Salem reached the temple entrance without slowing.

Bodies littered the path- knights, priests, rebellion soldiers alike- strewn across the stone like discarded remnants of a war she had no interest in understanding. She gave them no attention. No glance. No acknowledgment.

She walked straight through the carnage.

Unbothered.

The two eggs drifted beside her in silence, protected, untouched.

Behind her, red footprints marked every step.

The great doors of the temple were gone.

Torn open. Destroyed.

What remained was chaos.

The sounds of war no longer echoed from afar—they were immediate, pressing, deafening. Cries, steel, and death filled the air in violent waves.

But before stepping out-

Salem stopped.

Her gaze shifted to the walls on her right.

Massive paintings stretched along the stone- carefully framed portraits, preserved with reverence.

The left side… unfamiliar faces. People she did not know or recognize.

And yet…

Something about them tugged at her.

A faint, distant connection she could not explain.

But the right side-

Her vision darkened.

Turning red.

She stepped closer.

Closer.

At first, she recognized no one.

Then-

Recognition cut like a blade.

One portrait.

Then another.

Then another still.

The Devils.

The ones who had come to her.

The ones she had endured.

She had never known their genders. Never cared to guess. She had called them they a habit rooted in respect from a past life she barely remembered.

But respect had long since rotted into something else.

Something corrosive.

Something sharp.

Hatred.

The first one she had met stood before her now- immortalized in paint, gold, and false idealism.

Unchanged. Perfect. Revered.

A lie.

As she moved forward, more faces followed.

More popes.

More years.

More confirmation of the time stolen from her.

Her eyes traced the dates beneath each portrait.

Service years.

Measured. Ordered. Recorded.

“They use Earth’s numeric system…” she muttered hoarsely.

Her voice scratched against her throat, abused from the long period of disuse. She had been ignoring the taste of blood on her tongue from the moment she left the treasury.

“Five popes… roughly fifty years each…”

Her mind raced, struggling to grasp the number forming in front of her.

“Not including the first bastard…”

A pause.

“…I’ve been here… at least two hundred and fifty years.”

Her hands curled.

Then tightened.

Fury surged through her body, violent and unstoppable.

Her fingernails shifted- lengthening, sharpening- until claws formed, woven from pure mana.

Still, it wasn’t enough.

Her gaze drifted again.

To the left wall.

To the women.

The first one lined up perfectly with the first pope she met.

Long golden blonde. Blue-eyed. Freckled.

Soft. Gentle.

The image of innocence. A perfect girl-next-door appearance. 

Another followed.

Wavy red hair. Green eyes.

Then another.

And another.

White.

White.

White.

Salem let out a dry, humorless scoff.

“These might as well be contestants on the fucking Bachelorette…” she muttered. “White. White. White.”

Her gaze sharpened as she looked closer.

Robes. Armor.

Familiar.

The same garments she had seen in the treasury.

Something twisted inside her.

“…We will just use your power to try the summoning again.”

The memory surfaced abruptly, cutting through her thoughts.

The world tilted.

Spun.

Anger tangled with nausea, suffocating her senses.

“When they summoned me…” she whispered, voice barely audible, “…were they trying to get a church saintess?”

A bitter realization took shape.

One she could not ignore now.

She had seen it before. Read it. Watched it.

Stories of heroes summoned from another world.

Chosen. Blessed. Desired.

But her reality-

Was the version no one wrote about..

“That’s what they meant…”

Her voice flattened, hollow.

They hadn’t wanted her.

Not really.

They had wanted someone else.

Something fairer-skinned. Lighter. Acceptable. Familiar. 

But her divinity-

Her mana-

Had been too valuable to discard.

“So they kept me,” she said quietly. “Locked away.”

Her lips curled bitterly.

“Not even reared like a fucking animal. A battery. I was their battery.”

The truth settled over her like ash.

Every “request.”

Every increase in food.

Every draining ritual.

She hadn’t been helping them build anything.

(The lie she told herself about where her powers were going during her lucid but optimistic moments.)

She had been fueling replacements.

Over.

And over.

And over again.

Her gaze lifted once more to the portraits of the women.

One detail became painfully clear the longer she stared.

They all died young.

None served more than thirty years.

And yet—

She remained.

For centuries.

Why?

Her jaw tightened.

Her claws flexed.

And she moved.

Step by step, she dragged her hand across the wall-

From the first pope she met, to the last one she saw, who knows how long ago.

Each portrait split apart under her touch.

Canvas, frame, stone- nothing resisted the tear of her magic.

Five deep, savage gashes carved through each face.

Each lie.

Each memory.

Her rage didn’t roar.

It cut.

When she reached the open entrance, she stopped again.

Below, the battlefield stretched wide-

A sea of red and black, clashing violently across the land.

From this height, she could see everything.

And yet-

She had no interest in any of it.

She turned away and began her descent. Step after step, she walked down, closer into the war.

Blood followed her. A never-ending trail marked her path.

Invisible.

The thought came naturally.

Magic answered just as easily.

A veil settled over her body—thin, precise.

She passed by soldiers unnoticed, confirmed it herself, slipping through their awareness like she didn’t exist.

(Because when had she ever in this gods-forsaken world?)

Then, she rose slightly. The ground fell away beneath her feet.

In the distance, a forest stretched wide-

Dense. Powerful. Alive with a presence strong enough to stand out even from here.

She didn’t question it.

Didn’t hesitate.

She chose it.

And flew.