Knight of Purity Palace

Like the mask and helm of the goddess of forgiveness carved on religious stone statues, worn to hide one's own face.

The silent knight has never once taken off that stiff, heavy mask, and Safina's solemn face and quiet composure create a pressure so heavy it is hard to breathe.

Whether a demon who holds nothing sacred or a maddened deity, all of them show an instinctive terror when they stand beneath this crushing majesty.

Only a few priests in the holy see know that beneath that sacred helm lies the demonic origin Safina keeps hidden. The holy see fears demons and at the same time craves demonic power, and that led to a contradictory result… They seized the young demon and raised her into a brave silent knight, yet forbade her from ever showing her true face before others, ordering her to obey the Pope and become the silent knight of the Saintess.

The Saintess Vanira, of roughly the same age, taught Safina to study the holy scriptures on her own, and she still remembers clearly the demon's profile in the candlelight.

“My dear Safina, I have seen your face, and I will always remember it.” After she came of age, the Saintess Vanira gradually went blind.

A silver ring engraved with the church's pattern, set with a gemstone that looks slightly clouded.

Drawing her sword against her fellow Papal Knights, solemnity and propriety slowly collapsed, and the knights' ring of the protective oath began to grow clouded.

The power that came down from the cosmos granted the church the strength to punish demons, and at the same time spread a madness that took away their humanity.

The Papal Knights, tormented by that madness, could no longer tell propriety from order, screaming to drive out every descendant of demons so that the church might be saved. Facing a threat closing in on the Saintess, Safina did not hesitate at all. Even when her opponent was the head knight of the Purity Palace church, she could not hold back.

The silent knight must protect the Saintess. Safina has never forgotten that.

“Dear Safina, you need not feel guilty. This is the end that comes of coveting the power of an Aeon, and it is only natural.” In the cathedral there remained only the Saintess and her last guardian knight.

A heavy breastplate bearing the crest of the Purity Palace church, its joints sealed so tightly that not even the wind can get through.

The silent knight's helm must receive the blessing of the Saintess Vanira. This is the rite of oath taken upon becoming a guardian knight.

The church once used metal chains to bind the little demon's hands and feet. Now Safina begs for metal from the demons' homeland to be forged into armor, so that when she is laid to rest her homeland will still be at her side.

The Saintess of the Purity Palace church carefully washes the sin from the helm, devoutly offers a prayer to the divine, and with an age old miracle seals the place of the heart on the breastplate. The church does not believe in a demon's loyalty, but it does believe that doctrine has the power to cleanse all things. Safina silently fixes her gaze on the ancient rite that has handed her this duty.

The Saintess does not believe in the rite's original purpose. Nothing can cleanse sin.

“Dear Safina, a knight must protect her Saintess well!” Vanira leaned against Safina's breastplate and heard a heart pounding fiercely.

The regulation long boots of a Purity Palace church knight, with one simple word engraved on the heel: “Order”.

The Purity Palace church has fallen. Safina takes off the knight's iron boots and begins the long journey to the homeland of demons together with the Saintess Vanira.

At the Saintess's pleading, Safina let no Papal Knight carrying the madness leave the church, and the secret is kept in their hearts forever.

No one knows when it began, but everyone came to know a rumor: after being cast out by the church, a descendant of demons possessed the silent knight, and a wicked witch made the knight destroy the Pope's order… The rumor turned into “the truth”, and devout believers poured their despair and frenzy onto the silent knight, treating her as the culprit behind every sin.

Having lost any place to shelter, the Saintess proposed returning home.

“From here on I have become a witch, and you have gone back to being a demon.” Faced with Vanira's words, Safina could not deny it.