Chapter 127: Chapter 66: Sacrifice Of The Church (Part 1)
"Justice. Revenge. Cleansing. Just how many labels have been given to the act of killing the 'evil'?
Yet, they are all nothing but lies they tell themselves to make them feel better about their nihilistic desire to kill those they don't like.
And who are 'they'?
They are me.
They are you.
They are all around you.
And they are watching you.
At every turn you make, they follow you. At every decision you make, they laugh at you.
They are rearing their fangs and are ready to bite; waiting for you to give them that one chance they need to bite off the humanity in you.
So, my children, would you give them that chance?"
The priest standing at the top of a chapel asks those 80 people sitting in front of him, hearing his words. As he does so, they reply in a big, loud and united shout, "NO!"
Hearing how in-tune their voices are, one may think they are all trained to answer the priest's questions together. Yet, that is not the case. They just happen to be habituated to this routine.
Priest: "Good, my children! I'm proud to think of you all as my pupil, the pupil that I raised to become honest and diligent working members of society."
The priest who says so is a 50-year-old man with fine physique and rather retro-style features. He looks like a priest from 20th century dramas rather than a real one from the present time.
Priest: "Yet, my children. I'm appalled to say that your good faith is not shared by all. Your diligence and honesty is lost on many in this world."
He closes his eyes to show how dismayed he is, not letting those in front of him know that he is concentrating and trying to read the aura around the church to see if there are any hostile people nearby.
Having checked and found out that there is no immediate danger, he opens his eyes and continues the speech.
Priest: "One of those hedonists who don't share your qualities now actively seeks to kill me."
His listeners, shocked and angered by that, continue to listen to his words.
Priest: "My children, I do not fear death. I would rather welcome it. Having lived for so long, I hold no attachments to life anymore. But, my children, but …"
He deliberately trails off to make sure all of them are listening, and then continues,
Priest: "I fear this hedonistic man might not listen to reason and hurt all of you as well. I would be a failure if I let something like that happen."
He says.
And soon, voices starts coming from the listeners, "We will stop him." "We won't let him get any of us." "We will show that guy-" and so on.
Priest: "Calm yourselves, my children, calm yourselves."
Hearing the priest say so in a mellow tone, the listeners quiet down.
Priest: "I'm afraid that the devil has bestowed upon this man considerable strength. Even with your faith, you might not be able to defeat him. Believe me, my children, I deeply wish that this was not the case, but he has already killed two like me."
Two Hellfires like him, he means to say, though the listeners would interpret it as 'two priests like me', which works fine for him as he continues,
Priest: "And that brings me to the reason I called you all here tonight. In order to repel him, in order to free this poor, lost soul from the devil's grasps, you would all need to perform a certain ritual."
He steps down from the chapel and casually walks over to the middle of the front of the two rows of benches his listeners are sitting on.
Priest: "Only one thing can stop that hedonist, and that thing is a weapon of god sent to this church a little while ago. However, the weapon is weak. It needs your help to regain its strength."
"What do we have to do?" "We will do anything." –and so are the yells from the listeners, which are silenced by the priest putting up a hand to stop them.
Priest: "In order for the weapon to regain its strength, you will all need to let the weapon drink some blood from you."
The voices die down completely as he says that.
Priest: "My children, in order to defeat this demon coming to kill me and all of you as well, would you be willing to give a little blood to the weapon of God?"
No immediate responses. The priest makes a dismayed expression to that and says,
Priest: "If the weapon doesn't drink blood from all of you, it would remain weak and unable to repel that demon. If that were to be the case, then I would advise you all to run away."
Let the weapon of God drink a little blood from you or run with your tail between your legs from the approaching 'demon'. Those are the two choices the priest presents his listeners, his followers, with.
He knows well-enough that not everyone would be willing to let the 'weapon of God' drink blood from them. But, as long as the majority is ready for it, those who are not ready for it will be forced into it. That would happen because the priest already mentioned that the weapon needs to drink blood from ALL of them.
And just as he had thought it would go, one man raises his hand and tells that he is ready to let the weapon drink his blood. That causes another to bring out his courage and do the same. Then another follows, and then one more and so follows the majority into the decision of letting the weapon drink blood from them.
Priest: "I see. Splendid, my children, splendid. Just as I'd expect of you all."
He turns back and says as he starts walking,
Priest: "I would go and tell the weapon that you are ready. Remember that ALL of you need to let it drink blood from you, or it won't be able to repel the one coming to kill us all."
With that, he has ensured that no one would be able to run away from the group. And so, the 80 believers in the church would allow themselves to be vampire food.
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"What do you want from me?"
The human-like figure kept captive by iron chains asks the man who enters the small room he has been kept in.
Priest: "Right now, you wouldn't be able to fulfill my wishes. So, there's no point in telling you what I want from you."
In the basement of the church, the sight any real priest would call unholy remains. It's the sight of a half-naked vampire held captive by chains of iron and the man dressed as a priest looking on him condescendingly.
Vampire: "Who are you?"
Priest: "Ha! You don't know who I am? How pathetic!?"
The priest scoffs at the vampire and leans against the wall as he answers his question,
Priest: "I'm Halogen Dietrich, one of the 10 Hellfires in Vermillion. Well, to be fair, it's one of the 8 Hellfires now. Two of us are already dead."
With a calm and smiling expression as if he's telling a joke, Halogen Dietrich continues,
Halogen: "In order to make sure I don't have the same fate as those two did, I need to take out the guy who's going around killing Hellfires."
He chuckles.
Halogen: "Oh well, I guess I ended up telling you after all – the reason why I need you."
Vampire: "Tsk! You want me take out that guy for you, the one who's going around killing Hellfires?"
Halogen: "Exactly."
The vampire twitches his eyebrows and spits on the ground.
Vampire: "In this state, I can barely kill a fly. If you want me to kill someone, make me stronger and release these chains."
Halogen smirks.
Halogen: "If I do that now, you will try to kill me first and then try to get out of here."
Of course the vampire never expected a simple coercion like that to work but he wanted to try it once anyway.
Halogen: "However, you are right about not being able to do anything in this state. So, I have an idea that would work out for both of us."
Vampire: "…"
Even though he is filled with doubts as to everything the priest says, he can't help but want to get out of that place and vanquish his hunger. So, if there's a way to make that happen, he would gladly listen to what it is.
Halogen: "Well, seems like someone just got interested!"
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