Chapter 347: The Saintess’s Past
Aldrian was taken aback. From the looks of it, the position of the Saintess did not necessarily guarantee the church members’ loyalty to her words. However, he was not too surprised—after all, in any large organization, there were always factions with their own interests. If the Saintess’s words conflicted with those interests, they would hesitate to follow her or even refuse outright.
"You’re close to His Holiness, huh? Then just how close are you, for Cardinal Carsius Vilanix’s faction to doubt the sincerity of your words on this matter? I would think you must be quite close for them to even question the genuineness of your technique." Aldrian asked.
Angelica paused for a moment, the silence lingering for another minute before her blind eyes seemed to drift into reminiscence.
"He was the one who found me when I was nothing and all alone," she said softly.
"I’m actually not from the Church’s territory. A long time ago, I was just a normal little girl who aspired to be a cultivator, like many others in a small village in the southern part of the Doria Empire, near the border with Church territory."
"However, since birth, I have been in this condition and could only admire the stories of cultivators from others. How could someone crippled and blind become a cultivator?
My family was just a humble farming family in the village, and they did not have the wealth to try and heal my condition. So, I had no choice but to bury my dream of becoming a cultivator. All I could do was admire them, knowing I could never be one of them."
"However, one night, I had a strange dream—a dream that gave me knowledge about my current cultivation. Of course, I didn’t understand it at the time. I just thought it was a fever dream or something. But from that day on, I kept having strange visions and gaining knowledge I had never known before. And it kept repeating for months."
"My parents never gave up on me, even after giving birth to a child in my condition. When I told them about my problem, they tried to find someone who could understand and explain it. Eventually, they came across someone they believed to be a cultivator who truly knew about my condition."
"However, unbeknownst to them, that man was a fraud—nothing more than a bogus healer. Worse, he was actually a member of a notorious bandit group known for their cruelty."
"When that man learned about the ’symptoms’ I had, it sealed my fate—and that of my entire family.