The Saintess Cries, the Nobles Laugh

I stepped over the spiderweb-cracked marble and didn’t look back.

Behind me, the knight who’d hesitated was still shaking. The other one was on his knees in the shattered stone, his arm twisted at an impossible angle. His scream was muffled by his helmet—just broken, ugly breaths leaking out.

The sanctuary lamps stretched my shadow down the corridor like a runway.

Like a road laid out for me.

A road to a bigger cage.

I rounded the corner—and the hallway flared bright.

Not from the chapel lights.

From torches and mage-lamps carried by a crowd.

Footsteps. The rasp of armor plates. The sharp, confident click of noble boots on marble.

They poured in all at once and sealed the passage.

Too fast.

Like they’d been waiting for me.

A blond bow-knight stepped forward, his family crest gleaming on his pauldron like a brag. His eyes flicked to the knight I’d driven into the stone. His mouth twitched—just for a heartbeat—then settled into a deeper, uglier kind of contempt.

Leo.

“So there you are.” He snapped his cloak like he was entering his own ballroom. “I hear you shut the Saintess outside the side chapel. And you put a knight of the Order on the floor.”

He lifted a hand.

Behind him, young nobles and high-ranking church knights fanned out, shields locking together with a metallic clap—forming a ring of steel.

I recognized faces. The loudest laughers from the ceremony. The ones who’d enjoyed watching a ‘country boy’ get put in his place.

Their gazes slid past me toward where I’d come from.

The side chapel door was still closed.

But light leaked through the seam, and the hem of a white robe trembled inside. Lyra was pressed against the door, listening. She didn’t step out—she didn’t have to. Just the idea of her was enough to make them swell with righteous excitement.

To them, the Saintess with reddened eyes was an offended goddess.

And I was a mud-born nobody daring to stain the sacred.

“He actually did it.”

“Commoners get one stroke of luck and think they can negotiate with the Temple.”

“Made the Saintess cry—he’ll be crushed for this.”

Their whispers had that cocktail-party polish—smiling cruelty dressed up as civility.

Leo didn’t rush. He enjoyed the audience.

He shifted aside, and a priest approached carrying a heavy tome. The pages were packed with sigils and clauses, margins stuffed with fine-print addendums—an elegant net designed to tighten once you stopped struggling.

“A duplicate of the Holy Covenant,” the priest announced, voice solemn, eyes dead—like he was presenting a property transfer. “Hero Alan, the Temple grants you one final chance. Today’s offense may be forgiven as ‘youthful impulsiveness.’ Kneel. Bow to the Saintess. Sign.”

Leo picked up the thread. His sword was already out, silver enchantments crawling along the blade like living frost.

“Grind your knees into the marble,” he said coldly. “Let them remember the rules. Then put your mark on the page. Otherwise—”

His smile sharpened.

“—you don’t leave this cathedral.”

The head church-knight stepped forward, armor heavy, voice harder. “To refuse the Covenant is to refuse the Oracle. You’re not throwing a tantrum. You’re blaspheming the divine and betraying the kingdom.”

From behind the door, Lyra’s voice drifted out—soft as prayer, sharp as permission.

“Leo… don’t hurt him. He’s just… acting on impulse.”

She was playing merciful.

And nailing me in place at the same time: an impulsive commoner, in need of ‘correction.’

Hibor shoved through the crowd, face flushed with the heat of borrowed power. “Ungrateful peasant! The Saintess agreeing to marry you is your ancestors lighting fireworks in the grave—and you still refuse? Who do you think you are?”

I looked at them and almost laughed.

Last life, I died on an altar, and they sang hymns for me. Shed a few tasteful tears.

This life, I refused to sign a leash—and they were ready to smash my bones in public.

Sacred?

Honor?

Just a cost-control strategy dressed in gold.

I didn’t take the book. I didn’t even glance at the clauses.

I lifted my eyes and swept them—Leo, Hibor, the church-knights—like you’d scan a row of neatly arranged tools.

“You want me to kneel?” My voice stayed flat. “Are nobles so used to it—everyone else paying for your dignity?”

Leo’s eyes narrowed. “You still dare talk back?”

I tipped my chin at the tome and let out a short, sharp scoff.

“If you worship that contract—this soul-selling bill of sale—like it’s holy…”

My gaze turned to ice, each word landing like a hammer.

“Then why don’t you sign it yourselves and go die on the front lines for her?”

The corridor went silent, like someone stole the air.

I didn’t stop. I ripped the curtain clean off their ‘greater good.’

“Whoever wants to be a high-born, respectable decapitation dog—go sign.”

“Stop using your hypocrisy as a chain around my neck.”

“You—!” Hibor shook with rage. “You dare call the Covenant a bill of sale? You dare—”

Leo’s face tightened. I’d hit the real wound: they screamed the loudest, but none of them would hand over their future.

So he did what nobles always do when logic corners them.

He made it about blood.

“Vulgar mud-born trash.” Leo sneered, sword tip rising to my chest. “You were born to obey. You stand here only because of the Temple’s grace and the Saintess’s mercy. You don’t get to talk about contracts—let alone freedom.”

I stepped closer, letting the point press into my clothes.

I didn’t flinch.

Because I understood the rules of their ‘mercy’ perfectly: they wouldn’t stab the Hero to death in public.

But they’d cripple him.

A hero who couldn’t swing a sword could still sign.

I stared him down, my eyes heavy as stone. “So your ‘grace’ is me handing over my life… so you can sit in the stands and clap?”

The church-knight commander barked, “Enough! One more word slandering the Temple—”

“Slandering?” I cut him off. “The terms are right there. Soul pledged to the Temple. You can read them. I can read them. The difference is—”

I leaned in just slightly.

“—you decide how my ‘offering’ gets used.”

Breathing shifted around us. Uneasy. Frayed.

Nobles aren’t afraid of insults.

They’re afraid of being seen.

Leo finally dropped the theater.

He snapped his hand down, voice cracking like a whip. “Hold him. Make him mark the page. If he won’t sign—break his joints. Drag him back to the altar and make him sign.”

Swords came out all at once. Enchantments flared.

Three blades struck from three angles, precise as trained ‘lawful violence’—shoulder, elbow, knee. Not to kill.

To ruin.

Behind the door, Lyra sucked in a breath—but she still didn’t come out.

She was still wavering.

She didn’t want me dead… but she wanted the Covenant even less on her precious childhood knight, Zion.

My eyes went cold.

The murderous instinct I’d forged in the Demon King’s fortress woke up inside my bones. My body moved ahead of thought—center dropping, knuckles tightening, fingers curling.

Half a second.

Before the first strike landed, I could catch the lead knight’s wrist, twist inward, drive an elbow into his throat—and fold his neck like wet parchment.

Then the second.

Then the third.

I didn’t want blood in a cathedral.

But they were forcing it.

Just as I was about to explode—

BOOM.

A ferocious bolt of lightning dropped from above and slammed into the crossing sword arcs.

The blast snapped like a predator’s tail.

Three enchanted blades shattered into glittering dust. Silver fragments and scorched grit sprayed across the marble. The church-knights were flung backward, armored bodies scraping and screeching.

Leo staggered, his arm seized by numbness. His sword slipped from his fingers and hit the floor with a clean, humiliating clang.

Silence.

Footsteps approached from the far end of the corridor—unhurried, steady, heavy enough to crush everyone’s lungs.

A deep blue cloak.

Royal gold thread.

Short, sharp hair.

Eyes cold as a winter lake.

Princess Nefertia—the First Princess.

She raised a hand. Electricity still danced at her fingertips. Her voice wasn’t loud.

It didn’t need to be.

“Beating the kingdom’s Hero inside the cathedral?”

The commander forced himself upright. “Your Highness, this is an internal matter of the Temple—”

Nefertia lifted a finger.

A crack of lightning exploded at his feet, marble bursting apart.

“Internal?” she said evenly. “Those three strikes would’ve left the kingdom with a crippled Hero. Is that what you want the entire nation to see?”

“That the Temple’s ‘dignity’ is maintained by breaking bones?”

Leo clenched his jaw and tried to hold onto noble arrogance. “Your Highness, he refused the Covenant. He insulted the Saintess—”

Nefertia finally looked at him. The gaze landed like the blunt side of a blade across his face.

“You’re going to lecture me on insults?”

She ignored him after that and turned her eyes to the side chapel door, voice colder.

“Saintess Lyra—since you’re listening—do you really believe what they’re doing is ‘for the greater good’?”

Inside: dead silence.

Lyra didn’t answer.

That silence cut deeper than any excuse.

Nefertia withdrew her gaze and stepped up to me, half a pace away—close enough to make sure no one could push my head down again.

She studied me. “Just now—what were you about to do?”

I didn’t explain. I didn’t soften.

“Do what I had to.”

A flicker of interest crossed her eyes—then vanished under control.

She turned, voice stamping the corridor like a royal seal.

“Everyone—sheath your weapons. Anyone who draws steel again—will be treated as defying command in wartime.”

The nobles froze.

The church-knights went pale.

But they lowered their blades.

Power shifted in a single breath: in this corridor, the Princess’s word outweighed the High Archbishop’s.

Nefertia glanced at me. “Alan. You’re coming with me.”

Then she paused and added—loud enough for every ear to catch.

“Not under arrest. Invited.”

I stepped over scorched stone and sword-dust and followed.

As I passed, Leo hissed through his teeth, rage packed tight. “You think the Princess will protect you forever? The Temple will teach you—refusing the Covenant only ends one way.”

I didn’t look back.

Because I’d already seen the larger board—one corner of it ripped up and exposed.

The First Princess stepping in meant Zion and the Temple couldn’t treat me like a dog on a leash anymore.

And out in the shadowed side aisle of the cathedral, I could feel a familiar stare.

Zion was watching.

For the first time, he understood:

the “country expendable” he picked didn’t just bite—

he’d been taken by the Crown.

Next, Zion would strike harder.

And faster.