The Holy Trials 3

For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

2 Timothy 4:6-8

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Adam kept his eyes open during the night. The room he was given gave off a very austere feeling. It was spotless, devoid of any non-essential furniture, and no decorations could be seen anywhere in the bedroom—Spartan—just the way Adam liked it.

After wishing Xenovia a good night and parting ways with her, he decided to wait until his surroundings were calm. The fake moon was high up in the starry sky when he used the mysterious skill he had recently learned the utility of.

Adam sighed and prepared himself for whatever his Lord could bring him. He had complete faith in him and didn't hesitate to leave his fate into the hands of the Almighty.

"Dungeon Dimension," he whispered, calling out his skill.

At the same moment, space distorted around him, leaving him feeling very confused. It was as if he suddenly entered a black hole, and after a few seconds of the weirdest experience he ever had, the smell of sulfur hit him.

And it hit him hard.

Not being used to such a powerful odor, Adam nearly gagged, brought to his knee by the absolute nightmare of the environment. He coughed, feeling deeply uncomfortable, but that was only the beginning of his problems.

Even if he wasn't an official exorcist, the young man was used to the sight of dead bodies. However, he wasn't prepared to see what was around him. After acclimating to the smell of sulfur, Adam realized multiple things. First, the grey sky was filled with white fissures, as if reality itself was threatening to collapse. The sky, usually dotted with white and grey clouds, was painted in a deep red, the color so striking that Adam immediately thought of the various depictions of Hell.

His eyes widened slightly as he immediately realized what the sickening smell that invaded his nostrils but was masked by the strong sulfuric atmosphere was. Corpses.

Corpses everywhere.

Was it not for his training as an exorcist and the numerous amount of blood he already saw and spilled, Adam would have probably lost it right there. The scope of carnage around him was not something he was used to. He realized why he felt his feet were wet. He realized why everything smelled of death and putrefaction.

He was standing upon a pile of corpses.

The bodies were old; he could even see some bones sticking out as decaying flesh was flailing around. Blood was everywhere, for the most part already dried out and coated the ground, as if dead bodies weren't already covering it.

But as Adam continued to stare at the bodies around him, with a morbid fascination, yet at the same time with deep horror, he realized how bad things were.

The human bodies on the ground were often displaying horrible injuries. Some had their heads ripped apart, the rotting flesh around their neck hinting at the slow death that these people must have had to endure. Limbs were missing; their bodies also had entire parts missing, shaped as if a beast had eaten a part of it, or simply what looked like cutting injuries, piercing through their whole body.

Internal organs slowly rotting were splattered everywhere. The few faces visible to Adam were violently brutalized, their noses ripped off, empty sockets where their eyes should be proved to be horrifying to the young man. The visible older corpses even had fungus growing on them, the earth slowly reclaiming the nutrients their decaying flesh produced.

Yet, that wasn't the worst part.

These people were mutated. Monsters. Some had third arms attached to them, bulges filled with pus sticking to them, often the size of their head. The bodies' proportions were also wrong, some having torsos as big as Adam himself, and others displaying arms so thin on an otherwise normally-sized body that it looked like someone stuck it on him. Their hair laid everywhere, matted with dirt and blood, while their bodies were layered by a greenish tint—various illnesses covering their bodies.

The nightmarish appearances of the human corpses all around him made Adam feel ill. Pestilence was omnipresent in this dimension.

Then, Adam realized something very important. He was standing in a trench, not unlike those used in the first World War.

It wasn't a vision of Hell.

It was just a battlefield.

The barbed wire was scattered to pieces, probably as a result of explosives during the battle. The craters, where only ash and shattered body parts remained of those hit by the projectiles. The weapons, basic-looking rifles, all armed with bayonets—clearly used. The unique smell of cold sweat, blood, piss, shit, vomit, bile, rotting corpses, gunpowder, and much more all mixing into a nauseating atmosphere where Adam could barely breathe.

"Just where have you sent me, my Lord?" blurted out Adam, his voice slightly shaky at the scenery he was witnessing.

He extricated himself from the pile of corpses he was standing upon and glanced a last time at the bodies on the ground.

"Death is not the end, my friends," said Adam, noticing the cross necklace worn by most of the dead bodies. However, one detail that caught the young man's eye was that some of these soldiers had a gem attached to their cross. The middle-south part of the crosses formed a circle, where a red or purple gem was embedded.

Moreover, Adam could feel magical energy inside of them, albeit in petite proportions. He checked the gems for a few seconds, and when he realized that his skill [Truth] couldn't give him any information on anything other than living people, he sighed and left the area.

But for him, no matter how far he walked, it was the same scene. Everywhere was carnage, just a different flavor of it. His mind, already numb to the horrifying atmosphere, Adam sought to understand what happened in this place. He didn't remember red clouds and mangled bodies piled on the battlefield being part of his world's first World War—the description of the skill that brought him here in the first place, informing him that he could be in a different world.

So Adam searched through the dead soldiers' belongings, hoping to find something that would give him information on the world he was dropped in.

Thankfully, he managed to find a book that looked like a diary in one of the half-destroyed bunkers he encountered on his way. It was half-buried in the coarse and dry earth, and he had to move what looked like a half-eaten corpse to get it, but he managed to obtain a relatively readable book—it gave him hope.

The first page had a picture of a woman tucked in it. However, the first words of the diary dispelled any thoughts of her being the owner of this diary.

'Dear Diary, my name is Ben, and today is my first day on the frontlines.

Inspired by the heroes that raised their swords, or more like their bayonets, against the atrocities that the Empire is suffering from, I registered for the army two months ago.

The training was cruel and grueling, but it helped me become fit to face the adversary. The frontlines are much harsher than I thought. The fact that people are dying here every day never really hit me before I arrived here. The smell… just… the smell. It's… it's tough to endure, but we do it anyway.

We have to.

The other fresh recruits like me were shocked to see such little patriotism in our seniors. Where did their ardent devotion to the Empire go?! They all look tired, and it wasn't the first time that I'd heard one of them curse our nation. If it wasn't for the fact that he was built like a truck, I would have probably hit him for his words.

God is also not appreciated enough around these parts. While not every older soldier was like this, I'd overheard a few of them saying blasphemous things when they thought nobody was listening. They're all cowards, blaming God for the lack of victory they're bringing to our blessed Empire.

The food is disgusting, but we endure it.

We have to.'

Adam turned the page when he finished reading the first part of the unknown soldier's confessions.

'Dear Diary, today is my second day on the frontlines.

I've learned that the lack of toilets was something I had to get used to when in these regions. The only toilet available being very far away, I had to piss on the ground, next to the soldiers I was supposed to fight with for the glory of our blessed nation.

I realize that the spot I was stationed in was maybe the place where another soldier pissed.

The trenches smell even more horrible than the camp we arrived in yesterday. The scent of the shit laying very close to you is horrible. The hygiene is non-existent, not to mention there's no water to wash yourself or your clothes with. The little water we have is to drink. And even then, it's often not enough.

No attacks have been sighted today, and we weren't given any order to attack either. Some soldiers smuggled a card deck from the HQ and occupied themselves however they could. Apparently, entertainment is a rare thing here as well.

I thought that I would be riding on the battlefield, killing those Commonwealth bastards and their twisted inventions, but no.

Nothing today. Somehow, the food is even more disgusting than yesterday's, but we endure it.

We have to.'

Adam stopped his reading there as he thought he heard something coming from the back of the destroyed bunker. Walking over cautiously, he released a sigh of relief when he noticed nothing out of the ordinary.

If ordinary consisted of corpses and blood, of course.

'Dear Diary, today is the seventh day I am on the frontlines.

Nothing happened during all of this time. Same old boring and disgusting days. The smell is starting to stick to my clothes, and I'm getting used to it. The biggest problem is that there's nothing to do, but we endure it.

We have to.'

Looking at the pages, Adam skipped a few where very few words were written, because of the monotony of the soldier's life in the trenches.

'Dear Diary, today, I had the honor to meet the pride of the Fatherland, the Imperial Mages Troops.

However, the heroes of our blessed nation were not what I imagined they were. They looked down on us simple soldiers and even made nasty jokes about us being simple fodder for the enemy.

The older soldiers often awkwardly laugh at what the mages are saying, and we younger soldiers simply grit our teeth and move on. We endure it.

We have to.'

Pages after pages, the life of the soldier was exposed to Adam's eye. However, nothing truly important stuck out from the diary. That was until he arrived at the 10th entry.

'Diary, today, John died.

Apparently, the war exploded everywhere, and my sector finally tasted conflict. I heard a high-pitched noise in the sky gradually approaching, and before I could react, an enormous explosion rang to my right. I can't hear from my right ear, and my right arm might be useless.

The officer said there were twenty deaths in an instant. One of the friends from the training camp I had, John, died.

I want to cry, but I can't. I want to scream out, but I know that God welcomed him in Heaven.

I have to endure. I have to.'

'Diary, today, Max died. It was so sudden. A bullet straight to the head and I don't even know how to feel.

We're dropping like flies, but I have to endure.

I have to.'

'Today, Finn died.

I have to endure.'

The trend continued on and on.

More and more people, who the young man cared about dying without him being able to do anything.

His fellow soldiers were slowly dying out from the war, without making any progress. The way his writing changed throughout the entries showcased the despair the young soldier started to feel.

"May God lightens up their path, and may they be free of suffering in Heaven. Amen," said Adam, before continuing to read the diary.

'We were given the first order to get out of the trenches and attack the enemy lines.

Only two of us remain.

I don't know how much more I can endure.'

Adam was interrupted by a nearby groan. The deep and resonating sound startled him but also gave him hope.

He rushed towards the source of the sound. "Hey, are you alive?!" he cried out, hoping for a positive answer.

'The abominations were released. I don't know what happened to the Commonwealth for them to be that desperate, but they released a virus, from what my commanding officer told me.

I felt like my life became a nightmare ever since I arrived on the frontlines 7 months ago.

I was wrong, the nightmare started today. May the light of the Empire shine upon me.

I don't have the will to endure.

Not anymore.'

Adam froze when he saw what rose from the ground. Slowly standing up, the green abomination groaned and hissed as its putrefied arm fell to the ground.

The reanimated corpse spotted Adam and started to run towards him. His pace was slow, but the proximity and the fact that the young man couldn't believe understand what he was seeing allowed the monster to get within arm's length.

His mouth opened in hunger when he was close enough to take a bite, and the putrid breath it released made Adam jump back.

"I see," Adam stated solemnly. "That is why God sent me - to exterminate your kind."

He started to unveil the weapon hidden in the clothes strapped on his back. Before coming into this dimension, he made sure to bring his weapon with him, in case his Lord would ask him to fight any heretics. And it seemed he was right in assuming this.

'I killed my friend today. I killed him even though he was supposed to have died months ago.

Apparently, those from the Commonwealth experimented with foul magic and discovered a way to make zombies to avoid losing any soldiers in the war and turn ours against us.

I'll never forgive them. I swear that I will exterminate Albion down to the very last building.'

Adam called upon the light inside of him.

Warmth exploded from his body, filling him with delight as the power of God suffused his cells. The holy energy seared the skin on the zombie, making it groan grotesquely in pain. Still, the monster kept on marching towards the source of the only beating heart in the vicinity.

'I'll kill them! I'll kill them! I'll kill them! I'll kill them! I'll kill them!

On another note, I met the Rusted Silver today. I don't know why, but it seems that she is similar to me. Her hatred for the Commonwealth is something I can get behind.

At the same time, they told us that there were signs to look for any case of infection. I saw Denis hold his arm today.

There's no more hope for you… I hope that God has a place for you.'

Adam, in a heartbeat, cleaved the zombie in half, his body moving at speed far above what the baseline human body could produce. The holy energy infused in his blade, a rather standard two-handed claymore, with the only difference being that the cross guard of the blade was an actual cross, used to channel his holy energy more easily.

'I don't feel good.

Ever since the beginning of this week, my head has started to spin and I'm feeling weak in my limbs, despite being empowered by the serum.

I know what's happening to me, after all, I've seen Denis go through the same sign. He has disappeared two weeks ago.

But I'm not afraid. Unlike the Empire who abandoned me, a simple soldier, God has my back.

My revenge is not completed yet.

I know God doesn't have a place for you, Albion scum.'

The young man stared at the deformed face of the zombie he just killed, ignoring the weird feeling that settled in the back of his mind. He apologized before taking the locket on the zombie's neck—the photo inside of it was of a woman, the same photo that was on the first page of the diary.

"May your soul rest in peace, Ben," whispered Adam, wiping his sword of any residue.

A ringing coming from his Sacred Gear resonated in his head. While only slightly annoying, Adam took out the gift God gave him the moment he heard it. Opening up the book's first page, a message started to get written, but this time in blue ink instead of the black previously used.

Role: Warrior has reached level 2.

+5 STR, +5 CON, +2 DEX.

Due to excessive use of Holy Energy, the skill [Holy Energy Manipulation] has been created.

[Holy Energy Manipulation] (Active) - Lv 1

Grants the ability to manipulate Holy Energy.

​

However, a distant explosion triggered Adam's senses before he could ponder on what this new skill meant. He whipped his head towards the source of the noise, eyebrows furrowed. The explosion was big enough that he felt a light breeze hit him, so he started to run towards the source of it. All that he met so far was corpses and one zombie, but he did not doubt that there were still some fights ongoing.

The diary didn't give him a lot of information about the situation, except the name of the two parties in conflict with each other, the existence of mages being employed for the group called the Empire, and the zombies seemingly created by the other group called the Commonwealth, or Albion. Of course, Albion and the Commonwealth might have been two separate entities—it didn't matter to Adam, all he wanted to do was to get someone to explain to him what was going on.

As a member of the Church, he couldn't let himself intervene in a conflict between two countries, something that he suspected was going on in this place, but that specific rule went out of the window the moment someone was playing with dark magic, creating zombies to attack their enemies.

Since this part of the battlefield was riddled with corpses yet he had only met a single zombie, it meant that he likely arrived in an abandoned region of the battle; where the zombie he met was something they simply overlooked, and that the other corpses were generally safe here. However, it could also be that the virus only affected a low number of people, either due to its lack of efficiency or due to an inherent limitation.

Adam kept running while looking out for any movement from the lifeless bodies, but his path ended being completely safe.

The sounds of battle were getting closer and closer. Even though he wasn't used to the shriek of a bullet, the smell of sulfur overpowering his nostrils once more. Adam did not doubt that he had to deal with an unpowered battle since these kinds of weapons were mostly useless in the supernatural world—although that didn't mean that he was unable to recognize them. However, the sight of humans flying far above in the sky, using some kind of weird device attached to their foot and released weird magic-like energy in the air, caught him off guard.

His trained senses picked the fluctuations in the air, invisible to most people, that magic releases, but his holy energy reacted very differently to it than it would with normal magic—or at least the kind he was used to.

First, the released magic stayed for a long time, long enough to fall close to him.

Secondly, the moment he extended his holy energy to it, it devoured the magic-like energy instantly. At the same time, he felt his reserves slightly fill up. Such a discovery made him stop dead in his track.

"What?" he uttered, in shock of what his holy energy just did.

Ultimately ignoring the thoughts running through his head, the various theories on how such a thing could happen, with yet another big explosion being cast off in the distance, he continued to run towards his destination.

At some point, he felt something like a poke in the back of his mind. It was as if someone was trying to get his attention and telling him that he had to pay attention to them. Of course, the radiation of holy energy that appeared to his right side, far up in the sky made him understand why he felt like this.

Adam had never seen anything more beautiful in his life. An angel, far up the sky, displaying her might.

"Lord. May you hear my prayer, and may you grant my desire."

The angel's voice was feminine. Despite being in the sky, Adam was able to hear her with such clarity that he had to double-check if she wasn't next to him instead.

'Ohh~And what a beautiful voice it is!' thought Adam, getting on his knees at the magnificent sight.

"Bring down the hammer of your wrath from Heaven onto the infidels of this land."

Adam's eyes went wide when he saw phantom wings appear in the sky. The feathered appendages were so white and so luminous that Adam's eyes hurt by watching them.

But he kept doing it anyway.

He started to cry in reverence, overwhelmed by his emotions. He felt like all of his life had led to this moment, the moment where he could finally meet an agent of the Lord.

"And purge the filth from this world!"

"Amen!" shouted Adam to the Heavens.

After that, everything was blinding white for a second, before any color started to register again in Adam's brain. The gale wind generated by the destruction the angel brought flung his body against the wall of a collapsed building.

His holy energy protecting him from the harm of the blow, he stood up immediately and observed with glory the might of the angel.

The gigantic mushroom cloud made out of debris and smoke took up nearly all of his vision.

A good part of the landscape had been destroyed.

Before he could do anything else, however, he felt the cold edge of a blade stick to his neck.

"Now then, I must inform you that any civilian sighted in an area designated as a battlefield must be dealt with immediately as per the new rules of the Empire, created since the great calamity," the voice belonged to the angel in the sky, but it had lost the feeling of power.

"Throw your weapon on the ground," she ordered, and Adam did as she said, mostly because of his fanaticism.

Still, the ball of concentrated holy energy behind him reminded him of what she was capable of.

"Since you don't have any signs of being infected, you're going to be detained and interrogated."

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A/N:

There's a chapter in advance on my Pa tr eon! Still, if you'd like to support me, there goes the link: Pat re on (slash) HiddenSword

I'll try to post it as soon as I'm feeling better since it's halfway done.

So, I think nobody will not get who this 'mysterious person' is (Adult Tanya) and why I think the pairing could be interesting. A fanatic nutjob and Tanya together? Kek.

Also, the dungeon will be used to farm, don't worry, but since I don't want boring dungeons that are ultimately useless to the story, I asked shifty if I could use his version of the dungeons, and this is what I came up with. Obviously, this is like the standard zombie dungeon that gamers get, but much bigger in scale and in an AU version of Youjo Senki.

Anyways, if you like the chapter or don't, feel free to comment your opinion on it!