LGHTNOVELBOOK chapter 45
He Who Shows Mercy
{And the people flocked to the Prophet, asking:
Prophet, how shall we know the Saint has come?
And the Prophet answered:
You will see many wonders and things you cannot understand, but above all else, you shall know him as the Saint by this:
He will stand with those who bear the world’s suffering and weep.
He will stand with those who carry heavy burdens and are weary.
Therefore, you shall draw tears, and make them your symbol.
For the Saint will see the world’s pain and sorrow and mourn with it, shedding tears for the weak and the broken.}
{Ye shall be called those who show him mercy.
*Eleos (ἔλεος)*.}
-Gospel of Grace, 19:19, 20-
*
The moment the curse began to erupt.
The Emperor summoned the Captain of the Guard first.
“Activate the magics and miracles arrayed in the detached palace!! At once!”
The instant the curse inside Iomene explodes, the entire empire is doomed.
No.
Anywhere on the continent, it would be the same.
Only a matter of time. Eventually infected by the curse, spirits destroyed, becoming those who can neither live nor die.
And so, the detached palace held many contraptions prepared for the worst case scenario.
And now was precisely that worst case.
If the miracles and magics of the detached palace were unleashed, Iomene would die.
But there was no other choice.
If the curse could be *felt* erupting from her skin, it had to be considered already too late.
There was no longer a way to save Iomene.
Obeying the Emperor’s command, the Captain of the Guard hurriedly drew the artifact he always kept close, and activated it with haste.
But the feeling of the curse on the skin remained.
There was no vibrational hum of miracles and magics activating on a grand scale.
Something wasn’t right.
“Are you sure it worked properly?”
“Absolutely, Your Majesty! The artifact is without fault! It’s the miracles and magic drawn within the royal villa that refuse to function!”
“Damn it all! Of all the times!! Where are the priests and mages on duty doing, anyway!!”
Even as he raged, the captain of the guard twitched.
A dark energy, like a serpent, burrowed into his body and vanished.
But he was a knight of exceptional skill, and he began to manage the mana within him to endure the pain of his soul being eaten away.
“Your Majesty… You must hurry. You cannot know when the curse will take you as well. Abandon me and flee with all haste.”
The Emperor could linger no longer at those words.
He, along with the Empress who had woken in terror at the curse, made their way to Almene’s chambers.
And there, the couple witnessed a horrifying sight.
Almene was convulsing, foam flecking her lips.
As if to prevent the Iomene curse, already consuming her, from transferring to them, the magic circle drawn on her left eye shone with violent intensity.
But it was only a stopgap. It was only a matter of time before she broke.
“Almene!!”
The Emperor scooped her into his arms, and the three family members began to flee. And they were thoroughly guarded by members of the royal guard and court mages who remained untouched by the curse.
The Emperor wept as he fled.
In the end, the worst possible outcome had come to pass.
He had exhausted every possible measure to prevent that worst-case scenario, and yet he had failed.
He would be forever etched in the annals of history as the Emperor who ruined the Empire.
No.
That’d be a story from when humanity still clung on, most likely.
In the end, nobody can escape this curse, you see.
“Gods above.”
The Emperor squeezed his eyes shut tight.
How did it come to this, then?
What sins had he committed, so damn many?
He wasn’t a tyrant, him.
On the contrary, he’d been the ruler who’d led the Empire to its resurgence.
Like any ruler, blood stained his hands, sure, but that blood was only from fighting the damned heretics and demon worshippers who were running wild, wanting to overthrow the Empire.
He sparked the Industrial Revolution, he did, and brought about countless advances in technology, he was the one.
But at the same time, it was also true that countless of his Imperial subjects starved and sickened and died as factory laborers, as the wretched poor.
And it was him, too, who’d spurred on so many of those heretics and demon cultists to act even more aggressively, wanting revenge for their slain brethren.
Was that his sin, then?
Is that why the Pantheon had abandoned him?
It was agony.
The fact that his mistakes would bring the long-standing Empire to ruin.
The fact that his daughter, whom he’d desperately tried to save, only suffered because of his greed and vanished forever in the end.
But no matter how angry he was, no matter how much he blamed himself, all he could do was flee, nothing more.
The instant he boarded the limousine prepared at the end of the secret passage and sped out of the Imperial Palace…
Far off, unfurling black wings, Ioemene is seen afloat in the morning-brightened sky.
The Emperor and Empress, through the car’s tinted glass, stared despondently at their daughter rising into the void.
In the end, none could be saved.
Not the Empire.
Not Ioemene.
Not Almene.
At that moment, when guilt and crushing defeat pressed so heavily, it felt like breath itself was being stolen…
Someone suddenly appears beside Ioemene.
A familiar white robe.
Saint Amael.
“Halt!!”
The Emperor commands.
The driver hesitates at the order.
“Your Majesty! We mustn’t stop here!! We must make for the sanctuary!”
“It matters not, whether we are in that haven or the palace, once that curse takes hold. Stop the car.”
Finally, the car stills to the command.
The Emperor, cradling Princess Almene, stepped out.
The Empress, as though bewitched, also moved towards the outside world.
The driver as well.
And the Imperial Knights and Court Mages who rode in the limousine, charged with guarding the Emperor and Empress.
Those citizens, fleeing the curse, too.
At some point, they were gazing at the Saint and Iomene locked in battle above, in the sky filling with the brightening morning sun.
As if bewitched, all were quiet.
They stared at the Saint and the sliver of the Evil God.
“Saint, save us.”
Someone whimpered, mumbling softly.
But it was so quiet, everyone could hear.
As one began to speak, two more began to speak.
“Saint! Chosen of Grace!”
“Saint of Healing!”
“Saint Amael!”
“Save us! Save us!”
And before anyone knew it, all were crying out the Saint’s name.
The Emperor and Empress as well.
All were cheering on the Saint.
“Please.”
The Emperor, too, was begging.
Begging with tears streaming down his face.
Clutching Alméne, who was convulsing, frothing at the mouth, the Emperor begged with a fervor beyond any measure.
“Please, a miracle. Grant us a miracle.”
In that very moment, while everyone wished with a single heart and mind,
a light, more radiant even than the rising sun, erupted from the Saint’s body.
Blinding, it forced everyone to shut their eyes.
And when they opened them again…
They saw lights, achingly beautiful, falling from the heavens to the earth.
One by one, the lights descended upon the bodies of the people.
Those tormented by the curse ceased their screams and rose to their feet, and those who had collapsed in terror gazed up at the sky, awash in wonder and rapture.
“A miracle!! A miracle is granted!!”
“Hail Saint Amael!”
“Hail Lilia of Grace!”
Just as the cheers of the citizens began to echo,
the Emperor and Empress were running as if possessed.
What of Iomene?
A chaotic blend of anxiety and hope,
fervor and heartbreak, the rulers of the empire ran and ran, back into the Imperial Palace.
“I… I am healed!”
“My body is healed!”
“Good heavens, how!……”
Pushing past countless astonished servants and Imperial Guards, the Emperor arrived at the detached palace where Iomene was.
And then, he could witness it.
The saint hanging in the sky, descending to earth, treading the air, alongside the dark-winged princess.
The saint, weeping, reached the ground, and placed a hand on the princess’s head, performing a miracle of healing.
The grotesque black wings that had sprouted from her back began to slowly vanish.
The bruises that covered her entire body, too.
The wounds.
All of them, gone.
Beautiful lights still fell slowly from the heavens to the earth.
And two of those lights, carefully, landed on the bodies of Almene and Iomene as well.
With that, the twin princesses, without a word, opened their eyes at the same time.
“Father?”
Almene murmured softly, rising from the Emperor’s embrace.
The Emperor held his daughter tight.
“The pain that Iomene always felt… it doesn’t hurt anymore. How… how did this happen?”
The Emperor and Empress did not answer.
Almene, too, didn’t try to hear an answer any longer.
She looked in the direction her father and mother were staring.
Princess Iomene, cradled in the arms of the weeping saint, slowly rose.
Old clothes.
Clothes where the back was ripped open, because wings had grown there.
But no one blamed the princess for her attire.
The temple guards and holy knights watching over the detached palace.
The royal guard.
Wizards and witches and countless maids and butlers.
Not a one dared to breathe, their eyes fixed on Princess Iomene.
Iomene carefully separated herself from the saint, planting her feet on the ground.
She swayed, finding her balance with care.
And then, Father and Mother.
She looked at Almene.
“Fa…ther?”
Iomene spoke the word with a faint voice.
Halting, yet clear and pure enough for all to understand.
“Mother? Almene?”
Not the beastly roar that had been.
Still clumsy, still stammering, but undeniably.
A human voice.
The very voice the Emperor and Empress had dreamt of. Iomene spoke.
The Empress reached out towards Iomene.
Iomene slowly began to walk, sinking into her mother’s embrace.
The Empress, who had been staring blankly at the sky, suddenly began to weep.
“My daughter. My daughter, Iomene.”
“Uhh… Mother.”
“Gods be praised. Thank you. Thank you.”
The Empress crushes Iome into an embrace, nearly breaking her.
Princess Almene and the Emperor, too, approach cautiously and hug Iome.
Sobbing.
The four family members, unable to articulate the depth of their emotions, clung to each other, wailing.
They wept for the nineteen years that had been lost, they wept for the pain Iome had suffered, they wept with the guilt of being parents who had tortured their own daughter.
Everyone nearby watched the scene unfold.
The high priest, the court magicians, the knights of the guard, and the servants all watched the scene.
It was the Emperor as they had never seen him, but no one was surprised.
They, too, had been saved.
The radiant morning sun fell upon the garden of the annex, a light that could not be more sacred.
The Emperor, the Empress, and all gathered in the garden turned their gazes towards the sunlight.
A halo.
A halo of such majesty and holiness that it was blinding enshrouded the Saint.
Among those quietly watching the spectacle, a priest, without realizing it, dropped to his knees with a thud and mumbled,
“He who shows mercy. Eleos.”
And before long, everyone began to repeat the word.
“Eleos.”
“He who weeps for the weak and the broken.”
The Emperor, tears streaming, echoes the same.
“Savior. Eleos.”
As if everyone’s been seized by something.
“Savior! Eleos!”
“Savior! Eleos!”
They begin to chant the slogan.
Savior Eleos.
In the frenzied cries, the Saint closed his eyes, which were just opening.
Tears flowed even more freely from them.
Even bringing forth any painter, they couldn’t conjure a more divine scene than this majestic and beautiful vista, where he wept so silently.
As if consoling this world.
He wept thus.
In that spectacle, all saw hope and salvation.
“Savior! Eleos!”
“Eleos!!”
“Eleos!!”
Now, there was no one wailing in sorrow.
Everyone was smiling.
Tears of rapture and laughter filled the imperial villa’s gardens to bursting.
There was only one person weeping.
There was only one saint, Amael, who healed.