Chapter 40: The False Descent
"This the main hall?" Elina whispered, peering around the heavy stone pillar.
It was massive. Racks of glowing soul stones sat nested beneath towering, weathered statues, while two hooded acolytes shuffled between the altar tables, setting out instruments for a grand ceremony. Outside, lightning slammed into the courtyard again and again, thunder rattling the leaded windows and vibrating right through the stone floor.
"Yeah," Alina breathed, her knuckles white around her spear shaft. "We have to break it up before they start."
Elina ground her teeth. "If they actually anchor a god here, we're all dead. Best case scenario, it flattens the province and leaves. Worst case, it doesn't. We can't let that ritual finish."
"Can a human even channel something like that?"
"I don't know," Elina muttered, wiping sweat from her forehead. "But they look pretty damn sure."
They traded a quick nod. No more talking.
Elina dropped low, slipping into the shadows along the perimeter wall. The acolyte on the right walked over to a supply shelf, picked up a glass jar of white salt, frowned at it, and set it back down.
Now.
Elina closed the distance in three silent strides. Before the acolyte could turn, her left hand clamped over their mouth, smothering the gasp. The cultist thrashed wildly, nails digging into Elina's forearms, but Elina held fast. A sharp, precise strike to the side of the neck cut the struggle short. The body went limp. Elina caught the weight and lowered the cultist softly to the tile.
On the other side of the room, Alina stalked behind the second acolyte. As the figure turned toward a candle rack, Alina snatched a thick oak beam leaning against the wall and swung.
Thud!
The acolyte folded like a sack of grain. Alina grabbed the collar before the body hit the floor, dragging it silently behind a stone podium.
With the underlings down, they met at the central altar. The setup was meticulous. Horns, carved ivory bowls, silver knives, and rows of black candles, all lined up with unnerving precision. It didn't look like a dark ritual. It looked like a banquet setting for a king.
"These guys are completely insane," Alina muttered, her stomach turning.
"Destroying the stones is our best shot," Elina whispered, pointing at the glowing blue crystals resting beneath the main statue. "No human has the mana pool to anchor a divine entity on their own. The stones are their battery."
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Before they could draw their steel, footsteps echoed down the nave.
Fast and Heavy.
Both girls ducked behind the nearest set of pillars as Rowen and Dally strode into the hall.
"Where are those two idiots?" Rowen snapped, sweeping his gaze across the altar area.
"I don't know," Dally replied, his voice tense.
Rowen cursed, kicking a small wooden stool out of his path. "Whatever. We're running out of daylight. Start the prep."
"If those damn circles hadn't failed and released the wild stock, we'd be done by now," Rowen grumbled under his breath. The smooth, cold composure he usually carried was gone, replaced by a twitching, desperate edge. He was sweating through his collar.
He stepped into the center of the massive floor array, threw his arms wide, and began to chant in a language that sounded like grinding metal.
The carved runes burst into a harsh, crimson glare.
The air in the chamber instantly turned heavy as lead. A suffocating pressure crashed down, making every breath feel like inhaling sand.
Alina and Elina looked at each other. They didn't need to speak. If he finished that sequence, it was over.
Alina stepped out from behind the pillar and summoned her green spear into her palm. She didn't target Rowen. She wound back and hurled the weapon straight at the primary Soul Stone resting under the altar, the massive crystal recovered from Gross Rose's lair.
The spear cut through the air in a blur of emerald light.
Crash!
The crystal exploded into a shower of useless, inert dust.
Rowen’s chant cracked on the final syllable. He stumbled back, grabbing his head. "What?!"
Dally turned, his eyes bulging. "You damned insects!"
Dally raised his hands, hurling a barrage of dark magic bolts across the room. Alina and Elina scattered, diving behind the thick stone pillars as blasts of dark mana blew chunks of masonry into the air.
But Rowen didn't stop. He swallowed the backlash, spat blood onto the floor, and forced the final words of the invocation through his teeth.
The entire church shook to its foundation.
Lightning ripped through the stained-glass windows, blinding white light washing over the hall. Then... something pressed its way into the room.
It had arrived.
At first, it was just a massive, dark outline standing over the altar. But staring at it made the eyes ache. Its shape refused to stay solid. Every time a heart beat, the form tore apart and put itself back together wrong.
One second it was a cluster of long, grey arms reaching toward the rafters. The next, those arms dissolved into a wet, writhing mound of gray flesh covered in open, unblinking yellow eyes. It felt impossibly close and miles away all at once.
Looking directly at it turned their vision swimming and black, the human mind violently rejecting the geometry of what stood in front of them.
The air screamed.
Not a wind, the literal space in the room let out a tearing, high-pitched screech as hair-thin black cracks spiderwebbed through the air around the shape. A pressure far worse than magic slammed down, flattening the dust on the floor.
It wasn't malice. It was just reality buckling under something that didn't belong in it.
Alina's knees buckled, her spear slipping an inch in her sweaty palm. Elina's grip on her broadsword trembled, her instincts screaming a single, primal command: Run. Hide. Don't let it see you.
The shifting mass slowly turned toward them. It had no head, no face, no eyes on its main trunk, yet both of them felt the weight of its gaze lock onto their chests.
"Shit!" Rowen screamed, his voice cracking with pure, desperate rage. "You stupid, arrogant fools!"
He pointed a shaking, bloody hand at the writhing horror above the altar.
"Look at what you've done!" he howled. "Because of you... it's incomplete!"
Neither Elina nor Alina could move to hit him. They couldn't even speak.
They just stood frozen in the burning hall, eyes wide, staring up at a god that had arrived wrong.