Ch 34: Waning Moon.

“T-The Sun Priest?”

The flames covering Hellia wavered in the surrounding darkness—a small candle in the deep chasm of winding staircases and tubing.

She feared the worst, but the worst was yet to come.

I didn’t sense him at all. What are they doing here? For years, the Sect of Celestia had kept to themselves, so why now? 

“Hey, w-what do you think you’re doing?” The voice coming from the eerie sun mask was sunken. With bad posture, mellow and lazy, he spoke as if he were forced to turn up to a family gathering that he had no interest in. “S-so this is where you’ve been.”

“HUH?” Moon flinched back, waving his hands. “No. No. I was just here to take out some trash!”.

Sun moved his attention to the blazing silhouette. “It’s…her.” The flaming ball of blue in his hand shrank, disappearing into his palm.

The Sun Priest, with an affinity for fire, made it a relatively ineffective matchup for both sides. Still, being outnumbered two to one made this encounter cumbersome. Hellia narrowed her wolf-like eyes at the two priests; even in these circumstances, she had faith she could take them both at the same time.

“That’s a nasty stare,” Sun said, his shoulders rolled forward and his head slightly ducked. “What are you looking at?” The mask appeared lifeless, with a broad, asymmetrical smile and hollow eye sockets.

Sun turned to Moon again. “What are you doing? Creating more work for me like this.” At the lazy flick of a wrist, a blue fireball flung towards Hellia, who caught it, turning the blue flames to a familiar orange.

Wait, so Sun doesn’t know what's going on either?

“You know how it goes.” Dramatically shrugging his shoulders, Moon sent another projectile at Hellia. “I only exist where the universe wants me to!”

An opening?

While Sun was turned to Moon, Hellia blitzed forward. She launched her spear down centre, lancing the two Priests apart as they dodged, Sun to the left and Moon to the right.

I’ll take you first.

Hellia reached for Moon. Still split into copies, he couldn’t move as fast as the original. Dashing forward, Sun tried getting between Hellia and Moon, but he wasn’t going to be quick enough. Hellia then made a sharp turn in the opposite direction—it was a feint.

CRASH!

A heavy fist sent Sun crashing into the far wall of metal tubing, indenting the surface and bursting the pipes of gas.

Facing Moon once again, Hellia prepared a rune circle before deciding to take a defensive stance.

Another strong aura had entered the chasm.

“WHAT THE F*CK ARE YOU DOING HERE!? WHERE WAS MY INVITE?”

A figure covered in a murky yellow veil with a strange, unnerving mask shaped like a star.

The pit in Hellia’s stomach churned, growing wider. Yet she stood with both feet planted and head held high.

All three Priests of Celestia in one place?!

“THIS WHOLE TIME YOU’VE BEEN WITH MOON EVEN INVITING HELLIA BUT NOT ME?” Star’s demeanour was aggressive as always, standing as if he’d just been insulted.

“I-I just got here myself.” Sun brushed the debris from his body with a heavy sigh.

“Wow! We’re all here? This is going to be sooooooo fun!” Moon exclaimed, holding his belly as he giggled. The other Moon Priests rose, jumping from staircases to platforms before converging into one, returning the Moon Priest to its original form.

“DO YOU SENSE THAT?”

Hellia’s eyes widened as Star dived down into the darkness.

Attempting to intercept Star, Hellia was met with a blinding light.

“C-can you not?” Sun whined.

Deeper in the chasm, the Spearhead waited in the pervading darkness. Snow and Mira were casting healing magic on the two unresponsive bodies. Though they were in rough condition, battered and bruised, their hearts were still beating, and right now, that’s all that mattered.

All eyes cast upward in blind hope as a figure approached. Fabrics swaying in the air as they dived down, Ace squinted, unable to tell the colour through the darkness.

THUMP!

The dust unsettled as they landed on the platform, the metal echo running across the tubes. Snow’s light illuminated a rotten yellow mask, with corners pointed outwards and empty eyes.

A sinking feeling. Star snapped his head toward a single person. Mira and Hiro attacked—too slow. It wasn’t after them.

Huh?

The hollow eyes snuck up right into his face, and Ace felt the ground vanish. But he wasn’t falling; he was ascending the chasm at a rapid pace.

Hellia’s eyes widened as Star returned, holding a rune circle to Ace’s head.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH A STAR-CROSSED?”

Hellia glanced at the other Priests. “Star-crossed?”

Being ruffled by the collar like a dog, Ace clenched his fists. He didn’t try to break free from the grip; he knew it was pointless. It always had been from the start. It felt like every day he was waking up, and the world itself was against him.

All three of the Priests? Star-crossed? Where have I heard that term before?

Even outnumbered and cornered, Hellia’s orange eyes burned bright. Head high, her gold armour and red dress glistened as she stood with valour and grit.

Ace knew he was in a dark pit. He could touch the rusted metal. He could hear the hollow echoes. He could see the looming darkness. But only now did he feel it.

If I can’t even stand on my own two feet, how am I ever going to make it back home? Find Cecilia and the wretched person who summoned us here? Face the Commissioner? Find out why I was even brought here?

The disparity in power was enormous. Overwhelming to even think about. Maybe even larger than the never-ending chasm they were standing in.

If only I had power. If only I was strong. Even a little bit. Even a fraction of Hellia’s, then maybe, maybe my life would mean something. Maybe I wouldn’t have gotten into this mess in the first place.

If I had power, I’d crawl out of this pit with my hands covered in blood. I’d interrogate the Commissioner, one finger at a time. I’d travel and scour the lands, searching and find Cecilia. I’d solve the Mass Disappearances, killing one priest at a time. It doesn’t matter how many there are. I’d hunt them down one by one. I’d tell Lazeroth that his name sounds stupid. I’d find the one who brought me here. Doesn’t matter if they’re a human, an elf, or even a deity. I’d find God himself, and ask him why. I’d find my way back home.

Maybe I’d take over Scaria. The Phoenix Cradle, Celestia, The Barrens, The Nexus Legion, all of it. Maybe that wouldn’t be enough. I’d rule this world. Maybe then I would feel like my life meant something.

It was in this moment that Ace threw away the concept of ‘God’. In this chasm of shrouding darkness, he abandoned his belief. If there were a God, permitting such cruelty in the world, Ace had already seen enough. Little did he know he was only scratching the tip of the iceberg, but even that was enough.

If there were a God, he hated them. He wanted to kill them himself.

“HERE I THOUGHT WE HAD A LITTLE TRUCE?” Star exclaimed.

“You. It's you guys. The disappearances across Scaria. It's you, isn’t it?”

The Priests looked at one another.

“You, Moon.” Hellia pointed her finger straight at the crescent-shaped mask. “I know you’ve been luring people here. Eating them.”

“E-Eating?”

“She’s lying!!!” Moon stumbled backward, his hands frantic against the grated metal.

“H-Hes…”

“TAKEN!”

Sun and Star bolted towards Moon.

BANG! BOOM! CLANG!

Hellia and Ace watched in awe as the void erupted into bright explosions. The reverberations shot through the chasm in its entirety as they cornered Moon.

“Y-You. I-I can’t believe it.”

“ABANDONED BY THE LIGHT.”

With nowhere to escape, Star hammered Moon with exploding fists. His crescent mask began cracking as his robe singed from Sun’s flames.

Then, large, rotten limbs stretched from out of Moon’s robes. A transformation from hell, flesh, and body parts sprawled out from his body in all directions. Long arms and legs, hundreds of them knotting and winding between each other, diseased with rot.

Hellia grabbed Ace with one hand as she began casting a spell with the other. “Sixth Echelon, blessed by the light of the eternal sun, I condemn you with the flames of hell—Cage Of Fire.”

Moon’s laughs morphed into haunting, distorted cries. The limbs only seemed to keep coming as Sun, Star, and Hellia tore into them with attacks.

Star launched himself right into the centre of limbs, the hands and fingers clawing at him, before detonating an explosion that rocked the walls. Metal structures collapsed under the sudden pressure, and the chasm wouldn’t remain one much longer; it was falling down.

Moon, or the mass of flesh that once was Moon, released a deep shout that sent a shiver down Hellia’s spine, like the screams of condemned souls from the depths of Hell.

The limbs continued to sprout, but not as quickly as they were being burned.

“Sixth Echelon, blessed by the light of the eternal sun, I condemn you with the flames of hell—Cage Of Fire.”

Spell after spell, attack after attack, it took all three, Hellia, Sun, and Star to bring down the corpse, leaving only the stench of burning flesh and the creaking of collapsing metal.

“YOU HAVE TO TELL HIM!”

“M-Me? N-No, you can tell him!” Sun crouched down, covering his head with his hands.

“NO! NO! NO! YOU USELESS F*CK!” Star leaped upward, ascending the chasm.

Sun chased him, but glanced back to leave Hellia with one last warning.

“I-It’s coming. A-And it will come for you too.”