Chapter 424

Chapter 424: The ritual Site

Now, she was the only one left here.

Agatha slowly drew her gaze back from the consecrated lantern. She turned around, leaving Governor Winston in that chilly, quiet darkness, and stepped toward the “branches” that crisscrossed the endless space, toward the gigantic thorny curtain that hung like the vault of the sky.

A dim consecrated lantern hung at her waist. In her right hand she held the Gatekeeper’s cane that had been with her in her memories for many years. Her left hand still gripped the brass key from Winston. The key was no longer icy cold. It now held a warmth like body heat, as if it were slowly fusing with her body.

But Agatha no longer paid attention to what was happening to her body.

She simply walked in the darkness, feeling this body truly moving forward. As long as the surrounding chaos had not completely swallowed and assimilated her, she still had to keep going.

She groped for footing in the void, and every time she stepped, ground like a narrow path appeared in the darkness. She searched for a way out among the thorns. Between the branches that wove across each other, narrow openings sometimes let her squeeze through.

The sharp “thorns” soon tore her clothes. The dense “fabric” was as fragile as loose ash and mist before the stabbing thoughts of the Elder Gods. The falling scraps gathered in the dark into writhing black droplets and sank into the path under her feet. From time to time she also brushed the sparks that leapt and darted between the thorns. Whenever she touched those flashes, she could clearly feel something boring into her mind.

They were the thoughts of the Elder Gods, a murmur from the Abyssal Lord. There was no malice in it, not even a complete intent. But to a weak mortal, even that briefest spark of thought was dazzling and blinding, like a great brilliant candle in the night.

Another dim flash shot over from afar, sliding along the pitch-black thorny branches across her vision. A strand of Agatha’s hair brushed that light, and in a hundredth of a second new “knowledge” surfaced in her mind—

111010011001101110000110……111001111011111010100100……

Agatha could not understand the message these sparks tried to convey to her. Just as Winston had told her, she must not try to guess at the thoughts of the Elder Gods.

It would drive her mad.

She lifted her head.

The grand structure of dead wood and thorns that bridged the void filled her sight. Countless dim lights fluttered among the thickets like fireflies. A thin mist shrouded the outside of the thorn barrier, and in the depths of that fog the vast limbs of the Abyssal Lord swayed slightly, like an invitation.

The air grew cold again—sharper and more piercing than before. The chill carried dampness and seeped into her body as if it meant to freeze her bones.

Agatha instinctively clutched the front of her clothes, only to realize that at some point they had become tattered. The thorns along the way had left countless wounds of all sizes on her skin.

In those wounds, foul, thick black fluid crawled slowly like blood.

But just when she thought the cold would completely devour her, a faint warm heat rose once more from her chest…

…

A small green flame burned quietly on Agatha’s chest. Its eerie green light lit her face and the cold, damp sewer around her.

All sensation seemed to drift far away, or be separated from her reason by a thick Veil. The warmth in her veins seemed to fade with time, and with it faded the fatigue and pain she had built up along the way.

Agatha slowly shook her head, trying to drive out the numbness filling her mind. As her vision swayed, something strange suddenly appeared at the edge of her sight.

She saw the dim, cramped sewer corridor ahead suddenly seem to widen. A thin mist rose in the hazy space, and shapes like branches or thickets of thorns appeared within the fog and slowly crept toward her.

Yet in the next second, the illusory scene vanished like smoke. All she saw was the same dark corridor.

And the gate at the end of it.

Thump… thump…

The instant her gaze fell on that gate, an unreal heartbeat seemed to sound by Agatha’s ear, as if a huge heart hid behind the door, beating and swelling in the dark.

Agatha’s dulled, numb mind suddenly rallied, and her gaze snapped to that door.

“Ah… I found you…”

She closed her hand around the little flame and stepped into the darkness. The almost-broken combat Gatekeeper’s cane supported her one last time. Her pace grew faster and even began to stir the air. She advanced into the darkness and left it behind her, while the low, terrifying heartbeat pounded against her chest like heavy drumbeats and even hammered in her head.

Gradually she heard something else mixed into that heartbeat. It sounded like hundreds and thousands of people in benediction, chanting, calling out to some dark and unnameable being.

She no longer cared how much noise was tangled in those mingled voices. She was about to deliver the Fire Seed. The lair of those heretics lay in the deepest place ahead.

The Gatekeeper’s cane and her heels struck the ground in a rapid rhythm.

Just then Agatha heard another sound—not her own steps, nor the heartbeat and massed benediction echoing from the depths.

It was other footsteps, a whole crowd. The dense tread sounded as if it came from another direction—very close to this corridor, but separated by a wall or two.

Gunshots came with the footsteps. They were from large-caliber rifles.

Other people? Living people? Were there still others moving through this city of mirror world with her?!

Questions flashed through Agatha’s mind, but they did not slow her at all. In almost an instant she rushed across the last stretch before the gate and came to the great door from which the heartbeat sounded.

The door stood slightly ajar, and within the crack was darkness so thick it almost clotted. The darkness seemed solid as it seeped and flowed out.

But this was exactly what Agatha had been seeking all along.

She braced her shoulder against the heavy door and pushed it open with all her strength.

With a long creak, the door opened.

A vast darkness appeared before Agatha—or rather, some boundless Shadows had shrouded what had once been ordinary space, leaving only darkness in her view.

She could only just make out that the darkness seemed to be an assembly hall. The widest junction of the sewers had been turned into a sacrificial rite and a place to nurture the Elder Gods. Countless vague, formless things writhed in the dark. Their malice rushed at her like a stench.

Before she could react, a sharp whoosh sounded in the nearby darkness. Something was striking at her. At the same time, a familiar, hateful voice rang out from the distant ritual field, full of mockery and scorn:

“Ah, the last sacrificial victim has finally arrived—and how nice, the other you has just reached the appointed place as well.”

“Bang!”

The Gatekeeper’s cane swept out, bursting into a brief, bright spark in the darkness. A twisted, hideous limb was struck off in midair and fell at Agatha’s feet. The impact almost knocked her over. When she barely regained her balance, she lifted her head at once and looked toward the source of the voice.

She could only barely see the tall, thin figure of a young man standing at the far end of the darkness.

He spread his arms toward her.

“Come then, sacrificial victim. Your arrival is a part of the plan—now it is time to build the passage.”

Agatha leaned on the Gatekeeper’s cane and slowly lifted her head through the weakness and dizziness: “You are bringing ruin on yourselves…”

“Yes, we will all die here. But that does not matter. As long as you step in here, the ritual has already succeeded—I admit, it really is a trap.”

…

A gunshot cracked. The muzzle flash and explosion tore through the dim corridor. The powerful round blew the head off a twisted monster with three eyes. Its mutated, hideous body fell to the ground, then quickly melted and collapsed into nauseating black sludge.

Yet more howls from monsters rose all around, and more twisted entities kept pouring out—from the surrounding walls, from the pipes, from the drains, even from the cracks in the dome above.

Mud-like matter seeped and flowed from every gap visible to the naked eye, turning into countless monsters that only vaguely resembled humans.

“I think we did not bring enough bullets!”

A sailor shouted, quickly swapping magazines, lifting his rifle, and firing. His shout mingled with the crackle of ghostly flames burning on him, making his voice sound hoarse and low.

Lawrence had no time to answer the sailor. A sudden rush of wind came from behind his head. He only had time to twist slightly aside to avoid the deadly blow, then, driven by instinct, he reached back and grabbed.

He yanked a humanoid monster over from behind him. It wore a city-state Guard Corps uniform from decades ago and held a saber in its hand. It crashed hard onto the floor.

Lawrence stepped forward and stomped hard on the replica freak’s chest. The ghostly flames on his body flared up at once. The spreading fire burned that not-quite-human monster to ash in almost an instant.

In the next second, Lawrence, wreathed in ghostly flames, lifted his head and looked down the corridor that seemed to stretch on forever.

Everywhere he looked was filled with blasphemous, twisted things.