In this magical world, the word "saintess" couldn"t be just used casually.This was a generation of divine authority. Pure holiness was something that belonged only to the G.o.ds.
In that case, only women beloved by the G.o.ds would be allowed to have the t.i.tle of "saintess". Only the True G.o.d Churches" chosen women would have this t.i.tle.
How pure they really were didn"t actually matter. What mattered was that they would represent their chosen church. Basically, they were important spokespersons for their churches.
Most of these saintesses would be young and beautiful. They were typically orphans that the church had raised. Most of them were also priestesses at the same time. While some saintesses would have n.o.ble status, most of them wouldn"t, as having too high of a status would make it inconvenient for them to be paraded around.
Being a saintess wasn"t something all that special.
Not only would they have to run around everywhere spreading their church"s teachings, they would often have to appear on the battlefield in order to help raise their side"s morale. It wasn"t like saintesses were all that rare, nor would they be all that safe. Maybe their death would actually raise morale even more as the soldiers would want to take revenge for her sake.
Moreover, as the women beloved by the G.o.ds, how could they possibly be allowed to fall in love with mortals? While you were a saintess, not only would love be forbidden, you wouldn"t even be allowed to get close to a man.
It would be impossible for anyone to forever appear young and beautiful, yet saintesses had to be young and beautiful… Which meant that this job was something only the young and beautiful could do.
It was common for saintesses to lose their position when they were around 30 years old. Their beauty would decrease by then, yet they would still be restricted from marrying, which was rather pitiful.
This was why female priestesses who truly had good career opportunities would never choose to become a saintess even if they had the chance to. Only priestesses who were orphans or commoners by birth would choose to take on the seemingly glorious job of saintess.
Although each church would likely treat their saintesses slightly differently, in my memories, the majority of saintesses would appear to be young and beautiful and seem so glorious. Yet, they were actually pitiful women who were destined to forever remain single.
This time, the incident occurred to Saintess Leona from the Church of Sword and Thunder. She was 30 years old. When considering how people were allowed to get married starting at age 14 in this world, she truly was an old spinster by now…
"I"ve never even heard of this church or saintess before."
The Church of Sword and Thunder"s G.o.d was named s.h.i.+rvan, and was a recently born G.o.d who had ascended just a few decades ago. His Divine Concepts included Swords and Thunder, which were two completely unrelated Concepts.
"I sympathize with s.h.i.+rvan"s head priest. Just how is the head priest supposed to teach two Concepts so different?"
"A holy sword that brings the judgement of thunder? Sword techniques that are as fast as lightning? This sounds more and more like the plot of an unpopular knight story."
Divine Concepts weren"t that easy to obtain. If there were two G.o.ds who had similar divinities, for instance a G.o.d with the t.i.tle of "Knowledge Holder" and another G.o.d with the t.i.tle of "Holder of Books", it was certain that these two G.o.ds would have a deathmatch battle against each other.
Similar natures and similar Divine Concepts meant that there were two people sitting on the same throne and sharing the same resources. That would always end in a fight until one died.
Not all G.o.ds would be capable of creating their own brand-new Divine Concept like Wumianzhe.
For most SemiG.o.ds, they would be quite satisfied already with being able to reach G.o.dhood. They would already be quite lucky to be able to gain a Divine Concept. They couldn"t be picky about what the Divine Concept was.
However, writing the teachings of a new G.o.d"s church would be quite a headache.
"Our G.o.d holds the divine thunder sword of judgement. Swordsmen who wors.h.i.+p our G.o.d shall act with the speed of lightning, swing their swords with the speed of lightning, and obtain thunderous sword techniques…"
When I saw the Church of Sword and Thunder"s religious teachings, I felt as if I was reading something that I had randomly made up. I did my very best to refrain from laughing, while the silly cat unhesitatingly started rolling around on the floor while laughing out loud.
I had purchased all of the thieves guild"s information on the Church of Sword and Thunder. What really surprised me was that when the incident happened to Leona, she had still been a saintess even then.
"A 30-year-old saintess. That"s so…"
[In this day and age, there"s also 10,000-year-old… er, 30-year-old magical girl cats. I should remind you that she"s currently sharpening her claws.]
However, I then understood after reading the rest of the information on the Church of Sword and Thunder. This Saintess Leona was no delicate flower vase.
s.h.i.+rvan had only ascended to G.o.dhood a few decades ago. He still had descendants in the mortal plane, and Leona was actually his granddaughter. This fact alone would make her different from other delicate saintesses. She would definitely enjoy s.h.i.+rvan"s divine favor.
The Church of Sword and Thunder was also a new church. Leona had always been one of the elites in this church as she was an excellent swordswoman as well as priestess. She had singlehandedly saved her church from being destroyed multiple times already. She had even performed G.o.d"s Descent several times before. She had incredible reputation within her church, and she was even faintly being viewed as the candidate to become the next church leader and head priestess.
Normal female humans would start to see their beauty decline at around age 30. However, 30 years old was only the beginning for powerful individuals. Thus, it was easy to understand why she was still a saintess at age 30.
However, the next part of the story was rather inconceivable.
She had an affair with a certain man. This shouldn"t have been a big deal originally, as Leona was one of the higher-ranking members of her church. Her grandfather was also her church"s G.o.d, and he trusted her deeply. As long as news of this didn"t spread everywhere, which would negatively affect their church"s reputation, this should have been nothing at all.
However, Leona suddenly became fallen during a public religious ceremony. Her divine power transformed into the evil power of the Chaos Abyss. The church"s priests then discovered that she was actually pregnant, and that her unborn child had a demonic presence. s.h.i.+rvan became infuriated and excommunicated his descendant. The rest was obvious.
The saintess became a former saintess. Her past accomplishments became evidence of how she was pretending to be just. She was blamed for everything wicked. Everyone wanted her to die.
Right now, she was tied up on a cross in the middle of a plaza, being displayed as a warning to everyone. She was scheduled to be executed by fire four days from now. It was unknown whether her soul would ascend to a Divine Kingdom or fall down to the Chaos Abyss.
"Oh my, this saintess is really beautiful. That demon was so lucky."
In order to avoid being late, I flew more than 300 kilometers last night after rus.h.i.+ng over the past two days. I managed to arrive at Dewleaf City, the headquarters of the Church of Sword and Thunder.
Leona had already been tied up in the plaza for eight days by now. Since she wasn"t an ordinary human, she hadn"t died from this. However, her lips were quite dry since she hadn"t received any water at all. Her eyes seemed listless as if she had reached her limits.
Even so, it was still clear that she was quite beautiful. She had long legs and a nice figure. Most importantly, her aura of a swordswoman made her seem heroic. She could still be called a beauty.
I silently removed my hat as I came up directly to look at the listless saintess. This time, I was using my true appearance.
In a way, Karwenz and I had the same taste in women… even though I knew it would likely be fruitless, I still wanted to try experiencing saving a beautiful damsel in distress who would then fall in love with me!
"It"s him! It"s him! It"s Roan the swordsman, the one who seduced the saintess!"
The first to react wasn"t Saintess Leona, but rather her maid!
At the same time, an alarm rang as numerous high-level swordsmen and priests ran out from the Church of Sword and Thunder. Seeing how they were fully armed, they must have been prepared for this already.
Most inconceivably of all, a Holy Light sudden ignited the ropes tying down Leona as she suddenly stood up right in front of me with all of her injuries recovered. Thunder was dancing in her eyes and on her sword.
"Roan! You really dared to come again!"
No matter how foolish I was, even I knew that I had fallen into a trap, not to mention this trap had been intended for someone else.
I didn"t know whether to laugh or cry as I shook my head at the saintess who was glaring literal thunderbolts at me.
"Would you believe me if I said I wasn"t Roan?"
"Of course I would believe you. Would a b.a.s.t.a.r.d like you really use your real name!?"
The next instant, a thunderbolt struck me. This was a divine punishment from the G.o.d s.h.i.+rvan.
"s.h.i.+rvan, you idiot! You struck the wrong person! You should be looking for that b.a.s.t.a.r.d in the Chaos Abyss!"