LIGHTNOVELONLINE 153 – Lost Sun Killer Myth: Tying Up Loose Ends Pt. 4
As Sorayah carried out the same unlocking and ward-opening procedure as before, Krahe added: "If you've only gotten so far with the resources available to you, it means I caught you early."
She was just blowing smoke, of course, speaking from extremely fragmentary evidence and wild assumptions. But it had its effect nonetheless, and Sorayah, with shaking hands, opened the door. Entering it simultaneously just as before, Krahe was struck by a grim sight.
The walls, floor, and ceiling were all reinforced by metal sheets, crudely riveted into the walls and glimmering with enchanted runes, with the exception of a 2m wide circle in the middle of the room. In it knelt a man with his arms chained to the ceiling, or rather, what used to be a man. He had turned completely into glowing charcoal, radiating heat and anathema, the burnt scraps of good-quality clothes still hanging off of him. His posture was arched and tense, knees wide, face contorted in a voiceless grimace of utter agony. Not screaming, but rather with gritted teeth. Around him, filling the circle, was a layered, extraordinarily complex glyph carved into the stone. Dried blood filled its grooves. Krahe tried to discern whether the man had been cut, but with the number of straight, narrow cracks covering him, she couldn't tell whether any - or perhaps all - of them were cuts.
Walking around, dragging Sorayah along, she noticed a hammer and chisel on the ground just outside the circle. The man's right leg had been chipped off halfway up the calf. She'd seen worse - much worse - but Krahe was nonetheless disgusted at the scene. Even if it wouldn't haunt her, even if it couldn't unsettle her to the point of tremors, that grimace of torment still sparked a visceral blend of disgust and anger, somewhere deep inside. It would've died out, buried under decades of growing numb, but she stoked it, gladly taking the ember of righteous fury into her mind's hand.
"In the corner. Now," Krahe said, pointing at the far end of the room with one hand and shoving Sorayah with the other.
"Really? It gets to you that much? I've seen the posters. You must've done far worse than I if the Hashems want you dead so badly," Sorayah scoffed, but she nonetheless did as she was told.
"To feel disgust and anger at the sight of evil is no sin, and to tolerate it is no virtue."
"There is no such thing in the scriptures of the Twin Churches."
"I didn't say it was. I also didn't say I was an apostle," Krahe said, approaching within the Forming Toroid's range. Raising her hand, she pointed her gun at Sorayah.
"Don't move, I won't shoot you..." she trailed off. The Forming Toroid began to glow and Krahe flicked her wrist, using the gun as a pointer. In moments, Sorayah was restrained by a series of smoky jade rods.
"Wgh- What is that? Archonforged?" Sorayah questioned, audibly struggling to keep herself together. The panic was starting to overtake her voice. Krahe didn't care much. Oh, she was sure that Sorayah was sorry - sorry that she got caught, that she encountered a fish too big for her.
"Correct. I get it, you're clever. It won't save you."
Krahe conjured and lit a cigarette, taking a drag as she observed the man-turned-coal.
"That phrase about evil - a philosopher in a faraway land said it, once, thousands of years ago. You know what happens now, don't you? I promised to show you real anathemism, did I not? Barzai, come."
She outstretched her left hand. The eidolon simply stopped hiding and flew into her palm.
"Why?" Sorayah questioned.
"You came after me. I warned you. You persevered. Actions, consequences," Krahe deadpanned. Slowly, tendrils began to grow out of her arm, forming a hemispherical nest in which Barzai stood.
"No. Not me. Why?!" Sorayah demanded, growing audibly frustrated. "The Society, the Talisman Mistress, everything. You're a saint, don't pretend otherwise. Only the Temple of Records holds texts listed as the Human Charcoal Letters, and only a saint would have such high-level access. I know. I tried, through an apostle who owed me. What I don't understand is why you would come after me. I am of no consequence. The Grafting Church doesn't send saints after small-fries like me, they're too busy dealing with things like rogue grafters and body theft. Am I just... A diversion? A convenient notch to pad your record with?! That's all my hard work to unearth these ancient arts will amount to?!"
By the end, Sorayah was nearly screaming.
Krahe turned to look at her.
"You put yourself in my sights at a time when I was looking for a target to test this on," she glanced at her left hand. "Just bad luck. Is that what you want to hear? It's half of the truth. The other half is that, in truth, I would have come for you sooner or later. Surely, you can't have deluded yourself into thinking what you are doing is permissible."
"You still haven't answered me. Why?!" Sorayah demanded, wild-eyed, ignoring what was happening in Krahe's left hand in favour of locking eyes with her. To faciliate their conversation, Krahe kept Barzai as he was, simply building the shell around him, fully aware that she could will him to transform into the core at any moment.
After staring into those wild eyes for a few moments, Krahe explained herself: "This is what I do. This is what I am. I don't know how to do anything else. After you, it will be Semzar Hashem. After him, his father. After him, whomever is pulling his strings. I mean to follow the roots of infestation spreading through this land all the way to the source, because evil has a name. A face. Perhaps a mansion and a family. Many of society's ills do not spring up from nothing, there are oft-powerful men proliferating them, perhaps for their own gain, or out of ideology. And just as evil has a face, so does the hand that will strangle the puppet master with his own strings; you're looking at it. That is what I am."
