Chapter 1692: Exposure to the Light of Judgement
"Damn, and I thought I had a flair for the dramatic," Zhen Liu said as he stared up at the floating high priestess. "Then again, Logos and Pathos did mention that the [Chaos] I infused her with may have had a small influence on her thought patterns..."
When Serena initially asked Zhen Liu to borrow the defeated abbotts and princes, he had an inkling on what she had planned...but she didn’t expect her to be so dramatic about it.
Hell, if he was in her shoes, he would’ve done it from inside of the church and not floating above it.
Regardless of his own thoughts on creativity, though, Zhen Liu was more than happy to simply watch from the ground.
To be more precise, he was seated at a church that doubled as a coffee shop.
"And after all of this is over, I can finally absorb some of those primordial flames," Zhen Liu said with joy as he sipped a locally made espresso. "Hallelujah."
...Now back to Serena...
To accuse two of the biggest leaders in the theocracy of a crime as heinous as Serena was suggesting was...sensational to say the least.
But to the people who were allies or disciples to the accused, this statement was outright scandalous!
"What?!"
"How dare she accuse them of such things!"
"Without Feroxxa, who else would keep those rowdy mercenaries in line?!"
"Without Hulna, who else would host the holy orgies?"
"Wait, what?"
However, these scandalized supporters were about to sing a very different tune once they saw the proof that Serena was about to provide.
Well, the proof that Serena and the enforcers of the church were about to provide.
"I know the accusations I have leveled are beyond sacrilegious, treasonous even, but I do not make these accusations lightly," Serena assured her followers as Feroxxa’s and Hulna’s floating forms settled to her sides. "Behold."
Snapping her fingers once more, the illusionary display provided by the [Sacred Flame] morphed and showed Feroxxa and Hulna as they met and conspired with the [Flame of Ambition]. To be more precise, it was a mix of memories that the kaijin had shared with Serena for this exact moment with the memories that the original [Sacred Flame] managed to extract from its reabsorbed counterpart.
And it wasn’t just a visual aid either.
At the exact moment that the friends and disciples of the accused were about to protest and say that the illusionary display was fake, they heard the voices of the two priests engage in conversation with the [Flame of Ambition].
Coincidentally, both Feroxxa and Hulna regained consciousness right when these conversations were being played back for everyone to hear.
Needless to say, their reaction to seeing these rather exposing memories wasn’t good to say the least. The duo looked as if they had just been exposed sleeping with the enemy...which wasn’t entirely wrong.
"Oh no..."
"Fuck!"
Making matters worse, the two of them didn’t even have the strength to break free and retaliate.
Their powers had been more or less drained by their duplicitous benefactor, and they had a pair of angry protokaijin looming over them.
One wrong move, and they were as good as dead.
As such, they had no choice, but to watch as their lives for unravelled before their very eyes.
The first memory that was shared was the promises of power that this offshoot flame had made with the two church leaders. To their credit, the leaders initially looked reluctant before ultimately agreeing.
The expressions on the disciples and allies looked perturbed but somewhat forgiving.
Feroxxa and Hulna gritted their teeth at the display, cursing themselves for making such a deal in the first place.
The second memory was these two religious leaders, unaware of the dealings the other had made, allowing the [Flame of Ambition] to enter the inner sanctum and perform the murder they had just witnessed moments ago.
The looks of forgiveness began to wane by a wider margin, due to how beloved the previous Hearth Tender was to a vast majority of the population.
At the sight of their own ambitious cowardice, Feroxxa and Hulna began to hang their heads in shame. Alfina was honestly too good for this world...and they had fucked it up.
By the time the display showed how the abbotts had begun to take corpses off the battlefield to create [False Guards], those looks of forgiveness were replaced entirely by looks of shock and extreme disturbance.
Some of the converted corpses were originally people that they cared about, so seeing them being turned out into undead revenants was...a little disturbing.
Especially when the aformentioned power source for the undead warriors was a semi-heretical offshoot of their holy icon.
"This...this is barbaric."
"How did this happen under all of our noses..."
"Wait...I think I recognize one of the people helping...or is it just a trick on my eyes?"
"..."
Hearing the cries of the people they had wronged and deceived, the shame inside of them grew even deeper.
They intellectually understood that this shame wasn’t just coming from themselves, but they were too emotional at the moment to honestly care.
This perturbance then turned into extreme rage when they saw that both of these leaders in the church wrote letters of conspiratorial treason to the Erupting Dawn Empire forces.
The same forces that were attempting to siege them.
"This is an outrage!"
"How could you, Abbott Feroxxa? How could you?!"
"I feel...so dirty now."
At this exact moment, the two former leaders now felt nothing but deep regret over their actions.
But whether it was remorse over realizing their wrongdoings, or just sadness over being caught was unclear.
What wasn’t unclear was the look of utter defeat on their faces.
There was definitely more footage that Serena could’ve shared to make Feroxxa and Hulna look even worst in the eyes of their former friends and followers, but she knew when to stop before getting too personal with the exposures.
Especially when some of the incriminating footage involved the existence of a man that was supposed to be considered a myth by most common folk.
That stated, Serena knew that the shared footage had done its job.
Looking over her shoulder, she could see the defeated, haunted visages of the men she had once thought to he untouchable monsters.
Now?
They were nothing more than broken husks.
’Damn, no wonder Zhen Liu advocates for mercy...this is way more satisfying than just outright executing them,’ Serena thought to herself, her expression remaining flat to better hide her thoughts and feelings.
That said, the emotions of the citizens were rather... passionate, to say the least.
"Punish them!"
"Burn them!"
"Castrate them!"
"Make them hang!"
"Wait...why hasn’t she done so already?"
Under normal circumstances, the citizenry wouldn’t direct such angry sentiments towards their betters.
The gap between Aether warriors of different ranks always brought some modicum of respect, even if there was a difference of ideals.
So the fact that the people were ignoring such basic decorum, was a sign that Hulna and Feroxxa were now considered even less than dirt in the eyes of the people.
"Once I had learned of these crimes, of these sins, I had also wanted to bring down the hammer of justice in the most painful way possible," Serena told her followers. "To have them pay for all they had done...and I had gotten close to doing just that."
The display made by the [Sacred Flame] changed as soon as Serena said the words.
The display didn’t show a grand battle that led to Feroxxa’s and Hulna’s current situation. Instead, it showed the moments after.
Feroxxa and Hulna bound and at the mercy of Serena, wielding the [Sacred Flame] and preparing to put an end to these two once and for all.
The people knew that she didn’t go through with it, judging from the fact that the two motherfuckers were still alive and bound in burning chains, but they were curious as to why Serena opted to spare them in the first place.
"I had wanted to use the [Sacred Flame] to burn them both into ashes, them and their conspirators," Serena continued. As she spoke, the display showed the defeated princes in similar states as the defeated abbotts.
The three princes looked at each other in disbelief but said nothing at the portrayal.
After all, a certain Lord was watching to make sure that they behaved as well.
"But then...I remembered something. Something so important yet ubiquitous in our teachings that we have a tendency to forget. That the greatest act of strength, that grandest privilege of the powerful...is mercy."
Highlighting these words, the display depicting Serena about to make several charred corpses show her instead using the flame to bind the defeated in chains.
"I can never truly forgive or forget about the things they had done to us, but it would make me just as bad as them if I simply killed for the sake of my own satisfaction."