Shadows

Rowan opened his eyes and winced in pain as he stood up, completely without any recollection of what happened.

"Where… am I?" Rowan muttered to himself.

Rowan stared down the dark chamber with moss growing all over it and found that there was no one in the room with him.

The chains that bound his feet clinked along as Rowan moved to stand up, creating a distinct echoing hymn along the mossy stone brick area.

"What the hell happened to me…" Rowan clutched his throbbing head. "Wait…"

Rowan's already pale face paled even more.

"Who am I?" He asked himself. "What am I doing here…"

Rowan felt the anxiety creep through him like a slithering snake wrapping around his chest.

The stale air felt suffocating, and the familiar pitch black darkness failed to offer solace.

He did not remember anything before waking up. He felt as if he was forgetting something of grave importance, as if forgetting something that can cause the deaths of thousands.

"What the hell happened…" Rowan rubbed his face in distress.

"Who... are you…?" He said as he clutched his face.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Archbishop Weissner grinned in anticipation as he walked down towards the Chamber of Conversion.

He had finally managed to procure such a high class demonic child to add to the army of sinners and he cannot wait to convert the child to their side.

Archbishop Weissner knew that such demons usually got a high position in the army of sinners once they were converted.

The boy, Rowan as he used to be called, had the tenacity of a beast and the cunning of a snake. The boy was definitely a huge boost to the power of their army.

The army of sinners was not many compared to the army of the western kingdoms, however, they cut off communications among the authorities and used various methods to put up a front that the army of the church was vastly superior.

In which case, was not true in any regard.

The Repentant Sinners among the ranks of their armies could only be called incompetent if not stupid.

They had a complete disregard for everything else insisting that they will prevail due to the blessing of the Sun God.

A likely effect after tampering with their minds and cramming the entire doctrine of the church in them.

Still, these units were best used together with Templar Knights and were a good enough army in the mean time.

"Archbishop Weissner, I shall go first." A heavily armored Templar said as he opened the heavy iron door and went inside.

"Be sure not to kill the boy, Templar." Archbishop Weissner reminded him.

It took a few seconds before the light from the torch that the Templar carried illuminated the center of the chamber and revealed a peculiar situation.

The chains that were supposed to bind the boy was limp and bloody on the ground.

The boy was nowhere to be found inside the chamber.

"IMPOSSIBLE!" The other Templars and Priests called out.

"The door cannot be opened from this side!" The armored Templar cursed from inside the chamber. "There must be someone who opened it for him!"

Upon hearing this, all the other Templars started to proclaim their innocence on the issue and soon started pointing fingers on other people.

"I was in the prayer room!"

"No your Holiness I saw him go to the basement!"

"I didn't! Maybe it was Brother…"

"It was definitely you!"

Spit was flying everywhere and robes were starting to get grabbed until Archbishop Weissner got tired of listening.

"ENOUGH!" Archbishop Weissner demanded.

As the Templars finally calmed down, Archbishop Weisssner looked back to the armored Templar in the Chamber but found a brightly burning ball swiftly getting shoved in his face.

That day, Archbishop Weissner screamed like he never had to before.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A blood curling scream echoed throughout the inner sanctum of the Church of the Sun God that day.

Many believers immediately knelt down in fear and started to pray for the Sun God's protection.

One would think that people would not worship something they haven't seen, but these people worshipped the Sun God endlessly, even if they nearly never see the sun itself.

These fanatics would pray all day if needed just to ask for blessings from the Sun God. Of course, the Church demands a hefty 'Donation' for prayer rooms.

These 'Donations' were something along the lines of a peasant's annual income.

Yet today the Prayer rooms were full.

But their coffers were empty.

The commoners had broken in and made themselves home inside the Church to take refuge and breathe clean air.

One of such commoners peeked through the corner of his eyes as he laid down to rest on the expensively lacquered hardwood pews in one of the common rooms.

He kept an eye against the Priests that wanted to extort money from them for staying.

He was about to fully close his eyes when he heard the thumping iron boots and clinking metal from the end of the corridor.

The man immediately woke up his sleeping wife and child to flee, leaving behind the other sleeping villagers.

By the time he rounded up a corner, he smacked against an iron wall and stumbled to the ground.

The man looked up to complain about the existence of the iron wall when he paled at the sight of a fully armored Templar Knight bearing the crest of black wings on the shield the knight held.

"Filthy peasant, for desecrating the Holy Sanctum with your filth, you shall now die." A cold voice echoed from within the helmet of the Knight.

The man screamed a scream of fear as he saw a flash of a blade as it sliced through his body.

He stared down at his opened torso and torn abdomen as his intestines fell down with a sickening wet plop, his body felt cold and he struggled to breathe and grasp his words.

He could only hear his wife's screams as she crumbled down crying.

The man tried to reach out to touch her hand but fell face first into the ground.

His hearing had failed to hear any sound, black spots filled the edges of his vision.

The last thing he saw was his wife holding their child with tears streaming down her beautiful face.

A moment more and he could see a glint of a bloodstained blade hovering above them.

But he could not care anymore.

Everything had faded to black.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Filthy peasants…" Eurika spat as she took off her helmet and wiped the blood off her face.

She seethed with anger at the peasants who dared to murder the Holy Knights of the Sun God and defile their Holy Sanctum.

Eurika had tried to calm herself down but failed, her hands were shaking uncontrollably from the hatred she felt from the act of having the filthy peasants stand on holy ground.

And to her, and all the other Repentant Sinners of the Army of Sinners, this was enough justification for slaughter.

Eurika gazed hatefully to the butchered bodies of hundreds of commoners, not only had they died too quickly to sate the fires that raged inside her heart, they had the audacity to stain the sacred grounds with their filthy blood even after death.

Eurika gnashed her teeth hatefully.

"I swear by the great Sun God…" Eurika whispered through clenched teeth. "I will find out who did this and I will exact my revenge…"

Eurika's eyes strayed towards the butchered body of a mother and child beneath her feet and she cringed her nose in disgust.

'Such filthy worms should not be allowed to breed.' She spat. 'Their existence is simply an embarrassment to the Great Sun God.'

Eurika knelt down and prayed to the heavens.

'Oh, Great and Merciful Sun God!' She praised in her mind.

'I shall happily serve my penance by slaughtering all these filthy embarrassments of humans to save you the energy of having to watch over them.'

Eurika then stood up and flicked her dark, blood soaked locks of hair to the side.

She turned towards her Leader and saw shining azure blue eyes staring back at her.

"Is there something wrong, Sir Inquisitor?" Eurika asked.

"There was a scream earlier." The holy Knight of the Inquisition spoke with a dark expression. "It came from further down the inner sanctum…"

"Is there something wrong with that?" Eurika tilted her head to the side. "It could be the other teams delivering judgement on the heretic scum further down the Sanctum…"

"I don't think so…" The Leader spoke with slit eyes. "We need to investigate."

"Certainly. By the grace of the Sun God's guidance, we shall serve our penance." Eurika bowed and gestured to the other soldiers. "Gather up and prepare to move!"

The other soldiers responded with "For the Glory of the Sun God!" and strapped back their swords and helmets after going around a few times to make sure everyone was dead.

Before Eurika could put on her helmet, a gauntleted hand grasped her cheek and caressed it softly.

"Sir Inquisitor…?" Eurika blinked in confusion.

"Now that I look at you, you seem like a fine woman…" The Inquisitor took off his helmet, revealing strawberry blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes.

The Inquisitor seemed fairly young for his rank so Eurika guessed that he must have been raised from a fairly rich family.

Suddenly, the young Inquisitor grabbed her by the hair and pulled her towards his lips where they kissed deeply.

Eurika did not resist and relaxed her body as she felt the Inquisitor's tongue rub against hers.

She was a sinner, this was her penance.

She belonged to the Church, she owned nothing from the start.

After a few minutes, Eurika was released from the Inquisitor's vice-like grip, leaving the both of them gasping for air.

"You seem good." The Inquisitor licked his lips. "Make sure to come to my room tonight. I am rather inclined to teach you a few new things."

Eurika bowed deeply.

"It shall be my pleasure to do so, Sir." Eurika replied.

Whatever the knight did to Eurika made her feel giddy inside, her cheeks flushed red from her increased heartbeat and she had temporarily forgotten about her seething anger towards the heretic scum that invaded.

'For a Knight of the Inquisition to personally teach me things at his sleeping hours…' Eurika felt elated. 'I can only imagine the wonderful things that I can learn…'

"Well then…" The Inquisitor wore back his helmet again. "Let us head further down the inner Sanctum."

"Yes, Sir!" Eurika and the others replied.

They then proceeded to walk through the silent halls, the thumping of their iron boots and clinking of their armor accompanied the flickering sounds from the candles hung on the seemingly endless lines of golden braziers created a solemn atmosphere along the hall.

Eurika walked past a doorway where a dark haired young lad stood by as he bandaged his bleeding ankles without batting an eye.

Eurika was too busy imagining the things that the knight will teach her tonight to notice the lad.

Alas, if this one moment was known to Eurika, it would be the second biggest regret of her life entirely.

The lad simply shrugged off their presence and melted back into the shadows with a devious smile.