Chapter 145

Step by Step

The cathedral's knight order stayed in Steel City for only two days before hastily withdrawing. The final investigation result concluded it as a “disappearance due to unknown reasons,” with a suspicion that witches were involved.

In the days that followed, Morris waited anxiously and uneasily for the outcome.

He worried that the deed and gold wouldn’t be enough to sway the archbishop, but he was also terrified—if the position of bishop could truly be bought with money, then what meaning remained in the fifteen years he had spent devoutly reciting the Holy Tome of Thorn and praying day and night?

On the morning of the fifth day—

When Algernon appeared once more at the cathedral in Steel City, the sound of the knight order dropping to one knee sent shivers through his entire body.

“By order of the archbishop,” Algernon presented the divine decree inlaid with a golden apple: “Morris is hereby appointed Bishop of Steel City, effective immediately, to assume control over all ecclesiastical affairs within the district.”

The jade scroll felt astonishingly heavy in his hands.

Morris looked at the reflection in the mirror—at the figure cloaked in a crimson bishop’s robe and suddenly felt dizzy.

He recalled the night fifteen years ago when he nearly starved to death, and the Nightmare Faith missionary who extended a helping hand.

In the countless times he had prayed for blessings, even that great will that always watched over him seemed to waver at this moment.

“Congratulations, Bishop Morris. Tomorrow, I’ll escort you to the cathedral for the ceremonial proceedings.”

Once the door closed, Morris placed the staff symbolizing episcopal authority on the table and sat motionless on the bed like a puppet.

Fenrir’s soft laughter echoed in the room. “Now, do you still believe the Lord of Desires is fair?”

Morris didn’t know how to answer. He simply recited the Holy Tome of Thorn over and over again.

All these years, he had believed that Anthony’s deeper piety was why he had been chosen as bishop.

Yet today, he suddenly discovered that the bishop’s position could actually be bought with gold!

Then what had all his devout prayers day and night been for?

What had memorizing the entire Holy Tome of Thorn been for?

Sunlight streamed through the edge of the window, spilling across his body, but Morris felt no warmth from it.

No—this must be an exception. It was Algernon who had committed this sin behind the back of the great and all-knowing Lord.

But if the Lord didn’t know of this, then how could He be called “great” at all?!

Morris clutched his head, trapped in a dead end of thought.

On one hand, he kept denying to himself that he had purchased the bishopric with money; on the other, he refused to believe that Algernon’s actions could truly be hidden from the Lord of Desires.

Just then—

There was a gentle knock at the door. Morris took a deep breath and tried to force a dignified expression befitting a bishop.

“Come in.”

A sycophantic half-smile poked through the crack first, followed by a greasy, slippery-looking fat man squeezing into the room.

Morris recognized him—Deacon Cole, the one in charge of procurement within the cathedral. The man rubbed his thick palms together, and the gold-trimmed deacon’s robe stretched tight over his protruding belly.

“Good day, Your Excellency,” Cole offered an exaggerated bow. “I heard there’s now a vacancy for the position of priest?”

Morris’s fingers, resting on the staff of office, suddenly tightened.

Sunlight filtered through the stained glass, scattering fragmented light across his face, making the twitch at the corner of his mouth appear particularly grotesque.

“The position of priest is indeed vacant… and then?”

Cole failed to pick up on the coldness in the bishop’s tone.

He pulled a bulging velvet pouch from his robes and set it on the table. The clinking of coins was crisp and pleasing to the ear.

“Your Excellency, here are one hundred gold coins. What do you think...?”

The velvet pouch was abruptly swept off the table by the staff, and the coins clattered across the floor like a string of jarring laughter.

“You think you're fucking worthy?!”

The staff slammed into Cole’s shoulder with a dull, sickening thud.

The fat deacon stumbled back in terror, tripping over his own feet and slamming the back of his head against the doorframe.

“Have you memorized the entire Holy Tome of Thorn? Do you pray to the Lord every day?”

“Get out! All of you, get the hell out!”

Morris picked up the coins that had rolled to his feet and hurled them at the man. The way he swung the staff madly resembled a wounded beast lashing out in panic.

“What goddamn divine decree! What goddamn devotion!” The bishop’s mitre hung askew from one ear as Morris stormed through the scattered coins, gasping for breath. “Fifteen years of prayer, and it still doesn’t measure up to a manor and a few hundred gold coins!”

As knights rushed in at the sound and dragged away Cole, whose face was covered in blood, Morris was on his knees, trembling all over.

Once everyone had left the bishop's residence—

"You think this is all there is?" The mutt’s sneering laughter rang painfully in the empty bedroom. "The Nightmare Faith harbors truths so vile, even a maggot like you would retch at them."

"Aren’t you heading to the grand cathedral this time?"

"Good. You’ll get to see things that you normally never would. Maybe you'll even learn something..."

Morris stared blankly at the ornate ceiling above, like a walking corpse.

That night, he once again lost himself in a dream of familial bliss.

A day later, Morris, blindfolded, left Steel City in a disguised carriage.

Just two hourglasses after his departure, the servant tasked with cleaning his room swept out a bloodstained page of the Holy Tome from under his bed.

Nightmare Faith knights, alerted by the discovery, continued searching along the lead. Before long, they uncovered the mutilated remains of Anthony beneath the floorboards of Morris’s room.

"Quick, send word to Commander Algernon immediately!"

…

Half a day later, the carriage arrived at a massive cathedral hidden within the mountains.

A blood-red glow filtered through the dome overhead. Morris knelt before the cold obsidian altar as the officiant’s withered fingers traced twisted runes onto his brow.

The baptismal ceremony, which should have been overseen by the archbishop, was reduced to a few flickering candles before the holy statue, due to the Star Law Institute’s ongoing investigation into witchcraft.

"In the name of Thorn, I bestow upon you authority."

The officiant’s voice was drawn out, and after tapping the staff three times lightly on Morris’s shoulder, the ceremony ended abruptly.

Morris stared at the brand-new crimson bishop's robe—an outfit he had dreamed of for fifteen years—yet now, it felt as light as a piece of paper.

He wanted desperately to raise his gaze to the towering statue of Thorn and offer the most devout praise to the great Lord.

But when he remembered that he stood here only because of a chest of gold and a manor, he found himself utterly unable to speak.

Just as the officiant began to sense something was wrong—

Hurried footsteps suddenly echoed from the corridor. Several cathedral knights burst into the room.

“Your Excellencies, we’ve discovered the claws of the witches. Please follow us to the shelter!”

The officiant hurried out the door. Morris, however, declined the knights’ offer.

The chaos outside grew louder, until even the last two knights, unable to resist, rushed off as well.

“Lord Fenrir, was this your doing?”

The dog’s voice came at just the right moment.

“Do you wish to see the true face of the god you worship?”

Morris said nothing. He merely followed Fenrir’s guidance, moving deeper into the cathedral.

Everywhere, there were panicked believers and clergy.

Some even tried to block his way, but at the sight of the crimson robe on his body, they shrank back into the shadows.

“This is… the archbishop’s chamber?”

Morris’s gaze fell on the archbishop’s ceremonial robe hanging on a rack.

“That’s right. The truth lies in the hidden chamber over there. All you have to do is push open the door…”

Morris drew in a long breath and strode toward the secret door.

Creak—

As the hidden door behind the wardrobe swung open, rows of metal chests came into view.

They were lined neatly atop tables, each lid engraved in the center with the golden apple sigil of the Lord of Desires. They looked like rows of tiny coffins.

It was as if his presence had disturbed them—the things inside the iron chests began to stir, producing a rustling sound like countless insect mandibles grinding together.

He approached one of the chests, inhaled sharply, and unfastened the metal clasp.

Click—

The instant the chest sprang open, Morris felt as though an ice awl had pierced through the crown of his skull.

The black worms—those ugly creatures writhing inside the box—were scraping at the metal walls with their fine, segmented limbs.

On their backs were spiral markings, almost identical to the one that had crawled out of his mother’s eye socket fifteen years ago.

Memory burst forth like a collapsed floodgate.

That winter, the snowfall had been terrifyingly heavy, crushing the supports of the royal family’s third mine shaft.

His father, a miner, was buried alive dozens of meters below ground, and not even the body could be recovered.

Seven-year-old Morris had knelt on a straw mat, watching the blood his mother coughed up stain the patchwork on her chest.

He had gone door to door begging for food, but in those years of famine, which household had spare grain to give?

Until that missionary in the gray robe appeared.

“The Lord will grant you bread.” The man had shoved half a sack of rye into his arms, then traced a twisted symbol onto his brow. “But remember this grace.”

When Morris rushed home with the food, his mother’s pupils had already gone still.

A black worm was crawling out of her sunken eye socket…

The memory cut off. Morris finally understood everything. Hot tears streamed down his cheeks and fell onto the crimson bishop’s robe.

He wanted to vent, wanted to scream.

But his throat felt blocked, unable to force out even the slightest sound. At most, all his effort produced was broken sobs, hollow and meaningless.

At that moment—

The secret chamber storing the Dream-Eating Black Worms opened. The officiant who had presided over his ordination entered, holding a candlestick, and froze at the sight.

Seeing the opened chest, his face crinkled into a broad smile.

“Ah, Bishop Morris, so this is where you are! I was searching everywhere for you.”

“I had intended to wait a few days before showing you the cultivation chamber.”

He stepped forward and carefully shut the iron chest. “If one wishes to gain enough devout followers, some… special methods are necessary.”

“I regret what happened to your mother, but at least your choice to join the Nightmare Faith was not wrong, don’t you agree?”

Morris’s eyes locked onto the golden apple pendant swaying at the old man’s neck.

That wrinkled face of the officiant gradually overlapped with the gray-robed missionary who had given him bread fifteen years ago.

In that instant, Morris’s emotions completely collapsed.

Despair, agony, madness—all manner of negative feelings fused together, swallowing his sanity whole.

He had preached for fifteen years in service of the very man who murdered his mother.

Bang! A dull thud resounded. The officiant clutched his head and fell to the ground.

He looked up at Morris, who gripped the bishop’s staff with bloodshot eyes, his face filled with disbelief.

“You—you’re mad?!”

But Morris seemed deaf to the words. He raised the staff again and brought it down.

Once, twice, three times… just as he had done when killing Bishop Anthony.

The old officiant tried to fight back, but Morris gave him no chance to invoke a ‘miracle.’

“Help! Spare me!”

“Why?”

“Weren’t all your actions your own choice?!”

“Choice?!”

Morris froze with the staff raised high, then burst into laughter as though he had heard the most absurd joke. “Did you ever give me a choice?”

“When my mother told me to live on with strength, I swore—whoever gave me food, I would give my life to them!”

“But I endured fifteen years! I believed for fifteen years! And what did I gain?!”

“I could have chosen to be an ordinary man, a good man. It was you who took everything from me first!”

“And then you told me it was all my choice! Did you ever give me the right to choose? Tell me!”

“Tell me!”

The officiant’s pupils slowly lost focus. His face froze in terror, and his throat fell utterly silent.

Morris collapsed into the corner of the hidden chamber, blood dripping in winding trails from the staff.

He stared at the officiant’s twisted features, then suddenly let out a derisive laugh.

“Fenrir,” he rasped, his voice hoarse, “then what is it that you want from me?”

A clicking sound came from the shadows—the dog’s tongue smacking.

“You’re not quite as foolish as Lucy expected, it seems.”

Lucy?

Morris removed the ceremonial robe that symbolized his bishopric authority, revealing the plain white inner tunic beneath.

Right now, he wanted nothing more to do with anything related to the Nightmare Faith.

Then he left the hidden chamber. When he returned, he was carrying two buckets of tung oil used for lanterns.

He poured the oil throughout the chamber, making sure each iron chest was fully doused. Then he threw the candlestick in his hand.

As the searing flames spread—

“You guided me into killing Anthony, then stripped away my… my devotion to the Lord of Desires. After going to all this trouble, what’s next? After all, someone like me couldn’t possibly draw the attention of a ‘god.’”

Fenrir leapt down from his shoulder, tongue lolling, offering no clear response.

“You still haven’t answered me. You led me to uncover everything about the Nightmare Faith—what do you truly want from me?”

“I want your soul, willingly offered.”

The voice came from the entrance.

A silver-haired girl cloaked in black stepped into view.

Her azure eyes caught the firelight, reflecting a faint shimmer.

“A… a witch!”

Morris’s eyes widened in shock at the sight of Lucy.

It had never occurred to him that the one who had manipulated his every step… was a powerful witch.

After a brief moment of terror, many things suddenly became clear to him.

He let out a cold laugh.

“So that’s it. The witches need my soul.”

Lucy didn’t deny it.

She nodded and said, “I do indeed need your soul—to deal with the Nightmare Faith and the potential descent of the Lord of Desires.”

Morris staggered to his feet.

He no longer harbored any fear toward gods or witches.

“I will never sell my soul again.” He hurled the oil bucket into the sea of fire, where countless black worms shrieked in piercing agony within the flames. “Before, I had no choice. But from now on, I’ll live for myself.”

With that, he strode decisively out of the chamber.

“Did you truly have no choice?”

Morris froze mid-step.

He turned back with a snarl.

“Don’t be so quick to be sure,” Lucy’s figure faded once more, her voice lingering in the air: “I won’t take your soul for free. I’ll grant you one condition in return. Fenrir will remain with you…”

As Morris, eyes bloodshot, pushed forward again, the distant clang of armor echoed down the halls.

Algernon’s furious roar pierced through the stone walls.

“Heretic Morris has killed Bishop Anthony!”

“Find him immediately—kill him!”

Morris’s face turned pale in shock as several cathedral knights caught sight of him.

“Didn’t you ask what the next step was? Well, here he is.”

The dog’s voice sounded gleeful at his ear. “Of course, if you’d just ask me for help…”

“Don’t even think about it!”

Morris turned and ran back into the archbishop’s chambers. Without hesitation, he crashed headfirst through a grand stained-glass window and leapt into the courtyard beyond, ignoring the wounds the shattered glass carved into his head and body as he fled into the open.