CHAPTER 162: THE SAHARA TEMPLARS

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  Time passed like grains of sand gently drifting from the endless dunes. Just like that, a week went by.

  Samantha, observing the Templars from afar, cackled in exhilaration. She hadn't expected a ragtag group, ranging from unranked humans to a single Overlord known as the Head Templar, to dare attempt subjugation with such pitiful armaments. They were still wet behind the ears.

  She had lost more than a few believers and villages under her control, sacrificing them to test the waters, wary that a hidden master might be lurking among them. But after a week of observation, she saw no one matching the descriptions of the hidden masters Alister used to babble about.

  Now, it was time to let these heretics perish at the hands of her zealot sisters. Levitating high in the air, Samantha spread both her hands. Below, her sisters watched her and stripped themselves naked, their ample assets visible in the harsh light. Their milky white skin, unblemished by filth, was bare to see, their figures perfect. But before anyone could focus on their obscene display, a wave of mana spread in all directions.

  Woooooom.

  The woman levitating in the air opened her eyes, and they took on a color deeper than blood itself. Her silver hair, already silky, turned even more luscious, and her pale skin became porcelain-white. Her aura grew alluring and enigmatic, exactly how a goddess should look and feel.

  Her gaze fell upon the fools who proclaimed themselves righteous: the Sahara Templars. They carried a banner filled with the skulls of those they called heretics, Samantha’s children, whom they had mindlessly slaughtered. They marched on the horizon with glory, believing their crusade was for the sake of humanity. For their righteous cause, they would unhesitatingly commit murder, even if it's a child.

  "So, I, the Goddess of the Night, shall correct this rotten world." She slowly descended toward the earth. But before her feet could touch the ground, her zealot believers, who foolishly thought their goddess had truly descended, scrambled to use their bodies as her foothold. She stepped onto the back of one of her believers, Lucius, who moaned in a pleasant manner under her weight.

  She smiled, then spoke gently, like a loving mother.

  "Child, worry not. For I, the Goddess of the Night, shall let you feast to your fullest on these foolish Templars who deny my existence."

  ---

  In the endless deserts, Templars donned in heavy armor trod across the dunes. Their steps sunk deep into the sands due to the weight of their gear, but they did not care. One thought burned in their minds: Burn the heretics!

  It was their life's mission. The moment a heretic appeared, it was ingrained in their bones to plunge a stake into their dirty mouths so they could never utter the vile words that swayed the common people. It was their righteous order to punish those involved in heresy. They steeled their hearts whenever they saw a village where women clenched pitchforks or any weapon they could find.

  One of the trainees questioned the command. "Sire... is it necessary for us to indiscriminately slaughter the innocent? Like we did half a day earlier?"

  The trainee questioning his commander didn't stutter, but he was genuinely curious. Why did they need to mindlessly slaughter an entire village just because one Templar suspected an accursed, fanged creature resembling a human had appeared there?

  The Head Templar, the one in command, turned her head. She stared at him menacingly. The cross on her helmet was covered with dried blood, and she raised the banner covered in the heads of beautiful women.

  "Do not question your faith, young man!" The Head Templar spoke in her usually deep voice that commanded attention.

  She stared at the man, who fidgeted under her gaze. Noticing the young Templar’s conflicted expression, she smiled and continued. "We, the Templars, have been trained for moments such as this. It is a moral dilemma for most, but for us, Templars of the Sahara, it is not. It is inevitable that the people who mingled with the heretics are already one of them. As a Templar ordained by the Temple, our job is to purge these demons out of this world so that no harm shall come to mankind!"

  She paused to let those words sink into the young Templar's mind, then continued when their attention was focused solely on her. "The sacrifice of the minorities shall prevent the downfall of the majority. We, the Templars, have no choice but to dirty our hands, for the Supreme God is too holy to do these dirty deeds."

  The young Templars nodded in admiration of their Head Templar’s words. They couldn't believe they had doubted the faith they had built for a decade over acts they had called mindless slaughter. After the Head Templar broadened their worldview, all the young Templars sent on this pilgrimage by the main Temple steeled their wills. They stared ahead with vigor.

  The Head Templar smiled under her helmet. Suddenly, she stopped. All the Templars halted their marching, staring at her back, then following her gaze.

  Ahead, hundreds of beautiful women undressed, revealing their bodies. The young Templars blushed heavily at the sight, but the Head Templar didn't reprimand them; it was a normal reaction for men witnessing the type of scene these dirty heretics enjoyed employing.

  But before she could cackle at their pathetic attempt to sway the Templars of the Sahara, a woman so breathtakingly beautiful appeared before her.

  The woman levitated in the air and slowly descended. Before her feet touched the ground, the crazed zealots who had stripped naked used themselves as a platform for her to land. In the next second, the woman met her eyes. Her predatory, blood-red eyes turned into slits.

  BOOOM!

  A wave of mana apocalyptically spread in all directions. Anastasia’s face went pale. She couldn't help but tremble at this display of power that pierced through the mental barriers she had honed all her life. Her eyes turned pink for a moment, but before the malicious energy could dig deep into her defenses, Anastasia expelled it in an instant.

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  She stomped her foot. The sand exploded outwards, turning into a shield to block the insidious energy that disoriented her. Her mental barrier was the strongest aspect she had trained since becoming a Templar, since becoming the Head Templar. She had trained her mental strength relentlessly through exercises provided by the Temple.

  How could a mere heretic sway her, the most righteous of all?

  She shouted, "I am Anastasia Del Salvador! I am the sixteenth Head Templar of the Holy See, the one who brings justice to the Heretics!"

  Anastasia took a breather, then shouted once more. "So hear me, False Goddess of these dirty bitches! I, Anastasia Del Salvador, by the command of His Holiness Astros, shall purge this farce at once!!!"

  Her voice cut through the air, but the False Goddess merely stared at her, tilting her head as she softly muttered like a loving mother. "I am not a false one, my child. I am a goddess who brings freedom to all women suppressed by men. I alone am the holy one who respects all women. Doubt me, for I have not done my duty as the Goddess of the Night."

  Anastasia flinched. Every word the woman said felt like something vile trying to invade her mind. Her face went pale, as she knows that influences such as this was only possible in the presence of a god. So how could this false one’s voice carry such weight?

  She questioned herself, but she didn't question her faith. It was cemented in her bones that there was only one true god: Izrael, the God of the Endless Desert. How could these heretics proclaim there was another?

  Anastasia lifted her banner, ready to command her Templars to retreat. Dealing with something that possessed divinity was out of her authority; so the most optimal decision was to retreat and report this to his Holiness Astros, for only he could truly bring this wretched one to hell.

  But before she could shout her commands, to her dismay, she found herself unable to speak. As primal dread washed over her every fiber of being. Anastasia gulped in fear. This sense of dread shouldn't be possible unless facing a Supreme God.

  She looked around to see the source of this dread and froze.

  She saw a man staring at her from a distance, sitting on a throne. He took a sip from a chalice filled with a white content that she deduced instantly to be milk.

  Then her mind spiraled into a quagmire. As the more she stared at the man the more her legs grew weak. True to herself, Anastasia would claim this man was the most attractive person she had seen in her entire life, but that didn't mean her legs should give in and spread on their own like a wanton harlot. No, that shouldn't be possible. Her mind was a wall, a mountain that elicited no desire to be penetrated by the opposite gender.

  So how was it possible that she felt, heat pooling between her thighs the more she stared at the man who merely lifted his hand as he nonchalantly took a sip from his chalice? How was it possible that the desires, that she had buried deep in her mind were running amok, making the inside of her armor damp with treacherous nectar?

  Anastasia clenched her teeth until they bled. But before she could steel herself, the False Goddess staring at her frowned.

  Thwack!

  Before she could process what was happening, pain flared through her back and into her stomach. All she could see were bloodied spears protruding from her abdomen. Her face went extremely pale at the revelation that her Templars had been invaded by the insidious energy. But before Anastasia could retaliate, her knees buckled, flooded by the weakness of her own arousal. She knelt on the ground and coughed a bucket load of blood.

  The spears of her own Templars had struck her from behind.

  Only now did she realize that the moment the False God spoke, it was enough to induce illusions in her Templars, making them see her as nothing but a heretic daring to bring destruction to the empire.

  Anastasia coughed another bucket load of blood as the young Templar who had asked her questions earlier kicked her head into the ground. Then he grabbed her head as he pressed her head down into the sand, before he pulled a stake hanging from his waist, and gazed at her through his helmet with contempt.

  Then he said in a bone chilling manner, "For the glory of mankind!"

  The man then placed the stake on Anastasia’s hand. As he reached for his hammer dangling behind his back strapped in his belt, before he unceremoniously hammered it down.

  CLANG! CRUNCH!

  He hammered the stake into her hand. While he coldly stared straight to her eyes and Anastasia feeling the bone chilling stare shivered, as she held back her screams at this torture. Under the shade of her helmet, tears flowed from Anastasia's eyes and saliva dripped in her mouth as she clenched her teeth every time the young Templar struck the stake deeper into her flesh.

  It was foreign pain that Anastasia hated the most. That was why she had stayed pure all her life, because she didn't want to feel the pain of labor or the intense pain when a man penetrated her. That was the reason she wore the heaviest armor in the order. All of this was a means so she wouldn't be wounded.

  But now, she was in immense agony. She couldn't hold it in any longer. As she was about to scream, the young Templar stopped. He bowed to the woman who appeared like a ghost in front of him.

  "Oh, Head Templar, what are you doing here?!" the trainee greeted the illusion.

  The woman in question merely chuckled at the man's question and said softly, "Nothing. I was just interested to hear this heretic scream. So you may continue, young Templar."

  The man nodded at her words. He turned his head back to Anastasia, staring coldly. He grabbed her helmet and removed it to reveal the face of the heretic.

  It was a face so beautiful that even beauties who toppled nations wouldn't be able to rival a strand of her golden hair, nor her eyes that took the shape of a phoenix, hazel in color. Nor could they rival her lips, which were as red and luscious as it could be.

  But the young Templar merely grabbed her hair, ignoring her beauty. As he roughly pressed her head into the sand, then placed a stake on her neck, and prepared to hammer it down mercilessly.

  BANG!

  Before Anastasia could scream, the False God, who was clearly behind the state of her subordinates, pressed the barrel of her revolver into the man and pulled the trigger. It blew the man's head apart in an instant.

  The rest of the Templars, hearing the shot, snapped back from the illusions. They glared at their Head Templar, seeing a stake plunged into her hand and another poised at her neck. They screamed in despair and panicked.

  But before one of them could regain their composure, hundreds of shadows appeared all over the place. Hundreds of naked women appeared right behind the Templars, their claws digging straight into their necks. Then they've sunk their fangs into their neck as they sucked the Templars blood, and in each passing seconds their auras grew rapidly as it became more ferocious, like the bloodlust of a battle hardened beasts, and deadlier than ever.

  The False God, who was behind all of this, stared at Anastasia with interest. She grabbed Anastasia by the neck and plunged her fangs into her shoulder, whispering softly, just like a divine being. "It's such a pity that someone as attractive as you remains a virgin. So, let me help you unlock your true self, Head Templar."

  Anastasia was startled by the actions of this woman. But before she could recollect herself from the hellish pain in her hand, ecstasy drilled into every fiber of her being.

  She felt her faith wavering. Her hands slowly turned into claws, and her teeth became deadly fangs. But she, Anastasia, the Head Templar, would not go down just like this.

  She shouted for the final time before this vile heretic converted her into whatever abomination she was becoming. "You... you vile heretic! Even if I become a monster here, I, Anastasia, shall purge all of you so long as I live! Even in the vile body of an abomination, my will as the Head Templar of the Holy See shall exist even in death! So remember this, you damned heretics!!!"