CHAPTER 66: THE CHURCH OF SHADOWS

The group ascended the steps—each forged from rippling shadow—with slow, cautious movements.

Every step closer to the church, an invisible weight settled heavier on their shoulders. Nausea twisted in Lucy’s gut, and judging by the expressions around him, he wasn’t alone. The air grew colder, the atmosphere more suffocating, and the whispers, still inaudible in sound, grew deafening in sensation. They didn’t hear them; they felt them. Like claws scraping against their minds.

’This has to be where they’re coming from,’ Lucy thought grimly as he and Bruma reached the final step.

The front of the church loomed above them.

Like the rest of the structure, the door was cloaked in a thick veil of shadow, impossibly dark. It towered over even Bruma’s massive frame, ending in a jagged oval arch just above her head. The surface was smooth but pulsed faintly, as if alive, breathing in slow, dreadful rhythm.

Lucy turned. The rest of the cohort had made it up the steps.

Llarm looked like he had aged five years. His usual confident posture had crumbled, replaced by hunched shoulders and trembling fingers.

No one had prepared for the cold. Their standard armor and thin cloaks were never meant for this unnatural frost that seemed to radiate from the very stone.

Carlos shivered violently in Fenric’s arms, little whimpers echoing in Lucy’s chest even though no sound reached his ears. The pup had been tense for days now, ever since the statue. And this church? It was worse.

Fenric, meanwhile, looked thrilled. The idiot. He grinned like a child on a battlefield, barely resisting the urge to scratch at his cursed neck. Lucy could tell his hands itched for action, but they stayed wrapped protectively around Carlos.

Behind them, Gindu stood tall, arms folded tightly across his chest. He exuded quiet confidence, but his eyes kept flicking toward Eri.

Eri, as always, now stood motionless. Hollow. Still breathing—but just barely.

Lucy clapped his hands together. No sound came from it, but the group turned to him anyway. That was enough.

He drew his sword slowly, the blade catching the dim light of Bruma’s lantern. Then, with exaggerated movements, he mouthed, "Get ready."

The cohort responded like soldiers. Llarm summoned a quiet gust, his body glowing with faint runes.

Fenric shifted Carlos into one arm and readied his sword in the other.

Gindu flexed, scales rippling as his skin shimmered with protective energy. Even Eri’s hands twitched—but she made no move to draw her weapon.

Lucy glanced up at Bruma, whose face was half-lit in the flickering violet glow. He raised a brow, then gave a mock bow, gesturing toward the door.

"Ladies first," he mouthed with a crooked smile.

He wasn’t being cowardly. The door was just massive. Ridiculously so.

Bruma rolled her eyes, secured the lantern at her hip, and stepped forward. Her thick green hands pressed against the dark surface. It rippled beneath her touch like a pond touched by a storm.

Lucy activated Soulreading again, hoping to sense whatever lay beyond.

A flood of emotion surged into him—but not despair this time.

Joy. Relief. Freedom.

Hundreds of voices pressed against his consciousness, whispering thanks. Their gratitude was overwhelming, clawing at his mind with desperate hope.

Lucy’s eyes widened.

No. No, no, no—

’Shit!’

He waved his arms frantically at Bruma, trying to stop her.

But it was too late.

The towering shadow-door shuddered, then creaked open with a grinding groan that none could hear—but all of them felt in their bones.

And then—they came.

A wave of things burst from the church.

They were vaguely human in shape—broad shoulders, limbs, heads—but their faces were twisted and stretched into grotesque masks. They had hollow eyes and wide mouths in silent screams. They poured out like a storm of darkness, flying into the black sky above, countless and relentless.

Lucy dropped to a crouch instinctively, sword raised, eyes wide.

The others followed suit, ducking as the shadows roared overhead—not with sound but with presence. Their passage churned the thick and oily air, igniting the darkness into a frenzy.

Lucy tried to track them, but the lantern’s glow was too small. The beings vanished into the void beyond, lost in a sea of black.

He didn’t know where they were going.

He didn’t know what they were.

But he knew one thing for sure.

’We just freed something truly terrifying.’

After a few ragged breaths and shaken nerves, the cohort finally entered the shadow church.

There was no sound to greet them- no dramatic creak of ancient doors—but Lucy felt the weight of his body press down into the wood beneath him. The floor groaned softly beneath their collective steps, not out of age alone, but as if protesting their presence.

It was pitch black inside. The only light came from Bruma’s lantern, swinging low at her side. It’s dull, violet flame barely reached the walls, leaving most of the church swallowed in thick, undisturbed shadow.

The group instinctively huddled close to Bruma’s massive frame as she moved forward with slow, heavy strides. Her boots thudded softly against the ancient wood, each step echoing into the suffocating silence.

Lucy’s skin prickled. Something worse than the shadow creatures felt like it was still here, watching. Waiting.

But Llarm hadn’t signaled any immediate danger, so the group pressed on. Bruma led, Lucy at her side, with Llarm, Fenric, and Carlos behind them, and Gindu and Eri bringing up the rear.

Suddenly, a breeze tickled Lucy’s cheek. He turned just in time to see Llarm gesture sharply, dragging a finger across his throat, then pointing at the floor ahead.

Lucy gripped his sword tightly, her heart beating faster. ’The hell does that mean, you cryptic bastard?’

Then he saw it.

Bones.

At first, just one pile—scattered, broken—but then the light revealed more. Dozens of skeletal remains lay half-buried in the warped wood and dirt, lining the floor like silent witnesses to a forgotten massacre. The firelight danced across skulls and ribs and shattered limbs.

And in the center of them all—etched into the floor in dried, rust-colored blood—was a massive, crude pentagram.

The symbol pulsed faintly as the lantern’s glow flickered, casting jagged shadows that twisted and crawled along the walls like living things.

Lucy didn’t focus on the bones. Not yet.

Bruma was crouching low, gently brushing debris aside with surprising care for someone her size. She murmured to herself, trying to make sense of it.

Lucy’s gaze shifted instead to Fenric.

He’d half-expected the blood-junkie to go feral at the sight of the dried ritual site—but Fenric looked calm. Focused, even. He quietly stroked Carlos’s fur as the little wolf pup shivered in his arms.

’Guess the smell’s too faint for the freak to get excited,’ Lucy mused.

Still, he couldn’t ignore the pit in his stomach. He crouched beside Bruma and looked closer at the bones. They weren’t elves—no pointed ears. Not dragonkin—no elongated skulls. Not ogres, giants, or beastfolk. No tails, no abnormal features.

They were... human.

’Wait, what?’ Lucy’s throat tightened.

’These are humans. But how? Did this church exist before the exile?’

He blinked, shaking his head, trying to recall what Llarm had told him back when he first met him.

’No, that doesn’t track. The gods supposedly willed themselves into existence after humans became corrupted. That’s how the stories go... right?’

He looked again at the skeletal remains, then at the pentagram carved into the ground.

’Then what the hell is this place?’

A deeper chill wrapped around his spine.

’What was this ritual for? What were they trying to summon—or seal? Are they the shadows from earlier?’

He didn’t have time to answer.

Bruma moved forward, and with her, the light.

Lucy hesitated, eyes lingering on the bones as if they might suddenly move or whisper answers to the questions burning in his mind.

But darkness swallowed everything beyond that tiny flame, and he wasn’t about to lose sight of their only light source.

The cohort followed in silence. Each of them passed by the circle of death in their way—Llarm stiff and pale, shivering despite the wind magic around him. Gindu stepped over the corpses with arms crossed, his gaze unreadable. Fenric didn’t even glance down. And Eri... she just walked, her boots crunching over rib bones like they were nothing.

The path ahead led them up a few shallow steps and onto a stage.

Bruma came to a halt.

So did everyone else.

She raised the lantern slowly, higher and higher, its light climbing the walls until—

Stained glass came into view.

Dark purples, void blacks, and blood-red veins shimmered faintly in the lantern’s light.

And then Lucy saw what it portrayed.

His mouth went dry.

A towering figure stood in the center of the glass, wreathed in flowing shadows. Her many arms stretched outward, cradling cities made of bones and eyes. Her hooded face was half-hidden, but the smirk beneath the veil was unmistakable.

Nyxaris.

And they were in her church.