Chapter 22—Saintess of Carnage

Chael stopped in his tracks and a sharp as an unnatural stillness settled over him. Because somewhere ahead, within the shifting mist he saw a reflection.

It was faint, hazy and barely distinguishable at first. But something about it sent a cold shiver crawling down his spine. It was like a buried instinct clawing its way to the surface.

"...What is it?"

Echidna's voice was quiet but tense. She had stopped beside him, watching him carefully.

Chael said nothing.

Instead, he simply kept moving.

But slower and more cautious.

The stone colonnade stretched forward endlessly with its towering pillars rising into the fog and fading from view. The mist was finally starting to lift, clearing away in wisps and revealed more and more of their surroundings.

Soon, a colossal shape began to emerge in the distance and Chael's entire body stilled.

Echidna squinted through the thinning mist, trying to make out what he had seen in his reflection.

And then she saw it too and momentarily stopped breathing.

"…No way."

A cathedral rose before them. It was massive and much larger than anything Chael or Echinda had ever seen. Its towering spires stretched into the frozen heavens above and disappeared into the clouds. 

Its architecture was ancient and its stone walls were carved with intricate, swirling patterns that seemed to shift under the moonlight. 

Its windows were tall and narrow, lining the structure in uneven patterns. They should have been stained glass, but instead, they were pure black and mirrored, like pools of ink. They reflected the world wrongly and distorted the sky. The surrounding ruins had bent everything that touched their surface.

At the very top, where a bell tower should have been, there was only an archway. Chael noticed something else beyond that archway, but he wasn't exactly sure what it was. He couldn't see clearly and even if he had perfect vision, it'd have been too far up to see anyway.

Echidna's voice was barely above a whisper, "What kind of place needs something this big?"

Chael's blindfolded face was still turned toward it, his grip on the spear unmoving. Because the closer they got, the more they could see just the insane scale of it.

It wasn't just a cathedral. It seemed almost like a huge fortress and it loomed over them, its very presence suffocating, as if the weight of its history pressed down on everything around it.

Chael and Echidna approached the final stretch of the colonnade with deadly caution. Their movements were slow and calculated, and their senses were honed on the massive structure before them. 

The last two pillars stood before them and framed the entrance to the cathedral. There were stairways leading up to the collosal double doors. And at the base of the stairs, standing atop a weathered altar, was a statue.

It was huge, and stood mighty and seemed to be carved from some type of a dark stone. Chael guessed it would be a little over fifty metres tall. 

The statue depicted a woman with her long hair cascading down to her waist. One fist was raised high in the air as if her stance frozen in an eternal battle cry.

But her face was broken. A deep crack split it open and revealed the white marble beneath the surface.

Chael and Echidna stood silent before it.

It was difficult to tell what this statue represented. 

A queen? A warrior? A saint? The way she was posed though - it was not a figure of peace.

Then, a low, groaning creak echoed into their ears and both of them immediately tensed.

The double doors of the cathedral, which was taller than any gate Chael had ever seen began to open, their immense weight sending a deep vibration through the ground as they parted.

Chael and Echidna didn't hesitate. They quickly slipped behind one of the pillars which was the closest to them.

From their cover, they watched as the figures emerged.

Their first instinct was that they were people. But as soon as they descended down the steps, it became painfully clear that they were something else.

Not ghosts. Not spirits. Something solid. Something living.

These figures were clad in black robes and they moved with slow and steady steps, their heads slightly bowed, their movements synchronized. Ice poured out of the hollow sockets in their skulls, as if something had long since eaten away their eyes.

A majority of them were draped in flowing capes which were as black as an abyss, their garments thick and layered, concealing most of their forms beneath heavy and tattered folds. Their hands, with what little could be made out, were skeletal and their fingers were long and twisted, as if frozen mid-decay.

But they weren't alone. Among them walked taller figures, clad in deep purple robes, their presence infinitely more menacing.

They carried staff topped with jagged shards of ice which pulsed with a frozen light of sorts. Their robes bore intricate, swirling patterns, unlike the plain black ones of the others. Even their movements were different. It was more rigid and more intentional, as if they alone were leading the procession.

What came with them was a low chant. At first it was a mumble and could easily be passed off as silence, but the closer they got, the louder the chanting was.

Their voices rose and fell in a twisted hymn as if it was a prayer to something unseen.

Soon, they reached the statue.

As soon as they stood before it, the entire procession dropped to their knees.

It wasn't a slow, reverent motion. On the contrary, it was very unnatural. Like they were puppets whose strings had been severed all at once.

Chael's jaw tightened at this sight.

Their hands pressed to the frozen stone, their bodies completely prostate, heads bowed so deeply that their foreheads nearly scraped the ice. The taller ones in purple did not kneel. They remained standing and simply their staff toward the statue in absolute devotion.

The chant became clearer. Echidna squinted her silver eyes, her lips barely moving as she listened.

"Shan'thura," she muttered. "That's the language they're speaking."

Chael turned slightly toward her. "What are they saying?"

She didn't respond immediately.

She was straining to catch the words, her brows furrowed in deep concentration.

Chael's frown deepened. "Can you understand it?"

Echidna tilted her head slightly, still focused, "...Only bits and pieces."

There was a tense silence between the two of them, then Echinda finally spoke, "…Yue Yuelian."

Chael stilled.

Echidna glanced at him, her voice quieter now, as if saying the name itself felt dangerous.

"They keep repeating it," she said. "Over and over again."

Her lips pressed into a thin line.

"Yue Yuelian, Saintess of Carnage."

Chael's face grew solemn. 

He immediately recalled the words of the last ghost they had walked past on their way here.

"Once, the Hollowed Coir sang in praise of the divine… now their voices are but hollowed wails, a hymn of decay in service to the Saintess of Carnage."

'Hollowed Choir? Could they be referring to these creatures?'

He kept the spearhead angled carefully and let the dim reflection guide his sight. Every detail - the kneeling figures, the towering cathedral, the unnatural way the ice bled from their hollowed sockets. All of them flickered against the silver surface. He remained still with his breath measured and every muscle poised for the slightest shift in movement.

One of the robed figures twitched and its body locked up mid-prayer. The pale moon glow reflected in the ice of its hollow eye sockets, and for a brief second, it seemed to shimmer strangely, as if it had caught sight of something it wasn't meant to. Chael tensed. The figure remained still for a heartbeat longer and with a slow and steady motion, it turned its head.

Not toward the cathedral.

Not toward the statue.

Toward them.

A cold and creeping sensation crawled up Chael's spine. His grip on the spear tightened as he watched, unmoving. The figure's posture had stiffened unnaturally as though something inside of it had woken up. 

Then without sound and without hesitation, the others followed.

One by one, the worshippers stopped praying. Their heads, hidden beneath their hoods, twisted toward the same direction. Their movements weren't natural. They didn't turn like humans reacting to a sound. It was as if they had received some silent, invisible command guiding them toward a singular focus.

Echidna's fingers twitched toward her belt and her stance shifted ever so slightly. 

Chael exhaled through his nose.

They had been seen.