Chapter 161 — Familiar Faces
Not long after…
Every area outside the main hall had already been visited by Gideon.
Haggai and Caroline more or less understood now why Archbishop Borha had summoned him.
With how cautious and crafty this man was—
who on earth could possibly outplay him?
They even felt…
a trace of sympathy for the cultists.
Absolutely not!
Both of them immediately repented inwardly.
Such thoughts bordered on "betrayal," and must be purged at once.
During their rounds, Gideon unexpectedly ran into two familiar figures.
"Bente? Zal?"
The two students were crouched beside a sealed emergency exit.
"What are you two doing here?" Gideon asked.
The pair jolted upon seeing the monsters behind him—
but relaxed as soon as they heard Gideon's voice.
"When we were backstage rehearsing earlier," Zal whispered,
"we overheard Bishop Hermann talking to some man…"
"They… they sold the disabled children from the relief home to the cultists…" Bente added.
The two explained, each picking up where the other left off.
"Once we realized what Hans was planning, we figured the venue isn't safe.
So we slipped out early…"
Gideon had already guessed as much.
But he still pointed to the door:
"And what's wrong with this emergency exit?"
Zal hesitated.
He recognized the uniforms of the Vatican envoy behind Gideon,
and feared saying something inappropriate.
Bente, however, had no such filter.
"Father Gideon, you said it yourself—
when in danger, always secure an escape route!"
"This emergency door leads to the next building,
but it was temporarily locked for the memorial event.
So we… uh… thought we should pry it open."
Haggai rubbed his face.
A bad feeling washed over him.
Please don't let the entire Church get morally corrupted by one man… please…
Caroline didn't hold back:
"Father Gideon, why are all the seminary students learning your bad habits?"
Gideon looked away, absolutely not admitting anything.
Later, at another emergency exit, they encountered yet another acquaintance.
The man had his butt stuck up in the air,
his entire face pressed against the lock,
sighing repeatedly as he worked.
"…Silas?" Bente whispered uncertainly.
"Huh? Oh—
oh, it's you guys." Silas straightened clumsily, trying to act casual.
"You really are unlucky, getting chased by so many monsters…"
A second later, he realized something was off.
He immediately raised his cross defensively, nervous as a startled cat.
"Silas, relax—these monsters are all with Father Gideon…"
Bente explained everything.
Only then did Silas lower his guard.
Gideon glanced aside, pretending to examine the surroundings.
Caroline narrowed her eyes at Silas's hand.
"…Is that a hammer?"
Then she glanced at the emergency door.
The lock was damaged—
but the marks clearly showed someone had applied force at the wrong angle,
causing it to bend instead of break.
"You were prying the door too?" she asked, incredulous.
Silas instantly stiffened.
"Prying?! Who's prying anything?
I— I'm ensuring the emergency route stays accessible!"
Silas suddenly became extremely agitated.
"And why did you use the word 'also'?!"
As a seminary student—
and worse, a Bronze Cross candidate—
if anyone found out he tried to break open a locked door just to escape,
he'd be mocked for the rest of his life.
A few minutes later…
Their little squad had one more member.
Silas regained his dignity frighteningly fast.
"When I escaped earlier, those cultists activated some kind of ritual," he reported solemnly—
his earlier embarrassment completely gone.
"It targets the mind. Anyone affected completely loses consciousness.
No response, no awareness—nothing."
"The clergy from St. Peter's, Trinity, and several other churches are trying to break the spell…
But the cultists are draining their holy artifacts faster than they can respond.
If they run out…"
He didn't finish the sentence.
He didn't need to.
Everyone understood:
the hall was on the brink of collapse.
Fortunately, the outside setup was already complete,
so the group headed straight toward the hall.
A blackened cross lay discarded on the ground.
Around it, piles of holy artifacts were heaped—
all contaminated beyond use.
Archbishop Matthews took out another artifact and pressed it to a priest's forehead.
The priest's eyes rolled back, his expression contorted in pain.
"The lost soul returns…
The Lord's light calls you home…"
Beside him, Sister Bettice frowned.
They had already burned through far too many holy artifacts just trying to wake people up.
Even St. Peter's Cathedral—rich as it was—couldn't sustain this level of expenditure.
She glanced at Father Roderick beside her.
His theological training was middling at best; even with a holy artifact shielding him,
the runes were eating away at his mind.
He was already losing coherence.
"Drink this."
Bettice handed him a five-year holy water.
It would delay the mental corruption—
nothing more.
A temporary patch on a sinking ship.
She looked across the hall.
There, a priest knelt with one knee down,
his face twisted—half in agony, half unnervingly calm.
"Vann Downs," she recognized him.
A priest from Trinity Church.
He was using sheer mental fortitude to forcefully endure the rune's effects.
Bettice shook her head.
That's basically suicide.
Beside him stood a burly priest—
Charles Shaw from the Freemason Church.
Holy light rolled across his arms as he smashed away incoming monsters
even while resisting the spiritual assault.
Then his attention shifted.
Bettice felt it too.
From behind a pillar stepped a man wearing thin-rimmed glasses,
holding an empty bottle.
Both priests immediately tensed.
"Why struggle?" Abraham asked lightly.
When neither answered, he continued:
"You've spent your lives chasing faith—
yet faith is nothing but a comforting lie,
a tool humans invented to run away from pain."
"I'm giving you a chance.
To abandon these meaningless rituals
and experience the truth—
the purity of suffering."
Charles snorted.
"Don't understand a word."
Bettice almost smiled—almost.
"You aren't one of the Wings of Vengeance?" she asked sharply.
"Why are you acting like a cultist of the Old Gods instead?"
"Have you betrayed your so-called 'Lord'?"
Abraham adjusted his glasses calmly.
"No need for you to trouble yourselves with that."
Charles scoffed.
"Oh, so you can speak human."
A faint twitch crossed Abraham's eye.
"…Ignorant fools."
He lifted the empty bottle to his lips.
The soft whoo-whoo of blowing echoed.
The hall fell silent.
Even the monsters stopped moving.
Bettice's instincts screamed.
She checked Matthews and Roderick—
no change yet.
Just as she wondered what trick Abraham was playing—
A second wave of "whoo-whoo" sounds flooded the hall.
Bettice stiffened.
All the mentally corrupted audience members
were blowing into empty plastic bottles.
The runes behind the seats burst into dazzling light.
"Zzzzz…"
The holy artifacts Bettice carried dimmed rapidly.
Contamination. Holy power turning impure.
And then—
she froze.
A row of human figures had appeared in front of her without warning,
wearing the Church's robes.
They slowly turned around.
"Father…?
Mother?"
Sister Bettice's pupils trembled.
Her eyes rolled back white.
Matthews glanced sideways.
His brow tightened.
But he kept chanting,
desperately trying to reclaim the souls drowning in madness.
Across the hall, Abraham looked toward the archbishop.
"Your so-called salvation…
is meaningless."
He raised the bottle again—
BOOM!
A deafening crash drowned out the sound.
Abraham snapped his head up—
the massive doors of the hall had been blown into two broken halves.
Someone had arrived.