Chapter 166
Chapter 166: Blood Pool
***
...All dead.
Tanis, the clergy, all of them. Every single one, dead... dead in such a wretched way. Like a pile of useless rotting meat, tossed deep into this lightless cellar, quietly waiting to decay.
My stomach kept turning over and over.
The sick feeling that came after vomiting washed over me, and my eyes blurred with tears, smearing Tanis's cold, rigid face into an indistinct shape.
I turned my head away, unwilling to look at her anymore, unwilling to spare another glance at those corpses.
I was afraid I'd find more familiar faces among them.
Just who...
The question formed in my mind, but in my heart, the answer had already been there.
I had to go confirm it with my own eyes.
I wiped my mouth, smearing away the thin line of saliva that had dripped down the corner of my lips, then turned around. My right hand gripped Captain Grey tightly as I walked at a brisk pace toward the light at the far end.
Faintly, I could make out what looked like a half-open wooden door up ahead. Not long ago, when the lights around me hadn't been lit yet, in that darkness, the flicker of fire I'd spotted had been leaking through the gap in that door... Though it wasn't nearly as obvious now, someone had to be inside, or at the very least, something was.
Be careful. Go take a look...
My feet kept moving. I fixed my gaze on the door's position, and after walking a stretch, a crumbling, shrieking cry suddenly rang out.
"Cough cough... urgh... AAAARGH—!"
I jolted to a halt.
The sound had clearly come from beyond the door, some man in there screaming his throat raw.
"Is anyone there, is anyone there—!"
"Come quick, save me, someone save me! SAVE US—!"
...There were still people alive in there!
The moment I realized this, I instinctively lunged forward several quick strides, then immediately caught myself, sensing something was wrong, and forced my feet to stop. I drew a deep breath, suppressing the desperate urge to run in and save someone, forcing myself to stay calm.
Don't be reckless... Sylvia... The more critical the moment, the more you need to hold steady.
This cellar had been completely silent right up until just now, so why would someone suddenly cry for help at this exact moment? It was obviously a trap. The enemy might be hiding somewhere close by. I needed to be careful.
With that in mind, I slowed my steps as much as I could. Both hands gripped Captain Grey at the hilt, body slightly crouched, nerves wound tight and ready to swing a slash at a moment's notice.
1 step... 2 steps...
"Help—! There are people alive in here! HELP!"
"I don't want to die—!"
That voice had gone hoarse from screaming. I could clearly feel the despair of whoever was calling out.
But I couldn't let it move me.
The enemy I was facing had killed Tanis in a single blow. If she truly intended to kill whoever was crying for help in there, how could she possibly let him scream out this much nonsense... Without a doubt, she was luring me in.
"Somebody help—"
As if I'd fall for that so easily...
"Save us..."
"THE CHILDREN—!"
The children...
My feet, by reflex, stepped forward 2 more paces.
Then "bzzzm—" my head went blank.
What... what did he say... No, I won't fall for it... This is the enemy's scheme... How could the children possibly be... But that little lover said Elle had left... so many people had left... No, it's impossible, it can't be... she's not that kind of person... this must be a trick...
...To hell with the trick!
Whoosh—
I launched into Moon Step in an instant.
The walls beside me streaked backward in my vision, the lanterns along them blurring into a single line of light. The black skirt below me whipped and billowed wildly, sweeping up a gale that snuffed out 2 entire rows of candles left behind me.
Clattering... clatter... CLANG!
Captain Grey in my hand, amid the tiny spinning of gears, shifted at speed into a pitch-black spear, razor-edged and menacing.
I locked both hands on the hilt, leaned my body back, and slid low — the spear tip leveled and horizontal tore through the air with a sharp, piercing shriek, riding the enormous forward momentum of Moon Step, thrusting straight ahead.
BANG—!!
The wooden door exploded to splinters in an instant.
Crash, crash...
Amid the flying debris, I flashed into the room, sliding forward another 4 or 5 meters on inertia before barely managing to stop. Then my left hand slammed the floor, and I flipped lightly to the side, planting my feet back under me. Captain Grey rang out once more in my grip, the great blade snapped back, and in the blink of an eye it shifted back into scythe form.
I raised it high above me, my wary gaze sweeping the room from left to right: blue-brick walls, lamp fixtures, a bloodstained wooden table, a heap of empty bottles scattered everywhere, a floor riddled with gouges... No sign of the enemy, but someone sitting over there... it was the top-hat man, still alive... behind him lay a number of people... no, wait, bodies... severed heads... and so much...blood...
...Nothing but blood.
The scene inside the room slowly took shape in my mind.
My gaze gradually went blank.
What is this...
What... is this...
In that moment, I stood before a great pool brimming with fresh blood, my mind completely empty.
I didn't know what I was looking at. It was something entirely beyond my comprehension. All I could do, clumsily, was replay the hellish scene before my eyes through my mind once more.
Time seemed to freeze.
I saw dark red blood splattered across every wall of the room.
The stone floor beneath my feet was covered in jagged gashes, hacked and smashed into it by something, with fragments of flesh and not-yet-dried blood caked along every edge.
Charles, the top-hat man who should have long since been taken to the underground prison, was curled up on the ground to my right, not far away.
His clothes were in tatters. His face was deathly pale. His whole body shook like a leaf, and his sunken eyes stared at me in terror, his cracked and peeling lips trembling, as though he wanted to say something. And behind him, I saw dozens of corpses.
Every one of those bodies had been beheaded, then carelessly stacked on top of each other — their frames looked so small and shriveled, like malnourished children.
No... they were children.
And then I saw their heads, piled up on the other side of the room. Among them, the first one I spotted was Abel, because his head had been placed on top, positioned so that it faced directly toward me.
Abel's eyes were wide open. Strands of hair were matted together by blood, clumped and stiff on top of his head. His expression was twisted — twisted enough that I could read the emotion on his face from the moment he died.
He must have been terrified. And in so much pain.
Then I saw Lucas's head. I almost didn't recognize him — his mouth had been split open from the jaw down. It looked like someone had brought something down with too much force and simply cracked it apart... I was certain that's what happened.
I... I couldn't bring myself to keep looking.
My hands and feet had gone ice cold, my heart trembling. It was as if all the blood in my body had stopped moving, and even breathing had become difficult.
The whole room reeked of iron, and faintly mixed in was the smell of alcohol.
Then I turned my violently shaking, out-of-focus gaze toward the blood pool directly in front of me.
I saw that along the edge of the square pool, a small headless body was slumped over, its neck wound trickling red liquid down into the pool below.
And soaking inside the blood pool was a blackened spinal column... I couldn't tell what creature it belonged to. It was enormous, enormous enough to nearly fill the entire pool.
The spinal column was trembling faintly.
Because of its trembling, the blood in the pool moved as though it had come alive, writhing, simmering, surging upward over the spinal column, gradually condensing there into deep-crimson beads.
I couldn't make sense of what I was seeing.
I just stood rooted to the spot, at a complete loss.
The next moment, time resumed its flow.
Beside me, Charles forced his mouth open and screamed out with great effort: "Watch your head—"
He was too late.
A massive black axe, trailing a thunderous boom, came crashing straight down toward my skull.