Chapter 26: The Man

Within the white citadel.

Underneath the Church.

The white robed woman looked at the man sitting on the throne as bodies piled up under her.

One of her hundreds of red arms pointed at the man and she opened her mouth to speak.

"Holy Pontiff, I formally request to take over your post."

The man, who had his eyes closed opened them, revealing a white pupiled man, no, he was blind.

The man had wrinkles and such all over his face, wisdom could be felt emitting from him, along with that wisdom comes self-confidence and power to back up those wisdom.

The man looked at the white robed woman as if he had seen her and softly shook his head and sighed, "Aria Grace Crestfallen. Is this how you repay your savior?"

The white robed woman, Aria looked at the man and softly smiled like a true saintess, her eyes turning crescent as she did so.

"Are you not the one who made me into a choir member the day after you saved me from those beasts? It was thanks to you that I was able to meet our true lord and savior, The Crimson Moon. It was due to his presence that I became the saintess in his own church."

She then let out a crazed smile.

"I will lead the Church of the Crimson Moon better than you could ever do. The Crimson Moon himself said so. Do not worry, Holy Pontiff, I will lead this world to salvation and let these people return to the embrace of the Crimson Moon once more."

The man looked at her, then chuckled.

He looked at her dead in the eyes and said, "If so, then do you know the secrets of our church?"

Aria looked at him and her eyes narrowed, her gaze questioning him as she did so.

The man giggled and burst into a fit of laughter, he grasped his head with his hand and stood up from his seat, he raised both of his arms up in the air and shouted, "Ha! You dare think of replacing me when you yourself are ignorant to the truth!?"

He then raised his fist and spoke, "I am the righteous hand of justice, you are an evil that I had saved in a random act of kindess, yet the snake bit the hand that fed it! You have no right of replacing me, unless you prove to me that you are worthy!!!"

Shiiiiingg!!

A large great sword dropped down from the ceiling of the large room and stabbed through the floor with ease. It landed directly infront of the man as if it was made to do so.

The man grabbed the handle of the sword and raised it up with just his one hand and aimed it towards her before saying, "Prove to me that you are worthy of inheriting this throne."

Aria looked at the man as she felt his aura grow stronger after he grabbed the sword, his long white hair that is reminiscent of the celestials that she had read about in books about the history of the past and took a large gulp of spit.

She then felt a gaze upon her and her confidence rose. She pressed her two palms together as the hundreds of hands formed into that of a wing behind her, she the grabbed one of the hands and directly tore off its bone.

The flesh of the arm slowly melted like ice infront of a fire and revealed a long sword with just one edge while the other was blunt.

"The Crimson Moon is by my side."

"Hail the Crimson Moon."

Both softly prayed to their God before the two suddenly dashed towards each other in a speed that was incomprehensible for a normal human.

Aria span around and slammed one of her wings on the ground, propelling her up, dodging the swift slash that the man had done.

When she was in the air, her eyes widened as the man took out a dagger from within his white robes and threw it towards her, to which she responded by immediately covering herself with her hand formed wings.

"Ghk!?"

The dagger stabbed through her wings and secreted a gas like substance that immediately made her wings rot.

The rot was slowly spreading, the more it spread, the faster the rot happened.

Aria sliced one of her wings off as she landed on the floor with a loud thud, she then looked at her other wing and found that it was not affected, so she turned her head to look at the man only to meet the tip of his sword about to hit her.

She then swiftly moved her head to the side, dodging the attack barely and countered back with a strike of her own.

The man only took out another dagger, but this time, it was burning with purple flames, once her sword hit the dagger, it bursts into flame and thoroughly burned half of it.

The man stepped forward and grabbed her neck before throwing her to the wall, and span around with his great sword as momentum and threw it to the same direction she flew. She hurriedly dug her wings on the floor and found that it didn't break,

The floor was harder than it looks, she thought before slamming her wing on the floor, propelling her upwards, she landed on one of the floors of the entire room as she watched the great sword stabbed through the wall filled with all kinds of pictures and books with might that she could not comprehend.

She then looked at the man as he walked towards her, holding the burning dagger and the poisonous dagger with both hands, smiling chillingly as he did so.

Aria could not understand how this man became so strong.

And he was blind too, yet she could not fight of a disabled person?

She grabbed another hand from her wings and it rotted quickly, creating a new sword. She looked at her broken sword and threw it away and readied her stance.

She felt fear for being unable to achieve victory for the good of the Church. If she wants to truly lead the Church into Salvation, she must cut off all the old generation and their tradition filled minds, she must leave this tumor behind if she wants to save the world. She needed to grasp the entire Church for herself.

"Are you doubting your own capabilities?" The man asked. He looked at her with a gaze that was as blank as a sheet of paper, or as blank as the void of the cosmos.

"Say my name, Aria. If you still respect me as your elder."