The Imperial Supreme Commander Has Returned - Chapter 53

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Empire’s Supreme Commander Returns Chapter 53

Spirit Unity

It was a technique he’d employed in his battle against the Silencer.
Extraordinarily useful, but the recoil had been equally severe.
He couldn’t summon Owl for a full week afterward.
That restriction had only just lifted today.

-Hoo…….

Yet the Owl he met again seemed somehow off.
As though soaked through by rain, the creature had shriveled thin and small.
At a glance, he looked utterly exhausted.

“Ah, you’ve been through quite an ordeal yourself.”
-Hoo…….
“I’m sorry. I’ll try not to use it again if I can help it.”
-Hoo.

Owl gave a short cry, as if to say it was all right.
Then he waddled across Delram’s belly with deliberate steps.
He seemed delighted to be reunited after so long.

But then something happened.
The slowly walking Owl suddenly began peering about.
Glancing this way and that, as if searching for something in particular.
At last he stopped near Delram’s wrist.

“What is it?”
-Hoo.
“The Bracelet? What about it?”
-Hoo-oo!
“What’s inside it?”

Owl pecked at the Bracelet with his beak, tap-tap-tap.
Delram, puzzled, opened his Subspace.

The Subspace contained little of value.
It had once held various survival supplies for emergencies, but they’d all been discarded when contaminated by Demonic Energy, leaving only an assortment of weapons.
That was all that remained.
Delram retrieved the weapons just to be sure.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh―

Owl grabbed each weapon with his talons and flung them out one by one.
It was as if he were saying, “It’s not this… it’s not this…”

So the Subspace emptied all at once.
Well, not entirely—one thing remained.

“Could it be… this?”
-Hoo!

The last item Delram withdrew was a black jewel.
The Heart he’d extracted after slaying the Silencer.

This time, Owl did not extend his talons.
Instead, he opened his beak wide and―
The heart went down whole.

Gulp.
“What?! Bird, why did you swallow that?!”

Delram, seized with panic, rushed forward and tried to pry the beak open.
But this was an owl who turned insubstantial only when it suited him.
His hand passed through the owl’s snout without resistance.

For Delram, it was absurd beyond measure.
Because he’d lived through a situation terrifyingly like this before.

“No, of course my spirit would pull something like this…!”

At the Sambala Tribal Alliance’s ritual altar!
Someone had gulped down a fruit that sat there—who else?
Delram, the owl’s master.

But this was far worse.
This was the Demon Heart itself.
Eat it, and ruin was guaranteed.
They’d only ever used it as a bomb, for lack of anything better.

‘What if he falls into corruption?’

Delram could not sit still.
That was when something uncanny began.

Whoooooosh!

Suddenly, a gale swept through the room.
Wind spiraled outward from the owl as its center.

Crack, smash!

The chamber became a wreck, as one would expect.
Every piece of furniture was caught up, shattered, reduced to chaos.

Only Delram remained unharmed.
The gale touched him not at all.
Instead, it shielded him from the jagged splinters of the broken furnishings.

‘What is…?’

Delram, watchful and tense, blinked.
The owl’s form was changing.
Blue light pulsed through it, waxing and waning like a heartbeat.
And with each pulse, the owl grew larger.

It was not only size that changed.
Talons lengthened; strange patterns etched themselves into the feathers.
Light gathered and coalesced above its head.
Rounded below and sharp at the crown—it resembled a royal diadem.

Most of all, the eyes.
In the gaze fixed on Delram burned absolute majesty.
No matter how he looked at it, this was not corruption by Demonic Energy.
Rather—

“Stronger,” Delram murmured.
-Caw.
“You evolved by eating a Demon Heart?”
-Caw!
“Why do you keep asking the same obvious thing?”
-…….
“Want another?”
-Hoot!

How desperately it must have craved them, for even its cry to change.
It had been cooing so insistently that he’d mistaken it for a pigeon.

Delram drew another heart from the Subspace.
The other half—the one split clean through by Tarbuing’s blade.

Whoosh.
Gulp!

The Owl caught what Delram threw with practiced ease.
This time, no wind arose as it had moments before.
Its appearance changed scarcely at all.

The only difference lay in the crown upon its head.
What had been the size of a pinky nail had grown noticeably larger.

“You…….”

Delram extended his hand toward the Owl.
It fluttered down and perched on his arm, its talons replaced by the weight of its hindquarters.
There was a solidity to it now that hadn’t been there before.

“So you were the demons’ natural predator all along?”

Delram spoke with eyes alight.

* * *

[Consistory]

Put simply, it was a council of Cardinals.
Naturally, it held the greatest authority after those convened by the Pope himself.

Only Cardinals and above could participate.
Those of Bishop rank or higher could petition to convene it, and unless circumstances were exceptional, it was protocol for all Cardinals in the Royal Capital to attend.
It was held at most once or twice every four years.

The agenda typically consisted of three matters.
The appointment of Cardinals, the canonization of saints, or other matters of significance.
This was the place to deliberate upon such things.

The last council had been convened four years ago.
It had concerned the King’s invasion of Sambala.

“Are we all gathered?”
“Yes, all Cardinals able to attend have done so.”
“Then let us commence the Consistory.”

The first to speak was an elderly man in his seventies.
His pure white vestments were embroidered with the image of a sun in golden thread.
Upon his head gleamed a crown—the only being in the kingdom besides the King permitted to wear such a thing—the Pope.

Ten figures sat around the circular table before him.
Not only Cardinals from the Royal Capital, but also those who had come from nearby dioceses.
Considering that usually around five attended, this was an exceptional gathering.
It spoke volumes about the importance of today’s agenda.

“They’ve even summoned Bishop Nuark. Since it was a nobleman sent by the Bishop who first discovered and responded to the demon, his presence is certainly warranted.”
“I concur.”
“I’ve heard that Bishop Nuark lives a life of austere piety according to the teachings and laws of our faith.”
“His participation is most fitting.”

The Cardinals wearing crimson berets nodded in agreement.
Nuark rose from his seat and offered his gratitude to all present.

The meeting proceeded without delay.
The agenda was the subjugation of demons in the Underground Sewers.

The demon subjugation was already complete.
Dozens of priests and Holy Knights, along with troops dispatched by the royal house.
More than a hundred elite warriors had spent a week meticulously combing through the Underground Sewers, and incinerated all of the lesser demons they found.
When counting guides, supply personnel, and messengers, the total deployment exceeded a thousand soldiers—an operation of unprecedented scale.

The Brightlight Church was ordinarily not known for such swift action.
Neither was the royal palace.
They investigated thoroughly before moving, knowing that any action would set every related faction into motion—only then did they commit their full weight.

But this time was different.
It was because of the demon corpse fragment that Nuark had brought.

“Ugh! What unholy abomination is this?”
“A demon? Such things actually exist in this world?”

Demonic Energy is inherently opposed to Holy Power.
A priest would retch with revulsion merely at the sight of it; what more for the Cardinals, whose Holy Power burned so intensely?

The moment they laid eyes upon it, judgment was rendered.
It mattered not whether one moved swiftly or with deliberation.
This was the emergence of a threat that demanded absolute annihilation.
The Pope himself had frothed at the mouth as he rushed to the King’s chambers.

And the King had been equally apoplectic.
When one thought about it, it was only natural.
Dangerous demons lurking beneath the Royal Capital where he dwelled?
And it had spawned thousands upon thousands of offspring?

The interests of the two powers aligned.
Thus did the foremost factions in the kingdom—nay, across the entire continent—move with unified purpose, and the result was as thorough as one could hope.

“It is from this gathering that I declare the demon eradication campaign concluded.”
“Your labor has been most appreciated, Your Holiness.”
“The true labor fell to Bishop Nuark. Particularly that Detection Device he created—even the Magic Tower expressed admiration for it. Have you long possessed such expertise in artifice?”
“In truth, I received a revelation in the chapel of prayer.”
……!

At those words, every eye widened.
The Brightlight God often appeared in dreams and spoke through visions.
Yet as the term “dream” implied, most were merely idle fancies.
Given that they spent their days in constant prayer and contemplation of the Brightlight God, such occurrences were hardly surprising.
Some among them even acted with fanatical fervor based on such fleeting visions.

But this time the circumstances were different.
It was something that had troubled him for quite some time.
Discovering a demon in the Underground Sewers beneath the Royal Capital, or even fabricating such a Detection Device—these were not feats a single bishop could accomplish alone.

“You mean the Brightlight God himself spoke to you?”
“Yes, Your Holiness. He revealed to me that a peculiar presence dwelt beneath the Royal Capital and warned me through his revelation. Yet I confess it troubled me that such visions appeared to me, a mere bishop, rather than to Your Holiness himself…….”
“So you entrusted the search to a nobleman, uncertain whether it was mere delusion?”
“Baron Delram Plerr rose from commoner stock and has been a noble only a short time. That makes him less obstructive toward the Church’s interests.”
“A sound choice, that.”

The Pope nodded slowly.
The nobles harbored a subtle wariness of the Brightlight Church.
Despite the Church’s professed concern for the people’s welfare over political dominion, it remained one of the three great power pillars of the kingdom.
Alongside the royal family and the nobility.

Delram, by contrast, had risen from common blood.
That meant fewer pretenses of privilege and greater sympathy toward the Church.
Beyond all that, he possessed genuine ability.
For hunting down a demon that may or may not exist—and worse, for delving into those filthy Underground Sewers—he was nearly the only talent suited to the task.

“This is what I wish to propose, Your Holiness.”
“Speak freely. I shall hear the Chosen One’s counsel.”
“I would see Baron Delram Plerr appointed as Crusader.”
“A Crusader!”

Both the Pope and the Cardinal startled visibly.
And well they might—what was a Crusader, after all?
The avatar of divine wrath.
One could say a great champion of God himself.

Even the mere description was enough to convey it.
How immense was such a post within the Brightlight Church.

In truth, the position carried no direct command authority or official power.
But that was only on the surface.
Who would dare ignore the words of the Brightlight God’s great champion?
When a Crusader spoke, even the Pope himself would yield ground.

Yet a Crusader was not a permanent fixture.
The seat had stood vacant for nearly fifty years, proof enough of that.
Only two paths led to the office—

“Has the Brightlight God granted you a separate revelation on this matter?”
“He has not. Might we not offer him a trial, then, to prove his worthiness?”
“A trial, you say…….”

Direct divine appointment through revelation from God himself.
Or passage through the Holy Knight Trial.

Naturally, the trial itself was no simple matter.
Wisdom, martial prowess, conviction, faith—in every measure.
One had to transcend the common man across all disciplines to pass.
That is why the Crusader’s seat had remained empty for more than fifty years.

“The bishop holds this baron in remarkably high regard, it seems.”
“Whatever else may be uncertain, one thing is clear—the Brightlight God favors him. Is it not evident from the very fact that he slew a demon?”
“Hmm…….”
“Yet these are merely my convictions, so perhaps we should proceed with caution. What if the trial were held in private?”

The Pope and the Cardinals exchanged glances among themselves.
A Crusader Trial was not something to be opened lightly.

But there was the matter of the demon that Nuark had reported.
More than anything, the fact that it came as a revelation weighed on him.
Then was this merely a trial…?

“You understand that such a thing would ordinarily be difficult, yes?”
“Of course.”
“Then I shall accept the Bishop’s accomplishment in hunting down and vanquishing that demon, together with his faithful service until now, as sufficient. Do you consent?”
“I do.”
“The trial shall take place four days hence.”

The meeting concluded shortly thereafter.
Nuark bowed to all present and gathered up the cloak he had set aside.
But then the Pope seemed to remember something and spoke up.

“Bishop Nuark.”
“Yes, Your Holiness.”
“You said before that you received a revelation from the Brightlight God, did you not.”
“Yes, I reported as much.”
“Then the revelation consisted only of that — that evil was taking root beneath the Royal Capital, and you were to dispatch a faithful knight to suppress it?”
“No.”

The Pope and the Cardinals regarded him with puzzlement.
The revelation did not end there?
Then what had he been doing all this time without reporting it!

Silent urging.
Nuark, gathering all eyes upon himself, opened his mouth.

“The Brightlight God commanded—”
“—commanded?”
“—that we prepare for the extinction of mankind.”
“……!”

A bomb had fallen into the assembly.
At the same moment, the doors of the conference chamber that had stood open swung shut once more.

Thud.

The Consistory was only just beginning.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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