Chapter 963 - 962: He Is The One

The Saintess walked between the ruined houses, looking into every doorway that remained open.

"Can anyone hear me?"

Her voice carried through the village.

She stopped beside a collapsed roof and listened. Sir Luke stood close behind her, his gaze moving over the wreckage.

No one answered.

She bent to look beneath a fallen beam. There was enough space for someone to have crawled under it.

An outstretched hand lay in the darkness.

For an instant, she leaned closer.

Then she saw the rest of the body.

Her lips pressed together. She straightened slowly and moved on.

With every few steps, there was another death to discover. A man beneath a cart. A woman against a broken wall. Farther ahead, bodies hung from the spikes rising through the road.

Her eyes stung.

She had seen terrible injuries before. But there had usually been something to do. A wound to close. Someone whose breathing she could ease.

Here, she kept reaching people after there was nothing left to save.

She stopped beside an earth spike and placed her fingers against its rough surface.

The air flickered.

Thin crimson and black threads curled between her palm and the hardened earth. They gathered briefly beneath her fingers, then frayed into dark wisps.

Demonic energy.

She could feel more of it lingering throughout the village, tainting the air between the ruined houses.

Her gaze travelled up the spike to the body it held.

"Everywhere they go," she said quietly. "Death. Destruction. Is there nothing they can leave untouched?"

Luke looked at the dead man.

"That is why our mission cannot end with driving them off Earth. We must wipe them out in the Demon Realm as well. Otherwise, there will always be another invasion. Another village like this."

The Saintess withdrew her hand.

"Yeah."

The word came softly.

Then she continued searching.

Luke followed without urging her to stop.

He had already searched the village with his senses. Apart from their own people and mounts, there was no sign of life.

The Saintess knew it too.

She had found nothing. Not beneath the rubble, not inside the houses, not among the bodies lying in the streets.

Still, she looked.

Just one.

One person she could help.

She knew there was something selfish in the thought. These people had lost everything, and she was hoping one of them might still be alive partly because it would make the pain in her chest easier to bear.

It would give her something to do with her hands besides letting them hang uselessly at her sides.

’We could have arrived sooner.’

She had stayed in the other villages until she had done everything she could.

Perhaps she should have done enough to keep the wounded alive, then moved on. Left them in a satisfactory condition instead of trying to heal them as completely as her abilities allowed.

The time would have added up.

They could have reached Miresti before the demons.

Sir Luke could have fought. She could have protected the villagers, healed the injured, helped them escape.

Instead, she was walking among their bodies.

Beside her, Luke frowned.

He recognised the guilt in her expression. His earlier words had barely given her relief before they found this place.

What could he say now that would not sound hollow beside the dead?

His gaze moved past her shoulder.

"Hmm?"

The Saintess stopped.

"What is it?"

Luke pointed toward a body lying farther along the broken road.

"That one is different."

She followed his gesture.

A boy lay flat on his back, one hand still closed around a broken sword.

No spike held him. No beam lay across his chest. He had not been buried beneath a wall or thrown against something that had crushed his body.

The Saintess approached and crouched beside him and she saw his young face.

Fifteen, perhaps.

Only a little younger than her.

Dust covered his face and clothes. The remains of the sword lay across the ground beside his hand, its blade ending in a jagged break.

Then she noticed his chest.

A tiny hole pierced his shirt.

She carefully moved the torn cloth aside.

Her eyes narrowed.

The wound beneath it was just as small, its edges darkened. But its narrow path passed directly through his heart.

That was what had killed him.

Not an earth spike. Not falling rubble or a piece of timber hurled through the village.

This little hole.

Luke crouched beside her, looking at the sword.

"This is strange."

"The wound?"

"That too. But I meant the weapon."

He pointed toward the broken blade still attached to the hilt.

"It looks as though it struck something it couldn’t pierce."

The Saintess glanced at the scattered fragments.

Luke rose and walked a few paces away. He picked up a piece of steel from beside a loose stone, brushed the dirt off it, and turned it between his fingers.

It should have ended in a point.

Instead, the tip itself had shattered.

He studied the damage, then looked from the fragment to the boy’s hand.

"This was driven forward," he murmured.

"A thrust?"

Luke nodded slightly.

"The tip broke against whatever it struck. The damage continued back along the blade."

The Saintess’s eyes widened.

She looked at the boy again.

"Are you saying he tried to stab the demon that destroyed his village?"

Luke did not immediately answer.

"But he and his sword were too weak," she continued. "The blade broke, and the demon killed him with that little hole through his heart?"

His brows drew together.

"I can’t be certain. But that is what it looks like."

He glanced toward a man hanging from a nearby spike. A sword lay beneath his feet, its blade still whole.

"Many of the people here died holding weapons that are almost undamaged. Others have chipped edges or small cracks where something struck them."

He lowered the fragment.

"This one broke differently."

The Saintess looked at the fingers still gripping the hilt.

He had tried to fight.

Perhaps he had been terrified. Perhaps he had known he would fail and tried anyway.

She could not ask him.

Her gaze moved to his face, studying it properly for the first time.

Dust clung to his eyelashes. His lips were slightly parted. Beneath the dirt, he looked terribly young.

Then a voice spoke.

[He is the one... Resurrect him.]

The Saintess went still.

She knew that voice.

Her eyes widened.

"Lord?"

Luke turned toward her.

The voice came again, just as clear.

[He is the one... Resurrect him.]

She stared at the boy.

’Resurrect him?’

For a moment, she could not even form a response.

A hand settled upon her shoulder.

"Saintess."

She barely registered Luke kneeling beside her.

"Is God speaking to you?"

She nodded absentmindedly.

His hand remained steady against her shoulder.

"What did He say?"

"He told me..."

Her gaze did not leave the small wound in the boy’s chest.

"He told me to resurrect him."

Luke’s eyes widened.

He looked down at the body.

For several moments, neither spoke.

"But, Saintess..." There was an unfamiliar hesitation in his voice. "The boy is dead."

"I know."

"You have never resurrected the dead before."

She nodded slowly.

"That’s what I was thinking."

She had healed people whose lives were slipping away. She had felt them grow stronger beneath her hands and watched them open their eyes again.

But they had still been alive when she reached them.

This boy was not.

Her expression tightened with uncertainty.

"I don’t know how to bring him back."

Luke glanced at her.

"But it was His voice," she added. "Sir Luke, I’m certain."

He looked at the boy once more.

The silence beneath the broken shirt did not change. Nor did the lifeless face or the hand that would never release its sword on its own.

Luke drew a slow breath.

"Then you can do it."

She turned toward him.

"If you are certain it was God who spoke, have faith in what He told you."

The Saintess searched his face.

His earlier surprise remained, but he did not withdraw his hand or look away.

"Have faith," he repeated.

She lowered her eyes.

The instruction had been clear.

Not to search for someone else. Not to leave this boy and continue toward the battlefield.

Him... To heal this young boy.

"You’re right, Sir Luke."

Her voice was quiet, but no longer caught in her throat.

"I need to have faith."

She settled onto her knees. Mud soaked into the hem of her white gown, and her cross pendant slipped forward as she leaned over the body.

Carefully, she placed both hands upon the boy’s chest.

"Blessing of Miracle."