Chapter 12

🚨 Warning: This chapter includes depictions of sexual assault and violence, and descriptions of physical torture. Please remain mindful of this as you read. If you feel uncomfortable, do not hesitate to stop reading. 🚨

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Book Chapter 4

‘Right, there’s no way he’d let me go willingly.’

Isabel closed her eyes without a word. Rather than follow him, it was better to leave for the Heavenly Realm, even if it was a little early.

He gradually tightened his grip around Isabel’s neck. Soon, an unbearable pressure began to build in her throat. As her consciousness gradually dimmed, Isabel felt her weary life drawing to a close. A complex mix of joy and sorrow stirred within her. She waited for death with a calm heart.

Tuk—

"Cough, cough."

Suddenly, the force choking her neck disappeared. Isabel gasped for air. Lucifer roughly turned her to face him. His face was filled with despair and fury as he looked at her.

“Why are you testing me? Why?!”

He grabbed Isabel’s shoulders and shook her.

"There is no God in this world. I told you. This is just a chess game between a demon and an angel! God is asleep. Unless someone shakes Him awake, He’ll never wake up! Why are you throwing your life away for someone so indifferent?"

Isabel swayed helplessly. When she didn’t respond, he stopped shaking her and lowered his head. His breath carried the stench of unbearable despair. Watching Lucifer like that, she felt a strange pity. It was absurd. He was her enemy, the source of all her misfortune. So why…?

“I understand your intention.”

He lifted his head.

“What could you possibly understand?”

“A war to end eternity. That’s what you’re trying to do, isn’t it? From your perspective, having lived for tens of thousands of years trapped in eternity, it might make sense.”

“You understand, but you can’t agree, is that it?”

“It may be a rightful war to someone who has lived for tens of thousands of years, but not to humans. You’ve taken too many lives. Every disaster, every conflict, every slaughter was born from your hands. How am I supposed to follow someone like you? Because of you, I became utterly miserable.”

As she spoke, Lucifer’s face darkened. Isabel could vividly feel his heart collapsing. Ah… why? The sight of it made her chest ache in a way that felt utterly unreasonable.

He looked at Isabel’s face, which was stained with pity. Suddenly, a cruel glint rose in his eyes. He seized her chin and pulled her toward him.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re just a human. You, who have lived your whole life under the illusion that there is an end, how dare you claim to understand me?"

He laid Isabel back down on the floor. Then he climbed over her body. Grabbing her wrist as she tried to push him away, he pressed her firmly to the ground and spoke.

“You’re nothing but vermin. A worthless creature.”

He pinned Isabel’s arms with one hand. His other hand pushed between her legs. Isabel felt pain and humiliation at the sudden intrusion of his hand inside her.

"St-stop it!"

“I will never appear before you again. Live well in Heaven. When the soldiers of the Underworld come to trample your sacred land, that is when I will collect every last remaining debt. Not as a lover or a concubine, but as a slave — kept in my bedchamber until the end of the world.”

He soon pushed himself inside Isabel. At the sudden insertion, Isabel arched her back and let out a scream-like moan. With the wicked smile inherent to a demon, he whispered.

"Whether the Heavenly Realm would accept you now that you are defiled is questionable."

・・・・・

When Isabel opened her eyes, sunlight was streaming into the room. She sat up.

"Ah…!"

She screamed at the pain she felt in her waist. The pain was not just in her waist; it had spread throughout her entire lower abdomen. The area below was in such a terrible state that she couldn’t bear to look at it with her eyes open.

She had been tormented by him from the previous night, through the early morning hours, until dawn broke. As if seeking revenge for her rejection, he had taken her cruelly.

She tried to push him away, but she couldn’t match his strength. In truth, her attempt to resist was only at the beginning; most of her memories were of clinging to him and writhing beneath his relentless touch.

Isabel bit her lip and straightened her clothes. Lucifer had spent the entire night venting his anger before leaving. She would truly never see him again. Now, it was time for her to do what she had to do.

She went to Cedric’s bed. The child was still unconscious. She went out to inform the others that the child had woken up. However, the hallway was empty. 

Fortunately, this meant she could avoid encountering anyone while clad in ragged clothes.

She hurried back to her room and undressed. Her body was stained with the marks he had left. She took a thorough shower and put on the fresh nun’s habit she had brought. When she looked in the mirror, the marks on her neck were still clearly visible. Just to be safe, she changed into the habit that covered her neck.

Knock, knock—

Fully dressed, she checked herself in the mirror once more when she heard a knock at the door.

"Yes?"

"Please open the door, Sister."

It was the voice of the maid in charge of this floor. Thinking that she had come to collect the laundry as usual, Isabel went to open the door.

But outside the door stood unexpected people.

Behind the terrified maid, five or six paladins were waiting for her. They were fully armed. Isabel wondered why they were here.

The maid quickly disappeared, and Isabel asked calmly:

"Why are you here?"

The oldest-looking paladin among them stepped forward toward her.

"'Sister Isabel,' is that you?"

"Yes."

"A formal accusation has been submitted."

"An accusation?"

The paladin pulled a sheet of paper from his robe.

"Is it true that you slept with a demon last night?"

Isabel said nothing.

"Is it true?"

The paladin asked again.

"Who reported this?"

The paladin silently showed her the accusation. Isabel’s eyes skimmed over the statement calling her a witch who had slept with the demon Lucifer, stopping at the seal at the very bottom.

‘Father Daniel.’

It was an accusation from Father Daniel.

・・・・・

Through the barred window, she could see the clear sky with clouds drifting by. Lying on the hard wooden bed and gazing at the sky, Isabel suddenly had a thought.

‘Still, it's better than the Underworld prison. At least I can see the sky.’

Isabel let out a small laugh. The split at the corner of her mouth stung, and she quickly pressed her lips back into place.

‘I can’t exactly call it better. At least I wasn’t tortured back then.’

In truth, Isabel could make such frivolous jokes in her mind entirely because the life she had lived so far had dulled her sensitivity to stress.

Right now, her body was in ruins. Her skin was festering all over from burns, and from every place that had been seared with a branding iron, blood and pus oozed out. All her fingernails and toenails had fallen off, and the ligaments in her limbs were completely torn.

After receiving the accusation from the paladins at the lord’s castle, Isabel was immediately taken to an inquisition chamber under the Vatican. There, no one bothered to ask whether she had lain with a demon. They simply rolled up her sleeve, secured her arm, and poured holy water over it. With that simple test, it became perfectly clear that Isabel had indeed slept with a demon.

The real problem began afterwards. The clergy of the witch-hunting division who surrounded her began interrogating her about whom she had slept with and why. Isabel readily confessed that the one she had lain with was Lucifer. Among the higher demons, he was the highest of them all. This revelation only made her already grave sin even more severe.

The only question left was why. Isabel answered that honestly, too. She had been kidnapped and imprisoned during a mission, and she had lain with Lucifer to save the children’s lives and secure her own freedom. Afterwards, she had tried to abandon her clerical duties, but Bishop Nikolai persuaded her to continue as an exorcist, only for her to meet Lucifier again, and on impulse, lie with him once more.

Even if the first time could be excused, the second was an undeniable sin. Sister Isabel, whose name had once been renowned across the continent, could only see her reputation plummet into the gutter in an instant because of such a lascivious transgression. As a nun and as a citizen of the theocratic state, Isabel was completely finished.

But the interrogators were not satisfied. They demanded that Isabel explain in explicit detail why she had lain with Lucifer a second time.

It was a question even Isabel herself couldn’t answer with certainty. After all, it was a subtle emotional matter. If she had to name it, it was desire. But in retrospect, she felt that a mixture of other emotions had been tangled up in it as well.

But the interrogators didn’t care about such things. They were firmly convinced that Isabel had been seduced by the demon and had infiltrated the Holy See as a spy. The extraordinary abilities she had displayed from a young age were proof of this in their eyes.

Given Isabel’s history of hunting demons, in which she had relentlessly exterminated demons at the cost of her own body, their assumption was absurd. But they had already made up their minds and were fully prepared to torture her until she spoke the answer they wanted.

What Isabel endured after that was beyond words. Her body was thoroughly broken at the hands of skilled torturers. She was left utterly ruined; no longer able to live as an exorcist, nor even as an ordinary human capable of taking care of herself.

Isabel, who had endured days of torture, finally reached her limit when they severed the ligaments in her hands and feet. She ended up telling them everything they wanted to hear.

She felt there was no point in holding out any longer. They were going to kill her anyway. They were people who had already decided to kill her. How could she possibly withstand those who were determined to end her life?

She had many enemies within the Holy See. If even someone as oblivious to human relationships as Isabel could sense it, it was fair to say that nearly all of them were against her. They envied her abilities and had been waiting for the day she would falter. And when that day came, they crushed her completely, leaving her no chance to rise again.

Isabel was now imprisoned, left only to await the day of her death. By acknowledging that she was a witch, she had effectively sealed her fate, and the Holy See would not let her live for long.

No doubt, countless people would gather to witness her execution by fire. For generations, the burning of demon worshippers had been the greatest event in the religious community, and an execution of a famous woman revealed to be a witch would draw unimaginable crowds.

The execution by fire of Sister Isabel; how delightful that would be for them.

The crowd’s curses and jeers already seemed to ring in her ears. Isabel found it strangely amusing to think that those who once looked up to her, making the sign of the cross, would take pleasure in seeing her burn.

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