From Shed’s suddenly calmed response, Giselle read his resolve.

“Do not harbor foolish thoughts. One who helped a heretic is a heretic as well.”

Fearing what he might attempt, Giselle issued her warning.

Then those violet eyes shifted slowly toward her desk. Upon it lay the Pope’s letter, stamped with the papal seal.

“…So what do you intend to do with Luise?”

His tone was cautious, deliberate—like a predator studying its prey, gauging every shift and movement.

Giselle recognized the chill that had settled over him.

It was not reason—it was instinct.

His words and actions were not the product of measured logic, but of primal judgment. If she revealed even the slightest opening, he would sink his teeth into her weakness without hesitation and claim what he desired.

“God shows no mercy to demons.”

Giselle would not give him the opportunity. Not even when she had finished writing her reply to the Pope’s letter.

Her gaze burned hotter as his restrained fury simmered and he looked at her.

“Luise saved everyone.”

“…But everyone saw her power.”

“D*mn it—because of her, you’re even alive to spout that nonsense. Do you not understand?”

He lashed out, breath ragged, yet with undeniable force.

Everyone here owed their lives to Luise. Giselle was no different.

Shed recalled the moment he had faced Dietrich.

Never in his life had he once expected defeat. Even when it loomed before him, he would always find a path to victory, never a reason to surrender.

That was how he had earned the name of the “Undefeated Hero.”

Yet the instant his blade clashed with Dietrich’s, he felt it—defeat. For the first time.

He knew then that the battle’s end could only be death for the mortal.

Aura and holy power alike were useless before an enemy who endlessly regenerated.

And worse—Dietrich had an ever-renewing army.

Those who perished resisting in Faradel rose again as wraiths, fighting at his side.

The longer the battle dragged on, the more the scales tilted toward Dietrich.

People would be slain by the reanimated forms of their own families and comrades. Faradel would be trampled, reduced once more to ruin.

Only Luise, with the power of the undying, could stand against such an immortal foe.

She had saved everyone here. She had saved Faradel, Ideana, and the Empire.

At that, Giselle’s pale hand clenched tightly.

Shed’s words could not be denied. That was why Giselle had not yet written a reply to the Pope’s letter.

But as a High Priestess, she could not dare to stand forth and defend a demon.

“Yes, I’ll grant her that merit. But sin and merit are not the same.”

“Sin…? You claim Luiee bears sin?”

Shed’s lips twisted as though the words themselves were repulsive.

“She was nothing but a victim…!”

The veins along his neck stood out.

At his words, Giselle wrinkled her nose in disbelief.

“A victim?”

Could such a word be applied to a heretic? Such a contradiction could not exist.

Then Shed began to move towards her, taking long, deliberate steps despite his staggering gait.

His battered body moved forward, and he resembled a starving beast.

Unconsciously, Giselle’s palms grew damp with sweat.

Even gaunt and worn down, he loomed large enough to dominate the very air of the chamber.

“Come with me.”

Shed seized Giselle’s wrist with rough force.

It was the first time he had ever taken hold of her like this.

A great hand, dragging the High Priestess without hesitation.

“What are you doing, Shed!”

“…See for yourself. See what has happened while your Temple wallowed in negligence. See the crime you have committed against Luise.”

Shed’s voice boiled with fury.

It was time to tear away the veil that had blinded the incompetent Temple.

🌺⟡───⟡🌺 🌺⟡───⟡🌺

They descended into a grave-like depth underground.

A labyrinth of tunnels, twisted like the burial maze of some ancient monarch.

The moment they entered the passage, the stench of dampness, filth, and blood struck their noses.

“What is this place…?”

Giselle and the priests followed the winding path, torches in hand, descending ever deeper.

She trailed uneasily behind Shed, her eyes fixed on his fragile form as he pressed onward. Despite his wounds remaining unhealed, he strode steadily through the long, lightless corridors.

Giselle noticed bloodstains on the floor; the dark marks were dried, but still fresh enough to unsettle her. Had the wraiths buried beneath the earth clawed their way out through this very passage?

Her thoughts raced until, at last, the tunnel opened into a vast chamber.

Shed halted, and Giselle and the priests froze beside him.

Before them lay rusted iron bars, and the walls and floors were covered in strange, ancient script. Piles of research were scattered across a decaying desk. Blood. Animal bones. Bottles filled with unknown liquids. Implements designed for t*rture. Flowers bloomed unnaturally in the darkness.

The air itself was so foul that it made you recoil.

This was the kind of place where a wraith bursting from the walls would not have seemed the least bit strange.

“U-under Faradel, such a place exists…?”

“This… this is all blood, isn’t it?”

One of the priests standing to the side shuddered at the sight of the blackened, hardened clots on the ground around him.

He turned to meet Giselle’s gaze.

“Look. This is the sin your Temple has committed.”

Giselle’s gaze scattered, unable to settle, her confusion breaking through.

“What in the world is this place? Why would such a space exist beneath Faradel…?”

The existence of this chamber was too sudden, too chilling.

“Can you not tell? It is Dietrich’s laboratory.”

“D-Dietrich?”

At the sound of his name, the priests shuddered and their bodies trembled with dread.

Giselle turned her gaze to the bookshelves, which revealed Dietrich’s obsessive nature.

The shelves were lined with notebooks, some of which were falling apart from use, while others appeared to have been used recently and were still in good condition.

Although the desk was covered in materials, it was clear that the documents had been organized with meticulous care and according to precise standards.

She drew an old notebook out from the shelves.

“Read it. All of it.”

He thr*st the notebook into Giselle’s hands.

Its leather cover was stained and worn with age, and its pages were fraying and torn.

Just touching it made her uneasy, but she took it anyway.

When she opened it to the first page, she realized the truth.

‘…He kept all of this?’

Dietrich was meticulous and thorough, preserving every record of his research.

‘If discovered, this alone would condemn him to death as a heretic, and yet beneath the Temple itself, he left these traces…’

It was clear evidence of his research into dark magic.

However, Giselle thought she knew why he had left it behind.

He valued the worth of his research more than the risk of exposure.

Once fixated on something, he clung to it with obsessive intensity.

He had been unable to destroy what he considered to be his life’s work.

Perhaps he even believed that these records would one day become a legacy great enough to change human history.

‘That bastard truly was insane.’

Giselle turned back through the dates, tracing the records to their beginning.

And when she saw the first entry, marking the start, a breath of disbelief escaped her lips.

“Ha…!”

The records stretched back more than ten years.

Back to when the House of Ideana had begun its systematic research into dark magic.

Giselle read of the heinous experiments Dietrich had carried out alongside Felix.

With every brittle page she turned, the shock deepened.

There were gaps of months, even stretches where Felix alone had continued the experiments, inserting his own reports.

But the entries had continued meticulously, steadily, up until the present.

And with them, piece by piece, the doubts she had long carried began to unravel.

‘He volunteered to become the High Priest of Ideana…’

Why had he known so much about dark magic, why had he so eagerly taken the lead in purging Ideana and its so-called heretics?

‘It was to cover his own crimes. He stepped forward himself to bury them.’

With trembling hands, Giselle turned the pages of the experimental records.

It had been the same when the House of Ideana was annihilated. He had volunteered to join the Holy Army for the heresy trials in Ideana. He feared that other priests might uncover the traces of his experiments.

And so he submitted false reports on the situation in Ideana—fabricated and doctored by his own hand.

Giselle remembered that the report of Luise Ideana’s death had passed through him.

For years, he had concealed his tracks with meticulous care.

By the torchlight, Giselle pressed on, reading through the next volume, and the one after that.

At last, she learned how Dietrich had revived the forgotten sorceries of heresy.

‘He altered the circuits of holy power that flow within the body…?’

They attempted to reshape the human body itself — a feat bordering on madness.

The process involved agonies akin to death, and they stole the life force of countless victims to gain the energy required for such a transformation.

And yet they had succeeded.

On innumerable test subjects. And then—

‘Luise Ideana…’

Her gaze stopped at the name.

‘So all of these experiments… on her…’

From the beginning, Dietrich had sought to make himself a demon.

But he had lacked the courage to begin with his own body.

Before applying the ritual to himself, he demanded proof—and in that pursuit, countless deaths were wrought.

Every vile experiment forced upon the test subjects…

Ultimately, it all came down to Luise Ideana.

Felix Ideana had believed she was the perfected creation.

But to Dietrich, Luise had been nothing more than the final stage of clinical confirmation.

A victim of monstrous experiments.

That was how Luise Ideana had come to bear the power of heresy, and why she had lived her life desperately hiding it.

“…See for yourself. What happened while your Temple wallowed in negligence. The sin you committed against Luise.”

Giselle’s lips quivered.

Foolishness—ignorance spanning over a decade.

The Holy Temple could not escape its share of guilt in this.