—–
With the death of Cassandra by the hands of the Priests and the new mysterious boy helping them out, the news about her death spread like wind across every inch of the village, and even traveled into the duchy’s city. Beneath the watchful eyes of the guards and soldiers, there were many areas that such guards could not reach, these red-light districts harbored the worst of the worst in this society, from drug dealers, bandit groups, thieves, and even worse organizations, cults.
In the world of Spiritias, Cults are not rare, although there is a main religion based in the Holy Spirits, which are believed to have created the world of Spiritias, there are also many pseudo deities that people often saw as equals to Holy Spirits. Most of these entities were monsters that brought calamities to the world. There were always people that prayed towards these entities, or even legendary figures such as heroes or saints that once lived in this world and helped the people prosper.
Since the invasion of demons in the world of Spiritias thousands of years ago, cults have grown more prevalent as they began to utilize the invaders as their figures of benevolence. There was always wicked people such as Cassandra that saw “beauty” in demons, as entities of great power that came from another world, they often were thought to be the “true gods’ messengers” and some people formed cults to pray for them and give them offerings.
Of course, most Cults never got anywhere else as they didn’t have the resources nor the power to do anything important, and most of the time they were caught by the church of the Holy Spirits and promptly destroyed, with most of their members punished by becoming criminal slaves or being outright executed in the guillotine.
Because most nations were very religious, acts of paganism were greatly punished. Although people were free to think whatever they wanted, they were not free to say it out loud so easily, even less make cults about their own beliefs. The church always disapproved such things, especially those cults that pray upon demons, considered as the ultimate nemesis of humanity in Spiritias, which even the Holy Spirits hated and abhorred.
Demon Cults were often destroyed a few months after being made. They were very often caught and their members punished. However, there were certain organizations that grew out of proportion, with members that had actual power… and the ability to share this power with members.
Cassandra had been part of such a cult since her little sister died, seeking power above all in a world where your talent and your starting spirit often dictated your fate, she sought the power of demons. She joined one of such cults. In exchange for her donations and also her loyalty, she was given unprecedented power.
This mysterious cult resulted to be bigger than she had expected at first, and ended up spanning over many nations, it was an enormous underworld organization which cooperated with all matters of bandits, drug dealers, thieves, and other illegal organizations.
By all means possible, and by abusing their connections and demonic powers, they sought more resources to grow larger so one day they could teach the world that demons are the true path towards salvation, and that the embracing of demonic powers should be normalized. Even though it held countless of negative side effects, such as growing insane due to demonic energy, mutating into monstrous demonic abomination, amongst many of the side effects of using demonic monster parts to modify the body and the spirit of a person.
Cassandra was a rather important member, as she was one of the few members that had managed to infiltrate the high society using her illusion and charm demonic magic, and was going to bring even more riches to the cult. However, her sudden death was quite impactful, the leaders of such a cult had promptly gathered within a secret hideout, wearing black coats that covered their entire bodies and hoods to cover their heads, they sat around a round table with the large skull of a demon lighted by candles.
“Cassandra’s death was sudden and surprising.”
“She was a good asset, what a pity.”
“I am sure she has managed to charm her entire family with her powers. What exactly happened?”
“She tried to step over her own boundaries and decided to poison the second concubine… She was caught after the priests went through extensive deduction based on various things…”
“We never told her to attempt the assassination of any of her family members! That foolish and jealous woman! Couldn’t she be happy with what she had?”
“She was greedy and you know it. She couldn’t accept her husband getting a second concubine after her. She had patience for various years but ultimately decided to kill her, as her son might have ended up being given the head of the family instead of her own son.”
“But she got too jealous and ended up doing something foolish…”
“I am actually quite surprised, whoever found her out might have similar powers to us, only demonic energy wielders can detected demonic energy as amazingly…”
“Who could it be?”
“The Head Priest of the village where she was living in, he has three assistants- no, in fact, there is a new kid…”
“Kid? Whom?”
“It is… information about him is very faint, but he’s someone everybody in that village calls a “saint”, his healing powers had been healing many people. Even diseases that had never been cured before were healed by him, and he’s even revitalizing people through strange new means.”
“Our spy in the church there said that the kid has been interacting with the Head Priest a lot, but had rejected the invitation to become a priest apprentice…”
“They said that he has the power to fight Cassandra, and together with the Head Priest, they slain her.”
“Huh, what’s his age?”
“…Apparently, he’s nearing 8 years of age.”
“What?!”
The entire room remained in silence. They had expected a teenager, at most, but not… someone below 10 years of age.
—–