Polymath Redux

Chapter 39: Misfortune takes the form of a saintly merchant

"Ugh~ H- how...?"

With the sacred sword pierced through his upper torso as he gasped for breathe, the Grand Cardinal Lazzaro Zeder writhes on the floor in his final moments. His thoughts a jumbled mess with the only thing he could coherently make out of his own thoughts being confusion and rage. Through the blood and tears obscuring his vision he asks for answers rather than forgiveness.

The only reply he receives is a scoff accompanied by an unforgiving smile from luscious pink lips. Staring down at the dying man with her piercing cold blue eyes, as though looking down at an ant; Lazzaro finally understands his position against hers. A cold chill runs down his back, unsure if it was from the stab wound or from those cold eyes. A thought occurred to him: when they had met first at the Royal Palace he did not remember her giving off such a villainous aura; back then she showed only charisma and elegant manipulation of words.

She, Morgana Daltress, in age she was a mere child compared to himself, the Grand Cardinal. Yet she, conspicuous and pretentious in her manner of grandiose speech had earned his wrath and hatred; with words alone she had undone a large bulk of his life's work. Yet it wasn't those rightful emotions he was feeling, no, all he felt was a bone chilling dread as he stood at the precipice of his mortality from her snow white hands.

'I need to get out of here!', 'I need to warn the others!', 'She's too dangerous!', such thoughts ran through Lazzaro's mind but his body did not obey, stabled to the ground by the sacred sword he couldn't. With the cold metallic sensation on his upper torso he could feel his life slowly draining away and the powers at his command, the power of the shadows refused to listen to him. 'No one can oppose her... she's far too strong!'.

"You've pretended to live your life as a man of great faith, slowly inching events to your convenience. I don't know who you have watching your back but right now it doesn't appear that anyone is coming to your rescue. Proof; they are merely fallible mortals as well and not the gods you worship."

Her words rang sharply as a blade through the ever fading mind of the Grand Cardinal. She called his allies 'fallible mortals'; the Luminary who he had looked up to and had depended upon for everything was in fact just another person with slightly more intelligence. Such a revelation hit him like a truck and at such thing he could not stop the tears from falling. It was not god that he believed in but a mere mortal, 'how foolish' he thought of himself.

"Then to answer your previous question, 'how am I capable of wielding the sacred sword?'. The answer is simple if you think about it; this weapon lends the hero great power and has a will of its own, so it's natural that everyone thinks that only a specific person can wield it; the chosen hero. However that is not the case, if it has a will then it too can be 'manipulated' and 'overpowered', or in this case, 'suppressed'."

"A... absurd..."

Such was the answer to this mystery? 'Don't fuck with me!', Lazzaro wanted to shout out but was incapable of doing so. She was overwhelming, that much he had accepted but was he to actually believe that standing before him was a woman who could overpower the power of a sacred relic through brute force? 'Absurd', as he had said.

A twisted smile etched on Morgana's face as her aura changed, less menacing and cruder.

"You think so? In my opinion this sword has pretty shitty stats. It's supposed to be one of those 'living weapons' like a spirit weapon that grows with the user or something, but even at max stats this sword probably won't amount to much. At best I can only imagine it being at the [Exotic] level with the only useful thing being the goddess living inside."

Her way of speech had changed and her words became unfathomable. He understood individually what the words meant but altogether it made no sense to him. However it was the last part of her words that piqued his interests the most, 'the god living inside', several thoughts came to him as to what that could possibly mean but he himself couldn't come to terms to accept those answers.