Millennium Witch

Book 3: Chapter 244: Where Is the God?

In the dead of night, a broken moon hung in the sky, casting a chill silver glow over Lute Village. Beside a rough stone altar deep within the village, the black-robed priest of the Church of Omniscience stood in silence. Ghostly blue flames danced at his fingertips as he lit the white candles arranged upon the altar one by one.By the firelight his face showed: a man around forty, pale-skinned, deep-set eyes, and blue irises tinged with faint anger and anxiety.

Four nights ago, after Holko and his two companions received greater Benediction power, they vanished in Adelock and never returned. The matter was a thorn in his heart. He refused to believe those three wastes would betray him; the only explanation was that something had gone wrong—and the source of that mishap was almost certainly those two mysterious girls who had ruined their plans.

If that were all, he would have felt only anger. But what he learned afterward gave him a jolt.

Because those two girls later moved into Adelock’s famed Old Oak Inn!

That was a holding of the Silverwind Merchant Guild, a by-introduction-only establishment. Just what was their background, that they could stay at the Old Oak Inn?

If they had serious backing, wouldn’t that threaten the situation in Lute Village?

This fact made the black-robed priest increasingly agitated. His original plan was to conduct a large-scale sacrifice to the deity on the night of the full moon. He kept to that timing out of concern that frequent sacrifices would disturb the deity’s slumber, so he would save them up and conduct them all at once on the full moon.

But now he had lost too much Benediction power, and those two mysterious girls left him on edge. He decided to move the sacrifice up to tonight—first gain more Benediction power, then personally go into the city to probe their true identity.

He thought Lute Village had been running well. In a worst-case scenario he could abandon this site and cultivate a new one—but at the moment he had another path to try: force those two mysterious girls to become believers of the Eye of Omniscience and grant them Benedictions.

That way they wouldn’t dare inform on him; they might even join the organization and help the cult’s future growth.

As he pondered, a villager suddenly tumbled into the altar space, face full of terror, and shouted, “Priest, bad news! That brat from Ezra Yarrow’s family is back!”

The priest started and turned at once. “What did you say?”

He had never imagined that little rat who had scurried everywhere and barely escaped would dare to return.

“Priest, he’s gotten some terrible power from who knows where—like lightning. The granary guards are no match; he’s gone down into the dungeon!” the villager babbled.

At that, the image of Ezra’s father, Leon Yarrow—Old Yarrow—the old hunter’s unyielding amber eyes flashed through the priest’s mind. Like father, like son—equally reckless. The old fool had organized the villagers to scatter and caused trouble; the son was bolder still, daring to come back and throw himself into the net.

But he quickly asked, wary, “What lightning power?”

“I don’t know, Priest—”

He must have picked up some lightning magic or a combat art from those two mysterious girls—the black-robed priest concluded, somewhat reassured.

He drew from his breast a mask etched with an eye and put it on, then changed to a voice of stern authority and barked, “Assemble all believers at the granary immediately! Do not let that blasphemer—or the stock in the dungeon—come to any harm!”

Inside the granary, firelight flickered. Ezra heaved up a heavy plank in the floor, revealing a downward-reaching,

mildewed, damp-smelling stair.

He had just driven off several villagers guarding the granary door, but he hadn’t killed them. Those men had once been on good terms with the Yarrow family; as a child, Ezra had called several of them “uncle” and even eaten at their homes from time to time.

Though desire had since devoured them and they’d fallen to the dark path, Ezra couldn’t bring himself to be that ruthless—so he let them flee. Let this act sever the past in one stroke. If they showed themselves before him again, he would cut them down without mercy.

——

A flash of lightning—he surged to the bottom of the dank stair, hacked through the crude wooden gate with his sword, and saw seven or eight people locked in the dungeon, each thin to the bone, clearly long unfed.

At Ezra’s appearance they first shrank together in fear; only after seeing who the lightning-sheathed stranger was did they crowd toward him, whispering in disbelief.

“Ezra, is that you, child?” came a weak, hoarse voice from a corner that made Ezra’s heart lurch. He looked—and there was his father, Leon Yarrow. His hands were bound with rope, but his eyes were still bright.

“Father!” Ezra rushed over, embraced him, then severed the bonds on Old Yarrow and the others as fast as he could.

“Ezra, what—” Old Yarrow said uncertainly. He knew his son knew neither magic nor swordcraft; seeing him now, he half-wondered if his boy had given himself to an Eldritch God and become a fallen one.

“Father, I received a Benediction from the legendary God of Serendipity!” Ezra’s words shocked everyone present into a daze.

There was no time to explain further. Ezra pressed on: “We need to get out of here—now!”

“Good!” Old Yarrow said at once. Supporting each other, the survivors climbed the stairs and left the dungeon.

After leaving the granary, they slipped into the dark woods, trying to use the night to cover their escape. They hadn’t gone far when the way ahead was blocked.

More than twenty torch-bearing cultists flooded in from all sides. Orange-red flames leapt and flickered, painting ill-intentioned faces. At their head stood a masked figure in black robes—the source of this disaster—the Church of Omniscience’s black-robed priest.

They had predicted Ezra and the others’ escape route!

Gazing at the shocked, despairing group, the black-robed priest addressed Ezra in a cold, mocking tone: “Boy, you truly inherited your father’s stupidity and stubbornness. I don’t know what dumb luck you had to get yourself a ‘serendipity,’

but the result won’t change. Blasphemers can wash away their sins only by becoming offerings.”

His voice suddenly rose, ringing through the grove: “Seize them! Use their souls to soothe our God’s wrath!”

The cultists howled with fanaticism, lights of different hues flaring across their bodies—mostly physical enhancement and fire aspects. Some had toxin-based powers that were ill-suited to a melee like this.

The whiplash turn of events sent Ezra’s heart racing. He hadn’t expected them to guess the escape route; that must have come from villagers who knew the terrain.

In his plan, tonight was for rescuing people; wiping out the cult could wait until he had better command of his power.

But there was no time now. His only choice was to trust the power the Silver Witch had bestowed.

With a low growl, Ezra’s figure became a streak of blue-white lightning. He slammed into the nearest cultist—one stroke shattered the man’s swollen, muscle-bound shield; lightning surged and left him numb and immobile.

Then he darted at another cultist, paralyzing him the same way, and by the same token rushed at a third, then a fourth—

From a god’s-eye view, he was like a blue-white ring of current, circling constantly around Old Yarrow and the other survivors, dropping every cultist who approached with pinpoint blows. Look closer, though, and there was nothing artful about it—he relied purely on the power of lightning to break their protective mana and knock them senseless. He even nearly careened into a nearby tree when his circling made him dizzy.

Even so, it was enough to leave the cultists badly shaken.

They had thought their Benedictions were terrifying—but where had Ezra’s power come from?

The black-robed priest could no longer stand by. Cursing “wastes” twice in his heart, he thrust out a hand; countless dark bats coalesced around him and swarmed at Ezra.

Ezra did not flinch. Leveraging his speed, he slipped like a fish through the gaps between shadow-bats and, in a blink, closed on the priest.

“Courting death!” the priest snapped, both shocked and enraged, hurling pitch-black orbs of shadow at him while retreating.

The situation felt wrong. Ezra didn’t look like someone who had learned a combat art—those take years of practice. How could he both fling it out so easily and yet be so raw at it?—that was exactly how a Benediction looked in use!

But whose Benediction had he received?

Could it be the Crimson Sanctum—

At the thought, the priest’s heart lurched. While firing off orbs of shadow in reply, he began to pray in secret, begging the deity to cast its gaze upon this place.

The prayer worked. Soon, a massive, translucent, invisible eye manifested behind him.

Sensing this, the priest let out a long breath, ready to await the deity’s might to take care of this whelp. But in the next second, the power of the god receded in his perception. The telltale sign: the invisible eye had just formed and opened—then, as if it had seen something it should not, it shut at once and dissipated into nothing.

The priest stared, dumbstruck.

The god?

Our God?

Why—why is this happening? Have I been abandoned?

In that stunned instant, the priest’s brief distraction gave Ezra his chance. He slipped between the orbs of shadow; lightning flared along his blade as it finally pierced the priest’s shadow shield and drove on, transfixing his chest.

Beneath the mask, the priest’s eyes bulged round. Even in death, he could not understand how things had come to this.