Chapter 134:
The psychic world was akin to a dream realm, so it was not odd for Isaac or Isolde to appear in various forms. While Isaac could potentially influence this world’s construction, it was clear that the prophet of the red flesh, who had a strong grasp on Isolde, was the dominant force.
‘Is it trying to instill guilt in me by manipulating memories?’
The prophet’s intentions were not clear, but Isaac’s task remained unchanged.
The more he defeated the prophet, the weaker her powers became. He was nearly at the end of this process. Just one more push to break the shell, and the red flesh would be fully exposed for Isolde to absorb.
The Wallachia human hunter attacked Isolde in the darkness.
A crossbow bolt pierced her heart.
As she was about to fall, the scene flipped again.
Isaac felt unnaturally light, as if he might float away at any moment—because he had no flesh left on him.
Beyond the gray-white vista, Isolde was struggling alone on a bridge against an undead army. Isaac sneaked through the skeleton soldiers to get close to her. She fought well, but among the myriad blades, she could neither see nor block Isaac’s.
His blade sharply tore through her lungs.
Finally, a familiar landscape caught Isaac’s eye.
‘Back in Rougeberg.’
The sight of the red-brick fortress somehow felt welcoming.
And at the end of a column-lined corridor stood Isolde—or rather, the prophet, whose expression was a mix of slight annoyance, fatigue, and anxiety.
One could tell at a glance that it wasn’t Isolde but the prophet, and that her powers were dwindling.
The prophet was running out of time.
“Trying to pull out guilt like this is pointless. Just die already.”
Of course, a mere psychic entity like the prophet wouldn’t listen to him. That comment was more a pep talk for Isaac himself.
As expected, the prophet turned and fled. Isaac chased after her again.
She darted between pillars and corners, fluttering curtains and hangings, hiding from Isaac’s view.
‘Something feels off.’
A fleeting doubt passed through his mind. Hide and seek was not unusual—there had been similar instances before, and the outcome was always the same. Isaac tried to rationalize his uneasy feeling but couldn’t—it was just an instinct.
Despite this, feeling he couldn’t delay any longer, Isaac swung his sword as he had done dozens of times before.
The sword plunged into the prophet’s back. At last, as if this resistance was coming to an end, the shell began to peel away.
Fflrrr! A sound like flipping through hundreds of pages in a book burst through the air.
Isaac saw Isolde’s skin, thin as parchment, puffing up and splitting into thousands of pieces under his blade.
This reaction, never seen before, signaled to Isaac that the end was near.
The curse—or rather, the blessing—began to reveal itself, taking the shape of a throbbing heart. But the shape was irrelevant; it was merely how Isolde imagined it.
The now unprotected red flesh pulsed and spewed blood.
Suddenly, lips emerged in the center of the heart. The lips of a seductive woman spat out a shout.
“At last!”
The exclamation echoed beyond the corridor of Rougeberg, reverberating throughout the entire psychic realm. Isaac nearly collapsed from the direct impact of the sound but managed to regain his balance. The red flesh still seemed far too powerful to be considered weakened.
‘No way?’
In a flash, thick eyelids sprouted in the middle of the red flesh. No, not eyelids—dozens of blood-soaked hands. As the hands pushed back the eyelids, a stench of blood filled the air, and red eyes appeared.
Looking into those eyes, Isaac realized their true nature.
“At last, I am free from the Red Grail! Thank you, Grail Knight!”
It was not just a piece of flesh that had separated from the prophet of the red flesh.
It was the prophet of the red flesh herself.
***
‘Has she gone mad?’
The first thought that came to Isaac’s mind was just a single phrase.
Given the uncertain size of the red flesh, he had anticipated some danger.
However, he never imagined that the prophet herself, in her entirety, would be encased within Isolde.
Not even when she had performed similar feats in the Hendrake estate.
‘All those pieces I had cut away to weaken her… were just camouflage to hide her power.’
This could be a self-destructive move from the prophet, especially since she had already weakened significantly from the prolonged ritual.
To Isaac, it seemed she might be attempting a complex form of suicide.
“You think I’m mad, Grail Knight.”
The prophet, having shed her shell, smirked.
“Yes. It was madness. But from the moment the Red Chalice chose me as its sacrifice, I had no other choice.”
“Ah… quick to notice, aren’t you?”
Indeed, in the midst of conspiracy and assassination plots, the prophet seemed to have noticed that the Mirror Handmaiden had chosen her as a ‘gift’.
Given the situation, the prophet had few options: either sacrifice herself quietly for the Red Grail or renounce her faith while accepting the penalty. She chose the latter, which meant she had to significantly reduce her power.
The probability that the Mirror Handmaiden knew about this was low, but Isaac wasn’t ruling out any possibilities just yet.
“And was it because of me that you chose Isolde’s body?”
“Yes. It seemed like a good strategy. I could fool the Mirror Handmaiden’s eyes, and with Isolde Brant’s own background, it looked like I could mess with you too. Plus, I thought maybe I could get your protection. I tried to seduce you but… I didn’t expect you to be impotent.”
“I’m not impotent.”
“Prove it then.”
Isaac didn’t fall for this juvenile provocation. Instead, he held the key of Luadin and simply stared at the prophet of the red flesh. But instead of showing any displeasure, the prophet looked back at him with a smirk, seemingly enjoying the situation.
“Unfortunately for you, Grail Knight, thanks to your devoted care, I’ve merged quite well with Isolde. If you kill me now, Isolde won’t survive either. To be precise, she will die before I do.”
That made sense.
Even if an angel’s wings are clipped, twisted, and pulled out, an angel is still an angel.
Since she had successfully renounced her faith before becoming a fallen angel, her power still overwhelmingly surpassed that of the mere human Isolde. In blunt terms, even if Isolde was shattered to pieces, the prophet’s throbbing heart would still be beating.
However, Isaac did not sheathe his sword.
Instead, he smiled.
The prophet might have mistaken his smile for false bravado, but she couldn’t deny that it unnerved her. She tried to recall if she had missed something, but nothing came to mind. She had been thorough.
Before and even weeks after entering Isolde’s body, she had monitored Isaac for any other powers he might possess. As expected, Isaac hadn’t used the miracles of the Codex of Light. In fact, it was clear he couldn’t.
There was no way to separate the fused flesh from Isolde without using miracles.
Yet, Isaac advanced towards the prophet and said,
“I anticipated some of this, but this is a bigger catch than I imagined.”
“Ha, acting all relaxed won’t help you…”
In an instant, Isaac dashed towards the prophet. She thought he might actually try to cut her and started to defend herself. Thorns that looked like red veins sprouted from the ground. However, Isaac stopped short of reaching the thorns and raised his hand, snapping his fingers.
A flame sparked at his fingertip. The prophet was shocked.
‘Could it be? He’s been hiding his ability to use the miracles of the Codex of Light all this time!’
As she was horrified and bristled with thorns all over her body, the flame at Isaac’s fingertip flickered out as quickly as it had appeared. Isaac was disappointed in the miracle, which was as ineffective as it had been years ago, even in a dream.
But that was enough.
There was one more person who could perform miracles here.
“…I am sworn to serve the Light.”
An unbelievable voice came from behind the prophet.
The shell that she had thought was discarded, Isolde, was standing and reciting a prayer.
“As before, grant me wisdom and patience, and help fill my life with Light.”
“Oh, no!”
Realizing what the prayer was, the prophet thrashed about. Thorns that had sprung from the ground pierced Isolde’s body, but for her, all this was just a dream. It had no bearing on reality.
Furthermore, she had been an inquisitor.
Battling heresy was her specialty.
Isolde instead grasped the thorns piercing her and completed her prayer.
“Help me to serve you tirelessly. Allow me to become your shadow.”
Cracks began to spread from her grasped hand. Light seeped through the cracks, quickly enveloping the prophet’s core. The prophet writhed in agony as she burned up, but there was no escape.
She had fused too much with Isolde.
The red flesh burned from the inside out, turning her body into a charred lump. Even in this grotesque form, the prophet’s eyes blazed with fury as she screamed.
“This is just a moment of silence, Grail Knight! I will return! Again…”
With a pop, her blazing eyes burst from the pressure.
Fluid leaked out, and the dozens of hands that had emerged folded back into the lids, disappearing inside. With that,
the prophet of the red flesh was silenced.
Isaac brushed off the ashes of the thorns as he approached the prophet.
‘Success.’
From the moment the Mirror Handmaiden mentioned absorbing the red flesh, Isaac had been suspicious of their intentions. It could have been genuine advice, but given that it came from an angel of the Red Chalice Club, skepticism was warranted.
Therefore, if the red flesh turned out to be too large for Isolde to absorb, Isaac had decided to seal it instead. He had planned to use his modest and seemingly insignificant miracle as a signal to awaken Isolde’s consciousness.
It was just a flash of light, but it was enough to awaken her.
As a result, Isolde had unleashed one of the most powerful weapons an inquisitor could wield: the sealing miracle.
‘I never imagined that the prophet herself would be caught in it.’
But a seal is a seal. The threat was not completely gone.
The scorched flesh looked like nothing more than a lump of coal, but the power of an angel still pulsed within it. It had simply been too weak to withstand the inquisitor’s sealing prayer.
‘Even the craftiest angel of conspiracy wouldn’t have imagined Isolde would intervene here.’
Especially since she had already merged so significantly with her.
It was the downfall of a proud angel.
For the foreseeable future, the prophet of the red flesh would have no choice but to serve as a battery for Isolde’s energy. She might try to emerge and rebel again someday, but by then, preparations would be even more robust.
Isaac turned to Isolde.
After reciting the sealing prayer, Isolde was sitting dazed, looking at Isaac. Although this was the only option, Isolde had inadvertently sealed another faith’s angel within her.
That in itself was a dangerous undertaking.
“Are you alright, Inquisitor?”
“…”
Suddenly, Isaac realized that this place was like a dreamspace for Isolde. He had instinctively trained her to recite the sealing prayer, but she couldn’t possibly be acting with a proper self-awareness.
It would be like moving in a dream.
Thinking they needed to talk outside this psychic realm, Isaac tried to exit the ritual.
Then, Isolde suddenly spoke.
“This isn’t reality, right?”
“Yes? Oh, well, yes.”
“So… this is a dream?”
Isolde, seemingly in a daze, suddenly leaned into Isaac. He tried to push her away in confusion, but for some reason, he found it harder than when he was fighting the prophet of the red flesh.
A sweet fragrance wafted over.
‘Is the Doctrine of Thirsty Love still lingering? It shouldn’t be after sealing the prophet.’
While he was lost in his thoughts, Isolde’s lips met his.
Isaac’s mind went blank, overtaken by a powerful temptation.
The Grail Knight had missed his chance to resist.
–TL Notes–
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