Salem made it to the entrance of the temple. Along the way, she found many dead knights and priests as well as rebellion soldiers. She paid none of them any attention. She just continued her walk through the river of blood undisturbed. The two eggs continued to float in the air beside her as her feet left red footprints in her wake.

The doors to the temple were long gone and she could see the mess that awaited her outside. The sounds of war cries were not far off anymore, but directly in her ears. 

Salem had to stop walking through and turn her blood-red eyes to the high walls to her right though. Large paintings decorated these walls. The left side seemed to be people she had never seen before but felt a connection to for some reason. But the right side.

The right side. 

Her vision was going red again. She could not recognize the paintings before the one in front of her, but the ones after this one, she recognized them. She recognized them well.  She never learned the gender of the popes who came to visit her. She called them ‘they’ out of respect due to her history as a proud member of the LGBTQ+, but every fiber of her being detested them. 

What looked to almost be a carbon copy of the first pope she met was painted before her. And as she walked further down, getting closer to the door, she recognized more and more popes. Her new red eyes took in the dates below to the portraits. She was certain those were the years of service. While she had no way of knowing when she met the first monster pope, she could use the last four to determine an estimate on how long she had been trapped in this hell hole. 

“They use the earth's numeric system… Five popes. Each served roughly 50 years…. Not including the first bastard, I’ve spent a minimum of 250 years underground as their personal battery for something…” Salem was mumbling to herself as her mind raced at this newfound information.

While she had no strength, Salem's hands became a fist before they unclenched revealing claws. She felt unbridled fury run through her veins. The war cries and scent of death everywhere did nothing to calm her chaotic mind. 

Once again, she looked to the left sidewall. She looked at the young girl that seemed to line up with the portrait of the first pope she met.

“She is not a demon… but we cannot have the saintess of the temple of Dawne be someone with such an… ominous skin color.” 

“You're fast, summoned one. If not for your skin, you’d make an excellent Saintess or Holy Maiden candidate.  Such a shame.” 

Salem’s head hurt as she thought back to her first experience here in this land. 

“That bastard…” her eyes took in the portraits that lined with those of the popes. There were more girl portraits than popes, but that wasn’t what Salem focused on.

The portrait that lined up with her first pope was a white girl. She had blue eyes, wavy golden locks, and slight freckles. She reminded Salem of a girl from the countryside. A southern belle to be exact. The girl in the portrait after her was another white girl with red hair and green eyes. So, on and so forth, every portrait before and after was that of a white woman with a pale or sun-kissed complexion. 

“These might as well be possible contestants for the bachelorette. white. white. white.” Salem scoffed in disbelief. 

As Salem looked closer at each picture, she noticed something. Each one wore either robes or armor. Robes and Armour were similar to what she had seen in that treasure room she just looted.  Something inside Salem churned and she felt her lips tremble. 

“Even without a mana gauge, I can tell your magical power is endless. As one would expect for a summoned one. We will just use your powers to try the summoning again.” 

The world around Salem began to spin and the anger spilled on top of her nausea.“When they summoned me… were they hoping to get a saint or something? Like from a manga?” She whispered to herself.

She had seen that trope in plenty of mangas and webtoons on her life on earth. Hell, she loved them and spent far more money on buying tokens to read those stories than she did on groceries. But that was a fictional genre. This was reality.

“That's what they meant…” Salem then realized what her mana and life in this hell had been used for. Salem had not registered those words when they first met because she was focused on her senses screaming danger. But now that the memory came back, she realized she was basically the power supplier for this temple’s summoning of Saintess candidates. They didn’t like her because of her skin, but the amount of mana she had made it impossible for them to get rid of Salem. 

“So, they kept me locked up and chained… I was reared. Like a fucking animal.”

Salem had long since noticed they had periodically always wanted larger amounts of power from her. She had been hoping they were using it to better the land. And they did. By using her to basically hire someone else…

Salem took one long glance at the woman who replaced her.  Judging by the end dates, all these women died. None of them lived longer than 30 years. But she was still alive. For nearly three centuries. Why? She had no clue, but she knew she needed answers. 

Her bloodshot eyes glared at the popes. Her fingers had completely transformed into claws made of mana. With slow purposeful steps, Salem began to drag her right hand across the wall from the first pope she met, to the last one she saw what she could only consider moments but she was now sure was days, maybe weeks, ago. 

Every single portrait had five large cuts through them. The mana cut through the canvas, the frames, and the marble walls. Her anger cut through every person who contributed to her prison. 

Salem stood in the center in front of the large hole where the temple doors should have stood. The temple was elevated and she could see below the vast amount of stairs a large black and red crowd mashed together in battle. She had no intention of being seen from this point. 

Salem continued her walk down the stairs and toward the bottom of the elevation and the war.  The bloody footprint trail behind her was never-ending. Not all the blood from her trail belonged to priests and paladins she had killed since leaving the treasury but a majority of it came from the river of blood flowing from the temple.  She thought about being invisible, felt a veil of magic cover her body, and passed by several people to confirm she was invisible. The last thing she did was fly in the air. 

In the distance, she could spy a large forest with a large presence. She did not care as she made this her destination.