Chapter 121: Stitched Eye
Silence.
Peaceful, lovely, silence.
I washed my gaze over the cavern; no dripping white limbs, no screeching, no hounding...
Sighing heftily, I planted my hand over my wildly beating heart. It thumped erratically in the depths of my chest, pumping Curses all over my body through my reconstructed Cursed Vessels.
Step.
Esme stepped through the entrance moments later. Standing by my side, Esme nodded and walked onwards into the cavern.
Her destination:
The Canary.
It loomed over the cavern in the distance. Its vast structure bore down on the rest of the constructed buildings in the cavern; in comparison to them, it seemed like a giant standing beside ants.
Incomparable.
Clad in ebony, grey, and white, the body of The Canary shimmered with unprecedented integrity. The ebony sails of the ship swayed gently along with the warm breeze oozing throughout the cavern.
It was almost no longer encased in stone.
Only the bow of the ship, and not just the bow, but the very tip of the bow, remained in the confines of stone.
Distant voices hissed through the empty cavern. There were no echoes, oddly enough.
I followed behind Esme towards the distant Canary. Everyone was waiting for us over there. Even Hilda had decided not to wait around for us and rushed over to mess around with presumably Yulei.
That is, unless she had made other friends among the cohort. Which would be ideal-
Not Hildy.
As long as it's not Hildekar, Elden, and Jill, then I'm happy~
Humming with my poor singing voice, it was only a few minutes before both of us arrived below the towering ship. Tucking Lily well, Esme tapped the soles of her feet on the hull of The Canary and quickly jumped up to the top.
I followed suit by reinforcing my body with Curses and hopped up. My coordination was slacking, but it was to be expected. I hadn't had the opportunity to use my body properly in many, many years.
Landing on the quarterdeck-
"Yay!"
-a faceful of breast smashed into my cheeks, crushing me beneath the tender weights.
"Oy. Stop." My voice came out muffled as I tapped Hilda's shoulder; not that I'm not enjoying it, but this isn't the time and place for it.
"Oops." Cheekily smacking her head, Hilda backed off instantly. If there's one aspect that's saving me, it's Hilda's obedience. Training it up was a hassle, but repeatedly admonishing, ordering, and rewarding her landed me in a positive feedback loop whereby, in the end, she'd become willing to listen to my orders no matter what.
Not every order, obviously, but the majority.
If I want it to be for every order...
Hehe.
I'd need to punish her.
Ahem.
Anyways, putting those messy, naughty thoughts aside, I tapped Hilda's waist and stepped past her.
The three main ebony-drenched masts soared upwards over fifty meters into the sky. Clad in similarly-coloured sails, The Canary displayed its awe and magnificence in simple yet luxurious manners.
No gems were embedded into its hull, nor were there any fancy decors scattered across The Canary, yet the mere perfection of its hull, the sleek wood, the form-fitting stone cuts... Each aspect exuded luxury.
Spotting the rest of the cohort standing at the bow of the ship, and Esme, who had just joined them, I hopped down the stairs, ran across the body of the ship, and stepped up the small deck to join the rest.
"Why did it take a while, though?" Arriving, I heard Nemora chatting away with Esme.
"Hilda had issues to deal with, and Alora and I decided to take a tour around Luminary City and a couple of other locations before coming over. It'll be the last time we're here, after all. I wanted to embed the memory of this land into my mind."
"And by 'embed the memory', you mean to remind yourself of what you'd be leaving behind?"
But, Esme rejected that notion, "No, I truly wanted to embed the land into my memory. I wanted to check whether or not I'd missed anything due to Authority after we leave the Domain of Light. Everything looks normal, is normal, but I can't know whether it is normal until we see."
Nemora tapped her chin, "But, that's proof enough, no? The fact that I can tell you that it's 'proof enough' is also proof. We're being allowed to test these theories; if they wanted to, we wouldn't even be able to have these thoughts."
This time, I quipped, "Nemora is right. There's no way to know if the fact that you wanted to check it out is even your own idea or one implanted in you. And me being able to say this out loud is already suspicious on its own. Even being able to think of it is suspicious."
Both girls looked my way as they listened for a second. Esme, having heard enough, decided to cut our conversations there and then, "Let's not waste time on meaningless chatter. We can't know, we won't know, until we reach their strength. Till then, it's meaningless to think of all of this."
"Esme is right. Shut the fuck up and get to work already, you retards." With her arms crossed and brows furrowed just enough to add an unhinged allure to her pretty face, Vanessa clicked her tongue then glared over at the innocently standing Hildekar, "You fucking heard me, unseal The Canary already."
"Fine, fine, I heard you." Shaking his head, Hildekar walked past the cohort, glanced over at Yulei, who had her white crown donned unbeknownst to others.
Only I could see that terrible Curse-clad Soul in the form of a crown.
Yulei, Lily, and Vanessa are only temporarily on the deck. Yulei was up here still for the sake of the crown; we weren't sure what it was needed for. Lily, because if anything infiltrated the cabins while we were all out here, she'd die. And Vanessa, because, well, no one could tell Vanessa to go down there early to make sure nothing snuck in.
I was, however, confident that everything would be fine.
Not because nothing would attempt to infiltrate, but because if they did...
I glanced over at Esme; I don't think they'd survive longer than a few seconds. Not unless a Profaned Heathen attacked us.
Anything lesser, be it an Awakened Heathen, Initial Step, Defiler Heathen, First Step or Fallen Heathen, Second Step, stands no chance against us.
This isn't me being cocky.
Nor is it me being arrogant.
These are just facts.
Everyone here has been trained by monsters.
Just Hilda, alone, was trained by Giliard, the Commander of the Sanctified Knights. Let alone Esme, whom our mother and the Maiden trained up.
The rest I can't be too sure about, but I could trust in Esme's confidence in them.
Nevertheless, half a minute later, Hildekar stood atop the ebony bow of The Canary with a sleek, grey layer of stone coating the tip. The latter half of the tip was hidden within a small outcrop of ashen rock, the final layer to be removed before The Canary could be freed.
Turning back to look at us, he ran his gaze over the cohort.
Over Jill and Elden, who stood side-by-side, dressed in form-fitting black uniforms built for combat with flexible, metal padding at their shoulders, calves, thighs, chest, and forearms. Nothing heavy, but enough to block some base damage. The former stood at just over 6 feet tall, and the other just under.
Their bodies had grown considerably, having shed a significant portion of their youthfulness as they approached full maturity.
They weren't there yet, though.
Beside Jill and Elden stood Nemora, Vanessa, and Yulei in her wheelchair. The girls had all grown wonderfully. Nemora wore a male-esque suit built from tough, flexible fabric with hints of metal peeking from underneath her layers
Vanessa, on the other hand, wore full, dark grey light armour over a black leather outfit.
But Hildekar paid no attention to them before pushing his vision behind them, towards Esme, Lily, Hilda, and me.
Hildekar took a deep breath, plucked a small pick out of his toolbelt, and then turned to face the outcrop of stone.
"Here goes nothing."
Taking a deep breath, he pulled his arm back and swung with graceful force-
Clang!
-and shattered the final sealant.
The rock crumbled apart and fell over the bow of The Canary. It tumbled down the vessels' hull and into the dark, far, far below us.
Taking a step back, Hildekar's torso stopped blocking the tip of the bow and revealed what had been hidden moments ago: an indentation of a crown hovered within the engraving of an eye that had been sealed shut with stitching.
Everyone turned their gazes to Yulei.
The crown could only mean one thing: a key.
The key out of the Domain of Light; the Crucible of Light.
Stepping behind Yulei's wheelchair, Vanessa rolled her over as close to the bow as possible, then she transitioned over to the front and picked her up. Cradling Yulei, her pale-beigh hair curtained over her arms as Vanessa stepped onto the bow and past Hildekar; she arrived before the indentation of a three-pronged crown.
Pushing Yulei closer to the indentation, Vanessa turned her head back towards us.
She grinned:
"You ready, fuckers?"
Timing it perfectly with Vanessa's comment, Yulei clicked the crown that only she and I could see into the slot.
For a moment, all of us fell into silence.
Then-
Crack.
A web of cracks ruptured from the centre of the crown and across the tapestry of a sealed, stitched eye.
"Hold tight." Nemora warned us, but none needed the warning.
Flickers of Blessings pranced all over the cohort; a collection of Manifestations that I wasn't welcome to lay my eyes upon. Wiping my hands together off the sweat, I summoned my Book of Heresy and grasped it in my right hand.
Here goes nothing.
Gulping-
Crack!
-I watched as the tapestry shattered once and for all.
Then...
Then...
"..."
Then came the sound of waves.
Of crashing, bellowing waves.
A soul-numbing coldness soon bound itself over my limbs, tightening its hold on me.
And, worst of all-
Nothing.
I can see nothing.
-it happened instantaneously.
The darkness.
The Sunless Skies were upon us.