The wide hall was filled with bright light, being as magnificent as ever, as if the purest spirituality had been gathered in this place since the primordial era. This is the prayer hall of War, and in here, ones were blessed with a clear and unperturbed mind through the praise for the heroic God.
The great statue of the War God was painted in pure white. The solemn God raised his gigantic spear, and the four holy beasts accompanied Him from the sides: a unicorn lion, a fire breathing two-headed horse, a mysterious serpent and a fearful cloud of million eyes. Large columns penetrated up on both sides to support the ceiling, while rows of hundred intricate candle stands were lighted up in a white light – which then separated into resplendent halos of seven colors.
Eithne found herself sitting on a cushion, praying in the hall with many believers of the War God. She seemed to be in a dreaming state. Her mind was ambiguous.
Eithne observed around in a slow manner.
In front of her was a small table where a book of War’s teachings and revelations was neatly placed.
The prayer hall was very familiar to her, it looked like the prayer hall of the War temple near Lumovas’s capital, but there were some certain differences. The atmosphere in this hall was clearly much more ethereal and divine. Under the holy light, the praying people’s faces were blurry.
On the stage before the statue of the War God, a High Priest is preaching. He was wearing a robe that had many War symbols embroidered. His hand held a spearhead to his chest. Like other believers, his face was also indiscernible.
The High Priest’s voice reverberated through the hall. His words entered the ear then the mind, the body and the heart of every believer.
“The Mighty Lord of War
You are the victory over wrath and dread
You are the leader of heroes amid the chaos
The ruler above all battlefields, I pray for your bestowment of strength and courage
I pray for your guidance on our journey to your kingdom.
We, your devout children, believe in your eternal reign.
Your will exists in everyone’s heart, and we will never betray or forget your benevolence.
We humbly prostrate beneath you.
Please bestow your loyal guardian the power to protect the faith.
Oh Great Lord of War!
Conspiracies are your voices and weapons sprout from your gaze.
Behind the violence nature of all living beings, your divine kingdom rises.
Blood and gore submitted under your feet.
Opposing spirits surrendered and became your angels.
They speak the words of wisdom that came from your teaching…”
Eithne recited the High Priest’s words naturally. The ancient language that flew out from her mouth touched the deepest of the profound. It comprised the very first sounds of human’s speech, which was so powerful and magical that the sounds could reach beyond the mortal world. This was the ritual to open the portal to the divine kingdom of the deities - who heard their names being called by believers through an ancient incantation.
The ongoing ritual was similar to the Bestowment rite in the War temple.
Every creature had an innate ability to gather mana to strengthen their body. However, fate was not fair. Each creature had a different capacity to store mana and different levels in talent for interacting with mana. For example, Dragons were a mythical race. They had high capacity and talent for extracting power from nature so they were the strongest race in the world. As for humans, their talent was mediocre. Humans had to rely on the strong existence like deities to change the weak characteristics of their bodies. Through worshipping and receiving Power Bestowment from the gods, humans’ capacity for mana could evolve, thus quickly becoming stronger. Without religion as their support, a human needed thousands of years of mana accumulation to reach the level of an infant dragon’s strength. Apart from changing the body’s innate talents, believers could also receive a unique trait of power corresponding to the god they believed, which was divine power.
However, mana was not easy to be stored within one’s body. The energy of nature had an inclination toward chaos if it was densely packed in a confined space. If too much mana was driven into a human’s body, they would either mutate, lose sanity or explode. In addition, old age could weaken the ability to keep the mana within the body, unless their capacity had evolved to a certain immortal stage.
In the orthodox churches and temples, there were three levels of strength for humans: low-grade priest, middle-grade priest and high-grade priest. Each level corresponded to the number of times that a priest had received power bestowment from God. Once was low-grade – equivalent to a human who was slightly stronger than normal. Twice was middle-grade – the kind that could exhibit incredible strength like a superhuman and perform magic, a part of divine power. Three or more times was high-grade, who could lead any battlefield and use pure divine power. High-grade priests were sometimes considered as God’s oracles. As for the High Priest, people would see Him as an angel whose mission was to spread the faith to mortals.
Eithne Noceur was a high-grade priestess, so she had received three bestowments of power before. Her body underwent evolution thrice. But for some reason, her divine power had been declining. It could be seen that the War god was not happy with this priestess.
Eithne subconsciously wanted to possess the power that the original priestess used to have, so she chanted the horrific name of the War God in a rather sincere manner.
“Oh Great Lord of the War…”
After she prayed, Eithne was blessed with a lucid state of mind. Slowly, Eithne felt a strange contradiction growing in her thoughts.
“Who am I? What am I doing here?
Why would I want to betray the War temple earlier?
Why would I want to kill Solinue people?
Why am I so bloodthirsty recently?
Why do I hate my past self so much?
Why is Eithne Noceur’s memory missing? Where do I find those memories back?
Why am I scared of the High Priest too much?
Why do I want to hide from everything?
Why do I have a strange favoritism toward a fictional character?
Why is Raphael?
Why…”
Too many questions puzzled her mind. Eithne found that some of her actions recently did not really match the usual logic. She seemed to have become impulsive, hating and betraying the faction that had not done her any harm. She had also been cold and bloodthirsty. Her sanity was a bit unstable. Eithne had to raise some existential questions, as she was unsure who she was acting like. Her timid character was unknowingly enlarged causing her overreaction. Her past, it was boring but it was not worth that much hating to the point of wanting to kill her past self!
“Is this the side effect of the dark power?”
Eithne thought of the strange dark power that she possessed and felt horrified. She was twisted in the mind gradually after a period of using that power. Or is it the hidden personality of the original priestess?
As time passed, the mind contradiction grew stronger and stronger. Eithne started to ponder if she was quietly possessed or manipulated by a hidden enemy. The strangeness in her actions were too distinctive to ignore!
Since Eithne stopped praying for a moment of contemplation, the blessing for a lucid mind wore out. She went back to a dreaming-like state. Her eyes lost their lustrous glow, and she was acting on instinct.
The priestess turned the prayer book to the next page. She suddenly found a hand mirror snuck between the pages. The mirror was facing its back to her gaze. Its back was made of bronze and gave off a strange ancient feeling. On the left edge carved a young woman's face, and on the right edge carved an old beldam face. A small altar was depicted on the mirror’s back, it even had a protruding tile roof on the top edge of the mirror.
Eithne caressed the intricate adornments of the mirror, then she flipped it up.
In the clear mirror’s reflection, Eithne saw a patched monster. On the right half of the body was Eithne Noceur with her blonde hair and golden eyes, while on the left half was a woman whose hair and eyes were black – it was her original appearance! There were countless deep crimson crevices running across the left half of her body. Inside each sinister crevice, tiny nine eyeballs were moving frantically in different directions.
“!!!” – Eithne gasped and dropped the mirror down in fright.
Her head felt an abrupt pain like a knife was drilling in her brain. On the table, the mirror continued to reflect the hall's upper space, capturing the image of a gigantic serpent coiling itself beneath the ceiling. The serpent's scales shone in a warped seven lights which then reflected from the mirror and stabbed in Eithne’s eyes.
She groaned in pain.
Muddled blood seeped down from her eyes. Her vision became blurry.
BANG!
At that moment, Eithne heard a loud sound. The heavy doors to the prayer hall burst open. Crimson threads and vicious thin tentacles madly extended inside the hall and quack down everything.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The crimson tentacles cut deep cracks on the ground and the doors. Candle stands fell off from hanging and poured out the blinding flame. The fine red threads instantly sliced nearby believer figures into small pieces. The entire hall was shaken into chaos. Eithne wanted to stand up to run away, but an extremely terrifying aura was suddenly released from above her head. An uncontrollable fear took over her mind, Eithne’s knees gave out and dropped helplessly on the ground. She bowed her head and was unable to move at all.
“What is this aura…” – She cried desperately in extreme fear.
The aura affected her mind and her body entirely. Her heart was beating too fast to the point of breaking apart and she could not breathe at all like tons of rocks were pressured against her lungs. She could feel that every part inside her body was unusually active. Her skin wriggled as blood veins popped up then broke through the skins. Her flesh came into life in a strange manner, they crawled out of her body like worms running from the scary aura above.
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“I’m mutating!” – Eithne bit her teeth, trying to gain back control over her body.
Eithne felt some part on her left body resonating with the assailing crimson power. Quickly, the blood red threads found their target. They sharply stabbed in Eithne’s left arm in an attempt to drag her out of the prayer hall.
The robed High Priest and other priests stopped their preaching. Illusions of shining metal wings appeared behind their backs. A humming sound then echoed from a distant place like the roar of thousand soldiers, becoming an opposing force to counter the disastrous crimson invader.
Suddenly, the statue of the War God moved. His hand slammed the spear on the ground, sending a wave of violent energy out.
The sound of this battle had exceeded the mortal’s hearing ability.
Eithne had lost all of her senses. She fell into an eternal darkness, only the crazy pain of her body being pulled apart reminded her that she was still alive…
_
On the small boat floating on the Marah river.
Raphael was inspecting the War priestess’s body. He felt that she was still alive since her mana energy had yet to dissipate, but her heart had stopped beating.
He controlled a gentle flow of mana to touch her face. He was very careful not to directly touch the body, as according to his subordinates’ report, the enemies who touched her were all exploded.
“Hm…?”
Abruptly, deep crimson crevices broke out all over the priestess's body.
Danger! Raphael alarmed himself.
“Retreat!” – He ran backward and pulled his servants as far as possible from Eithne Noceur.
The temperature suddenly dropped speedily. A dark void surged up around the lying priestess, swallowing her figure and the surrounding colors.
The power of corruption erupted out like a flow of tide. Within five meters of radius, any nearby birds, fishes or insects were frantically struggling with horrible mutation on their bodies. Their eyes and limbs withered and fell off from their bodies, some died instantly, some crawled up to be skinned monsters. The monsters then continued to spread out the plague from the pus oozing from their exposed flesh to infect a wider area.
And as if the time was warped in the void, the affected area was turned into stiff monotone images then collapsed into nothingness. Meanwhile, the transformed creatures were moving like rusted puppets and shrieking in foul sounds.
After listening to the cursed shrieks, Raphael’s two servants developed rotted spots on their skin and curled up on the ground in pain. Their nails grew long but their hair went dry and fell off their heads like dry tree branches.
Raphael felt a sense of horror rising up in his heart.
A power of hexes?! He had never encountered such a scary thing like this before. If the hexes continued to spread at the current speed, it might swallow him up as well.
The Saint of Peace raised his arms up. A huge illusion of a church bell was materialized in midair then slammed down to enclose the spreading void within. He had used his strongest defense magic instantly using his divine power.
GONG! GONG! GOONG!
The holy deep ringing of the bell instantly soothed the maliciousness around, but it failed to reverse any corrupted transformation. Raphael could only isolate the strange dark power inside, but he knew the bell would not last forever.
The Saint intended to make the bell explode to separate the ship into two parts. He would abandon half of the ship where the corruption was spreading. The magic matrix on the ship could make up for the lost half part. With the pushing explosion force, he could bring the servants on the boat to escape this place as fast as possible.
Right when he counted down before triggering the bell, the space above his head twisted and broke apart like a glass’s surface. A beautiful woman in her sleeping gown stepped out and levitated in midair. She had sweet cherry-colored eyes and messy platinum-blonde hair. Around her arm wrapped a yellow viper, its vertical irises were staring intently at the source of chaos.
“Your Majesty…”
Raphael looked up in surprise.
This was the first time the Queen of Lumovas had ever shown her actual power in front of other people. Although she was not dressed properly, the Queen did not seem to care. Her body emitted a terrifying aura that compelled people to knee down.
Raphael knew the Queen was a rather strong mage, but he did not expect that she was that strong. She had hidden her power very well.
An aura that restricted others, the power to tear through space… Raphael gulped. This is the level of a demigod! - it was a whole new level above the strength of high-grade priests. While high-grade priests were still considered as mortals, demigods had transcended the humble characteristics of humans and achieved a part of godhood. They received the permission of nature to travel through space. Also, the rule of nature drove the instinct of mortals to submit before gods.
Usually, only the pontiffs of the churches could reach this level. Raphael was still a Saint, he had yet to reach the level of High Priest or Pope.
As the Queen arrived, Raphael tried to withdraw his power. He had some secrets that he did not wish others to know, the longer he stayed, the more tricks he had to pull out and expose his hidden cards.
Suddenly, the Queen commanded:
“Do not withdraw now! Strengthen the seal!”
“I cannot hold it in anymore!” – Raphael said.
“Whatever you do, don’t let go of the seal now!”
Hearing the Queen’s serious tone, Raphael had no choice but to maintain the bell. The Queen might know the situation better than him. If the seal was opened right now, there was a chance that the existence inside became fiercer and not act as he planned.
Raphael saw the levitating Queen take out a skull from the empty air next to her like a magic trick. That skull was humanlike. Her red nails cracked open the skull in two halves, revealing a squirming garnet liquid inside. Then, she used half of the skull as a bowl to drink that strange liquid.
Seeing that eerie scene, Raphael pursed his lips. As a Saint of Peace temple, he knew many strange rituals of heretics. Royalties were forbidden to engage in unorthodox cults, as per agreement between the ancestor of Daneva family and the three churches of Peace, War and Death. The Queen had shown an unusual action, but Raphael quickly calmed himself down. Since she had deliberately shown him that, the Queen would not mind her action being exposed. She surely had prepared.
The Queen snapped her fingers and formed a hand gesture before her heart. Her thumb folded in with her index finger and middle finger, while the rest extended. Then, her hands clasped together to form a ritual gesture.
Behind her back, there were six more translucent illusions of arms making the same mudra.
Inside the bell, a world of mirrors was formed. It enclosed the dark void to strengthen the seal.
A spear of fire suddenly flew toward the small boat. A man was hanging on the flying spear's handle, he swung down to land on the boat.
Hesata Ragnar rushed in when he saw Eithne’s soul rock break apart. As he witnessed the horrible corruption and the expanding dark void, his irises shrank in fear. The dark power had exceeded the magic level belonging to normal human.
Normal humans could not change the way of nature! The characteristics of nearby creatures were all distorted into monsters!
“Strengthen the seal!” – The Queen shouted.
Her face frowned. It seemed like the dark void inside had put a lot of pressure on her magic. Her hair floated up and spread out like a flare.
Hesata quickly examined the situation then joined in with Raphael. Bright red magic circles left his hands to surround the illusion bell. The seal was further stabilized with extra strengthening.
Raphael’s hands shook. His power was strangely sucked toward the void, in the next minute, his bell would collapse immediately. The Saint of Peace had no plan to put all of his power into sealing this dark corruption. He knew clearly that his strength was not enough, even if he put out more mana, it would be useless.
Raphael glanced at the Queen to propose the idea of retreating, but he unexpectedly caught a strange expression on her face.
It was… a mixture of bewilderment, admiration and happiness.
The Queen, who should be frowning, suddenly demonstrated a fervent expression. Raphael was very familiar with this expression, as he saw it on the faces of pious believers coming to the temple every day.
However, the current scene before their eyes was no way near the term of ‘Holiness’ that everyone knew.
It was foul, abhorrent, sinister and destructive!
Goosebumps instantly appeared on the Saint’s back.
“What is this…” – He mumbled.
The Queen’s odd expression only lasted for two seconds before she became solemn again. The yellow viper on her arm turned its head to look at the opposite spot in the air.
The space cracked open and turned into a small vortex. Purplish fog of Chaos quickly poured out from the vortex and enveloped the area. In the fog, there were shadows of black knights rising up along with their fire-breathing horses. The knights covered their entire body in heavy armors, as if they were marionettes made from connecting pieces of metal plates.
From the vortex center, the reverend High Priest of the War temple stepped out. His hair was neatly combed backward, and he was wearing a double-breasted coat underneath a ceremonial robe which had many War symbols embroidered.
The silver-haired old man stood in midair, using his cold eyes to observe everybody.
Hesata saluted his superior, while Raphael slightly bowed to greet him.
“Another figure at demigod level…” – Raphael thought. The aura of the High Priest who had just arrived was slightly stronger than the Queen, and the two auras combined to put a pressure on his body. Luckily, the Saint of the Peace temple could mostly resist the urge to submit before the demigods’ feet.
Demir nodded at the two people on the boat. He said:
“Open the seal.”
Hesata and Raphael were instantly puzzled. Release the dark power inside?
Hesata executed the order of the High Priest without asking. He quickly withdrew the magic circles.
“Are you crazy? That hexes will destroy everything!” – The Queen sneered.
Raphael was about to withdraw his bell, but he stopped after hearing the Queen.
Demir Noceur did not explain. His eyes concentrated the bright purple Chaos light before he drilled through the seal barrier by his augmented gaze. Raphael's bell barrier was instantly holed. He had no choice but to put out the bell defense.
The Queen did not concur with the War High Priest. She strengthened her mirror world barrier. Through the shining reflection of the mirror world, the people could see the huge darkness slamming against the enclosure.
Demir cracked a hole in the mirror by his augmented gaze, but it was not enough to penetrate through. He gave a signal to the shadow knights in the Chaos fog. The knights pulled the strings of their horses and lunged toward the mirror barrier, stabbing their spears to the mirrors.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The sharp sound of mirrors breaking echoed in the area.
“Tsk! This mad man!” – The Queen cursed.
She gave up maintaining the mirror world. However, when the mirrors disappeared, the darkness did not surge out like how people had expected.
The darkness had disappeared entirely! Nothing was behind the seal barrier.
If there were no corrupted creatures loitering around and a huge hole on the boat, no one would know that there used to be a scary existence rampaging at this place.
“Ha.” – The Queen’s mouth corners twitched.
Demir furrowed his eyebrows, while Hesata and Raphael were even more confused.
What just happened? They had just been struggling a moment ago!
Six arm illusions behind the Queen’s back dispersed.
“It left. Lucky for you.” - The Queen laughed. “I will send mages to monitor this area. Let’s hope it doesn’t appear anymore.”
Then she yawned. All the solemn look on her face was gone, and she returned to being a sleepy woman.
“As for now, excuse me.”
The Queen tore the space open, traveled back to where she was again and brought her snake along.
The Saint of Peace bowed to the High Priest of War. He pulled his two servants and disappeared in a flash of light, abandoning his ship.
Watching important figures rapidly leave, Hesata wanted to report to Demir about Eithne, but the High Priest already spoke before him.
“I know.”
The High Priest opened his palm. Several broken crystal pieces were materialized in his hand. Hesata recognized Eithne’s stone seal at one glance. It contained the soul mark of the priestess, which could point out her current location and condition.
However, the stone seal had crumbled. Its aura was dull like a dying light on a candle’s wick.
Coldness rose up in Hesata’s body. He knew what the sign meant.
“She possibly isn't dead completely, but it's likely that she isn't Eithne anymore.” - Demir said.
"Continue to head North and defend Kole. If you discover any clue of her, report to me immediately. Do not try acting on your own."
"Yes, High Priest!"
Hesata bowed.
Demir's figure then disappeared inside a vortex of Chaos. His location was unknown.
The red-haired priest returned to the ferry in the same way as before, with his mind being occupied by many thoughts and doubts...