Chapter 367 — The Dimming Holy Light

Wright seized the priest by the collar, hauled him up before him, and stared into his eyes, asking word by word, "The Holy Light has told you all of this. Have you remembered it?"

The priest's face was covered in blood, and his terrified eyes looked as though he were gazing at a madman. Squeezed from his throat came stammering words: "I—I've remembered..."

"No, you haven't," Wright shook his head and pressed the priest back down into the mud, raising his right fist high and bringing it down hard. "You're only afraid of my fists."

With a dull thud, the priest in the white robe and the white gold-trimmed soft cap bled from nose and mouth and at last lapsed into utter unconsciousness.

"The Holy Light tells us to be temperate."

Wright sighed softly and slowly rose to his feet.

The holy light that had shielded him—and his fists—had vanished at some point without his noticing.

He walked toward the commoner couple and bent down to check on their condition, but the first thing he heard was the woman's low cry of astonishment—the divine silence spell upon her had finally lapsed.

"Don't be afraid. You're safe now," Light said in a low voice as he carefully examined the man's injuries. The young farmer's face was covered in bruises and blood; clearly he had been beaten before being dragged out here. But his worst wound was plainly the kick a soldier had landed on him with an iron boot—he breathed in agony, clutching his chest with one hand. His ribs were indeed broken.

Light knew how to set bones. He worked on the man's injury, telling him not to move about, then prayed softly for a response from the Holy Light.

Only a faint glimmer surfaced before him, and it flickered out almost at once.

Light froze for a moment, as though he had understood something.

But he said nothing. He merely drew from his robes the holy water and healing charms he had prepared in advance, and with the power of these enchanted objects, he at last healed the man's wounds.

"Th-thank you..." The young farmer climbed up from the ground and gave his thanks, face pale. Though he still could not grasp what had happened, he knew at least that this man who looked like a priest was saving him.

"You had best leave this village," Light said, accepting the thanks and warning them. "You can't live here any longer."

He knew that word of what had happened here would soon reach the church and the lord. The villagers who had witnessed the fight from a distance would surely run off to report it. True, he was the one who had struck the blows, but the lord and the church's priests would hardly trouble themselves over such distinctions. And even if this clash had never broken out, Light knew the couple before him could not go on surviving in this place.

They had already been branded with a fabricated charge and marked as heretics by the Church of the Shining Stars. Only two fates awaited them: to be burned at the stake, or to confess in the church, convert, and surrender half their property as "atonement money." But for poor folk like them, what life remained after handing over half of everything they owned?

Their land would be seized and become the church's or the lord's holdings—their house no exception. At best, they would afterward be reduced to serfs, still tilling fields that no longer belonged to them. At worst, they would starve and freeze to death when winter came.

All of this had been decided before Light ever arrived.

"But where can we go..." The woman in her coarse cloth dress wrung her clothes in anguish. She had never left this village in her whole life, and now she could think of no way to survive at all. "Where can we make a living..."

"I know carpentry," the young farmer said. "But the lord will surely drag us back..."

"Go to Cecil, in the south," Light said suddenly. "There's a way to live there."

"Cecil?" The husband and wife exchanged a glance. Cut off from news and ignorant as they were, they had never heard of the frontier territory at all.

Light drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. Looking at the two before him, he said, "I'll take you there."

(A book recommendation: *Quadruple Split*, a game-type novel. The protagonist's defining trait is split personality—literally. It's a wonderfully imaginative book. The author, Weiye Wutong, is actually a reader from my group—I wonder if any of you know him... I only just learned he was writing, but I've decided to give him a boost anyway. What if it takes off?)