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Chapter 56: Evangelist Corrine
🕑 Added 2025-06-05 00:41:25 +0000 UTCThe young warlock moved. No windup, just a sudden, precise dash. She pivoted on her heel mid-step, avoiding the direct line, opting to close in from the flank. She leaped up, her spear lashed out not to stab, but to harass, to enrage.
The principality blocked high, the radiant steel of a long-fallen knight meeting the pact-borne spear of the young girl. But Corrine had already slipped past the block, using the momentum to spin and slash low at the ankle.
Another block.
A voice whispered in her mind.
‘You only need to get her grounded, cadet. Her flight, her holy magic, those are her edge. Take that, and she’s just another heretic with a blade.’
The voice suggested, her words showing experience dealing with such enemies, guiding the young warlock's thought process more efficiently.
Corrine agreed in her mind. Her brain began to simulate rapidly, the battle sense and talent that made her a formidable warlock in the novel working in tandem with the new body and strength she now possessed.
A thought clicked.
‘She’s watching both spear and body. Good. Let’s overload her.’
The girl threw herself backwards, flipping once, kicking debris into the angelic beast's face mid-air. As the principality sliced through it with a huff of annoyance, Corrine’s feet hit the wall and launched back like a bullet, her spear reversed.
The strike came fast, a drag-thrust, starting low and ending high, aiming to pierce the abdomen and shatter her balance. The principality barely twisted in time, the tip grazing the light armor under her robes with a burst of sparks.
“Clever.” The principality snarled. “But cleverness won’t save your soul.”
Light flared. Sigils formed midair, and holy chains burst forth like a net, aiming to encase and burn her with righteous flames.
Corrine didn’t dodge. She leapt into it.
‘She thinks I’ll backstep, so let her waste the cast.’
At the half-second before impact, Corrine’s black tongue flicked out.
“[Break]”
The sigil shuddered, then disintegrated, the spell eaten by the pact-speech. The divine light sputtering out like dying embers.
The being's eyes widened. That was all Corrine needed.
She slammed her spear down in a Mountain Crash, a technique from an eastern monk school, courtesy of her father and his tutors.
It wasn’t meant to kill, but to pin. The spear smashed towards the being's dominant leg.
The inquisitor flinched, and Corrine adjusted mid-strike, redirecting her momentum, slamming the shaft into the joint of her shoulder instead.
A hollow crack sounded, followed by a grunt of pain.
‘She’s right-handed. Weakening the shoulder slows her miracles and swings. Now pressure the right flank.’
Corrine pressed forward with a spinning sweep, her body bending like a ribbon, the spear carving a graceful arc through the creature's defense. Her breathing was steady now, chi flowing cleanly through her widened channels, feeding her limbs.
‘Faster, soldier. She’s losing ground.’
Until…
The principality let out a wild roar, unleashing a divine burst, the pulse knocking Corrine several paces back. Her boots skidding against the scorched floor below her.
The inquisitor flared her wings and rose again, hovering out of reach.
“Your tricks end here!” She shouted.
Above, divine light began to shine again, another miracle forming.
Corrine wiped the blood from her lip, crouched low, and watched.
Calm. Measured.
‘The same timing as the last, a large sigil. Heavy and slow.’
She pressed her black tongue to the roof of her mouth, humming softly. Preparing herself.
‘I’ll break the next cast mid-way. Then switch forms. She’s seen Crashing Wave now, but not Coiling Wind. We’ll change the tempo.’
The holy spell then came down like a hammer.
A column of golden fire surged down from the principality’s hand, crashing against the marble with righteous fury. The air sizzled. Stone melting. A shockwave crashed through the ruined estate.
But Corrine had already moved.
She didn’t flee straight back. She spiraled, twisting around broken columns and fractured statues, vanishing within the smoke.
‘Good. Let her think you're injured or dead. Five seconds is all you need. Stop thinking like a warrior here; think like a hunter.’
Within the cover of dust, the warlock shifted her stance.
She narrowed her feet and shallowed her breathing. Her spear reversed in her grip, blade tucked along her arm like a fang. The air around her felt denser, her chi reshaped, her breath light and sharp.
‘Coiling Wind Form: tight, reactive, explosive. Made for tight spaces and blind spots. She’s in the air now, limited angles of vision.’
‘Then let’s test her confidence.’
The dust parted as the principality descended again, wings spread wide.
“Where is she?” The being muttered, hovering a foot off the ground. Her aura flared brighter, illuminating the destruction.
Suddenly, a spear came from below, like a serpent’s strike through the grass.
The Inquisitor recoiled in mid-air, her wings flaring, but the young warlock followed.
In a blink, Corrine was on her like a shadow, sliding across wreckage, twisting her hips, and flipping the spear upwards, arcing towards the principalities ribs. The attack was tight, less forceful, a surgical cut rather than a brute strike.
The inquisitor turned and caught the shaft, but Corrine twisted with it, dragging the false angel slightly off balance.
‘Flight doesn’t mean stability; being airborne just means more room for mistakes.’
Corrine pulled her spear free, using the backward motion to sling herself into a reverse sweep. She spun low, then struck upwards.
A diagonal slice aimed to cut her inner thigh.
Blocked again, but Corrine didn’t care. It was a misdirection anyways.
‘She’s guarding low, cadet. A chance.’
Corrine’s left hand flicked upwards; from her wrist, she drew a second weapon, a thin dagger, a simple backup now playing the primary role. She jabbed it straight to the principality’s face.
“D-damn you!” the angelic creature hissed, recoiling again. Her damaged wing snapped forward like a shield, deflecting the strike.
Corrine dropped the dagger, stepping forward with a short spear jab aimed at the chest.
The spear struck the thin metal. No puncture, but the impact threw the inquisitor's footing, sending her staggering back.
‘Now. Shift momentum.’
Corrine pushed forward with a flurry. She struck out. Five spear strikes in rapid sequence, each from different angles, each aimed at joints, pressure points, or balance centers.
A normal fighter would have crumbled already. But the principality endured, barely, her sword arm moving desperately to parry the strikes.
The winged beast muttered angrily. “You fight with no purity!”
Corrine grinned.
“Impure, but effective.”
The principality growled and unleashed another spell. A ring of sigils spiraling up her arm as light began to converge.
But the young warrior’s tongue flicked out again, lips parting around devilish script.
“[Scatter].”
The runes on her tongue lit up with a dark violet, and the miracle shattered mid-cast, the mana imploding and scattering to the sky.
‘Successfully disrupted. Three seconds. She’ll try physical retaliation next.’
The abomination snarled, sword slicing downward in a wide arc.
Corrine sidestepped, low and narrow; she pivoted inward, rotating around the inquisitor’s body. Her spear traced the edge of the principality’s wing, slicing feathers as she spun.
Then a kick.
Fluid and graceful.
It struck the back of the inquisitor's knee, followed by a thrust to the base of the skull.
The false angel dropped her center of gravity just in time, avoiding decapitation, but now down on one knee.
Corine backed off, breathing slowly. She let her heart rate steady. Her muscles ached, her side bruised from near misses, her left wrist also a little numb. They were healing slowly, but the gash from back then seemed to be taking all her body’s attention.
‘She’s not breaking yet. But I’m starting to control the flow. She can’t get space for full miracles. Not while I’m moving like this.
Still, the principality stood again.
Her armor was dented and scorched. One wing dripped blood. Her hair clung to her face, matted with sweat. But her divine light was still intact.
“You will regret standing against the will of Aife, the will of the gods!” she spat.
Corrine’s expression didn’t change.
“If your goddess wanted obedience, she should’ve picked someone who fears judgment.”
She raised her spear again.
“Let’s see how she handles failure.”
Corrine rolled her shoulders. Her eyes gleaming with a violet light. Her breath hissed through her teeth.
Not from fear nor exhaustion.
But from focus.
The priestess’s divine aura pulsed with fury, golden light shedding off her body like waves of fire. Spiderweb-like cracks spread across the ground. The pressure now building like a dam.
And yet Corrine advanced. Step by step, her spear low and chin tilted. Her violet and glowing eyes unreadable.
‘She’s learned. She’s not swinging wildly anymore.’
Indeed, the principality now just stood there, waiting. Her sword now in a two-handed guard. One wing curled protectively over her flank. She shifted to a defensive stance, forcing Corrine to engage on her terms.
‘Kikiki, don’t give this fool terms, cadet. An evangelist would never. Rewrite the fight.’
With a subtle twist of her wrist, chi shot down to the butt of her spear.
She slammed it into the marble, channeling the energy downwards.
The floor beneath her shimmered. A second later, shards of stone launched up in a loose arc between her and the inquisitor, obscuring vision and breaking the line of sight.
She burst through the curtain of debris from a sharp angle, to the creature's right, low and fast. She thrust her spear, not to a vital point, but for the knee.
Clang
Metal screeched. The principality stumbled.
Corrine flowed like a whip with an upward slash, cutting across the angelic being's breastplate. Sparks flew, but still no penetration. Still, the force threw the inquisitor back.
The young warlock spun and kicked the floor again, shifting rubble to a new curtain.
She crouched low behind it. Vanishing her presence and disappearing from the principality’s view.
The area around her went silent, her sounds muffled and her breathing stilled.
The winged crusader soared up, scanning the battlefield, but she was half a second too late.
Corrine exploded from behind a broken statue, spear twirling over her head.
She jabbed at the base of the wings, missed, but twisted the shaft mid-air and dragged the butt end across the inquisitor's jaw. She twirled, twisting her spear along and bringing it down on the principality’s ankle, a ruthless crack echoing through the battlefield.
‘Balance. It’s always balance with heretics that rely on flight. Take that away; they're just heavy targets.’
The principality screamed at the pain as she fell to the ground off-kilter. But before impact, she twisted in mid-air, catching herself before the collision. She whipped her head around, but Corrine was already gone.
The inquisitor screamed, a raw howl filled with increasing anger and irrationality. The mind of a rational thinker and cold calculation seeming to melt away as time continued.
She activated a wide area spell once again, sigils appearing all around her.
But the sigils were met with a shout.
“[Scatter]!”
A pulse of violet energy ripped through the spell matrix, breaking it apart and fizzling out.
‘Three seconds.’
‘Wait-’
But Corrine had already moved. The spear shot out with precision. Bringing it down like a guillotine towards her upper back.
But to Corrine's surprise, the inquisitor's frenzied state vanished in an instant as she spun wildly around. An elbow slamming into Corrine's side, knocking her back.
She rolled several feet across the ground, coming to a stop a fair distance away.
The principality stood tall as she watched the young warlock struggle to breathe on the ground. “You think tricks will save you? A devil's corruption will help you? No. Justice will take your poor excuse of an existence. The gods will keep this world's peace!”
Corrine’s ribs ached, some broken and healing at a snail's pace. Her mana was running low and chi thinning from exhaustion. Her tongue bled slightly from the overuse of her pact runes.
Still, she rose.
Spear at the ready.
The voice of her contractor ringing in her mind.
‘Kikiki, monologuing? The barkings of a beaten dog. Pulling a trick herself to finish it quickly. Yet she failed. Your body is far stronger now. Out of her calculations. Wide moves, grace gone, her breath subtly ragged. Don’t be fooled, cadet. She’s on her last leg, her energy drained dry. Now is the time to finish her.’
Corrine gripped her spear tighter. Lady Hannya was correct. The closer she looked, the more she could tell. The inquisitor looked more desperate and aggressive than before.
‘I need an opening. Anything.’
But the principality wasn’t waiting.
Wings tucked tight, she shot forward like a meteor. Sword raised. A golden aura screeching with divine pressure.
Corrine growled and pressed the roof of her mouth with her tongue. She opened her mouth and shouted.
“Pact magic: [Dread Echo]!”
A dense, rippling shockwave burst from her mouth as she screamed, not in fear, but in refusal.
The holy energy struck the sound barrier around the young warlock, but it cracked. Then shattered.
The force hurled both of them backward. Corrine slammed into a column, but the Principality crashed into a fallen statue and tumbled, dazed.
‘Get up, cadet. Go now. Only one spell like that before you black out; make it count.’
Corrine gritted her teeth and staggered upright, spear steady. Her breathing hitched. Sweat clung to her brow. Her muscles burned from channeling pact energy beyond natural limits.
But her eyes, still that alien, bright purple, gleamed with a tempered will.
Corrine dashed forward, zig-zagging to throw off the principality’s divine aim as she too rose.
She slid low beneath a wild slash, pivoted on a broken floor tile, and kicked a chunk of debris up into the Principality’s face.
The principality swatted it aside but didn’t see the follow-up. A fluid, biting strike flew low.
The spear struck true. Digging deep into the creature's thigh.
“You dare!?” The creature shrieked.
Corrine was already moving again; the inquisitor had made a mistake; she would make sure it was devastating.
‘Take the joints. Bind the wings.’
‘Correct. Cadet Corrine.’
The principality screamed and rose, but Corrine had already stepped into her blind spot.
“Predictable.” She murmured. “You fight like you’ve never lost.”
She jabbed again, this time into the base of the distorted angel’s wings.
The golden feathers burst into chaotic flames at the strike.
The principality shrieked in real pain now.
Then worse, Corrine’s tongue flicked out a sigil of devilish mana; it spun and flew out, now floating in the air.
Her eyes flared with pact energy.
“Pact Magic: [Dread Touch]”
Her next spear strike passed through the sigil, landing into the spine of the principality.
She froze mid-scream. Muscles locked and grace vanished.
Corrine kicked upward, sending the Principality sprawling, her back slamming against the wall.
“I-insect!” The principality squeezed out a rageful shout. Her aura flickering as she let out another defensive pulse of divine power.
“[Scatter]!” Corrine shouted as she dashed forward.
The holy wave crashing in her direction fizzled and parted, giving the young warlock an opening to pass through. Her spear poised and her muscles stretched taut as she lunged forward.
And in that small instance, the decision of the battle had been made.
Corrine thrust upward, spear wrapped in dense chi, now dark violet, saturated, and trembling. It glided without resistance, piercing through the bottom of the principality’s jaw, out through the crown of her skull.
The inquisitor went still.
Silence engulfed the room.
Then, her body pulsed once, and shattered, crumbling to golden ash. No scream. No glory. Only silence.
Corrine fell to her knees, gasping.
Her hands were shaking violently. The runes on her tongue dimmed, leaving behind cracked lines across her mouth and throat. Her vision tunneled. The air in the ruined audience chamber was thick with sulfur, blood, and the fading hum of divine power.
A voice in her head spoke up.
‘Well fought, cadet. You’ll be a promising evangelist. I look forward to your future’.
Then, the voice vanished. The scratching presence deep within seemingly gone.
But soon footsteps echoed.
“Corrine!” a voice called out. Ramsus, staggering, bloodied, half-supported by a retainer.
Corrine turned her head, barely.
He knelt beside her, saw her wounds, the ruin of her body… and the victorious, unflinching gaze in her glowing purple eyes.
He smiled, despite it all.
“You... fought a principality,” he muttered. “My daughter really did become a monster.” Smiling at the young warlock.
Corrine chuckled with a dry rasp. “This was step one. We’re far from done.”
Ramsus nodded at the words. “Yes... but you let me handle that.”
Indeed, this was just the beginning.
They both looked at the golden ash slowly scattering across the ground.
The war had not ended, but divine judgment had been repulsed.
And the monsters… this battle, had won.
