Chương 166: 80. A Mistake I Can Be Proud Of

Why? I don't understand. To forsake me is one thing. I am pathetic. Worthless. A pitiful excuse for a priestess. But how can She turn Her light away from Draga or Lady Faraah while this monster in Fa'aun fur looming over us professes to represent Her will? My chest aches. It hurts to breathe. My eyes blur as much from blood loss as the tears flowing down my face. I know how much danger we are in. I should switch with Violet. She can heal us, fight back, keep us safe—it's what she does.

But even if I did, what good would it do? High Inquisitor Shaa just slew two of the strongest fighters we've ever met in a heartbeat. I want vengeance as much as any of us— more, as unworthy that thought is of my Goddess. But it's hopeless. Instead, my mind grasps at the only thing it can make sense of. The only thing I've ever truly known, even if I'm rapidly discovering that I fall short even here. Faith—and more importantly, my lingering crisis thereof.

"V-vessel?" I croak, acutely aware of the fact that the only thing keeping me alive is her skill.

"Why did you call me that?" Lady Shaa cocks her head, ignoring the fighting behind her even as it spills into the lower tiers of the gallery without Lady Faarah's skill to hold them back. She purses her lips and turns her blade over in her hands, as if considering whether to engage or simply kill me.

"I can see the remnants of the curse on you," she finally says.

"I didn't know what I was looking at until you mentioned your faith. I had assumed the ritual was a failure, but why would an alien creature follow our tenets? You're still alive in there, aren't you, Priestess?" I blink, sending fresh tears cascading down my cheeks. The Alchemist's words echo in my head,"The church would have made you into an [Angel]."

"And what if I am?" I ask.

"Then there may well be a use for you yet," she replies casually, crouching down to meet my eyes.

"You're no [Angel], but whatever you are has clear potential. Reyna was no pushover, as one of the top candidates to take my place one day, despite being lowborn." Is she suggesting what I think she is? What a flabbergasting notion.

"You want me to join you?" I ask incredulously.

"After all this? I just watched you murder two innocent people." Lady Shaa shakes her head.

"I want you to fulfill your purpose. You and I are both servants of the Goddess, but Her light is blinding. Those who can only see Her radiance lack the will to act as Her true agents."

"By—" I wince and clutch my chest. It's not bleeding anymore, but every word feels like a fresh stab wound.

"By killing good men and women?"

"Lowborn scum," she argues, "perverting the natural order dictated by Her wisdom. Women above men, nobility above the common clans, those closest to the Goddess ruling over those who shrink from Her light. Their crime was the corruption of that order."" I am lowborn," I spit. She inclines her head.

"And yet, you can still serve, provided you know your place. You hold this abomination's chains. Wield them in Her name, and you may yet find your place at Her side, in the end." Chains? It occurs to me, belatedly, that the others have been unusually quiet through this. That can't be true, can it? We're all equals. I've always considered myself apart from Maev, but despite my own misgivings I've never felt like I was more or less than any of them. Well—perhaps not never, but I don't feel like that now.

"Was that why I was placed here?" I mutter almost silently.

"My purpose, from the beginning, was to be the strings with which you puppeted whatever the ritual summons—be it Demon, Angel, or... this." The High Inquisitor nods.

"You understand. The cult was misguided—led by lowborn fools who did not understand the power they stole—but they saw glimmers of the truth. With proper guidance, they became a weapon against the same shadows in which they dwell. You can be the same." After so long, I've finally found it. The reason I was kept in torment for centuries, the reason my soul is trapped in this loathsome body, the purpose granted me by my Goddess that I was too blinded by Her radiance to properly understand.

I can even see it now, the true class that the High Priestess who raised me hid from my mind for my own protection. [Tier 5 Vessel of Divinity]*** - Level 10/10 I don't expand that—something in the back of my mind warning me that it would be dangerous. That's not a class that's meant to be removed, even in death. I can feel some structure of my interface shielding me from it, but that structure is delicate. It's always been there. I could have seen it at any time, if I'd known to look.

The curse shielding my mind has been gone a long time, but I'd lived with blinders for so long that I'd forgotten how to open my eyes. The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Looking up, I see the gentle smile of a woman whose conviction makes my own faith look like the clueless musings of a child whose horns haven't even grown in yet. Perhaps that's all it was, in the end. She holds out a hand to me, and I hesitate.

"I..." I trail off, knowing how quickly the warmth in those eyes will turn cold if they sense even a hint of deception. A poor priestess I may be, but a priestess I remain. I tell no lies.

"I serve the Goddess." I take her hand as she helps me to my feet, then tighten my grip before she can pull away.

"Which is why I cannot follow your path, Lady High Inquisitor," I continue, knowing that I am inviting my own end, as well as Maev's.

"You speak in Her name, but serve only yourself. You claim to enact Her will, but all I hear are the justifications of a tyrant seeking more power." Lady Shaa's gaze turns to steel.

"This is a mistake, Priestess."

"In the words of the only teacher who has ever treated me with respect," I retort.

"This, at least, is a mistake I can be proud of!" There's no time to do anything properly clever. I've already tipped my hand, and she'll kill me faster than I can blink if I try to fight her. Alas, I was never good at lying, nor have I ever been much of a priestess. The one thing I've ever been—the one thing that even death cannot take from me—is myself. For once, let me be the one to choose what that means.

"My name is Maev Evelyn, Priestess of the Goddess and faithful servant of Her will," I declare, shaking the High Inquisitor's hand.

"And I rebuke you." There is no creativity or art to the spell I create in the tiny window granted to me by her confusion. Now that I know where to look for it, I throw my most powerful skill into the pot, along with all of my anger and hatred, all of the confusion and despair I've felt since my fateful reincarnation, and all of my conviction in the fact that the one before me is wrong. With that, I mentally slam the cauldron into the fire and empower it with the mana candle still burning in my cloak pocket.

All of that happens in less than a heartbeat, and I only truly understand what I've done after it's finished. Lady Shaa lifts her sword just a fraction of a second too late as I speak the spell into existence. The power of [Reverse Entropy], augmented by the destructive essence of fire and my burning desire to tear down the corruption arrayed before me, twists into something truly dark—something that almost betrays the entire purpose of the mechanism through which it functions.

But the [World Engine], in its infinite wisdom, recognizes my will and grants my wish. It may not be the will of the Goddess, but I know that I speak the word with Her approval.

"[Disintegrate]." The High Arbiter aborts her attack and jerks backwards away from me, then frowns down at the hand that slipped my grasp. Or rather, what remains of it. The stump of her wrist is burnt black, with flakes of grey ash rapidly falling from it as the effect spreads up along her arm. Her blade clatters to the floor as her other hand crumbles to dust around it. She drops her arms to her sides and turns her focus on me, unnervingly calm as her body crumbles.

"You'll regret that," she promises coldly.

"From here to the Great Wheel, along the River Sagaa and across the oceans—no shelter will protect you from my wrath, I swear it on Her every name." Before I can offer a retort, she collapses in a plume of ash and dust, nothing remaining but a pile of greyish-black powder. I numbly pick up her sword, then make it all of one step before dropping to one knee and vomiting blood. My wound has opened again, and when I press a hand to my chest, it comes back red and soaked.

"Evie!" Allison calls out desperately.

"Can you hear us?! Please! That was amazing, but you need to switch with Vi!" Of course I do. The only reason I couldn't before was—was because I needed to do this. To find my purpose. Lady Shaa was wrong. I'm not special, I don't hold Maev's—our chains. I'm just... me. We are us. And we will survive this together. I stab the sword into the ground with two hands, ignoring the searing pain in my chest, and push myself up by the handle.

"R- [Revitalization]!" I stammer, using the words as a mnemonic to fight through the fuzziness of my dwindling consciousness. The wound in my chest forces itself closed with a sickening squelch, but I nearly faint on the spot as an overwhelming wave of exhaustion washes over me. [Protect the Innocent] and [Burning Innervation] keep me standing, but I'm on a time limit.

I'm pushing myself well beyond what should be my physical and mental limits, and eventually one side or the other is going to break, and I don't think I survive either scenario. Some of the inquisitors have noticed the death of their leader, and are approaching with wrath in their eyes. Unfortunately—for them—the forum is constructed in such a way that the only way out is directly through the fighting.

I tighten my bloodsoaked grip on the sword and stagger forward, squinting to see through the haze of my unfocused eyes. The rebels are still fighting, and I spare a thought for them before deciding that their riot is what caused Draga and Faarah's deaths. Plus they probably shot me. I'm sympathetic to their cause, but they don't get any more consideration than that. With a pained grunt of effort, I swing the blade forward, meters too far away to actually touch any of the approaching aggressors. Then I let go.

A deafening boom shakes the forum as my [Explosive Throw] sends the spinning blade careening through the approaching inquisitors before slamming into the gallery in a shower of molten steel and flying shards of stone. Fighters from both sides are either knocked back by the blast, or dive out of the way for safety, and I take advantage of it to sprint through the break in their lines, noting the white hot glow of what's left of the sword as I pass the crater in which it rests.

"So much for keeping that sword," I mutter, before reaching into my pockets and pulling out our emergency rock.

"Now what?" The streets are mostly empty apart from rebels and inquisitors fighting each other, and most of those are behind me, so in the absence of a better idea, I just pick a direction and start running.