Chapter 585: The Truth

"Thank you."

In the inn room, the blonde girl Lilith accepted the hot coffee Janet offered, lowering her head with a polite word of thanks.

Janet only smiled, then went back to sitting beside Katsura Kotonoha, her eyes roving over the latter with burning intensity. A Demon God, this was a Demon God! In a battle nun's eyes, these Demon Gods were invincible horrors.

A chance to observe one at close range like this? Janet would never let it slip away.

"I know you have many questions." Lilith took a sip of coffee, unhurried. "Rest assured, I won't hold anything back. Whatever you wish to know, I will answer, for you are my saviors."

"My saviors?" Katsura Kotonoha smiled derisively. "I doubt it's quite so dramatic as all that. I don't believe your power could genuinely be held by any binding."

As a Demon God, even a lone one was absolutely beyond the power of ordinary humans to oppose. And yet Lilith had been tied up by a crowd of natives, bound with ordinary hemp rope, at that.

That was clearly against all reason.

"I was in a drained state at the time." Lilith shook her head and said quietly, "Those Temple people used a vessel to bind me, temporarily siphoning away and stripping my power."

Stripping power?

Katsura Kotonoha and Janet exchanged a look, both faces showing no small shock. They truly hadn't imagined the Temple people were capable of such a thing, to imprison even a Demon God, and strip away its power besides?

"It seems you truly have no connection to the Father at all." Lilith's gaze rested on Katsura Kotonoha as she spoke with a touch of wonder. "You don't even know of the vessels' existence?"

"Then what, exactly, is a vessel?" Katsura Kotonoha asked, puzzled.

What she really wanted to know was what "the Father" was, but a meal must be eaten one bite at a time. Better to proceed step by step.

"When we Demon Gods were created, we were carried within vessels." Lilith set down her coffee cup, her voice gentle. "A vessel is, in truth, a body of flesh. Each Demon God's vessel is different. Some are human in form; some are animals."

The vessel is the body?

Katsura Kotonoha's brow knitted, her face full of astonishment.

"The vessel both limits us and protects us. As long as we remain within our vessel, evil will cannot stain us," Lilith said, unhurried.

Hearing this explanation, Katsura Kotonoha's confusion only deepened. "Corruption by evil? You mean to say those Demon Gods run amok because they've been corrupted by evil will?"

"Yes." Lilith nodded firmly. "You would never guess. The original purpose for which we Demon Gods were created was, in fact, to protect the will of the planet."

"Impossible?!" Not just Katsura Kotonoha, even Janet refused to believe it.

Demon Gods created to protect the will of the planet? Damn it all, how much more absurd could it get?

"I know you won't believe it, but that is the truth." Lilith sighed. "And when we were created, the title bestowed on us was not 'Demon God' at all. It was Walkers Among Men."

"No. That can't be right?" Janet froze again, finding it impossible to believe. "Walkers Among Men? You Demon Gods were Walkers Among Men?"

The Holy See's holy scriptures likewise contained records of the "Walkers Among Men." They were said to be humanity's salvation, the embodiment of every virtue. But today her understanding had been turned inside out: the Walkers Among Men were the very Demon Gods ravaging the world?

"Then why did you become what you are now?" Katsura Kotonoha asked.

"That is a long and distant story. To be precise, it began a thousand years ago..."

As Lilith's account unfolded, Katsura Kotonoha and Janet gradually pieced together the truth behind it all.

A thousand years ago, the Demon Gods, as "Walkers Among Men," spread light and virtue far and wide. In those days they were like saints, bringing the world's beauty to every person.

But the human rulers of that age regarded such conduct with fear and hostility, for this spreading of goodness gravely threatened their hold on power.

And at the very core of the Walkers Among Men's teachings was equality. As rulers, how could they possibly tolerate true equality?

If all people were equal, by what right would they rule the masses?

It could not be allowed to exist. These "Walkers Among Men" must not be allowed to continue existing!

The rulers of the various lands of Europa, faced with the Walkers Among Men, united with unprecedented solidarity. But the Walkers Among Men, as the spokesmen of God, were far beyond what any human army could withstand.

What's more, with most of the common people already faithful of the Walkers Among Men, any military strike against them was certain to ignite riots and rebellion at home.

And so, at last, the rulers of every nation devised a plan to breach the enemy from within.

In public, they built palaces and temples for the Walkers Among Men, and even extended the Walkers' own teachings into the institution of the church. The rulers' kindness moved the Walkers of that era deeply, and they placed enormous trust in these men.

But on that night a thousand years ago, the rulers finally bared their fangs.

Over the wine at a banquet held in the Walkers' honor, a meticulously planned act of betrayal began. With the church's Pope at its head, dozens of the church's elite unleashed the Annihilation Rite, the very art the Walkers Among Men had taught them.

Of course.

That rite had not, in the end, killed the Walkers Among Men. It had only stripped their souls from their vessels. And the evil wills stirred up by this betrayal slipped in through the breach, blackening the Walkers Among Men to the last.

Thus were the Demon Gods born.

In the transformation from Walker Among Men to Demon God, all their original kindness and virtue vanished, leaving only loathing for humanity and all living things. And from the radiation and fermentation of that resentment, every manner of demon and monster was born into the world.

"In other words, the source of all evil is the Holy See?" Janet's whole body trembled, her pupils quaking.

Unbelievable.

The battle nun, at this moment, truly could not believe it. She had never cared for the Holy See's rites and formalities, but it was still her organization, her home.

But if what Lilith said was true, then the Holy See's existence was all an elaborate fraud? Then what did all these years of her own work amount to, and what of the colleagues who had died at the horrors' hands?

---

---