Chapter 89: The Cycle of Cruelty

The sky above was a bruised, sickly purple, completely devoid of the warmth she had fought a decade to secure.

Anise walked at the head of a thousand heavily armed paladins. But she did not feel like a general.

She heard a voice. Not a grand one.

"Haha! Look at this miserable wasteland, Champion!"

It was General Vance, the commander of the Vanguard. He was looking at her with lecherous eyes.

"The air itself smells like rot," Vance sneered, kicking a piece of blackened driftwood.

"It will be a pleasure to burn it all away."

Anise kept her hazel eyes fixed dead ahead.

"We are here to dismantle their military infrastructure, General. Nothing more. We strike the forward camps and we leave."

CLANK. CLANK.

Vance chuckled, a dry, grating sound.

"You are too soft, Champion Anise. The Supreme Pope and the True Rulers demand more than just broken forts. Do you know how much raw, unrefined mana sits beneath this continent’s crust? The mines here could power the Holy Capital for a millennium."

Anise shot him a sharp, disgusted look.

"So this Holy Crusade is just a mining expedition?" she asked, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.

"You are using the banner of the Light to steal their resources?"

"We are claiming spoils from the wicked," Vance corrected smoothly, waving a dismissive, gauntleted hand.

"The True Rulers who pull the strings of the King require a return on their ten-year investment. These ’demons’ don’t even know how to use the crystals properly. We are simply taking what belongs to the strong. And don’t forget your place, Hero. You are here to ensure our harvest goes uninterrupted. Remember Oakhaven."

Anise listened, suppressing her anger.

...

Three hours later, the Vanguard crested a blackened ridge. Below them sat a sprawling settlement built into the side of a jagged canyon. It was surrounded by crude, wooden palisades.

"There it is," Vance declared, drawing his longsword.

"A forward operating base. Vanguard! Advance and cleanse the filth!"

ROOOAAR!

The paladins charged down the ridge like a tidal wave of silver and white. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

Anise hung back. Her Level 100 senses reached out, scanning the settlement for high-tier demonic auras.

’Where are they? The intel said they would be present here.’

She expected towering Overlords, heavily armored Minotaurs, or dark sorcerers weaving curses into the sky.

She felt nothing. Only weak, frantic, terrified sparks of mana.

CRASH! BOOM!

The wooden gates splintered instantly under the paladins’ battering rams. Plumes of black smoke began to rise into the purple sky.

Anise descended the ridge slowly, her heart pounding with a sudden, sickening dread.

She walked through the shattered gates.

CRACKLE. HSSSS.

Thatch-roofed huts were burning to the ground.

As Anise walked through the muddy streets, she did not see the corpses of enemy soldiers.

She saw a beastman elder, his gray fur matted with blood, lying dead over a spilled basket of root vegetables.

She saw an Orc woman pinned to the side of a hut with a silver spear, her empty hands still reaching toward the burning doorway of her home.

"Praise the Light, Champion!"

A young paladin jogged up to her, his pristine white tabard splattered with dark crimson. He wiped his sword on a cloth, grinning widely.

"We routed the beastly vanguard before they could even arm themselves!" the knight boasted.

Anise stared at the bloody sword in his hand, her stomach twisting into violent knots.

"Where are their weapons?" Anise demanded. Her voice trembled, cracking under the weight of her rising horror.

"These are elders. Farmers. There are no barracks here. There are no siege engines!"

The paladin blinked, confused by her anger.

"They are demons, my Lady. The Pope decreed that nits make lice. They are all guilty of the sins of their kind."

SCREEEAM!

A high-pitched, agonizing shriek tore through the smoke from the village square.

Anise didn’t walk. She blurred. Her Level 100 agility carried her across the burning settlement in a fraction of a second.

She arrived at the central plaza. What she saw completely shattered the very foundation of her soul.

SHING. THUD.

A dozen Holy Knights had corralled the surviving civilians against a stone wall.

A pair of paladins were dragging a weeping, terrified Beastman woman by her hair toward the shadows of an alleyway, laughing crudely as they tore at her simple garments.

In the center of the square, General Vance stood over a huddled, shivering mass of green skin.

It was a Goblin child.

He couldn’t have been more than seven years old.

He was clutching a ragged stuffed doll made of twine and straw, sobbing uncontrollably as he looked up at the towering, silver-clad knights.

"Let’s see what color these trench-rats bleed," Vance laughed, raising his heavy steel broadsword high above his head.

The Goblin child squeezed his eyes shut and threw his hands over his head, bracing for the killing blow.

Time completely stopped for Anise.

’This isn’t war,’ her mind screamed, the horrific realization crashing down on her.

’This is genocide.’

She looked at the burning homes. She looked at the violated women and the slaughtered elders. She looked at the terrified green child cowering in the mud.

They were not demons. They were just people.

’Ten years ago, I had watched the Demon Army slaughter human children and burn human villages. I had sworn a holy oath to the Voice of the World to protect the innocent from that exact cruelty.’

’And now, the humans had become the very monsters I had been summoned to destroy. The cycle of cruelty had simply reversed its direction.’

"STOP!"

KRA-KOOOOOOM!

Anise slammed the base of her golden staff into the muddy ground.

A massive, blinding shockwave of pure, unadulterated holy light exploded outward.

The kinetic pressure slammed into the Holy Vanguard.

CLATTER! SMASH!

"What are you doing, Hero?!"

General Vance screamed as he and the surrounding paladins were lifted completely off their feet.

They flew backward through the air, their heavy armor crashing violently against the stone walls and wooden posts of the plaza.

The Beastman woman scrambled away from her attackers, clutching her torn clothes, sobbing in terror.

The Goblin child slowly opened his large, yellow eyes. He looked up.

Anise stood directly between the child and the fallen knights.

Her golden aura blazed like a furious sun, burning away the black smoke of the burning village.

"Champion!" General Vance roared.

He struggled to his feet, spitting a mouthful of blood into the mud. He pointed his sword at her, his face twisted in enraged disbelief.

"What in the Light’s name are you doing? Have you lost your mind? These are demons!"

"They are innocents!" Anise screamed back. Tears of absolute heartbreak and rage streamed down her cheeks.

"You lied to me! You used me to secure your borders just so you could cross the sea and become murderers yourselves!"

"We are purifying the land!" Vance barked, stepping forward.

The paladins behind him scrambled to draw their weapons, aiming their spears at the Hero they once worshipped.

"Stand down, Anise! The True Rulers commanded this! If you defend this filth, you betray the Crown! You betray humanity!"

"Then humanity is lost," Anise whispered.

She looked back at the shivering Goblin child.

The boy stared at her glowing, divine armor, trembling like a leaf in the wind.

She saw the same terror in his eyes that she had felt in the freezing dark of Mount Everest.

’I sacrificed Robert, my freedom, and my soul to save the innocent. I would not stop now just because the innocent had green skin.’

"The Crusade ends here," Anise declared.

She turned her golden staff toward General Vance.

"If you take one more step toward these people," Anise’s voice echoed with the crushing, terrifying weight of the Absolute Law of Retribution.

"I will not hold back. I will strip the armor from your bones and leave you in the ash."

Vance glared at her, weighing the astronomical power radiating from her Level 100 core against his thousand men. He knew they couldn’t beat her. She was a demigod.

"You have sealed your fate, traitor," Vance spat.

He sheathed his sword.

"When the Pope and the King hear of this... Oakhaven will burn. And you will hang."

"Fall back!" Vance ordered his men. "Leave the witch to her monsters!"

The paladins slowly retreated, dragging their wounded back toward the ridge, casting hateful, disgusted glares at the Hero of the Dawn.

When the last silver knight vanished over the hill, Anise dropped her staff.

CLACK.

"I have no words for you, child."

She fell to her knees in the mud. She reached out, her trembling hands gently wrapping around the terrified Goblin child.

She pulled him against her pristine white armor, holding him tight as the village burned around them.

The boy buried his face in her shoulder, sobbing quietly into her holy vestments.

Anise wept with him.

Her heart was completely shattered.

She had saved the monster civilians today, but in doing so, she had crossed the line of no return.

She was a traitor to the human race. The threat against Oakhaven hung over her head like a guillotine.

She had to go back.

She had to return to the Holy Capital, face the men who pulled the strings, and try to stop the madness before her beloved orphans paid the price for her mercy.

But as she held the trembling monster child in the ruins of his home, Anise knew one horrifying truth.

The people she had bled for ten years to save were going to destroy her.