Chapter 263: The Collapsing Faith and Strange Feelings

“……”

Noticing the Saintess’s tense body, Miss Vilyric shook her head helplessly, understanding what she was thinking.

“Don’t worry, I’m not foolish enough to become someone else’s tool or hound. As long as nothing goes wrong on your end, I can guarantee the safety of the Judging Sacred Sword.”

“Honestly, while I am a bit interested in that thing, it’s just curiosity and nothing more. I won’t attempt to snatch it.”

“……Sorry, I might be a bit overly anxious.”

It was clear that although Fleidetrika didn’t voice it, as the Judging Saintess of the Holy Kingdom, she must be worried about the country and her loved ones on the battlefield, wanting to break the current situation.

That’s why she sought a breakthrough and help, taking the risk to meet Xī, who was mysterious but at least relatively trustworthy and powerful.

Once the general situation was understood, it wasn’t too hard to guess.

“At this point, I can only trust Miss Xī’s abilities and character. I hope this gamble… doesn’t become one of my most regrettable decisions in life.”

Knowing that bragging more would be meaningless, Vilyric simply smiled and continued the conversation.

“Now, let’s talk about something I’ve been curious about for a long time, Miss Fleidetrika. What exactly made you join the Church of the Light and even rise to its upper ranks?”

“Well… the reason is quite complicated.”

The Saintess arranged her golden hair, and though her appearance was almost identical to Aidevenna’s, it carried a subtle elegance and gentleness that felt sisterly, perhaps due to their age difference.

This person was said to still be a young lady who hadn’t married yet. Could it be that she secretly had…

Just as someone began to let their thoughts wander, becoming a bit inappropriate, Fleidetrika’s gentle and serious voice rang out once more.

“Miss Xī, have you noticed? In this region, I mean, in the vast area surrounding this settlement, believers are unable to use faith-based magic. Even if they can, it’s significantly weakened.”

“Oh ~?”

Although Vilyric’s exclamation was a feigned surprise to cover her earlier distraction, she had indeed sensed something similar.

Back when they first arrived at that primordial forest and felt the faint, familiar essence lingering over the land, Miss White Fox had already asked a similar question to everyone traveling with her.

She said, “Is there anyone here who can use faith-based magic?”

Though this question couldn’t be confirmed since there were no Church of the Goddess members among them, after arriving at the settlement, she had asked the locals in a roundabout way.

The answer was that since the Demon King’s invasion began, this area… a lot of places in the eastern Sanos Province could not use faith-based magic, or to be more precise, the power of faith-based magic was greatly diminished.

But faith-based magic is a blessing from the supreme, omnipotent Light Goddess, how could it be weakened or disappear out of nowhere?

No matter the reason, many scattered church members were thus strongly impacted, leading to a wavering of their faith, which was one significant reason they chose to join the Church of the Light, similar to the Church of the Goddess, to conduct activities under a new identity.

However, that situation changed with Vilyric and others’ arrival, disrupting the blood ritual hidden underground.

Believers reconnected with the powers they once knew, bringing a renewed vitality to the entire settlement. Plus, Vilyric appropriately revealed Xī’s identity at that moment, allowing them to smoothly gain recognition and the trust of the Church of the Light.

Skipping over the subsequent events, Miss White Fox already had a general understanding of the reason faith-based magic was ineffective in this area and reactivated after their arrival.

It might likely relate to that much larger reversed magic, “Reverse Cross Blood,” under the Saint Belgen Mountains, which sacrificed “Killing” that interfered with the local faith-based magic system’s operation.

So after they repelled the Killing King’s thoughts and destroyed the blood pool and ritual deep underground, the interference effect vanished.

If many other regions in Sanos Province experienced similar situations, it further indicated that the Killing King’s sacrifice ritual did not only take place here.

No wonder that guy, including his war generals, despite having been beaten back, still believed so firmly in the “Day of the Killing Blade’s Descent.”

Just then, seeing that Miss White Fox had not spoken up for a while, the Saintess gritted her teeth and suddenly brought up a… topic that seemed a bit strange.

“Miss Xī doesn’t seem to be a resident of the Holy Kingdom. Your race doesn’t appear to be merely human. Since you possess such powerful abilities, you should be a deeply qualified and seasoned predecessor, right? May I ask, do you remember when faith-based magic… this ability first appeared?”

“Mm?”

Noticing Fleidetrika’s unusual expression when mentioning this, Vilyric didn’t bother to mind the implication of “Oh my, you’re getting up there in age, aren’t you?” and just frowned, pressing further.

“What do you mean when it appeared?”

Hearing Vilyric’s slightly odd tone, the Saintess realized that her previous attitude was a bit too eager. Taking a deep breath to calm down, she nodded lightly.

“You see, regardless of any magical system, they’re developed and passed down by predecessors. Although faith-based magic is said to be a power granted by the Goddess, it couldn’t have appeared out of nowhere. There must be a process from nothing to something, from giving to receiving, right?”

“But… there’s nothing. As the Judging Saintess with a grasp of the Holy Empire’s history, both official and unofficial, there isn’t a single manuscript or record detailing the process of how the Goddess granted believers this power of faith-based magic.”

“……It’s as if it appeared out of thin air, existing since the birth of the Holy Kingdom.”

“But that’s clearly very strange, isn’t it? It’s too peculiar!”

“Magic is ultimately just a tool for living beings; how could it possibly bind itself to believers without a cause? Furthermore, if there is such power, how could the catastrophic loss and disasters recorded from previous demon wars, which were much smaller in scale than now, reach such dreadful extents?!”

“……”

Watching the blonde girl get more and more agitated, to the point where her emotions were unraveling and her eyes seemed lost, softly murmuring, “When did our Holy Kingdom… when did we believers of the Goddess obtain this power?” and similar phrases…

Vilyric’s brow under the mask tightened even more.

She hadn’t reflected deeply on this aspect.

But what Fleidetrika said wasn’t wrong; if she thought about it, she could vaguely sense some subtle discord, especially for those who understood the history of the Holy Kingdom well; this sense of contradiction…

It was evident that for a Saintess who was devout in her faith, suddenly realizing such a chilling matter would cause an immense shake—it was almost without doubt.

During this time she’d been missing, Fleidetrika had likely been grappling with similar anxious torment. After all, the more devout the believer, the greater the impact when their faith collapses.

This was a remarkable clue she had stumbled upon.

   

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