CHAPTER 54— AFTER THE BELLS
The bells rang at noon.
Once. Twice.
Then they stopped mid-chime.
Inside the Papal villa, the body was discovered an hour later.
No signs of battle. No shattered marble. No holy arrays burned into the floor.
The Pope lay on his back beside the basin, eyes open, expression caught somewhere between disbelief and sleep.
His chest was hollow.
Not torn. Not mutilated.
Simply empty. The Greed Core was gone.
Word did not spread publicly. It never would.
The Vatican sealed the chamber within minutes. Cardinals whispered. Elites searched for traces of intrusion and found none.
No residue of demonic energy.
No lingering corruption. No broken wards.
It was as if authority itself had been politely removed.
Across the city, in a hidden lab beneath a tower of black glass and muted gold, a woman set down her wine. The faint hum of machinery and the hiss of cooling chambers filled the space. Crimson Six did not look at the messenger kneeling before her.
"Repeat it."
"The Pope is dead," the messenger said carefully. "No signs of forced entry. No spiritual disturbance detected."
A pause.
"And the Core?"
"Gone."
That made her sigh.Not anger.Not grief.
Just a silent calculation as if she had expected it.
"He lasted less than I projected."
She said as she glanced at the messenger that has brought her such I formation...and the identity was a shocking one...the same figure that had led leylin to the pope,the same one that had given him I formation about the greed core... Selene..she knelt there now,head bowed and motionless beneath hood she wore as something about her seemed different now...her gaze, didn't contain that faint spark of life..but was hollow, more like a robot awaiting orders
Turning,She walked toward a steel console, overlooking a series of observation monitors. Crime syndicates, corporate dynasties, underground sects, relic brokers ..all threads knotted quietly in her fingers. The Pope had been one such thread.
Useful.Predictable.
Greed was easy to manipulate.
She tapped the console lightly.
"So he finally moved."
The messenger hesitated. "You believe it was him?"
Crimson Six smiled faintly.
"There is only one being arrogant enough to reclaim my fragments without announcing it."
She turned.
Her expression was calm.
Strategic.
"Mobilize the Red Choir."
The messenger's head snapped up.
"All of them?"
"All of them."
The Red Choir were not priests.
They were not soldiers.
They were instruments.
Children taken young, raised in doctrine and discipline, each bonded to relic shards carved from forgotten wars. Not Sin Cores .. lesser things ,but still enough to carve cities open.
"And the Black Archive?" the messenger asked.
"Yes. Release three."
A flicker of hesitation.
"Three is excessive."
Crimson Six's eyes sharpened.
"Leylin does not die to numbers. He dies to pressure."
She walked back to her chair and lifted her wine again.
"This is not a battle. It is containment."
The messenger bowed and left.
Crimson Six turned back to the center of the lab. A long slab of black steel stretched before her, wires and tubes connecting to a body beneath a translucent cover. Steam rose from the chamber.
She lifted the cover.
The figure beneath was uncanny.
Every line, every shadow of muscle, every sharpness of bone ..it resembled Leylin. The features were identical. Only the eyes were closed.
Podiums and shelves along the walls held others. Dozens. Hundreds. Each in its own chamber. Each an experiment. Each a reflection of him.
Not copies. Not clones. Experiments. Variations. Potentialities. The obsession of decades, collected and cataloged.
She reached down, adjusting a gauge on the main slab. The body twitched, responding to some unseen stimulus. Crimson Six smiled faintly.
"Pressure reveals structure. Structure reveals hierarchy," she murmured.
Outside, sirens began wailing across distant districts as sealed vaults opened beneath cathedrals, banks, museums, forgotten monasteries. Hidden doors unlocking. Ancient weapons unsealed. In underground chambers, red-robed figures opened their eyes in unison.
Crimson Six watched the city move like a living organism responding to infection.
"Let us finish this little squabble," she murmured.
Not rage.
Not panic.
Just annoyance at a disruption in her timeline.
Far away, on a quiet rooftop overlooking the Vatican's distant spires, Leylin stood with the Greed Core resting loosely in his palm.
The city below stirred.
Mobilized.
Predictable.
He did not smile.
He simply closed his fingers around the Core.
"Good," he said softly.
The hunt was no longer about fragments.
It was about who believed they owned them.
Behind him, the wind shifted.
Not natural.but anticipating the eminent clash of titans..as the begining of the end,bad finally begun