Chapter 149: The Sealed Church
“Are you going to k*ll me too?”
A cold query came from Elder Ryan, who faced his teacher with his sword at the ready. Tarlasya shook his head gently. “No, teacher, I just want to defeat you.”
“Defeat you, crush you, shatter your will, obliterate your ambitions. I hope that for the rest of your life, you’ll never harbor the urge to compare swords with anyone.”
The man’s gaze was resolute, his tone powerful. “Because you lost to your disciple, the very person you taught. And he doesn’t agree with your sword intent. I believe that compared to dying in battle, this is the best way to atone for your sins.”
He then turned to us, saying, “Go, leave this to me. No one else should interfere.”
“Not a chance—!!!”
Magipanny suddenly roared, flames erupting around her. She leaped high, her black staff crackling with mechanical sounds, transforming into a sword, its razor-sharp tip slashing forward!
Boom!!
A tremendous roar erupted, igniting the sky. Fire clouds swirled beneath the black smoke, and the bridge began to crumble. Countless rocks flew upward, launching into the red-hot sky, transforming into blazing meteors, crashing down in an instant—
“Ahhh!!!”
Tarlasya roared in fury, lifting his head, fire reflecting off his face, just like his already crimson eyes. In the next moment, he faced the sky raining fire, stepping on the floating rocks, both hands thrusting his sword forward, aiming directly at the figure shrouded in fire clouds!
A burning tornado erupted from his sword, shattering the heavens with its sword intent, crossing paths with the meteor shower, and then, in a dazzling explosion of light, became blindingly bright, as if it could pierce one’s eyes.
Booming!!!
“Go—”
As flames rained down from the sky, Carlos shouted back at me, and in the next moment, he transformed into lightning and disappeared.
I didn’t need him to tell me—instantly, I took a Moon Step, dashing across the battlefield just as the bridge completely collapsed, dodging the falling flames, sprinting toward the other end of the bridge.
Falling, I landed firmly at the edge of the bridge. Turning back, I heard the man’s booming voice from the sky, “Star! Falling! Rain!”
With a roar, the flames dissipating into the sky regathered, splitting into countless fire dots in an instant. Amid the fierce fire clashes, I could vaguely see two determined figures colliding with all their might, as explosions and heat surged once more!
Boom!
Zzzzt—
Meanwhile, Carlos and the Sword Demon sped to my side, their steps unyielding as they pressed on. “We can’t delay any longer. Let’s go.”
Concerned for Elder Ryan, Carlos couldn’t contain his urgency anymore. He transformed into lightning and charged into the dim mist ahead, followed closely by the Sword Demon. I didn’t linger either, disappearing at the edge of the bridge.
The strong winds howled, gradually drowning out the booming sounds behind us.
In my line of sight, the visibility seemed to diminish more and more.
Without knowing how long we had walked, Carlos suddenly skidded to a halt. He raised his hand to stop me and the Sword Demon, saying, “Slow down!”
A crack echoed as the Sword Demon transformed into lightning next to him, while I streaked forward another ten meters, appearing quietly amidst the swirling winds.
Looking up, I saw the towering bell tower and the beautiful contours of the church gradually revealing themselves from the mist.
Reached it?
I thought, then started scanning the surroundings. For some reason, the fog here was thick, but it wasn’t Dead Smoke; rather, Dead Smoke still loomed above us. Compared to when we were under the tower, this dense smoke was unnervingly close, likely not more than five hundred meters away. Thunder occasionally rumbled within the black clouds, but no lightning was visible.
This place didn’t feel like a high platform but rather one that was naturally elevated, perhaps hundreds or a thousand years ago it might have been a plateau—the Tower of Divine Grace and the bridge serving as a path built by humans to reach it. I guessed it had to do with where the Mother Deity was sealed.
But now, none of that seemed important. The fog was so thick here, perhaps it had always been this way, or perhaps it was connected to the ashes that had fallen—after reaching here, the ashes were gone, replaced by this gray mist.
Visibility was low all around.
But I wasn’t too worried about losing my way. When we crossed the bridge, we had always stayed on the path beneath our feet, and the road repaired after the bridge had only this one way, with the church at its end.
This place wasn’t marked on the map—perhaps Saint George thought the Temple Church still existed when he informed Viki. At that time, he didn’t want more people to know about this place.
“Sealed Church?”
A sign stood by the road. Carlos had approached from behind, pointing at the sign’s big letters and reading, “Sealed Church,” with a line beneath stating: Trespassers will be sentenced to heresy, penalized for three generations.
“Looks like this is it.”
The man nodded, as if realizing something. Other than the bell tower and the church ahead, along with the high walls encircling the church, there seemed to be no other buildings around.
“So, let’s go in and find out.”
I took the lead, and the two immediately followed.
We quickly reached the entrance of the church; Carlos didn’t seem to have time for idle chatter now. He silently looked up at the intricate gilded gates, firmly closed.
Behind the gate, two tall watchtowers rose. Such towers weren’t unique to this place; they were evenly distributed around the church. It seemed that people were supposed to guard this place closely, but now, not even a live mouse could be seen—humans likely consumed by Dead Smoke as well.
“This place is very dangerous.”
Suddenly, the Sword Demon spoke. When I looked at her, she stressed again, “Very dangerous.”
This little one had always been sensitive to crises, but I had never seen her display such a serious expression, even in the Silent Fortress.
“Dangerous, huh…”
I took a deep breath and patted her shoulder, “The more dangerous it is, the more it means we are in the right place.”
“Anna.”
Then I looked at her seriously, saying, “There might be something in there that we both know about. So it’s best if you don’t continue forward.”
“Leaving the Holy City isn’t going against the promise you made to me; on the contrary, leaving now and returning to the Royal City or going back to Shanter Castle, and acting alongside Queen Elizabeth and my father would actually help me more. But if you keep going on…”
My point was that Carlos wanted to find his teacher, and I couldn’t dissuade him, but the Sword Demon had no target here. If the Mother Deity really was ahead, it would be extremely dangerous for her to stick around, an unnecessary risk if she were to d*e here—it would just be a wasted loss.
But before I could explain myself, I was rare enough to be interrupted by the Sword Demon, shaking her head. “I’m not leaving. I want to stay with you.”
Perhaps feeling she hadn’t expressed herself clearly, she thought for a moment and continued, “In the Silent Fortress, we were together; in Chielis City, we were together. There were dangers then, but I wasn’t afraid. You helped me, gave me a good sword, and I consider you a friend. Friends face dangers together.”
She spoke so much in one breath that I was suddenly taken aback. Blinking at her, I noticed the Sword Demon’s expression seemed to think she hadn’t clearly conveyed her thoughts. The girl frowned for a moment, but found no better way to express herself, so she patted the package on her back and said earnestly, “I need to hold onto this for you.”
“Pfft.”
Carlos couldn’t help but laugh first.
“Peilo, where did you meet such an interesting character?”
“……”
I shot him a glare.
“Now that the intention is clear, let’s hurry inside.”
Carlos said, leaping over the gates, not looking back as he led the way. I could only helplessly glance at the Sword Demon. “Be careful.”
With that, I jumped over too. After a second, the Sword Demon landed beside me with a soft thud and weighed the package before turning to me with a slight smile.
This little one actually smiled.
She looked pretty cute when she smiled…
With no resistance, we passed the dilapidated bell tower and reached the church entrance, pushing the door open.
Like any church situated anywhere, the entrance led to a large front hall. Compared to the Temple Church, there were no gaudy, dazzling decorations, no luxurious, heavenly atmosphere, and no corpses or the smell of decay. The entire church was stark and empty; after the front hall was the main hall—there was no central hall; it was just the main hall following the front hall, and it was quite plainly arranged, making it feel more like an ordinary peasant dwelling than any church in the Western Continent.
On the surface, this seemed like an ordinary church with nothing special about it. It just stood there, entirely deserted, as if long abandoned.
However—
Beneath the altar, there lay a deep, dark passage leading underground. It should have been operated by mechanisms that, once activated, would make the altar move back to reveal the passage below. Yet when we entered, the passage was already open, dark inside, and silent.
We decided against going down for the moment since the church had a second floor. While checking around, I heard sounds coming from upstairs.
Could there be someone…
Realizing this, I was shocked, and Carlos and the Sword Demon climbed up one after another. The second floor was filled with individual small rooms, most of which weren’t locked. Pushing open a couple of doors felt like stepping into an office, desks piled high with documents, cabinets crammed with items, coat racks, and beds…
Finding such rooms in a church surprised us, feeling very out of place. However, as we saw what was displayed in the cabinets, that feeling quickly turned to a sense of revulsion, and after the revulsion came a silence of unspoken words.
This was a laboratory.
No.
This was the initial site where clergy members desecrated the “Deity.” It was where they first began engaging in these acts—this I could understand.
Because the cabinets here were filled with those utensils I had seen in my dreams, disgusting rotting flesh, pristine medical supplies like syringes, bandages, and bl**d bags—bl**d-filled bags, along with those crimson pills, several large containers of them.
This was where they concocted those pills.
And the documents laid out on the desks, even books, detailed various complex experimental symbols about safely traversing the restraints of the Chain of Divine Lock and extracting flesh and bl**d, or even bones and marrow, from the imprisoned “Mad God”—which they referred to as a dead body—and how to turn these elements into pills, diluting them into holy water…
They even wanted to exploit the self-healing ability that the dead body still possessed, attempting to create artificial “Divine Reliquaries.” Though they hadn’t yet succeeded, they had attempted such experiments—this was evident from the hundreds of years of history inscribed here.
From timid beginnings, cautiously exploring each step, until the entire church elite, greedily consumed by madness, spiraled recklessly into insanity—everything was laid bare here.
After merely checking two rooms, neither I, nor Carlos, nor the Sword Demon had the desire to open a third room, not wanting to utter a single word.
“Sin…”
After a long while, I heard Carlos sigh deeply. “So in the end, what exactly is the so-called disaster?”
“Suddenly, it’s hard to tell apart…”
“…Even so.”
Walking to the very end of the second-floor hallway, I finally responded, “Those still alive, working tirelessly to make a living, farming, weaving, raising families—people who support society with their meager strength; those common folks—the overwhelming majority of humans—they are innocent. They’ve done nothing wrong.”
“…Hmm.”
Carlos pondered for a moment, nodding as he gazed at me, a look of quiet contentment slipping into his eyes. “Do you remember the first time we met?”
“……”
I shot him a glare, “I’d remember it even if I turned into a ghost.”
“Lucky me, then.”
Carlos looked up, lamenting, “I increasingly feel that what I did then was the most correct thing I’ve ever done…”
At the end of all the rooms was a curved open terrace.
A vast terrace was there, facing away from the entrance, at the back of the church, which we hadn’t noticed upon entering.
But there sat a person.
An elderly man in purple robes with white hair and a bishop’s mitre sat in a wheelchair at the edge of the terrace.
As we approached, he had his head down, murmuring incoherently, looking quite mad, clearly out of touch with reality.
We became alert, slowing our steps. Gradually getting closer, we could hear snippets of his muttering: “I have a chance… I still have a chance… God… Eye of Wisdom… please lend me your strength one more time… I understand… I know what this is… I thought of a brilliant idea…”
“Forgive me… forgive my mistakes… I had no choice… it was all for you… all for you… don’t leave me… don’t abandon me…”
We stood there for a moment, watching.
Then, as if sensing us, he stopped his murmuring, straightened, and slowly turned his head.
