Chapter 11
Moonlight spilled across Whitemere Lake, turning the water silver. Wind stirred the trees along the shore, setting the leaves whispering in the dark.
Lia and Gullos both wore cloaks. Before them stood a strange monster.
Its body resembled a platypus from Earth, but its legs and claws were longer, its fur shimmered with a dangerous sheen, and its eyes glowed red.
The people of Aurelia called this kind of monster a clawbill. But this one had been possessed by a lifeform from Hell and transformed into something new.
Most Awakened who knew of the Convergence of Planes understood one thing.
Hell was a spiritual plane.
Its lifeforms were energy beings—creatures woven from filth, pain, despair, and other corrupted spiritual forces.
When an infernal lifeform entered the material world, it grew stronger by harvesting souls and feeding on the spiritual energy born of negative emotion.
For them, entering the material world was like a starving man falling into a world made of food.
They would eat without stopping.
They would grow without stopping.
Their ultimate goal was to twist whatever material world they entered into another Hell. Once that happened, they could sacrifice the entire world and return to their own plane.
In other words, every intelligent lifeform in the material world was Hell's natural enemy.
Lia had never imagined Gullos would dare make contact with an infernal creature.
Worse, the two sides appeared to have struck some kind of bargain.
"I call it Quackers. Strange, isn't it? A wonderful name." Gullos pointed at the infernal creature standing in the shallows along Whitemere's shore, his voice growing more deranged with every word. "Quackers needs souls. I need the magical environment for my breakthrough."
Lia swallowed. Her glowing hair flickered nervously.
If you're working with something from Hell, why drag me into it?
The answer came soon enough.
Gullos leaned close, smug and sinister.
"My dear Lia, Vesserdali is a Fourth-tier Undying Archbishop. If the Church of Light discovers that you've been tainted by Hell..."
"Don't you dare—"
Lia tried to resist.
A blood-red flash passed through her body, and her mana was sealed tight.
"Heh heh heh..." Gullos laughed, utterly unafraid. "Unless you choose to kill yourself, you have no choice but to cooperate."
"You wish!" Fury blazed in Lia's eyes.
She was not one of those mad dogs from the Death Cult.
She was a Cleric of the Undying Court, a believer of the Undying God.
The Death Cult harvested the fear, pain, and despair common people felt toward death to fuel their progression.
The Undying Court sought to understand death's true nature. In their own eyes, they walked a proper path.
Which meant Lia and Gullos had no common ground whatsoever.
She was no cultist.
"Lia, imagine it." Gullos's voice turned hypnotic. "A town of ten thousand wiped from the map. Not only would I earn the God of Destruction's attention—you would bathe in the richest death aura imaginable."
He was trying to tempt her into corruption.
"Quackers only wants to harvest the souls of those wretches. Our interests don't conflict at all."
"Souls belong to death," Lia snapped. "They are Aurelia's offering to my god."
"Darkness and destruction are the end of all things," Gullos pressed. "So what if it's Hell? We worship destruction. We can destroy Hell too!"
"You're insane."
Lia had nothing more to say.
Divine power carried corruption, and gods like the God of Destruction or the God of Plague were especially prone to twisting their believers into madness.
Cases like Gullos were not rare.
The problem was that he had seized the opening created by the Convergence of Planes—and found an infernal creature willing to work with him.
What Lia couldn't figure out was why the monster had agreed.
Were infernal lifeforms really that intelligent?
"Quack... quack..."
The monster Gullos called Quackers opened its mouth, baring rows of needle-sharp teeth. Its call carried a surge of spiritual energy.
Its meaning arrived directly in Lia's mind.
We each get what we need.
After entering Aurelia, infernal lifeforms could possess low-intelligence monsters, and some retained the capacity to think.
This "platypus" was clearly one of the clever ones.
Lia nearly cried.
If she was tainted by Hell—she, the granddaughter of an Undying Archbishop—who would the Church of Light hunt?
The answer was obvious.
Even if Gullos pulled off his breakthrough, he'd be nothing but a Third-tier bit player.
The granddaughter of an Undying Archbishop in league with Hell?
That would be the real scandal.
Elise, come save me.
Lia no longer thought of Elise as a fallback plan.
Elise was her only hope of escape.
Even if you can't save me, at least let the Church of Light know I wrote that report.
As if in answer to her plea, just as the infernal clawbill cast a strand of magic onto Lia, a thunderous explosion rang out in the distance.
A violent surge of mana followed.
"The Church found the temporary camp?" Gullos froze, then chuckled softly. "Good. Once they've cleared Whitemere, they won't watch this place too closely."
He meant to hide right under the Church's nose.
But then he sensed a familiar aura from the direction of the battle.
His brow tightened.
A familiar face surfaced from the depths of his memory.
He whispered, "Sylvia? Is that you, my dear niece?"
"Sylvia!"
A shrill cry tore through the chaos of battle.
"All things end in destruction," Gullos murmured. "Even the illusion of family."
His emotions stirred for only a moment. Then he turned to Lia.
"Come."
Lia didn't want to go.
But she had no strength to resist.
After the two of them vanished once more, the Church of Light finished clearing the black-market camp near Whitemere.
Several knights and Clerics lay dead before the Second-tier Grand Knight who had led the team. Grief settled over Whitemere like fog.
At the same time, the infernal creature sank silently into the lake.
Its red eyes flashed once beneath the water, then disappeared.
...
Another morning came.
"Mew..."
As usual, Tymis woke Elise.
She rubbed the little creature's head and plump wings, fed it a cluster of spiritual energy, then went to the washstand to clean her face and rinse her mouth.
But when she opened her door, something felt immediately wrong.
Her heart sank.
Did someone else die?
Megalith City's Church of Light had lost several Clerics and knights recently.
Every time someone was martyred, the Awakened living in the Academy of Light's dormitories felt the weight of it.
Those close to the dead grieved more deeply.
Those less familiar could only pray in silence.
But what unsettled Elise was this:
Normally, when she opened her door, even if Lina wasn't waiting outside, she would at least call out from her room.
Today, Lina was nowhere to be seen.
No sound came from Sylvia's or Anna's rooms either.
Surely all three of them hadn't overslept.
"Lina."
Elise walked to Lina's door and knocked.
No answer.
She knocked on Sylvia's door, then Anna's.
Still silence.
"Sister Elise."
A Church colleague nearby noticed her and came over, speaking softly.
"Sylvia returned to God's embrace last night."
"This..."
For a moment, Elise had no idea what to say.
Her first meeting with Sylvia rose in her mind. Back then, Elise had pegged her as noble-faction and kept her distance.
Later, as they spoke more often, she'd formed a new impression of the young noble-born Awakened.
They might disagree on the Church's future path, but their blood ran just as warm. Those who truly believed in the Light were still kind at heart.
Lately, Elise's relationship with Sylvia and the others had been genuinely good.
And now Sylvia was dead?
Why?
Weren't Church missions supposed to be relatively safe?
Elise had run so many missions recently without once meeting real danger.
Her mood sank. Skipping breakfast, she left the dormitory and walked in silence to the Church.
Inside Megalith Cathedral, several coffins had been laid before the altar and the statue of the Light God.
The god's compassionate gaze seemed to rest upon the believers He had called home.
Sylvia's relatives, members of the baronial House Sennett, stood before one of the coffins with heads bowed in mourning.
"Elise."
Lina's face was pale and drawn, her voice thick with grief.
"Sylvia has left us forever."
"What happened?"
The question slipped out on instinct.
Then Elise's voice turned bitter.
"No. First, we should see Sylvia off to the divine kingdom."
"We should," Anna said, walking over. "Sylvia deserves a stairway of light."
"Elise, this wasn't your fault," Lina said, clearly worried she would blame herself. "It was a Church mission."
Not my fault?
Of course it wasn't my fault.
But the mission came from the report Lia sent me.
I did nothing wrong.
That doesn't make this easier.
If I had advanced to Prime Cleric, would I have qualified to leave the city and join that mission?
With my strength, could I have made a difference for Sylvia in that battle?
Maybe.
Elise opened her system interface.
I'm done waiting for the perfect breakthrough opportunity.
I will reach Prime Cleric as soon as possible.