Chapter 32: "Buried Malice"

The path in one of the chambers of The Cathedral of Perpetual Order. Light went through an enormous stained glass and got fragmented into hundreds of colours, that melted with a disturbing quiet on the floor.

Fore, a locked door was the only thing separating me from its confines.

How could I have allowed this? Zera has abandoned me thanks to my own actions. How could I have fallen this low?

With the stealth of an assassin, I opened the door. I found myself on the second floor of a vast hall that had many internal balconies. In front, a hallway extended that rotated around all the balconies and was connected with the other chambers/rooms.

I had killed the person that had rescued her from her parents and Lodric, the samaritan that took her in. And why? Because The Eternal Whisper had told me to? Why did I obey him? So he could tell me how to take revenge on Zenith? Now, that’s absurd.

Not even a single soul wandered the place.

What’s more, what did Noelle mean when she said that my memories had been altered? I don’t understand, my mind is a chaos, I’m so confused.

The dome of the hall was decorated with stars and galaxies that illuminated the enclosure, creating a spectacle of brilliant, blinding lights.

For now, I’ll find The Feather to make sure that The Eternal Whisper doesn’t take it over. I don’t know what he wanted from me or why he needed me to kill Zenith…but until discovering it, it would be the best to have the artifact in my power.

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The Cathedral of Perpetual Order, it was the headquarters of The Order of the Undefeated Sun. That’s why its structure was so magnanimous, unparalleled. Hundreds of intricate hallways extended like veins inside the building.

It is just like I remembered. And to think that as a child I walked on this lares thinking it was my home.

From time to time, huge chambers extended towards the infinite. Those were the organs of that colossal being, The Cathedral of Perpetual Order: its columns were bones carved in stone, vaults arched like ribs that held an immortal breath, and the stained glasses looked like multiple eyes that guarded without rest.

At some point, I descended through a spiral staircase whose existence I had forgotten. The ceiling lights remained lingering, so the place didn’t have illumination.

What is this place? Could I have known it when I wandered in the Cathedral?

After finalizing the route, an arc gave me the welcome to a room trapped in gloominess. When I entered, a cold light emerged from the floor, brightening the lounge.

I had entered the Crypt of the cathedral.

It was a long, winding path, whose disruptive colour was cut from the general architecture of the cathedral.

Around… there’s no floor. It looked like a fall into an abyss.

Pillars of incalculable height rose from that void, assembled from bones and skulls, reminding whoever entered of their own mortality.

This place evades logic: I feel like I am inside another reality, as if I had left behind my world.

The Wound of Consummated Penance started to beat in my skull, lacerating it.

And this pain… damn it! It’s advancing faster than I expected.

Forwards, titanic chains like universes clung to the limbs of a corpse, making it hang over nothingness.

What is it? Why would such an entity be in the depths of the cathedral?
Its body was formed by infinite skeletal arms, extending beyond what my sight could reach.

It’s… magnanimous: I feel insignificant. How would it have looked alive?

Instead of a head, it possessed horns that trenched into one another, giving it the appearance of a perverse fungus, one of the most poisonous ones.

On its chest rested a stone whose luminosity had been extinguished ages ago.

“Be careful, fragile meat like yours is not capable of handling even the lightest torture that this god has borne for millennia.” Explained a metallic, raspy voice.

“Who are you? Explain to me what is happening,” I firmly ordered.

An iron maiden appeared from under the corpse. Her appearance imitated a human in a very realistic, almost eerily way. On top of her body, a porcelain head glanced at me with attention, prying into my being.

She is disturbing: she talks without having a mouth, her voice comes from the sarcophagus inside her.

The doors of her spiky uterus remained sealed. Nonetheless, her body was a repository of torture methods: she ostentatiously displayed multiple instruments to prolong the torment of her victims.

On her sides, sharp guillotines cut down like blades.

“I’m the humble servant of Xeroth, Lord of the Flagellum, God of the Plague. Or maybe, as you might know him: the one who once commanded the Order of The Infected.” She answered. Every word of hers felt heavy and ancient.

“And how did he end up like this?”

He is a God… Killing and locking him as a divestment? Why? What kind of morbid being would do something like that?

“He was murdered by Zenith, the Immutable Matriarch. His rest was exposed here as a trophy. Now remains only the shadow of his greatness.” She let out a rusted laugh, scratchy like a forgotten hinge.

“That’s how the war between the Order of the Unbeaten Sun and the Order of the Infected began? Because of Zenith’s doing?”

“Your judgement is correct.”

“Why?”

After so many years of confinement, she rejoiced, moving her guillotines with stiffness, eager to reveal secrets that only some Gods knew.

“You are not the first one to arrive here. There were others that ran your same path. To reveal the truth behind The Silence, Zenith experimented with them. She experimented with you, Son of Silence.”

So it’s true that she experimented with me: that’s a memory that I have burned in my mind.

But then, which ones were altered and which ones were not? And what’s more, who altered them?

“How do the deities know who is Son of Silence or not?”

The souls I absorbed were Sons of Silence as well. They wanted to take revenge as well. That wasn’t a lie? Did they run this path and encounter the maiden as well?

“You undermine the arcane knowledge of the ones that surpass you.” She answered, letting out another insufferable laugh. “All who have been reincarnated in this world are born blessed by The Silence.” She made a long pause, adjusting the gears of her mechanism.

“Zenith reincarnated fragile souls to continue her investigation.”

She did something similar with Zera, didn’t she? She rescued her from her parents for having transformed into a Child of Silence. That’s why Corin and Lodric remain in contact.

“Xeroth confronted her, tried to stop her. She pretended to break the laws of the world, to go further than the limit of the Deities: exceed her nature.”

The maiden exuded a metallic, pungent smell, a reflection of the ages of decadence in which she saw herself attached by her devotion to the Lord of the Flagellum.

Nature is something that not even deities can violate. Jix mentioned it, and so did The Primordial Eclipse as well.

“During the encounter, he died. Zenith killed him using…”

“Why? Why did The God of Plague want to stop Zenith? From what? What was she planning?” I said, desperate, interrupting her.

“The only one that knew that was him, and he was silenced in the most unacceptable way.”

Then he was in the right? Zenith is planning to do something horrible? My revenge and the one from the Sons of Silence is justified? But then, what does it mean that my memories had been altered… What is going on?

The iron maiden remained upright in front of me like a blasphemous altar. Her metallic skin was corroded with greenish spots, scars of time and confinement. Every articulation crunched as if they dragged ages of ruin.

No… all the gods tried to convince me of the contrary, that killing Zenith is a mistake, I must not doubt them, right?

But, what if they have lied to me as well? What if there’s a hidden story behind the Immutable Matriarch that I yet disown?

“Listen to me, Son of Silence. I’ve told you about Xeroth’s death. But, do you want to know how a God is born? Look inside me and you’ll understand.”

The doors of her spiky uterus opened slightly with a large and deafening moan. Inside there was no light, but a dense darkness, so profound that it seemed to absorb my own.

From the bottom a murmur emerged, a whisper barely noticeable, but charged with overlaid voices, like a choir of forgotten souls. It was impossible to distinguish if they were crying, praying, or laughing.

The truth… of the Gods, it’s inside there?

Hypnotized, I advanced towards her. Absorbed by the promise of a prohibited secret, I extended my hand, grabbing firmly the mystery that claimed me from her inside.

It’s… cozy.

And then, I understood that there was no turning back: the maiden wouldn’t just tell me how a God was born… she would make me live it in my own flesh.

When placing a foot on her metallic womb, her doors devoured me. Every instant inside there was dissolved in an absolute void: time gave up before the strength that trapped me.

Then, my consciousness was taken by the immensity of her core.