Chapter 77: the Fire Rises

Word spread across the territories like wildfire.

The Church had attacked a wedding — slaughtered innocents, desecrated holy ground, and nearly killed the Witch Saintess herself.

And the people had seen what followed.

The storm.

The sky torn open by her wrath.

The estate reduced to rubble, the Church soldiers thrown from the heavens like cursed angels.

It began with whispers.

Then… rebellion.

Statues of the Saintess Yidali were dragged through the streets, shattered at the base of courthouses and churches. Altars were desecrated. Holy manuscripts burned in public squares.

Priests were driven from their homes. Inquisition agents — once feared — now fled in hiding, hunted through alleyways and woods.

The world was shifting.

The Church had become the villain. The heretic became the myth.

And everywhere — everywhere — people chanted the same name:

Elena.

But soon, even that changed.

They stopped calling her the Witch Saintess. They stopped calling her witch or saintess at all.

Doña Guabancex.

Mother of Storms, fury of the old gods, the one who made the heavens bleed.

And with every whispered prayer, every fist in the air, the name spread.

Not just a myth.

A movement.

Amidst the unrest, the House of Matteo still lived.

Aurora, with her voice like steel, stood on platforms and barricades, rallying the wounded and the hopeless.

Phineus, now nearly grown, worked tirelessly among the rebel youth — distributing food, ferrying messages, shielding the vulnerable.

Together, they lit the flame.

The fire of revolution.