Chapter 620: An Unstoppable Path (Part II)
“Tell Roland Wimbledon the truth,” Isabella said. “Our goal. The reality of the Battles of Divine Will across these four hundred years. The secret of the church—no. The secret of the Witch Union.”
Since Zero had taken the pope’s chair, all the pure witches of the Pivotal Secret Temple had been allowed into this library, allowed to read what had been kept from the old hierarchy. For the first time in centuries, the people who served the church most closely knew what the church actually was.
“What if he doesn’t believe us?” Zero asked.
“He will. Take him to the Illusion Room in the Reflection Church. There’s no way to disbelieve what that room shows. He’ll understand everything.”
“Or he’ll decide the whole thing is a manipulation by witches.” Zero’s voice was unhurried, turning the argument over like something she had already examined from all sides. “And even if he believes us—even if he accepts every word, every image in that room—can you guarantee that he’ll dedicate himself entirely to fighting the demons? Once the threat is real to him rather than abstract?”
Isabella opened her mouth. Nothing came.
“We know nobles,” Zero continued, without inflection. “We know how they think. Domains, wealth, the specific comforts of men who have options. They will fight when the Bloody Moon is visible and the demons are standing in front of them. But sustained sacrifice—a war that lasts decades, that demands everything from a society generation after generation—that requires something more than self-interest. The church can ask that of its believers because belief makes it possible. A secular kingdom cannot manufacture that kind of endurance.” She paused. “And he is mortal. A cold in the wrong month can end him. A man with good intentions today does not bind his successors tomorrow. Even if Roland Wimbledon commits completely, who commits his children? His generals? His people, a hundred years from now?”
Isabella had no answer.
Zero held out her hand, and they walked together to the round table at the side of the room.
“At least send a messenger,” Isabella said. “Let him hear the offer first.”
“Negotiations can’t solve a problem of this structure.” Zero sat down across from her. “If I yield to him, the church’s authority dissolves—the faith that sustains our organization and our ability to mobilize believers depends on the church being what it presents itself as being. And Roland won’t spare us or our God’s Punishment Warriors out of gratitude. He has witches to answer for. Whatever he says to a diplomat, his long-term interests require dismantling us.” She folded her hands on the table. “Yielding and losing are not meaningfully different outcomes. Given that—why trust a mortal man with this?”
Isabella felt the cage of the argument close around her again. She had followed this logic before and arrived at the same wall.
“The weapons aren’t the man,” she said finally. “If you kill him, his army remains. His witches remain. You’d have his memories, but the knowledge spreads—”
“It spreads slowly. Without him, there’s no one who knows all of it—the principles, the manufacturing, the tactical doctrine he’s built around it. And his body is something no weapon can replicate.” Zero met her gaze steadily. “Two hundred years of winning Battles of Souls, Isabella. I’ve absorbed the knowledge and the years of brilliant men and women without number. I’ve watched them—brave, sharp, full of conviction when they were young—turn to dust. Time devours everyone who isn’t me. That alone suggests that I am the better choice for what comes next.”
Isabella heaved a long breath. She was persuaded. She did not fully accept the conclusion, but she could no longer find the argument that broke through it.
“Your plan,” she said. “I can’t neutralize the God’s Stone of Retaliation at range. I need to be within a few paces.”
“The High-Level Sigils the Union left behind,” Zero said.
Isabella went still. “No one can activate ‘Divine Will’ anymore.” She looked up. “And ‘Infinite’ is a single-use sigil. You’re certain you want to spend it here?”
“If it turns the balance against him, yes. It’s not wasted on ordinary people or even demons if it guarantees the outcome.”
“I’ll exhaust my magic power completely,” Isabella said. “That’s not a comfortable thing.”
“You’ll also lose consciousness.” Zero nodded. “But no lasting harm. When you wake, the battle will be over, and you’ll be in the cathedral bedroom.”
“And if it fails, we’re finished.”
“It won’t fail.” Zero didn’t say it as reassurance. She said it as a statement of record. “I have never lost. Not once. When you wake, everything will be different.”
She poured tea—red, fragrant, the kind Zero had always kept in the library—and slid a cup across the table.
“I know you’re still not fully at peace with this,” Zero said. “But you were raised in this knowledge. I chose you out of all the pure witches who awakened in that period because I saw what you were. You know my strength better than anyone. You know my resolve.” Her voice was quiet. Not commanding—simply certain. “Of the two choices in front of us, I am the better one.”
Isabella turned the cup in her hands.
“‘Infinite’ has limits,” she said. “The books are clear on this. Your soul form can’t sustain the magic indefinitely. If he isn’t where we expect, if the approach fails—there won’t be another chance.”
“Which is why we find him first.” Zero smiled. “Carefully.”
“Finish reloading!”
“Angle twenty-two, pitch thirteen—fire!”
The 152mm Stronghold Cannon discharged with a bloom of orange flame and a shockwave of displaced air that punched dust into Roland’s face even through his ear protection. The shell was already gone—invisible, already somewhere in the middle distance—by the time the sound reached him fully.
The soldiers stretched and craned, shading their eyes against the slope.
“This is Lightning—the shell came down at approximately the midpoint of the slope.” Her voice through the Sigil of Listening was calm and precise, reporting from several hundred meters above. “Slightly left of center.”
“Good. Record the angle and mark the position.”
Roland turned back to the problem.
He was building the first beyond-visual-range fire table in this era’s history, and doing it the way any craftsman builds something without instructions: carefully, empirically, one data point at a time. The Stronghold Cannons were too expensive and their barrels too irreplaceable to use in reactive fire—he would not have artillerymen waiting until they saw the enemy and then trying to compensate for distance on the fly. Instead, he was mapping the entire slope in advance. Every recorded combination of angle and pitch corresponded to a position on the descent. When Lightning spotted enemy forces entering the kill zone during the actual engagement, she would call the file number. The artillerymen would adjust to the preset configuration and fire.
No computation required. No delay. Just execution.
Two cannons, the whole slope covered, an army that could not move down the mountain without walking into pre-registered fire.
He would be ready before the church was.