Chapter 85: More Answers
>>Ariston
The air in the underground temple was thick—humid with sweat, rancid with desperation.
The glow of flickering torches lined the damp stone wall. The ground beneath my boots was uneven, covered in a mixture of dust and broken bottles.
I moved carefully through the shifting mass of demons, eyes scanning the crowd, searching—for anyone, anyone at all, who seemed to have their senses intact.
But all I saw were hungry eyes, trembling hands, fevered whispers murmuring prayers to something unseen.
Abyss worshippers. Slaves to the black milk.
Useless.
There was no point in looking at the crowd, so I looked around the balconies. We had entered a balcony too through the door which was on the second floor, while the crowd of demons were on the ground floor.
I kept walking till the point I spotted someone. Standing at the temple’s edge, near a cracked pillar, was a lion demon.
Unlike the other demons here, he didn’t look desperate. He was on the first floor, mostly hidden from the view and seemed to be observing the situation. I could tell he was here as a guard or something along the lines of that.
He simply stood there, arms crossed, his posture rigid. His long mane of golden fur cascaded over his shoulders, but his eyes—his eyes were fixed on the hooded figure in the center of the chamber. Watching. Waiting.