Herald of Steel

"The lesser devils are dead!" Alexander loudly claimed as the fires slowly simmered down to flickering embers, getting a huge cheer from the crowd.

"Hahaha, the evil has been vanquished."

"God Ramuh has triumphed."

"Safe! We are safe!"

"Praise the goddess!"

The men, women, and children all breathed a sigh of relief.

Looking at the jubilant crowd, Alexander still had a hard time connecting the happy, radiant atmosphere to the thing they were celebrating over - the charred remains of the sixteen bodies that had melted and fused together to form a grotesque lump of human bones and flesh.

Even someone with a very strong stomach such as Alexander felt the sight hard to digest, even when the people there were no good gang leaders with the blood and tears of tens of thousands on their hands.

But these people did not seem to mind it one bit, treating it as just an apt punishment.

And these were the same people bawling their eyes out just three weeks ago over the sickness and death of their loved ones.

Alexander had noticed this before too, the cultural disconnect he had with the people of this time and it would always intrigue him.

He had acutely felt that the people of this time were very close to their kin but also strangely apathetic to others.

After the burning had concluded, the crowd started to get restless and many attempted to disperse now that the entertainment had ended.

This made Alexander quickly snap out of this remuneration.

He did not have the luxury of getting all sentimental.

For he still had an opera to conduct.

"My citizen," He again pronounced which made all the murmuring crowd go silent and all wondering eyes re-focused their attention to the man dressed in shiny armor.

"I'm aware that though the criminals have paid the ultimate price, many of your's heart still burns will pain and fury," Alexander said this while hugging his arms together as a sign of empathy.

"Many of you worry that such a tragedy will repeat itself."

"Many of you worry that the temple might be shut down."

"Many of you worry that without the priests you will lose your way."

"Many of you worry that you will have no one to lead you now."

"But fear not," Alexander claimed by raising his hands to the sky, "Because Ramuh and Gaia had foreseen this and thus sent with me their chosen champions to lead you lost sheep."

"Now, bow! Bow to the twin saintesses from Adhan."

With this grand declaration, Alexander exaggeratedly gestured to Azira and Azura, who in synchronized steps made their way to the front of Alexander and revealed themselves to the crowd.

As the crowd laid their eyes upon the twin obsidian princesses. for a brief moment, the low buzzing undercurrent of muttering completely disappeared as all the men, women and children looked up at the two goddesses in human form in reverence and awe.

They were stunned at the twins' beauty and, more importantly, at how similar the two girls looked, making many ask themselves whether their eyes were playing tricks on them and making them see two.

To the people, it felt like they were looking at the mirror reflection of a single person as if the gods had split a single girl into a pair to represent both of them.

Azira and Azura stood next to each other shoulder to shoulder and wore an identical golden gown that looked very similar to the Persian Qashqai, and was decorated to represent the highest height of opulence.

Bright, red rubies were studded on the neck collar to display the twin's beautiful slender neck and the heavy decorations trailed down with a cascading pattern all the way to their midriff, showing off their magnificent figure.

Clear, blue sapphires lined the sleeves and cuffs of the dress to accentuate the girls' flawless, chocolate hands, and green, verdant emeralds embroidered around the hemline as if the gemstones were bowing in surrender to the women's dainty, exquisite feet.

Their slender waist was guarded by a procession of thin stands of immaculate golden chains and the skirt of the gown was gloriously lined with various colored gemstones, all shining and glittering under the dawn's gentle golden sunshine.

Azira and Azura had done their makeup identically- with lightly powdered faces, a thin mascara dashed along the eye-lashed and a touch of red dye as lipstick, all completed by a glorious hairstyle, where their silky, silvery curls were tied up in a bun upwards using thin chains of diamonds, giving the exquisite hair an otherworldly sparkle that made it look the gods had placed the clouds as their locks.

They were so beautiful that the crowd had forgotten to bow.

"Ahem! Bow." Alexander again ordered with a light cough.

And as soon as he said such, almost as if the entire crowd's string had been cut, the crowd lost all their strength on their legs and plopped down to the ground in supplication.

"Greetings, Your Sacred Saintess," They cried in a unified chant.

Azira and Azura's title of saintess was a singular, unique title, meaning every single Ramuh believer had, if not seen them, then at least heard of them.

And though the saintess was always a singular post, with their grandfather, the previous king very much doting on the girls, this unconventional appointment was made.

And thus the twins were even more famous than all their predecessors.

As the crowd bowed and expressed their reverence, a myriad of thoughts ran through each of them.

'To think that our lord pasha would be able to get even the twin saintess from the Grand Temple! His powers are truly boundless.'

'Hahaha, with the twin saintesses here, all devils will be smitten.'

'Oh Ramuh! To think this poor soul would have the luck to witness the sacred saintesses with her own eyes. Blessed. We are blessed.'

"Rise, lost sheep," The twin's voices were unlike anything Alexander had heard from them before, deep and imperious, they excluded authority and divinity.

This was the umpteenth time Azira and Azura had done this and in front of a crowd, in public, they were nothing like the pure, innocent girls Alexander had come to know.

Being royalty and according to them, of divine blood, they always appeared dignified and inviolable to the mass and radiated confidence and sacredness.

Most people did not dare meet their eyes and any lecherous thoughts would be wiped out even before its creation, their hearts shivering in fright at the mere thought of such, as the twin's figure only demanded respect and reverence, and to soil them with such filthy thoughts would be blasphemy.

"Flock of the faithful, these sixteen lesser devils that you saw were only the vanguards that the great devil Muazz had sent us," Azira claimed loudly, reading the script provided by Alexander.

This was one of the conditions Alexander had put forth towards the twins in exchange for convincing Ptolomy.

"And a thousand smaller devils lay captive with us, who by the joint order of god Ramuh and goddess Gaia will be sent to the mines for eternity!" Azura joined her sister.

"Praise Ramuh!"

"Glory to Her Excellence Goddess Gaia,"

The former chant was much louder and naturally came from the natives, while the latter was from the Thesian immigrants.

Though many in the crowds wanted the thousand to also burn, hearing that it was an instruction directly from the gods and dictated by the saintesses themselves, all such reluctance naturally washed away.

Azira spoke afterward, "As the pasha has said, this tragedy was caused because an evil power had managed to infiltrate Zanzan."

"But why did it infiltrate now? Why could it infiltrate now?" Azura picked up her sister's words.

"It was because these priests did not follow the king's orders!" Azira answered.

"Yes, that's right!" Azura nodded in approval, saying, "Our Lord Ramuh has joined forces with the goddess Gaia to protect us from the ruinous powers."

"But these priests in their arrogance did not call upon the goddess Gaia's protection." Azira claimed.

"The ruinous powers have recently become stronger, causing even our Lord to form an alliance with the second strongest god, Gaia " Azura very cleverly dressed Alexander's claim, hiding his popular rhetoric of Ramuh being beaten and weakened, to instead claiming that the evil power had become stronger.

'These girls...,' Alexander was not told about this change and honestly, he was impressed by the girls' story.

'They might be totally inept in their everyday lives, but when it comes to religious matters, they are surprisingly shrewd,' Alexander felt he got to know something new about the twins today.

Azira then finished the speech by saying, "And that's why from today onwards, the temple of Ramuh in Zanzan will have a second, subordinate, lesser statue of the goddess Gaia to help bolster the thaumaturgical defense of the city."

As she finished saying so, the twins then raised their hands to the sky and chanted, "May the gods witness our resolve."

"May the gods witness our resolve." The crown chanted back.

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