I Possessed The Immoral Empress

The Grand Temple was a bustling sea of people.

Refugees fleeing the border war formed an unending line, but many priests had been sent to support the border, making it difficult to control the thronging masses.

“What did they say?”

At High Priest Noctavinus’s question, the priest assisting him hesitated briefly before summarizing the contents of the letter sent by Henry.

“They are digging into Priest Arvian’s past.”

“His past?”

“Yes. The group Arvian used to associate with killed a merchant, remember?”

“And?”

“They intend to use that to implicate Priest Arvian.”

Noctavinus, who was tending to injured children from the perilous journey, had beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

“Has there been a reply from the Central Temple?”

“They’re the same. They say they can’t send support until Priest Arvian is distanced from Her Majesty the Empress.”

“I see.”

The priest assisting Noctavinus sighed in frustration as he watched him return to caring for the sick.

“Why do you insist on keeping Arvian by Her Majesty’s side? Have you forgotten what kind of person that woman is? Have you forgotten the people who came here, shedding tears of blood, because they lost their families to her curse magic?”

Of course, he hadn’t forgotten.

Noctavinus, who had been the head of the Grand Temple even before Ermedeline became Empress, had seen countless lives and souls devastated by the curse of the Francoise Duchy.

“That’s precisely why.”

“What?”

“Because she’s a witch and has committed countless horrific deeds… that’s why.”

“Huh?”

Leaving the perplexed priest behind, Noctavinus walked away briskly, not wanting to continue the conversation.

“Wait! What about the Emperor’s letter? What should I reply?”

Noctavinus stopped momentarily at the priest’s shout and replied, “Tell them I will visit personally once things settle here.”

Noctavinus knew that another soul resided within Ermedeline’s body but had always harbored one question.

If the gods had a plan in summoning a soul from another world, why her?

Why did such an innocent soul end up in that body, burdened with more sins than anyone else?

As High Priest, he firmly believed that the gods’ plans were flawless, but witnessing Ermedeline’s worsening situation, he began to doubt whether their will was truly benevolent.

The innocent woman trapped inside the witch’s body struggled desperately to break free from the chains of sin that bound her, but there was nothing she could do.

The sins of that body, combined with the sins of her family, wrapped her in chains, dragging her even to the battlefield.

In such circumstances, Noctavinus could not summon Arvian.

Whatever her destined end, he did not want to leave that poor soul alone.

Arvian was the only one who could see her innocence, the purity of her soul.

Noctavinus believed that the gods had intertwined their fates, like threads in a tapestry, for a reason.

He was curious.

If the gods were truly benevolent, how would they break the chains of sin binding that soul to such a wretched body?

There must be a reason why that body and soul met.

Despite the conflict between the Central Temple and the Grand Temple, and the pressure from the imperial family, he could not abandon Ermedeline.

Even with doubts, as the High Priest, he had to place absolute trust in the gods’ plans.

The Central Temple knew that Noctavinus had sent the candidate for the next High Priest to the side of the witch dragged to the battlefield.

Urgent requests for support came daily from the Grand Temple and the border, but the Central Temple had no intention of aiding Noctavinus, who defended the witch.

They always refused support requests under the pretext of protecting the capital and the imperial family.

In reality, they had little intention of protecting either the capital or Henry, the lone member of the royal family.

Henry had long been at odds with the Central Temple due to his marriage to the witch Ermedeline.

The Central Temple’s loyalty to the imperial family was purely ceremonial; they had no true allegiance left.

Therefore, they ignored the ominous atmosphere surrounding the capital.

They could have taken action, but they chose to remain passive.

They didn’t care whether Henry or Leopold won, or who took the throne; their main goal was to establish their own power, independent of the Grand Temple.

If a large-scale curse struck the capital, who would the imperial family first seek help from?

The Central Temple felt the growing magical power in the air and bided their time, ready to play their hand.

Ermedeline, standing on the battlefield, realized her profound ignorance.

She had thought she understood war through a few printed words and staged images.

The scene before her was beyond horrifying, indescribable even by the term “nightmare.”

Could this be what hell on earth looked like?

In front of this hellish reality, Ermedeline, who had been an ordinary citizen of South Korea, completely broke down.

A young soldier, barely twenty, held his severed arm in his remaining hand, searching for a priest.

The priest rushed over, trying to reattach the arm with holy power.

But then, a Frianton soldier decapitated the priest, mid-healing.

In the novel’s era, there was an unspoken rule to not kill priests, who were equivalent to military doctors, but the cursed Frianton soldiers couldn’t even recognize friend from foe.

As long as they could move their limbs, they attacked the enemy fiercely until their last breath.

They distinguished allies from enemies solely by the presence of magic and indiscriminately swung their swords at anyone without a curse, be they priests or civilians.

“Ahhh! Over here, help!”

A soldier, clutching his spilling entrails, screamed desperately, but there was no priest nearby to help him.

He tried to crawl out of the battlefield with sheer willpower to survive, but the cursed enemy would not let such an easy prey escape.

Slash!

Once again, blood sprayed across the battlefield.

Such scenes were occurring countless times in this hell, a mire of blood and gore.

Felio, familiar with such horrors, looked down at Ermedeline with worried eyes.

As expected, Ermedeline was completely dazed, unable to turn away from the atrocities, frozen in place.

The mages began to glance nervously at Ermedeline.

The veteran mages, recognizing her state immediately, ignored her and began casting spells.

However, the mages who, like Ermedeline, were on the battlefield for the first time, were either completely frozen, crying, or vomiting, unable to accept the reality.

On such a day, nothing could be done.

Felio and Arvian exchanged glances and nodded.

“Let’s return to the camp for today.”

“What?” Ermedeline made a sound like the air escaping her lungs.

“The first day is always the hardest. Let’s return to the camp with the other novice mages for now. Magic is difficult to use unless you’re in a stable condition, isn’t it?”

“R-return?”

For a moment, Ermedeline was tempted by Felio’s suggestion.

She felt she could do anything to escape this hell.

Her duties as an Empress? Human justice? Such things were useless in the face of this absolute horror.

“Aaahhh!”

But at that moment, Ermedeline saw a young soldier, an arrow in his back, dragging his injured comrade out of the battlefield.

Barely in his late teens?

He looked about the same age as Yoon Hyeyoung when she left the orphanage and started living on her own.

In her past life, she had no courage to face the overwhelming fear and loneliness but pretended to have it because she knew she had to survive in that cold, solitary world.

Yet this soldier was showing bravery in this hell where life and death were separated by a thin line.

Not for himself, but for someone else.

Ermedeline couldn’t ignore that sight.

She wanted to at least help those two boys escape this hell.

She concentrated, trying to calm herself enough to dispel the curse surrounding the area.

If Ermedeline were a truly skilled mage, she might have been able to lift the curse in the vicinity.

However, she was not an adept mage.

She was merely a civilian standing on the battlefield for the first time.

As she fumbled in fear, the two boys fell simultaneously to the enemy’s blades and breathed their last.

No matter how resolute or brave one was, a battlefield was a place where mere willpower couldn’t prevail.

Watching the boys collapse, Ermedeline fainted on the spot.

***

“Tsk.”

Duke Batistian, already present on the battlefield, clicked his tongue in disappointment as he watched Arvian carry the unconscious Ermedeline.

He had been waiting for a chance to deal with her during the chaos, but it was disappointing to see that the so-called witch was so weak.

‘She could sell curse magic capable of killing people horrifically for money, but seeing people die in person must have been quite a shock.’

What was foremost in Duke Batistian’s mind now was the horrific state of his wife’s corpse.

The curse had been so brutal that there was no trace left of her living form.

Of course, the activation of curse magic by a non-practitioner required burning hatred toward the target, but this detail was insignificant to Duke Batistian.

His wife, perfect in both lineage and appearance, had died in a gruesome manner.

She had taken her own life with a curse intended for him.

In that situation, the best he could do was to hate the witch who sold the curse to his wife.

Otherwise, the reason for the shattering of his perfect world would have to be himself.