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Chapter 109: Amanda Snaps

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"You can spit on a warrior but you can never ever humiliate their pride!"

"Do not go too far, Siva!"

The two Paladins, especially the junior of the two, had sharper tongues than their spirits.

"Is that so?" Siva coldly replied, "But as far as I know, I can still kill you here right now."

"Then do so, but know that the wrath of the Gods will befall upon you!"

"Wrath of the Gods..." Siva murmured it and kept on looking at the two of them. Although he did not like the life he had back then during the Ragnarok Era, it doesn't mean that he couldn't use it to pull the curtain off the face of these Paladins. "Let me challenge your Gods then. If they're really just like you said... then when I kill you two like vegetables on a chopping board, I expect that at least one of them will be appearing in front of me! Oh, how I wish to meet one of them Gods right now..."

Siva's eyes had a unique shine underneath the mask and yet, as hidden as it plainly was, the two Paladins felt that he was really going to kill them in the next two or more moments.

A slowly raised hand felt like an eternity and yet the glowing will of the Divinity of the Gods that should have been protecting them still did not react to their call.

Siva's hand reached its apex and he made a hand-chopping gesture. The first one to die was the Junior Paladin right next to the Grand Paladin.

"In the end, your Gods are nothing more than just a bunch of traitorous cowards." Siva didn't wait for any reply and his hand descended.

The Grand Paladin can't turn his head as it was locked in place by Siva's Neo-BMA. But still, he heard something chopped and something split, before something fell to the carpet with a thud.

On his peripheral vision, he saw his junior fall to the side, silent, dead. The Grand Paladin paled as he felt anger and fear at the same time.

Furious at the fact that Siva dared to kill them, the messenger of the Supreme Pontiff, the hands of power representing the Gods' Will; and fear at the fact that Siva's words may not seem to be as bare and groundless as it seems.

He just killed a God's Knight, yet the wrath of the Gods did not befall upon him. The taunting insult and resounding mockery at the Gods were ever present when Siva called them traitorous cowards.

And yet there was still nothing, no "Wrath of the Gods" befalling Siva's head.

"One is dead. One is still alive. Where's your God now, dear Paladin?" Siva had a sneer on his face as he talked and raised his hand again.

Even the trio around him was looking at the hand that signified Siva's cruelty with a distinct look of amazement and wonder at his actions.

Of all the people, perhaps only Siva could do this kind of fearless stunt to blaspheme the Gods of Terroa. This was such an astonishing feat.

"Do you have any last curses to say? Or are you going to admit your mistakes? For all I care, I will be only killing your lives. I don't care whether you ascend to heaven or fall to hell. But one thing I can say to you is that there is no hell. This world we are living right now is the hell."

Siva only gave the man five seconds to think and upon the fifth second, he summoned the Black Dragon Sword of Triune on his hand to prepare for the execution.

Raising it high, the Grand Paladin began to sweat as he looked at the jet black blade.

If he was using Elvira's Legacy, he could have insta-cast a spell already but alas, he was using the "blessing" given by the Divinities of the Gods, and those Gods would never ever dare to lay their hands on Terra... much less Siva who they feared deep into their divine bones.

And to make matters worse, 2 such 'untouchables' were here in front of them right now. If they had only practiced civility and didn't land on a sudden conclusion based on their hypothesis and their Supreme Pontiff's enmity towards Siva, speaking ill and cursing at Scion —his woman— and then to his mother's legacy which Scion held, he would've let them go.

But no. They crossed the bridge first. He was just dealing with the aftermath. This... was a lesson.

The Grand Paladin swallowed dry spit but couldn't turn his head sideways to check for his junior's dead body.

Should he choose life or should he choose his own dignity and die honorably in Gods' names?

At home, he had a wife; if he dies, as pretty as his wife was, perhaps all of her past suitors would pursue her because there would no husband, no obstacle with the title of Grand Paladin, stopping them in getting their hands on her. Without him, her wife would be lonely and she would be in pain on his death. But he knew that it wouldn't be a long-term pain and there's always a huge chance that some other guy would succeed in wooing her eventually. He can't let that happen.

As such, he lowered his head and apologized, "I admit my mistake. I beg for your forgiveness."

The audience: Scion and the three High Seats; all had wide eyes staring at this scene.

"No. Not to me. To her. Apologize to her. She is Mother Terra's successor."

"Please forgive me, Terra's Priestess, for I have sinned. I have been blinded by my ego. I admit my mistakes..."

As robotic as it may seem, it was his sincerest confession of guilt. He chose life and forego his dignity... choosing solid logic than questioning it.

"U-Uhm... Re—Siva, I mean, Siva, isn't that joke going too far now?"

Unable to hold it in, Scion couldn't' help but to put her word in.

"Eh?" The Grand Paladin's head snapped upward to look at her.

Siva coughed and cleared his throat, and then he declared. "We forgive you." and freed the Grand Paladin out of his control.

The man only then processed it all and glared a sharp pair of eyes at Siva. Then he pulled out his sword and roared, "How dare you play me!"

Siva was still carefree, "What, do you want me to be serious? Just be thankful that I didn't kill your junior out of my girl's feelings."

When he spoke, space rippled above the Grand Paladin's head and his junior fell on him with a heavy thud.

"Milton! You're alive! Then who—"

The Grand Paladin looked over the direction of where his "junior" should have been and saw just an empty piece of armor that Siva belatedly put back into his inventory while whistling.

"..."

The Grand Paladin's face twitched. Siva was really playing at him. Siva deliberately let them see him putting it back into his inventory!

"Y-Y-You... how dare you play with the dignity of the Gods! How dare you insult the dignity of the Grand Paladin of the Theocracy!"

"ENOUGH!!!"

——————BOOM!!

A head-chopping attack landed on the Paladin's head square at his crown.

Good thing that the [Safe] status of the city had already returned or else that attack would have hurt him greatly. Hugo's chop, although painless, still knocked the Grand Paladin's head back once and almost made him kiss the floor.

"Not only did you not acknowledge our presence, you actually dared to attack Terra's Priestess! I can forgive you for not actually admitting all your mistakes but I can't forgive you pointing your dirty sword at her! I am ordering you now, in the name of the Terran Alliance High Seat, kneel down and properly beg for forgiveness!"

Hugo's admonishment sounded more authoritative and more powerful than Siva's prank but all of the people there knew, even the Junior Paladin, that Siva's wrath earlier was real and that them, feeling the pain, meant that he was a [threat] capable of lifting the [Safe] status granted by the Gods to the Terran Settlements called Walled Cities.

An existence like Siva was someone powerful and a more frightening threat on the level of Demons!

With Hugo using his name, the logic circuits of the Grand Paladin worked and he and the junior one knelt in one knee and accepted this reality.

Besides, isn't this a momentous occasion? Terra's Legacy had never been found nor was it given to anyone else in all of their history.

They, for years, worshipped the Gods of Terroa, Mother Terra, Goddess of Time, as their records had believed her to be, never once did gave her blessings to anyone... ever.

And yet now, an inheritor of her legacy appeared.

If she comes back with them to the Theocracy, an unprecedented occasion could occur, and she will without a doubt become the Supreme Priestess of the Divine Crown Theocracy. They felt excited at the prospect and forgot everything related to Siva and 'properly' knelt in one knee and lowered their heads in complete submission and humility.

"I offer my sword onto you, oh Priestess of Terra, may you find use of my sword in implementing the will of the great Goddess of Time."

The Junior Paladin also did the same oath and he knelt just behind the Grand Paladin.

In essence, they were also knights and all Knights have that "dream" of serving someone great that could give meaning to their sword.

Scion felt awkward. Just earlier, they were angry but after just one rebuke, they immediately flip up and change their attitudes completely.

"Don't mind this." Gaia whispered beside hr. "All Paladins are like this. Although Crusaders are a bit different and harder to tame, they too will also see and acknowledge someone as long as they allied themselves on the Theocracy. But..."

"I don't plan to go anywhere. I don't plan to join any organization related to anything that is against Siva. I am not going away from Asgard."

Gaia secretly smiled while the two Paladins raised their heads in shock as they looked at Scion.

"Your Grace! You cannot do that! The Theocracy is your home... the Church of Goddess of Time will revere your name for centuries, even cycles to come! You are not just a Priestess of Terra but you are also the inheritor of her Legacy! It is part of your sacred duty to spread the glory of your Church... isn't it?"

The Junior Paladin was frantic and he declared it all without as much as thinking over the words.

"Your Grace." The Grand Paladin, although he did found a few points wrong with what his junior said still did not refute nor correct him for what he was about to tell her was basically the same thing as what his junior already said, only slightly different and worded more gently, "The Divine Crown Theocracy is the home of the Terran Gods. We're the servants of Gods and protectors of Terroa. A Church and devoted Goddess Temple have been erected in the Theocracy for cycles now for the sake of Mother Terra. Her priestesses are all the purest and kindest priestesses of the Theocracy, yet while the other Churches are all led by their own Pontifex or Saintes, only the Mother Terra's Church does not have a leading figure. If you go home and lead them, the Church will prosper and the divinity of Mother Terra will go stronger after some time. It may even lead to her manifesting a lot of miracles for the sake of our civilization."

The Grand Paladin's words do have substance on them and Siva, hearing it, recalled the system of Churches in the old times... where even a dead God or Goddess (because of the war against the Demon Armada) was brought back to life through their [Divinities] because of the mighty power of all of its believers.

Miracles... objectively speaking, there was indeed some merit in making Scion, the holder of Terra's Legacy, the Saintes of the Church, but personally, Siva doesn't like it.

After all, Scion was his girl and the Theocracy is a place where obstinacy and stubborn beliefs in a single absolute system of authority was pervasive, not to mention its current Supreme Pontiff was an enemy of his... or rather, considered him as the enemy of the Theocracy. Would he make Scion a Priestess of that place?

NOT IN A MILLION YEARS!

Gaia and Hugo felt this awkward and although it's something NOT refutable, they didn't speak and only looked over at Siva who was the center of the underlying issue with this proposal.

Siva also knew it and then groaned. He kicked a chair and brought four for his side and they sat down... the two Paladins awkwardly stared as it all happened and stood like statues there.

"In the first place," Siva started, "I did not come in here to make trouble. I came here to ask a simple matter that concerned this operation to you two."

The Junior Paladin moved quickly and brought two chairs for them. A tea-table in between their parties, the Grand Paladin glared at Siva. There are no teas served in this talk.

The room was resealed with a wave of Siva's hand and the barrier-shield magic implemented in the room was not lifted. If Siva wanted to escape here, he would have to suppress the older paladin to do so... which is easier now.

"Speak." The Grand Paladin spoke icily. He may respect Scion but despite his fear and Siva's own frightening power, he couldn't find himself to lowering his head to Siva just because of it all.

After all, he was the 'enemy' of the Theocracy.

"Do you know the consequences of your actions today?"

"Consequences?"

Hugo, who understood the story also felt angry at the Theocracy's idiotic selfishness. Because of this act, they alarmed the Bloody Church of their operation and some of the targets escaped.

"This is a secret mission that only a select few must know but not only did you include civilians, you also told everyone about the fact that there are spies of the Bloody Church in the society! We are about to rope them all up in one place and catch them unprepared but your actions today had now alarmed the fishes! What do you think will happen then if we try to weed out the spies hidden within the ranks of the Terran Alliance? The politicians will boycott the proposal and the royalties will also throw their tantrums and protect their people and think that there are indeed no spies!"

The Grand Knight was angry at Siva. Does he not see that the Theocracy wasn't afraid of them? No, before that, Siva was actually implying that their Supreme Pontiff's decision to include the help of these civilians were actually wrong.

"Who do you think you are!" apparently the Junior Paladin had the same thought but not the same self-control as the Grand Paladin. "How dare you question the decision of the Supreme Pontiff?!!"

After the shout, Siva flipped his hand and the Neo BMA quickly wrapped around the Junior Paladin's body and stretched his body to the back that, if this place wasn't a Safe Zone, would've broke his shoulder bones and bent his spine, giving him so great a pain he would wish he wasn't alive, wholly feeling all the pain of it.

Yet, as painless as this was, the fact still remains that the Junior Paladin was punished by making his head almost touch his ass. Just looking at it is painful enough to imagine.

The Junior Paladin groaned, unable to speak.

Although he couldn't feel pain, it was still a fact that he couldn't move nor speak properly for his muscles were stretched and made so that he will mentally become tortured enough to know that he was actually being 'killed' right now.

"Put him down!" the Grand Paladin yelled and stood on his feet, making his presence known to Siva who remained seated.

He even, actually, forgot that Gaia and Hugo was still actually here... especially Hugo. His sense of enmity towards the 'enemy' of the Theocracy was hindering him on acknowledging that the leader of this group wasn't Siva at all.

This chaotic distinction made his logic on who's the actual leader is —Scion— clash with the sitting arrangement of this party.

Siva turned his gaze at him and the Killing Zone erupted once again.

"It seems you have forgotten just how I was able to simply trample you both earlier. Do you want me to finish the job and kill you for real now? It is just a warning earlier, but tick my patience again and you can expect that I will chop your bodies into thousands of pieces before sending it back to the Supreme Pontiff you all revere so much. So, do you want to test my patience?"

The Grand Paladin's breathing shortened and he slowly sat down. Clenching his fists, and facing Scion who he thought was the 'leader' of this party just simply because of the fact she was the Goddess of Time's Legacy Holder.

"In the name of the Goddess, Your Grace, you much not associate yourself with Siva. He is not someone that can be trusted. He—"

Yet before he could even finish his words, his face suddenly turned to his left and a resounding slap echoed in the room.

His soul was shocked.

Scion had just slapped him. She actually slapped him when he was only trying to uphold what he thought was right for the sake of the dignity of the Supreme Pontiff who Siva had smeared dirt on.

This time, Scion had already stood up and pointed a finger at the Grand Paladin.

"How dare you." it was a calm rebuke, "You don't know his sacrifices. You don't know the scale of the enemies he must face for the sake of all of you people living in this planet. You don't know the pain he had to endure just so he could protect the existing order and the existing peace you are all experiencing today. You don't know anything of the real threat that only Siva was facing alone in both your world and ours! You have no idea of the battles he had to fight just so you could still sit here and talk to him like that... instead of thanking him, you actually still find him the enemy? And of all things, you want me, his woman, to actually not listen to a word he's saying? Just for what? For a single man's selfish egoistic bullshit? Who was it that declared Siva as his enemy? Bring him to me and I will personally slap his face a hundred times if I have to."

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