Why? Why? Why? Why?
Why has she forsaken us? Why does she protect the heretics who hinder the Procession?
Why does the Goddess that the Demons called Mother Now siding with the Heathens.
The Demon of Faith could not understand even as its body began to collapse and shatter like glass. As cracks ran up its body, it’s many teeth clattering to the ground like spent shells from a gun.
It looked towards the one who tasted of the Void. What was so special about him? What made Mother choose to protect him. The Void was not supposed to care. The Void was the buffer between Life and Death, Good and Evil. Purity and Corruption.
No re insect had the ability, nay the privilege of harnessing the power of the void. What could it be? It opened its few remaining mouths to taste the air, the very presence of the one who wielded the void as his weapon. At first there was nothing...then it felt what it had been searching for.
It found what lay beneath.
It froze. Mouths trembling. Then, softly, it began to laugh.
The laughter rose slowly, building from a wheeze into sothing shrill and broken. A cackle that echoed from throat to throat, mouth to mouth, overlapping like shattered glass in a spinning drum.
"I see the circle... broken still..."
Its eyes did not exist, yet it turned toward the ceiling as if to look beyond it.
"The ash has not cooled. The end has not slept."
Laughter again. Short, choking.
"Of course you hide it in him. Of course you bury it there. How else could the seed sprout?"
No one spoke. No one moved. The group watched as the Demon laughed itself apart.
"My hands were ant to open the door, not bar it. Fool that I am. Fool. Fool... fool..."
It bent forward, nearly collapsing, but caught itself on one knee.
"My only sorrow..." it whispered, "is that I will not hear the song."
It smiled then, wide and unnatural.
"The rhythm of the Unspoken. The last breath drawn in reverse."
Its limbs cracked again. The chalice fell from its grip and turned to mist.
"I was wrong. So wrong. Forgive ... Brother. Forgive for delaying the Feast."
And then it shattered.
The Demon of Faith collapsed into a thousand pieces, its mouths still caught in silent laughter as they turned to dust. No fanfare. No triumphant system ssage.
Only silence.
And not one of them had any idea what it had ant.
Penny exhaled slowly through her nose, lowering her guard only after the last mote of dust settled. Her eyes remained locked on the spot where the Demon had crumbled, lips curled in a deep frown.
"Well," she said, voice flat. "That was exactly the kind of cryptic nightmare fuel I didn’t need today."
No one replied right away.
She gestured vaguely at the empty space in front of them, her expression half-bewildered and half-exasperated.
"Seriously. What was that? ’Circle broken, door opened, ash uncooled?’ Was that a doomsday cult riddle or a bad poetry reading from the end of ti?"
Rachel blinked, still catching her breath. "You good?"
Penny raised both brows and placed a hand over her heart in mock offense. "No. I am absolutely not good. That thing just forgave soone for delaying the Feast. I don’t even want to know what’s on the nu."
Crystal wiped black ichor off her sword with a flick. "You sound like you do want to know."
"I really, really don’t," Penny said. "Because if it involves ’last breaths drawn in reverse,’ I am officially done. That sounds like cursed dessert."
Rachel snorted. "You’re gonna end up writing a book after all this, aren’t you?"
"If I survive? You better believe I’m getting a book deal, a therapy dog, and a full exorcism."
Aria didn’t laugh. Her gaze was fixed on the ceiling above. Cracks spiderwebbed out from the beams, and bits of stained glass trembled in the fractured fra of a long-ruined window.
Then the first pillar gave way.
It collapsed with a grinding groan, stone crumbling into dust. A chain reaction followed, spreading along the cathedral’s spine as wall after wall gave up what little structure remained.
But the ground beneath their feet stayed firm. Solid.
Only the building broke. The church collapsed inward, like a husk finally giving in to rot.
The group stepped back instinctively, weapons still drawn, but the danger never reached them. In a few long seconds, the cathedral was reduced to little more than ruins and ash.
Silence followed.
No system notification. No glowing loot. Just the emptiness left in the wake of sothing ancient.
Greg was the first to break it. "So... we’re just gonna act like that was a totally normal occurrence?"
"No pretending required," Rachel said. "Get with the tis Old Man. This sorta shit is quickly becoming the status quo for us!"
Adam curled up his spider limbs pressing them up tightly against his body as he remarked
"You do realize how fucking terribly sad that is, right? Traumatic and terrifying situations shouldn’t be normal!"
Luna, who’d been quietly watching the last of the rubble settle, finally let out a slow breath.
"Didn’t even get to finish it off," she muttered. "Felt like it gave up."
She adjusted her grip on her axe, eyes narrowing. "I don’t like things that quit when they know sothing we don’t."
Crystal stood a few feet away, her sword still in hand. She gave the ruins a long, thoughtful look.
"It didn’t just die," she said. "It unraveled. Like sothing unspooled it from the inside out."
She glanced toward the others, her voice quieter. "I think sothing made it stop."
Lily, arms folded, gave the smoldering church a once-over, then flicked black ichor off her boot with visible distaste.
"Well, the architecture was garbage and the preaching was worse. Honestly, this place collapsing might be the first improvent it’s seen in decades."
Her tone was light, but her expression stayed tight. She didn’t like it either.
Aria hadn’t spoken at all. She stood near Penny, her posture still tense, her gaze distant. Only when the others finished did she murmur,
"Sothing about this... felt watched."Like sothing or soone was keeping an eye on us."
Leo slowly nodded his head as he looked at the surroundings before his brow furrowed in alarm.
"Hey guys...Since when were we standing in a garden?"
The others turned sharply to follow his gaze and an uneasy silence fell over the group.
The cathedral ruins were gone replaced by a sprawling garden. But it was no peaceful sanctuary. The twisted vines crawled like claws over broken statues their once-beautiful faces cracked and worn as if screaming silently. The flowers blood blood-red petals curling like burned flesh. Shadows clung unnaturally to the gnarled trees shifting as if alive though no breeze stirred.
The air hung heavy and thick slling faintly of rot and iron.
[System Notice: You have Entered the Garden of Serenity]
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