The Saint’s Manual for Redemption - Chapter 25

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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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Chapter 25
The moment the Archbishop appeared on the podium, the murmur died away instantly. In its place fell a silence as solemn as that before the rite itself.
The Archbishop’s staff struck the floor twice.
“The hour of Judgment has come at last. The time for Caritas to choose the rightful Holy Saint.”
What in the world did Caritas picking her favorite Saint have to do with judgment? Weren’t you people just desperate to try your hand at condemning me?
The moment those words fell, the earth at the far end of the plaza opened. From it rose an enormous beacon, its interior ablaze with sacred blue light—the Sacred Flame itself.
The Flame of Judgment.
They claimed that as long as this fire never died, the Temple’s glory and prosperity would endure. But no matter how I looked at it, this was nothing more than a flame built to burn people alive, dressed up in stolen godly language.
Someone’s gotten very good at writing catchphrases, apparently.
I steadied my breath and looked directly at the beacon.
Fine. Let’s see, then. Let’s settle this here and now—who truly deserves to face judgment in this plaza today.
The blue flame within the beacon rippled, swaying like a dance in the wind. If that was truly the Flame of Judgment, I found myself wondering what such a distant, tiny spark could possibly accomplish.
“The candidates for Holy Saint, step forward.”
The Archbishop’s voice echoed through the Sanctuary.
At his word, Kalianna and I stepped forward side by side. Tap, tap—the Archbishop’s staff struck the floor twice.
The blue flame within the beacon at the far end of the plaza burst suddenly into greater brilliance.
As if the fire inside could no longer bear to be contained, it raged and spilled out of the beacon like an overflowing flood.
The flaming torrent crested the beacon’s rim, flowing liquid-like down to the floor where it followed the engraved patterns in a heartbeat, spreading across the entire plaza.
The flame showed no hesitation. It moved as if it had known this place was its domain since long before this moment.
This was no random conflagration.
Following each ancient pattern carved into the Temple floor with precision, as though it had been remembering this very moment for ages, it consumed the plaza.
In less than a breath, the plaza was consumed by blue Sacred Flame. A gasp rose from the Spectator Seating.
“Ohhh!”
The blue inferno shot upward.
Like pillars, like walls, it stretched toward the heavens and formed a circular boundary.
The plaza had become one vast altar, and there in its center stood Kalianna and I.
Heat pressed in from all sides. In my thick woolen robe, I felt as though I might stew to death. I was beginning to suspect they’d decided to steam me alive rather than burn me.
The entire plaza was drowned in blue light.
The faces of the faithful, the stone seating, even the sky itself—all turned blue.
Even knowing it was a trap meant to kill me, I couldn’t help but admire how meticulous and magnificent the staging was.
Our latter-day people have apparently spent all their time perfecting the art of pulling off convincing deceptions.
Instead of wasting effort on such nonsense, they ought to be carefully studying ≪The Temple Operations Manual: What Our Later Generations Must Absolutely Preserve—Written by Caritas Church’s Third Holy Saint, Sierra≫. Honestly!
The flame suddenly surged, forming a wall. It blazed with such ferocity that even the hem of my robe would have caught fire had I drawn any closer.
The fierce blue inferno came down upon us like it would swallow us whole. There was no wind, yet the flame writhed. Neither Kalianna nor I retreated a single step, even as the roaring blue fire seemed ready to consume us at any moment.
And then I felt it immediately.
The two sections of flame were reacting differently.
The flame on Kalianna’s side was quite calm. The flame before me, by contrast, burned fiercely upward.
When I nudged Kalianna, she turned her head sharply—she’d been staring at that counterfeit Sacred Flame with a slightly anxious expression.
“I’d like to run an experiment. Would you mind switching places with me for a moment?”
“I promise we’ll switch back when I tell you to.”
Kalianna’s voice trembled slightly. When I nodded, she hurried into my position. I stepped into the space she’d just vacated.
Kalianna clearly felt the dramatically different intensity as well, her eyes widening as she looked back at me.
It was at that very moment.
The flame that had been calm suddenly erupted in ferocity. Meanwhile, the fire where Kalianna had been standing gradually subsided.
When we switched back to our original positions, the flames reversed their behavior once more. The movement was so blatant that a hollow laugh escaped me before I could stop it.
Now it was certain. This was precisely the Temple’s handiwork.
Clearing a path for the designated Holy Saint while drowning me in flame—branding me as “one not chosen by God.”
This wasn’t any judgment from God at all. It was an elaborate fraud, orchestrated with God’s name borrowed but without a shred of divine will behind it.
Except now it came with my life as the stake.
***
The night before, Arden had combed through the plaza and seating to locate where the mechanisms were installed.
The floor’s patterns, the arrangement of stone, the subtly misaligned heights—around where the Sacred Flame would burn, there were carefully hidden gaps.
And the device to control that flame as desired sat right there in plain sight near the Spectator Seating, positioned to overlook and manipulate the plaza.
As if the Sacred Flame had ever truly existed since the Temple’s founding.
Arden let out a short, cold laugh.
The Sacred Flame.
Despite the grand claim that it had burned since the Temple’s establishment, its construction was far too human. Accessible hand-holds, convenient spacing—less the province of the divine than a device designed with stagecraft in mind.
“Keep watch for anyone behaving suspiciously.”
The Holy Knight Order had been assigned to patrol this sacred place where God’s judgment was supposedly unfolding.
Thanks to that, Arden was able to position himself near the control mechanism and maintain his watch. The device’s location was cleverly hidden from the crowd’s view by the seating arrangement itself.
His fists clenched of their own accord.
The urge to rush into that square, to smash every crude contraption to pieces, rose in his throat until he could barely swallow.
Was this not deception of the faithful?
Was this not blasphemy against God itself?
Arden gritted his teeth.
If God truly existed, why would He permit such deception to flourish, forcing only the one He had chosen to bear all the suffering, all the doubt, all the burden of proof?
As his mind spiraled in that old lament—the futile attempt of a mere mortal to comprehend the divine—the conversation from the night before flashed through his thoughts.
‘But why did they tell me to protect the device, not destroy it?’
Normally, if there was any possibility of manipulation, you’d take precautions beforehand to prevent it.
Whatever plan lay behind reversing that instruction, it escaped him entirely.
‘Protect it from whom?’
From within the Temple?
Or from without?
An inscrutable person, Arden thought with a click of his tongue, turning his gaze back to the Central Square, where the Sacred Flame consumed everything in its blue radiance.
That was precisely why he couldn’t look away.
Against the blue fire, the silver-white hair gleamed with unnatural clarity—one candidate wrapped in a thick fur-like coat, bundled against the heat, and the other in a gossamer dress that radiated an unmistakable holiness.
It was obvious which of the two the crowd would recognize as the Holy Saint.
Judging by appearance alone, Sierra bore a far stronger resemblance to the Holy Saints of old—at least compared to her rival.
The cool, elegant beauty with silver-white hair and mint-green eyes seemed to embody one of the Three Great Saints’ own sacred statues, as though the sculpture had descended and taken flesh.
‘So that’s why they dressed her that way.’
Arden didn’t know the fabric was chosen because it burned easily—a detail the Temple’s black hearts had calculated well. It was the difference between an honest priest and a corrupted one.
“Now, the two Holy Saint candidates shall walk through the flames and reveal where God’s will truly lies.”
The Archbishop’s solemn voice echoed across the square.
Arden clenched his fists so hard his nails bit into his palms.
Yet not once did he tear his eyes from Sierra. He couldn’t, no matter how hard he tried. His mind screamed that he should be watching the device, tracking its movements—but they looked too alike.
The two candidates began their slow procession toward the flames.

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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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