In a hall deep underground, thick, ancient stone walls stretched in every direction, rows of torches casting only the barest light, leaving the space steeped in gloom.
Massive columns ringed the hall on every side, and at its center stood an altar streaked with crimson blood, wrapped in layered radiance. At the altar's heart rose a massive cross, carved with the likeness of the True Creator, and bound tightly beneath it — Lanevus.
He struggled in furious terror, shouting curses, all of it useless. Just as he'd once treated his "fiancée" as nothing more than a tool, months ago, he had now become someone else's tool in turn.
Seven or eight hooded figures knelt around the altar. Only one man stood before them — black-robed, cold-faced, his dark eyes deep enough to seem like they held countless untold things. This was the Aurora Order's Sage of Secrets, Butis.
Suddenly, Butis spread his arms wide, letting spirituality pour madly into the altar before him. Instantly, streams of dim gray light radiated out from him, spreading toward the kneeling figures around the hall.
"My Lord! With my blood, my flesh, my soul, I beg for Your descent!"
Everyone cried out at once, ecstatic, fanatical, their skin rapidly shriveling as if drained of all flesh and blood, leaving nothing but skin over bone — like corpses withered by years of decay.
But even as they died, they kept crying out in wild excitement, willingly offering themselves up for their Lord.
Thud, thud, thud.
As the figures dropped one after another to the floor, ghostly, translucent silhouettes began surfacing within the light surrounding Butis, radiating numbness, despair, agony, and suppressed anguish.
Then, from above the entire hall, streams of radiance poured down through the empty air, racing along the stone pillars, the floor, even the air itself — all etched with symbols and magical markings — flooding rapidly into the altar.
Butis's eyes stayed coldly indifferent throughout, showing none of the madness and fervor the others displayed. As a man who had betrayed the Abraham family and joined the Aurora Order midway through his life, he was, at his core, an opportunist.
He held no particularly strong faith in the True Creator. His real reason for joining the Aurora Order was simply that it offered him advantages.
Just like now — the real reason he was holding this descent ritual was the "Wanderer" Beyonder Characteristic the Loen royal family had promised him.
Butis half-raised both arms, opening them wide, and called out loudly in Ancient Hermetic:
"Lord who created all things;
"Master behind the veil of shadow;
"The fallen nature of all living beings.
"Your devoted believer prays for Your descent;
"Through the vessel of Your choosing, to bear the weight of Your great will!"
Amid the prayer, a light suddenly descended from some unknown place above Lanevus's head, enveloping him completely. The unwilling resentment and accumulated negative emotion given form by the figures around him surged inward like a tide, pouring into his body.
In an instant, Lanevus's left chest, shoulders, abdomen, thighs, and more began to writhe, sticky, revolting flesh churning at each spot, carrying a suffocating divine power that spread rapidly outward.
"No! NO!!!"
Lanevus was seized with terror. He could feel it clearly — some terrifying force was consuming his body, his spirituality, his very soul, bit by bit; he could feel a consciousness that wasn't his own steadily growing stronger inside him, gradually replacing him.
Butis dropped abruptly to his knees, slamming his forehead hard against the floor. "We welcome Your descent, great Lord, creator of all things!"
BOOM!
Suddenly, a deafening roar erupted, and a pitch-black opening tore through the center of the bronze doors of the stone hall, its edges corroding outward at tremendous speed.
A stench of rot poured in through the opening, along with something like black sludge — this "black sludge" gushed in steadily from the hole, rapidly gathering together to form a "monster" covered head to toe in severed limbs, wrapped in black armor.
"Butis!"
The black-armored monster let out a furious roar. "You're going to die!!!"
RUMBLE!
The next instant, this massive creature lunged at Butis with a speed that made no sense for its size.
Butis blinked rapidly, conjuring one illusory door after another to block the monster's advance — the ritual couldn't afford to fail before the descent was complete.
Just then, Butis caught sight of the eerie face on the creature's body and blurted out, stunned: "Mr. Z?"
...
The East District — normally the busiest street in the city — now lay utterly desolate.
A pale yellow fog drifted through the air, tinged with a faintly choking odor, cold and damp, spreading slowly outward. Left unchecked, it would eventually reach the docklands, the factory district, and finally all of Backlund.
Everything in the distance was "drowned" beneath it — even the towering clock tower had faded to a pale silhouette. Workers, the poor, one after another began feeling ill, dropping in sickness, one after another, like stalks of grain at harvest, cut down in batches by the swing of death's scythe.
The Lady of Despair walked among the crowd with a calm, gentle expression, as if she were putting the finishing touches on a work of art. She moved unhurriedly, the corner of her mouth curving slightly, murmuring:
"History will remember this day in the Kingdom of Loen:
"The Great Backlund Fog."
And once this was done, she would finish fully processing the Despair Witch's potion, receive the Sequence 3 potion granted by the Witch cult, and complete her own ascension.
From then on, she'd have a vastly extended lifespan, become far harder to kill, and gain a real shot at rising into the upper ranks.
At the thought, the smile at Panatia's lips widened even further.
"!!!"
Suddenly, she felt the spirituality within her body shudder violently, every cell in her seeming to boil over in that instant. She looked up on reflex — just in time to see a streak of crimson light hurtling straight at her.
"What—"
Before she could even process what was happening, the blood-red Spear of Longinus had already run her through, pinning her savagely into the ground.
Crack!
Panatia's body shattered with a snap, dissolving into shards of broken mirror scattered across the ground, while her true self leapt clear, over ten meters away, the muscles of her face trembling with fright: she'd come within a hair of not even managing to activate her "stand-in" in time before that blood-colored spear nailed her to death.
She wasn't unfamiliar with this move — it was unmistakably that Mr. A of the Aurora Order.
But wasn't the Aurora Order supposed to be cooperating with the Witch cult? Why was he suddenly attacking her?
"Oh, she's playing the victim now, is she? Did she completely forget teaming up with Loen and the Psychic Alchemy Society to try to kill me last time?"
Vincent pulled a scroll from inside his coat, channeling spirituality into it as he threw it, and instantly thick vapor condensed in midair, coalescing into pea-sized water droplets that began to fall.
Panatia's expression shifted. With a sweep of her hand, she fired off a spray of nearly invisible spider silk threads toward Vincent — deceptively delicate-looking, but in fact extraordinarily tough, each thread wreathed in black flame, carrying the deadliest plagues and curses, and even capable of stirring a target's emotions through the silk itself, delivering a false sense of euphoria.
But the threads passed straight through Vincent's body as though he were nothing but an illusion. Vincent instead lunged forward, closing the distance to Panatia, speaking the Words of Order:
"You have killed."
"You are guilty."
Murderers face death.
To be continued…
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