Published at 15th of April 2026 12:11 am

Chapter 149. First meeting

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We walked out of the corridor into an audience room similar to the one before the staircase from which Id fallen. This one had the same dimensions and a similar number of wall decorations, but they were even older and in much worse shape. Instead of the militaristic art of the previous room, this one had much more classical, delicate carvings of angels and saints locked in a righteous struggle against the demons of Lucifer.

We walked on through the hall and finally came to a massive two-winged door. The carvings on them depicted a victory of menthis time not angelsover demons. It showed a saint I didnt recognize pushing a flaming sword into a prone devils chest. I had to say, while the artistry was impressive, it seemed a bit monotonous. It brought to mind the corridor I walked through going to the police precinct in Brazil, decorated with certificates and newspaper clippings of every time the police won a major case.

I chuckled lightly to myself.

Whats funny? Luna asked.

Nothing. Some things never change, I replied and turned, leaving the conversation without explanation.

We stood there a few more seconds before one of the paladins was finally sent to open the door. He pushed against the massive wing, and it moved, silently, with surprising easeno squeak of hinges, no need to push against something barring it from the other side. It was like the door was newly oiled and

Watch out, I whispered. We are entering the main part of the singularity itself.

As the man opened the door, our eyes fell upon it: the city underground. To my surprise, it wasnt covered in darkness. Noinstead, it was all lit up, clearly visible in a strange yellow light falling from the sky? I noticed that and, uneasy, brought my eyes upward just like everyone else did in the very same moment.

And

Pain.

Pain was the only thing in my mindpain and IT. The thing in the sky slipped barbed hands of yellow light alongside my optic nerves and into my brain, trying to squeeze, squeeze as hard as possible. The pressure would burst my eyes from their sockets, and I would celebrate only because it would stop me from seeing.

The emptiness inside was what let me move the muscles in my hand and lower my gaze by dragging my own head down by the hair. Awe, not accompanied by fear, was apparently powerless in its true purpose.

I looked around, careful not to gaze above eye level, and immediately tackled Ophelia to the ground, not caring if I bruised her. Looking up as much as I could without seeing the center of the sky, I checked on the rest. My friends broke out of the trance with shouts of pain a second later and went to tackle those still staring upward.

In the end, half the group woke on their own. The rest had to be brought down. Of those tackled to the floor, half were now unconscious. One was in critical condition as the tackle reopened a wound, and one diedtheir brain fried in seconds.

W-what the fuck was that? someone said, shaking.

It was I began, still dealing with the lingering pain, then paused. What was it? I knew Id seen something, but I couldnt tell what.

I had a pretty good guess, though.

I think thats a memory of when your god tried to slip into the real world, said a man from a smaller religious factiona Greek priest, if I had to wager.

It hangs over the middle of the city, so most likely the ninth-tier part, I said.

Most people looked down in fright, and I couldnt blame them. I, too, was hesitant to lift my eyes upward. The effect was strange: as long as one looked forward or only slightly up, it was fine, but the act of focusing on the center of the sky would almost kill you on the spot.

My train of thought was halted by loud sobs. I turned to the side to see one of the Riswalts' women sobbing over a manthe one who died after looking upone of the weaker ones in the group.

Someone tried to silence the woman's sobs, but she fought them off. I finally cast Muffle over the struggle and looked around. We had fourteen unconscious, one injured, currently being patched by Luna, and one deadand we hadnt even entered the city.

Great.

We sat around, everyones eyes glued to the ground, for a few more minutes, letting Luna do her work until she finally stood up.

Its done. He can move, she announced awkwardly.

But no one got up. Everyone was unable to make the first move, pretending they didnt hear her. Finally, Helga and I stood, with the rest of the leaders right after.

You can look forward, you know? the massive woman announced, subconsciously lowering her booming voice to a loud whisper. Just dont look at the center of the sky.

I felt Ophelia elbow me in the side and leaned toward her.

So we have our first rule, she said in my ear with a deadpan expression.

I looked at her, raised my eyebrows, and gave a chuckle. Yeah, thats something, I guess.

So only jabs, no uppercuts, eh? Darius said loudly from the side, earning a laugh from the Hussar and disapproving glances from many others.

Once standing, I looked over the city, this time paying attention not to look too far upward. It was massive, built in a uniform architectural style predating Gothic, mixing its soaring, towering lines with more modern architectural details like clock towers, using magic in place of machinery.

Id worried separating the outer ring from the center would be hard, but it turned out easy, as I saw three wallsor rather their arcane renditions meant more as conduits for runic arrays and arcane shieldsgoing around the city in three consecutive rings. I didnt look too long at the center. All I managed to catch was that there was a massive white spire in the middle reaching toward the sky. The huge building was constantly bathed in a ray of yellow light falling upon it.

I wasnt sure exactly what the spire was, but I imagined the second circle housed the people who worked there and likely had research centers and other supporting facilities. Finally, the third circle looked like normal housingno overly complicated buildings stood out, unlike in the second one, where some monstrous constructions could be seen. Three towers were stopped mid-fall with their upper parts at a ninety-degree angle to their walls, a coliseum-like building with runes lit up in each arch on the side, creating a massive array, and one building covered in a veil of constant darkness. I could go on for days naming all the strange sights before my eyes.

The city itself was placed at the bottom of a massiveinhumanly socavern. We came out of the corridor and now stood on a small stone shelf slightly raised over the level of the city walls, overlooking the entire conglomeration. There were two other stone shelves like ours, most likely leading to the other gates. And one more, the biggest one, supporting houses outside the city walls. There, the buildings were much bigger and scarcer, each having a small estate.

What caught my attention was their silence. Even in the first circle of the city, each bigger building had an aura of some kindsomething was going on with it. Looking toward a large square house near the city entrance, I saw dark silhouettes in every window, staring at us whenever I looked their way, but the mansions on the shelf were still.

The entire cavern was bathed in a yellow glow, the shine obscured by rolling, cloud-like mist over our heads. It was thin but seemed to stop the shine, bathing the outer rings in ever-changing illuminationas if on a cloudy day, but with the clouds moving much faster than usual, casting a constantly shifting light.

Please tell me you have some intel about this place, I said, looking to the side where Clementus was also studying the city with Helga and Nathan close to him.

Some, he said, but judging by the scowl permanently painted on is face for the past minute, I doubted it was much.

Anyone else who might know something?

Well the mortal pope should, but he has his own games

Oh, for fucks sake. Anyone else who knewwait, dont tell me. George?

The man nodded, not looking in my direction.

Great, I groaned. Where do we look for the previous expeditions' remains?

Any safe spot. They would be moving slowly, resting as much as they could. They should have been writing down observations as they went.

Please tell me they were instructed to leave the research in the middle of the room where they wrote it?

He slowly shook his head. No, but if they ran and left a corpse behind

Thats a long shot, I said, raising my eyebrows.

Not so much. They had an empath with them. Theyd use any safe spot to research what was coming and then leave scribes and guards to hold the spot and document their findings. The main group would move, but theres a good chance those made to fortify the safe spot died there.

Or tried running with the research.

Or tried running with the research.

I looked back at the city. The story, once again, didnt make much sense. Safe spots could be manyspots forgotten by the singularity, where nothing had happened during whatever its source was, so the mana didnt care for them. To hold them down and then move to another and hold it, they would have to have a massive group or

Expedition my ass. You tried to set up a foothold in this place. Thats why you sent them with their own key, to bring reinforcements whenever they needed them. Holy fuck, how many times did you unseal this gate, or did you just leave it open?

Clementus snapped his head to me. Dont speak of what you know nothing of. The Church wasnt like the clanswe couldnt hide our resources from the Inquisition because they sat on our councils. We went from the biggest magical power to one run by the mortal world. Yes, we were desperate to regain our own heritagesomething you should understand, Mr. Alhazred.

I was surprised at the outburst. For a split second, there was passion in the dull voice, the awkwardness gone. And as fast as it came, it disappeared.

U-um, he started awkwardly once again. You get my point, he finished, bringing his eyes back to the city.

I did the same.

Yeah. I get it.

After five more minutes, the unconscious people woke up, some of them crying the moment they laid eyes on what was around themthe hope it was all a dream entirely gone. We gathered and confirmed the plan. The talk seemed to help people get their minds off our situation.

The larger the group, the easier to spot. The smaller the group, the easier it would be for the skinwalker to move undetected. So we decided to split into small groups and move in two parties, always staying close to one another, making it easy to split up and run if needed, while ensuring there were enough eyes to spot any suspicious activity.

Once inside, we would spread around the area, look for a space with a lower mana concentration than the surroundings, and then check it thoroughly.

Once divided, we started moving toward the city gate. Finally, the high wall covered a big part of the sky, and we all felt a slight weight liftone we didnt even know was there.

As we came closer, we noticed another strangeness. The city beyond the open gate looked completely different: lively and clean. The sun shone on the buildings, and two guards stood in the passage, not paying any attention to our approaching group. It looked like the gates portal was displaying a movie about the city in much happier times.

Let me guess, Darius said from behind my back. Illusion.

Or a trap, Luna suggested.

After a second of consternation, one of the people threw a stone at the image, but nothing happened. The guards didnt react either. We all gave a collective groan and slowly approached, now almost on the threshold. My senses werent picking anything up. I couldnt tell if it was real, a spell, or something elseit just was. No dissociation, no feeling of wrongness. The sun in front was just as real as the yellowish glow behind my back.

Finally, one of the paladins raised his shield and stepped forward. The moment his leg passed the threshold, the illusion disappeared. The happy, clean city vanished like a dream, revealing the yellow-washed buildings bathed in the ever-changing light dimmed by the mist in the sky. The street was empty and silentso much so that one could hear the beating of ones own heart. Each step was like a small explosion in the empty, dead space. Empty except for one thing: the guards previously standing to the sides were now right in front of the paladin.

He raised his shield and went for his weapon, but then brought that hand back to help with defense. We froze. But the silence continued. The guards, who now looked like corpses in uniforms, stared with empty, hollow eye sockets as they stood before the paladin.

We looked at one another and then approached as the paladin simply stepped around the standing corpses. We all followed him around them without incident. A bit of tension dissipated, and a few sighs of relief could be heard once we were inside.

And then someone spoke.

Oh, so beautiful, said a female voice.

We turned around and saw the Riswalt woman, who had previously been crying over our first casualty, stopped before the gate. She slowly extended her hand, then froze, disbelief on her face.

Josh? she said, tears welling in her eyes. Oh, Josh, youre alive. My son she exclaimed in reverie and stepped inside, her hand outstretched, palm to the side as if to hold someones cheek.

Even when she crossed the threshold, it didnt seem to break the illusion for her, as her face was still frozen in a wide smile filled with love. That smile stayed on her face even when her head fell to the paved road. The attack was so quick that the body still stood with its hand outstretched for a few seconds before it followed the head.

We didnt see the guard move. He was in one spot, then in another, and she was deadjust like that.

We all stood frozen in disbelief. But most of allwhy were we allowed in and she was the one to die? We could only guess.

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