The altar flew fast.
The blood-red chains that pierced the Servitors' bodies and bound them to the altar drew an unceasing stream of flesh-and-blood energy from them, converting it into the power of the altar's flight. That draining was utterly without restraint; the First Servitor did not care in the least whether they died of it, and only watched the crystal skeleton — where the red glow burned steady and never dimmed — with perfect calm.
"Lady First Servitor, we're still a good distance from the royal city, but some of the Servitors can no longer hold on and have already given themselves to God. Could we stop and rest a while?" The Gold-Thread Servitor buried her resentment deep, not daring to let a trace of it show. Every believer in the whole west had been sacrificed into the altar, yet the First Servitor had never once touched that vast reserve of energy — she only kept squeezing them dry.
The First Servitor had once been the lowliest of slaves and had no idea where the royal city was; she was simply following wherever the crystal skeleton led. At those words she glanced at the Gold-Thread Servitor, and before the cold sweat pouring down the other woman's face could drip any further, she suddenly shattered her own fingers and pressed them to the altar. The altar abruptly radiated energy, and part of it flowed back along the chains into the Servitors' bodies.
"We must reach the royal city before tonight and establish the kingdom of God..." Before her voice had even died away, every Servitor felt the bliss that had coiled in the depths of their hearts vanish. The First Servitor jerked her head up to look at the crystal skeleton, and found that the light which had burned steadily on it had gone dim.
"Brown, you worthless piece of trash!" She let out a roar of fury. Chains shot from the wound on her hand and linked through the whole altar; no Servitor could control their body any longer, and their flesh was drained away in an instant, leaving them looking like skeletons bound in midair.
The Gold-Thread Servitor said in terror, "My lady..."
Bang.
The Gold-Thread Servitor's body exploded outright. Then the First Servitor's voice, colder than it had ever been, sounded at every Servitor's ear: "Full speed ahead. When God descends, you shall receive glory..."
Ophelia had not expected Adam to find the wreckage of the greatsword; embarrassed, she tucked it into the front of her robes and said no more. William, pulling himself together after the shock of Embers' power, asked Adam hesitantly, "Adam, if you have means like that, why didn't you just storm the Church of the Supreme God's headquarters from the start?"
"First, I didn't know Embers' true power."
The others nodded in understanding; after all, none of them had ever seen that spell before.
"Second," Adam went on, "the academy's mission is to wipe out the cult and bring back the medium. Of those two requirements, I judge bringing back the medium to be the higher priority."
William frowned. "The Servitors the Church sends out are all weak. Why don't we split up? Wouldn't we wipe them out more efficiently that way?"
Adam glanced at him and said bluntly, "I have never restricted your freedom. So long as the mission can be completed, you may choose your own method."
"But — but you clearly could have saved more people..."
William went pale at Adam's words, and the question he had just voiced he swallowed back down. Adam had been unexpectedly easy to deal with lately, and that had made him forget Adam's cold nature; in the end, all that occupied Adam's mind was completing the mission, and how many innocents might die had never once been within his considerations. Nor did Adam care in the least about companions — their existence was wholly dispensable.
And besides, when William recalled everything Adam had said since they came to Madeira Island, he found there really had never been any order restricting their freedom.
The devil chimed in with a few needling remarks: "Young man, I can feel the fear in your heart. The real reason you didn't leave Adam and go off on your own at the start is that you were afraid, isn't it? You were afraid to face unknown enemies alone, so you instinctively chose to cling to someone strong."
William's face went from pale to green, and Ophelia's and Cristel's were hardly any better. They had to admit the devil was right, for when they asked themselves the same question, the answer was disheartening.
Adam had no interest in playing spiritual guide. He searched back and forth through the royal city, now reduced to ash, and found no trace of energy left anywhere; then he rose high into the air and flew west alone.
The devil once again played the commentator: "Master means that if you want to come, follow. If you don't, suit yourselves."
Cristel and Ophelia exchanged a look and rose together to chase after Adam. After weighing the pros and cons in his heart, William flew up as well, dejected, and followed.
Two hours later, Adam sighted the white-bone altar floating in the sky, and at the same moment the First Servitor saw him too.
No words were wasted and no probing feints were made; the two sides went straight into battle.
Adam raised his hand and pointed at the sky. Runes leaped up and bloomed with the radiance of mana; thunder rolled through the clear heavens, and as his finger swept down, a huge bolt of lightning came crashing down, straight for the First Servitor atop the altar.
The First Servitor tugged at the chains, and the other Servitors were dragged helplessly up to meet the lightning, their bodies swelling as they used flesh and blood to withstand the spell's power.
This spell was, for the time being, called Lightning Bolt — the newest attack method Adam had mastered after his static electricity experiments succeeded. The flash streaked past and punched through the wall of flesh and blood with ease; it struck the altar with undiminished force, pierced through several layers of bone, and then dispersed into nothing.
"All power belongs to the Supreme God. The blasphemers have affronted divine majesty and are asking to die."
After soothing the other Servitors, the First Servitor released every chain and ordered them to strike Adam down, while she herself fell to her knees and prayed devoutly to God.
Adam hauled the devil out from behind him and drove it at the Servitors, while he himself kept hammering the First Servitor with spell after spell. From this woman he sensed an enormous alien energy — not as great as Peter Om's, perhaps, but already past the critical point.
One look at the First Servitor and the devil shuddered from head to toe. It did not dare go provoke her at all, and simply circled around Adam, blocking every alien power that came flying at him.
The First Servitor prayed on and on, and the obscure, unintelligible sound of it grew louder, gradually reaching Adam's ears. With that sound, every skull on the white-bone altar 'opened' its eyes at once, and countless slender energy rays came pouring toward Adam, blotting out the whole sky.
None of the beams was especially powerful — about equal to a Fireball apiece — and Adam, having shielded his whole body with a strengthened psychokinetic barrier, stood motionless in the air.
"White?"
Adam was puzzled by how different the 'divine power' the First Servitor displayed was. Every Servitor he had met before, whether absorbing or releasing, had wielded red energy.
The First Servitor severed her entire left hand and pressed the mangled, bloody stump against the altar. The white beams stopped dead in the air, then fused into one, and came shooting at Adam at incredible speed.