged Saintess adjusted her grip on her sword. The holy light at the tip of her blade flared, and the Shadow Lord began to chant a spell of darkness and frost.
But before either could act, the black Aurelia launched herself forward.
In her hand was the warrior’s sword, ‘Peacemaker.’
The white angel and the black angel clashed.
Clang!
White aura met blood-red aura.
Clang!
“How dare you lay a hand on the Saintess!”
At that moment, Gilles de Rais drew his sword. No longer the avatar he once showed on Britannia, he was now a fanatic who had found salvation through countless slaughters, bringing a new fervor to his beliefs.
A steel guardian stood there.
“No one will harm the Saintess again!”
A towering figure, clad in armor so thick it seemed ready to burst. It was more a mass of steel than armor.
A knight’s vow to never lose the Saintess again, his massive mace swung down.
Boom!
The black Aurelia retreated, spreading her dark wings, while Gilles de Rais planted his shield firmly.
“No one shall pass here!”
“Ah, what a mess this has become.”
Master Baro scratched his head at the scene.
“Do you really think so?”
Dale asked, and Master Baro shrugged.
“Well… I haven’t used it in so long, I’ve nearly forgotten how to summon my avatar.”
“There’s no need.”
Dale shook her head quietly. She understood the threat posed by the Saintess and Gilles de Rais, but they were not invincible foes. She knew that too.
Yet the Shadow Lord’s decision was different.
Paradoxically, because he could trust their truth.
“Step back, Saintess.”
”…!”
Dale spoke to her knight. Using a title she hadn’t uttered since that day.
The black Saintess retreated, and Dale addressed Gilles de Rais, the white shield.
“I believe in your lie.”
”…”
“Even knowing the three demons created you, you do not hesitate to become the goddess’s and the nation’s champion?”
“Indeed.”
The white Saintess, Aurelia, replied. Just as she had been remembered on Britannia.
“I am no longer the naive girl of those days.”
Aurelia answered. Just as Dale, and Lady Shadow by his side, had changed, so had the Aurelia created by the three demons.
“Let’s negotiate.”
Dale proposed.
“As long as your actions do not harm me or Saxon, I will ensure your safe passage from here.”
He understood why Lady Scarlet had brought him here and left the aftermath to him. Even the Empire would not welcome this presence.
The more chaos, the better. And the Saintess before Dale would undoubtedly become an apostle of chaos, regardless of her righteousness.
“Therefore, you must wear a ‘collar’ to remain under my control.”
“How dare you…!”
The steel guardian Gilles de Rais roared, but the white Saintess remained calm.
“What do you want?”
“The blue puppeteer.”
Dale spoke. At the same time, a blue butterfly fluttered, and one of the mountain assassins by Dale’s side became a blue puppet.
─ You called, my lord?
“I need your web.”
Dale said.
“Can you bind the Saintess and this man with your web, so they become my ‘eyes and ears’?”
─ Ah, that is not a difficult task. I can even make them dance on puppet strings.
The blue tower master of intrigue and deceit, Arachne, smiled.
“Do not worry.”
Dale assured.
“Her existence will be your collar, and at the same time, a protector in the shadows.”
”…The blue web, you say.”
The white Saintess questioned.
“Can you assure me I won’t become your puppet, bound by that web?”
“One thing is certain.”
The Shadow Lord replied coldly.
“If I wished it, the Saintess would not leave here alive.”
”…”
The white Saintess fell silent. The Saintess before Dale was not the girl of the past. Just as Lady Shadow by his side had changed. But the Shadow Lord was no different.
“Turning all my forces against me would be suicide.”
“Perhaps.”
The Saintess smiled faintly. An irresistible evil stood there, and she seemed ready to fight it.
“For now, entrust yourself to the blue web and wait for the future.”
But the Shadow Lord spoke. A devilishly sweet whisper.
─ As you wish, my lord.
The Blue Tower Master, Arachne, snapped her fingers. Just like the dissonant blue that Sepia had once shown, blue particles scattered in all directions. Before one could even register their dispersal, the particles connected, forming a web that ensnared the two of them.
Gilles de Rais swung his mace in an attempt to resist, but it was not something that could be broken by sheer force. Not even magic could defy it.
The web wrapped around the Holy Maiden and her guardian knight like tendrils, and it was something they could not resist from the start.
”…”
Bound in the web, the pure white Aurelia remained silent.
The Shadow Lord moved forward, his steps steady and unhurried.
It was at that moment.
Srrng.
He drew the jet-black cursed sword, “Gluttony,” from his waist and plunged it down.
Thud!
”…!”
Toward Gilles de Rais, the steel guardian who stood by the Holy Maiden’s side.
“You, you fiend…!”
“Do not misunderstand.”
The Shadow Lord whispered coldly.
“This man is merely paying the price for his own sins.”
““Sir Gilles de Rais…!””
It wasn’t just one Aurelia who called out his name in shock. Two Aurelias cried out for the knight who had once declared himself the most loyal protector on the island of Britannia.
“Behold this hellish flesh. An otherworldly realm created by sacrificing the bodies of devout young boys.”
“H-Holy Maiden… Oh, Lady Aurelia…!”
Neither of the two Aurelias could respond. In the silence, Gilles de Rais murmured on.
“Until the very end, I will… I will always…”
Swoosh!
But his words were never completed. The Shadow Lord’s sword swung, imbued with the chill of the end.
A coldness of annihilation that surpassed any aura in this world.
Gilles de Rais’s body disintegrated at the particle level, leaving not even ashes behind.
Leaving the chill of annihilation brought from the end of providence, the Shadow Lord asked,
“Pure White Holy Maiden, your existence is stained from birth with the blood and evil of innocent young celibates.”
The Holy Maiden, bound in the web, bit her lip in silence.
“Even amidst such filth, do you still intend to pursue your ideals?”
Dale asked. Silence descended.
At the end of the silence, the Pure White Holy Maiden answered.