Chapter 94: When the Flower of Sin Blooms (Part Seven)
“The corpse and the chairs have been moved.”
Sword Demon Miss said to me, holding a torch and stepping forward.
“I see.”
I naturally noticed what she mentioned.
The benches were haphazardly piled in one corner of the hall, but they should have been blocking the entire wall. In the center of the wall was a heavy, locked iron door, but the lock had been violently broken, and the door stood ajar, with a pile of chaotic footprints on the ground.
And the already-dead, grotesque corpse had also been moved to the right side against the wall, not far from the heap of chairs, lying side by side. One of the corpses even sported a shiny golden cross medal on its face.
You could tell with your backside that these were the doings of the knights that came before us.
“They went inside.”
I said, striding forward, skirting by the Sword Demon Miss who was inspecting the footprints, and moved right up to the iron door. After a moment’s thought, I simply reached out and pushed the door open.
Creeeak, creeeak, clunk, clunk, clunk!
My five fingers gently pressed against the icy rusty metal, and with just a slight push, the heavy iron door let out a loud and piercing sound, as if something heavy had crashed into it. With a bang, by the time I registered it, the door was already swung open halfway.
“…Ah.”
I startled myself.
The booming sound of the door echoed through the empty hall, and I noticed Sword Demon Miss immediately snapped alert, quickly darting behind the door, positioning her sword defensively in front of her, sporting a face full of vigilance.
Uh-oh…
I must have pushed too hard…
But I didn’t use that much strength, did I?
Just a gentle nudge…
“……”
“……”
One second, two seconds passed.
As the sounds settled down, Sword Demon Miss slowly relaxed her defensive stance. She shot me a puzzled look, not saying a word. I blinked back, giving her an innocent and dazed expression, shrugging and spreading my hands to signify I didn’t do it on purpose.
That noise was definitely too large…
If those knights were still around, they’d definitely hear us, knowing someone was following behind…
Hmm…
But so what?
It’s not like it’s a big deal…
As the thought flashed through my mind, in the flickering firelight, Sword Demon Miss and I exchanged glances. Although we both understood we weren’t too concerned about whether the knights would discover us, who knew what other things might be lurking in this pitch-black church.
So for quite some time, neither of us spoke, both listening intently to the sounds around us.
But…
We didn’t hear anything.
The entire building was silent, a dead silence.
Gradually, Sword Demon Miss fully dropped her vigilance, flipping her sword around in her grip, and I saw her action and immediately relaxed my guard as well.
“No sound?”
“……”
“That shouldn’t be…”
“……”
“Such a loud noise, how could it not be noticed…”
Unless…
Unless the knights have all turned into corpses.
At this thought, a bad premonition flickered in my heart. After letting out a soft breath, I focused my gaze on the darkness beyond the iron door. Instinctively, I pushed the torch a little closer, allowing more light to spill into the doorway. Noticing Sword Demon Miss didn’t respond to my words, I couldn’t help but mumble: “Could it be they’re all dead… no way… hey.”
“……”
Sword Demon Miss maintained her silence, staring at me as if she were a bit dense.
“…Say something.”
Seeing her expression, I felt a surge of annoyance: “Don’t just stare like that; it’s creepy.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
Sword Demon Miss replied, her tone a bit silly.
Not knowing how to react, she took action instead, smartly stepping out from behind the door, circling back to stand in front of me. She then turned to face the iron door for a moment, not quite sure if she was listening or sniffing for something. After a while, she confidently sidestepped and entered the door without hesitation.
“Hey…”
I almost reached out to stop her.
In my sight, as soon as Sword Demon Miss stepped through the door, her figure vanished into the firelight, and inside was almost complete darkness, an eerie silence. Although I could still hear her footsteps and breathing, oddly enough, the moment Sword Demon Miss left the hall, I immediately felt a chill running down my spine, as if a “cold wind” was swooping in through my neck.
Yikes…
Almost reflexively, I turned to steal another glance at the empty shadows behind me. Beyond the torchlight, in the ink-black haze, it felt like something ghostly could pounce on me at any moment. I suddenly had that feeling and couldn’t resist shivering, not thinking twice before slipping through the iron door.
Crash, bang…
The flickering light of the torch danced, producing a reassuring sound that illuminated the space behind the door, momentarily casting away the darkness.
And there was Sword Demon Miss, not far inside the door, crouched down and examining the footprints intently.
“Phew—”
I couldn’t help but exhale a sigh of relief.
…Why was I feeling relieved?
It’s not like I was scared or anything, tsk.
I just don’t like the feeling of being alone in the dark…
Reassuring myself like this, to distract from those boring and meaningless thoughts, I began to raise my torch high to inspect the surroundings.
This is…
A passage?
Quickly, I discovered we had entered a rather narrow stone corridor, perhaps only wide enough for four or five people to walk side by side… or maybe “long corridor” sounds more fitting.
The corridor seemed to be built adjacent to the hall, so it wasn’t perfectly straight forward. The walls on both sides had a consistent curve. On my left side was indeed the outer wall of the domed hall, and on the right side was the outer wall made of red bricks. I figured this must be the entire building’s outer wall.
Though it was narrow…
It was quite tall inside; anyway, I looked up for a while and didn’t see any ceiling or anything like that.
Further ahead, high up on the outer wall, it seemed they had put in a stained-glass window. I caught sight of colorful light streaming in, with a soft, bright silver moonlight cascading in.
“…Hmm?”
After walking a few more steps, I suddenly looked down and saw a steep staircase spiraling upward, made of bluestones, which appeared out of nowhere.
“A staircase?”
This long corridor goes up…
I hadn’t noticed the ceiling of the domed hall; so this building has more than one floor?
“Hey, Sword Demon, look, these footprints lead up the stairs.”
I hurried to the base of the stone stairs, bent down to examine the ground, seeing many messy footprints up the stairs. Due to the dust covering this area more than the hall, the footprints appeared especially clear… they were quite fresh; besides the knights who came before us, there shouldn’t be anyone else.
“Hmm.”
Sword Demon Miss softly responded from behind.
When I turned around, I saw she had approached silently, not saying a word, her face showing no expression as she walked past me, stepping onto the stairs with the torch raised, her head down as if following those footprints or perhaps noting something else…
She just walked silently like that, looking serious with her thoughts.
“Be careful…”
I couldn’t help but call out a reminder.
Although I knew this little one was quite nimble…
But after making such a loud noise earlier with no response for a while, I figured most of those knights had probably met with misfortune. Yet there had to be more than ten of them; at least… who knows how many could perform divine miracles.
In any case, if it really came down to a fight, it would be hard to keep it quiet; they’d be wiped out in a flash…
After all, they hadn’t been in here for long before us. Even if something did happen, it shouldn’t have been a long time ago. We should be nearby; we might’ve even entered the church already. Yet neither I nor Sword Demon Miss noticed anything.
That was a very dangerous signal…
If they were dead, then the thing that killed them must be either the Eye of Wisdom or something equally dangerous.
I really had a bad feeling…
