Tifa prayed in a daze, but the rite of confession was something he had gone through many times before. The sacred words he spoke, while slightly halting, were mostly correct.
"Impossible!" "Found him!"
But after the confession, Tifa suddenly felt the atmosphere around him shift. Numerous gazes, sharp as wolves' eyes, all converged upon him, making every single pore on his body tense with alarm.
"What's going on?" Tifa looked up in confusion, and immediately saw that the milky-white glow atop the altar had now turned into a bewitching, dark crimson!
"HERETIC!!!"
Tifa's neck seized tight as his entire body was lifted off the ground. The face of the old bishop before him was twisted into something utterly savage.
In a haze, he could see his father weeping and screaming before being slammed to the ground. Even the nearby villagers immediately retreated a distance away, cutting off his family as though they carried the plague.
"No!!! Try again! Please, try once more! My Tifa could never be a blasphemer of the Goddess!"
The desperate cries echoed around Tifa's ears, but the hand around his neck only tightened further, to the point where he felt himself suffocating.
"Speak, heretic! How did you defy the teachings of the Goddess?!"
At that moment, the grip loosened slightly, allowing a long-overdue rush of fresh air to flood into his windpipe. Tifa's tears and snot flowed out together.
Seeing the heretic in such a state, the bishop's brows furrowed slightly.
The man's power was far too feeble — nothing like the formidable heretics they had encountered before. A threat of this magnitude clearly could not warrant a direct edict from the Goddess.
"Spell of Truth!" A point of golden light flew from the bishop's hand and sank into Tifa's forehead.
Tifa then found that his mouth had begun to move beyond his control, answering every question put to him whether he wished to or not.
Tifa's life up to that point had been thoroughly ordinary — so mundane as to be tedious. But when the questioning reached the daytime's exploration, the bishop's breathing grew noticeably heavier.
"Quick! Surround the kitchen at the back of that house!"
A tremendous force surged outward, and Tifa felt his body soaring through the clouds before plunging into an enormous iron vice that left his entire body aching unbearably.
Under the escort of numerous guards, Tifa and his family were brought to the front of their own home.
Then, wave after wave of Knights charged in as though facing a dire enemy, and they emerged carrying a rusted iron sword.
"Your Eminence!" The lead Knight respectfully presented the iron sword with both hands.
The intense aura of evil radiating from the iron sword caused the bishop's brow to crease deeply. "A relic of a dark god? Or the temptation of a devil? Even the Identification Spell has proven ineffective."
Though he could not determine the item's exact properties, the bishop now understood the nature of his objective.
"If I were to purify this artifact, the divine grace and favor I would receive would likely be enough to elevate my priestly rank by another level!"
A hint of intoxicated reverence flickered in the bishop's eyes, followed by a solemn act of repentance: "Great Goddess of the Fountain, please forgive the greed of your servant…"
For reasons unknown, the iron sword harboring Le Lin's soul seed showed no abnormal reaction whatsoever. It remained docile as the bishop applied a multitude of seals to it, and under the escort of numerous Knights, it was carried to the altar at the center of the village.
"This child's soul has already been contaminated by the power of heresy…"
Standing before the altar, the bishop pronounced his final judgment on Tifa.
"Burn him! Burn him! Burn him!" Before Tifa could even react, the villagers had already begun roaring in frenzy.
The fanatical atmosphere, the faces twisted into something utterly unlike their usual selves, frightened Tifa to tears on the spot.
Even his family was seized by the enraged villagers and bound to hastily constructed wooden crosses.
The impending doom gave Tifa a terrible premonition in his heart.
"No! Please spare them—I—I haven't done anything! I only picked up an iron sword! I'm willing to repent!"
Tifa cried out, making one last desperate plea. "For the Goddess's sake! Punish me if you must, but please, spare my family!"
"The families of heretics must also be 'purified'!"
But the response he received was only the bishop's cold, stern face.
Immediately after, amidst roaring flames and the screams of children, Tifa passed out in terror.
"Great Goddess! Your servant humbly invites your descent…"
After the execution by fire of Tifa's family, the bishop, accompanied by the other priests, began to pray devoutly before the altar.
As the primary culprit, Tifa and the iron sword corrupted by the Evil God had to be personally dealt with by the Goddess.
"So this is the Way of Faith, is it?"
Inside the iron sword, the soul seed quietly observed the other party's actions: "Through religious rituals, they incite fanaticism while simultaneously harvesting the extreme emotions and soul power emanating from the faithful…"
Le Lin analyzed calmly.
In his current state, he had virtually no power to resist, so he devoted all of his energy to gathering intelligence.