Chapter 486: Apostle Evan (3)
“That’s what I should be asking. The service isn’t over yet, is it? Is it alright for a Proxy to leave their post?”
Come to think of it, he was one of the Proxies sitting on the platform in the square.
His outward appearance was ordinary, but his unusually faint presence suggested he was a skilled individual focused on mobility.
The Bishop, called Tritan, scratched his cheek and replied.
“Uh… I’m not sure either, but they told me to go to the temple first because there was something to do there.”
“……”
“A few other Proxies besides me also left their posts, and I don’t know where they went.”
Could it be that Archbishop Nidri noticed something strange happening at the temple?
Lennok and Zaif quickly exchanged glances, then simultaneously shook their heads slightly.
If she knew that two Apostles had freely entered the Archbishop’s office, she wouldn’t be calmly presiding over the service.
She probably sent the Proxies back to the temple for other matters.
Perhaps the Archbishop’s secret is hidden right there.
“By the way, Apostle Zaif, what’s going on? And who is this person?”
“Actually…”
Zaif then retold the story, which he had already repeated dozens of times to the priests, with some embellishment.
Tritan, who had nodded along and listened to the entire story, his eyes sparkling.
“Oh, I can’t believe there was an Apostle with such devout faith in the headquarters…!!”
“……”
“I can’t just stand by. I’ll help too!!”
“…What?”
At Tritan’s swift reaction, rolling up his sleeves and stepping forward, Zaif’s expression subtly twisted.
Tritan, oblivious to Zaif’s thoughts, began to touch the broken wall with a beaming smile.
“It seems it was difficult with just the priests’ strength, but I’ve done plenty of grunt work like this back in the Northwest Branch. If I get my hands on it, it’ll be like eating a stale fortune cookie.”
“Was that what a fortune cookie meant?”
“Ahem, well, is that really important? Rather than that…”
Tritan, subtly glancing at Lennok, cleared his throat and mumbled.
“Um, perhaps you could put in a good word for me during the Selection Ritual…? I’d be grateful if I could just get a definite answer on that.”
“……”
“You know, we could even become senior and junior, couldn’t we?”
So, in exchange for tidying up the mess at the temple right now, he wants help getting into the Archbishop’s good graces during the ritual?
For someone who seemed to have a good impression, he was quite cunning inside.
The moment Zaif was about to dismiss his words with an absurd expression, Lennok stepped forward and promptly nodded.
“How can I refuse someone who offers to cooperate for the temple? However, I also have something I’d like to ask.”
“Yes, please speak.”
Lennok’s gaze, fixed on Tritan’s subtly expectant face, sharpened.
“The meeting place the Archbishop mentioned beforehand. Could I hear about it briefly before the ritual begins?”
A massive ammunition depot located behind the Far Eastern Branch Grand Temple and the distribution center.
Unlike the other buildings made of stone, its impressive appearance consisted of sturdy steel plates reinforced and painted pristine white.
It was easy to be misled by the strong smell of paint, but drawing a little closer, it wasn’t difficult to notice something amiss.
At first glance, it appeared to be left unguarded without any security personnel, but an intricate barrier array enveloped and protected the entire ammunition depot.
The method involved sending a signal to the barrier’s administrator and isolating the entire barrier whenever an intruder or unfamiliar magic approached.
Among Jindun’s barrier spells, it required meticulous management, but it was a high-grade isolation barrier that guaranteed reliable security.
Although it was disguised as something unimportant, the fact that only this facility was newly overlaid with Jindun’s barrier spell, unlike others, indicated something significant.
Without hesitation, Lennok took out another piece of paper with a control code drawn on it, then unhesitatingly crossed the ammunition depot’s barrier and stood before the door.
“……”
The paint smell that had been present moments ago was now, as if a lie, replaced by an unknown stench wafting from the gap in the door.
Even Lennok’s dulled sense of smell could tell it wasn’t merely the odor of filth; it was a truly foul smell.
After checking for presences around him one more time, he opened the door, and the shocking sight that met his eyes left him speechless.
Bullets and gunpowder masses rolled on the floor, drenched in a sticky fluid, and countless corpses were strewn haphazardly on top.
Naked bodies of men, women, and children, without a single piece of clothing. There was no trace of blood left in their bodies.
They were rigid and stiff like white wax figures, their limbs twisted into grotesque shapes, discarded in the ammunition depot.
Even Lennok, who usually dealt with death stoically, subtly furrowed his brow at the sight.
“This is not good.”
At the horrific scene inside the ammunition depot, which made even Zaif slightly tense, Lennok also shook his head.
“…The problem is, this isn’t all.”
The very act of keeping the ammunition depot’s location a secret from Zaif was proof that she wanted to conceal this place.
Why did Archbishop Nidri hide this place and leave instructions only for the Proxies to secretly enter it?
Lennok, carefully examining the scattered corpses, finally succeeded in identifying the faint sense of déjà vu.
“Apostle Zaif, look at this part.”
Lennok said, lifting the corpse of an old man leaning weakly against the wall.
“A small hole piercing the chest from below the left armpit. Similar wounds are present on every single corpse.”
“Indeed. Such marks wouldn’t appear during the offering process…”
“It wasn’t a spell; it was done through physical means. Do you understand what that means?”
At the same time, threads of magic extended from his fingertips, lifting all the corpses and quickly beginning to peel back the ammunition depot’s floor.
“Someone who kills people in such a bizarre way is nearby.”
“…Someone?”
“And then,
Thump, thump, thump!!
A sound as if the entire ammunition depot was shaking. But Lennok paid no mind to such commotion and continued to focus on searching everywhere.
Amidst the constantly moving magical threads, a different sound echoed from before.
Lennok immediately rubbed the piece of paper with Jindun’s control code on the area where he felt that sense of déjà vu.
Creeeeak…!!
The barrier, hidden deep within the piles of corpses, melted away, revealing a circular passage.
A lukewarm breath wafted from inside the gaping passage.
Lennok carefully peered down the passage and mumbled.
“It’s not just a warehouse for storing corpses.”
Why most of the Far Eastern Branch’s barriers had been replaced with Jindun’s relic-based barrier magic.
He now seemed to understand why the temple’s internal facilities were unusually beyond the control of the managing priests.
Archbishop Nidri had a secret she desperately wanted to hide through her own power, even if it meant other priests couldn’t control the barriers or security facilities.
“It’s a breathing hole that expels the humans thrown in as fodder.”
“Then…”
Lennok and Zaif looked at each other, then one after another, pushed their bodies into the passage.
They climbed up the passage, going against the direction of the rough wind blowing through it.
“…!!”
Squelch!!
Lennok’s body, as if bouncing through squishy flesh, instantly surged forth into the surrounding darkness.
Seeing the priest standing dumbfounded next to him, Lennok raised his mana.
[Loaded Thunder Annihilation]
[Net Torment]
Tzzzzzzzzz…!!!
Dozens of strands of electricity bursting from between the priests’ robes instantly rotated, piercing, twisting, and tearing apart the priests moving all around.
The immense firepower compressed within the lightning, thinner than a finger, instantly snatched life from their bodies.
Lennok, who had instantly slain over a dozen priests without even being able to steady himself, only then leaned on the floor with both hands and let out a groan.
“Ugh…!!”
Even after taking motion sickness medication, his stomach was churning, but the scene laid out before him made it unnecessary to hold back the urge to vomit.
It was a pristine white room, presumed to be a hidden annex of the temple. Around it, dead human bodies and oozing fluids were densely stuck everywhere.
The entire space was filled with humidity and the smell of bodily fluids, making it difficult to even breathe. The priests Lennok had killed were also wearing something resembling gas masks on their faces.
Perhaps they couldn’t even scream and died because breathing was so difficult without such equipment?
If not for his shield’s filter magic, Lennok himself would have found it hard to endure even a few minutes in this space.
Zaif, who followed him down the passage, also mumbled with a somewhat bewildered expression.
“No way, such a secret place was hidden in the Far Eastern Branch… Did the Archbishop really…”
“……”
Lennok composed his churning stomach, stood up, and quickly surveyed his surroundings.
It was a massive hexagonal room. Through passages at the base of each wall, fluid-drained corpses were being flushed out for disposal.
The task involved receiving the endlessly emerging corpses from the center of the room, wiping off their fluids, and flushing them into the sewage system.
Once a corpse, neatly drained of its bodily fluids, was thrown in, it would be pushed out one by one, dropping down the passage.
Lennok silently closed his mouth upon seeing the corpses that had not yet been drained of their fluids.
A desperate death, as if blood tears flowed from the five orifices of their faces.
Their state conveyed the full extent of the fear and pain they endured during the offering.
Forcing himself to ignore it, he turned his gaze to the center of the room, and only then did the form of the being ceaselessly regenerating all these corpses come into view.
[Coo, coo…]
A clean, soft ball of fur, like white cotton candy.
A giant fur ball, easily ten meters across, filled the center of the room, sleeping soundly with quiet breaths.
Its appearance felt utterly pure, completely detached from this horrific space.
However, each time the fur ball heaved with a breath, the sight of fluid-drenched corpses emerging from beneath it was no illusion.
Before Lennok could utter a word about the grotesque sight,
Zaif, standing beside him, mumbled in a choked voice.
“10th Apostle Amrita… Why, of all places, here…”
“……”
Apostle Amrita. Lennok was also very familiar with that name.
The master of an Apostle spell called [Amrita’s Scale], capable of spatially transferring an equivalent amount of life by offering the same number of humans.
“Apostle Evan, there wasn’t a single lie in your words. How far ahead were you looking, exactly?”
Zaif’s expression was twisted with a strange emotion, almost akin to terror.
“Archbishop Nidri wasn’t planning to turn the Proxies into Apostles. She intends to simply offer the faithful from each branch as fodder to Lord Amrita.”
“……”
“We must stop the ritual. Tell me anything, I will cooperate with all my strength in whatever you intend to do.”
Zaif’s gaze was so resolute that he seemed ready to agree even if Lennok suggested killing the Archbishop on the spot.
Lennok listened to Zaif’s fervent words, shaking his head inwardly.
Had they come too far to say now that he never expected all these lies to become truth?
If all the words he had spun to deceive Zaif were now coming back like a boomerang, accurately piercing the secret of the Far Eastern Branch,
And if that secret was so significant that it required him to change his existing plans…
There was no time for long deliberation.
The sun was almost setting. By now, the Archbishop, having finished the service, would also have had enough time to notice the anomalies at the temple.
“Alright.”
Lennok sighed, raised his head, and his eyes glinted sharply.
“If you’re going that far, I’ll tell you the last thing we need to do. Are you ready?
“Yes…!!”
“We kill Apostle Amrita right here.”