Chương 255: Chapter 254 - The Scorched Archives Again?

Lucid and Senna walked beside each other. They moved slowly to discover the architecture of the subterranean space. Senna led the way. Lucid followed close behind her. Their boots struck the pale yellow-gold marble floor. The surrounding environment felt heavy and ancient. Tall pillars stretched toward a ceiling painted with faded murals. Dust motes drifted through shafts of ambient light. The air smelled of old paper and dry stone.

'This looks exactly like that scorched archive,' Lucid thought. He observed the towering stone shelves lining the walls.

'Only someone gave it a terrible bleach job.'

"So this place..." Lucid started. He kept his voice low.

"This is an illusion," Senna answered. Her tone remained perfectly formal and unfailingly kind.

"It is a reflection of a place long gone."

"That is vague," Lucid replied. He rubbed his chest. Phantom pains still flared violently in his muscle.

"You could say the same thing about my bank account." Alice spoke directly into his mind. Her voice projected absolute divine authority.

'Your financial complaints remain thoroughly exhausting, my chosen. Pay attention to your surroundings.' They moved deeper into the complex. The yellow-gold marble mirrored the exact layout of the horrific citadel he had just escaped. Every corridor triggered a massive spike of adrenaline in his bloodstream. He checked the corners constantly. A shadow shifted near a crumbling archway. Lucid flinched violently. He raised his hands. He fully expected a hooded woman to lunge at him with a bone sickle.

His heart slammed against his ribs. He forced himself to stare at the empty corner. There was nothing there. He lowered his arms slowly.

'I am losing my mind,' Lucid thought. He let out a shaky, sarcastic chuckle to cover the absolute terror gripping his lungs.

'Next thing you know, I will be asking for a tentacle massage.' Alice dropped her superior pretense immediately. Her mental presence wrapped around his consciousness with a surprising, gentle warmth.

'Lucid, are you alright? The corruption of that domain took a heavy toll on your physical vessel. I can purge the lingering shock from your nervous system. I can take the pain away.'

'Do not touch it,' Lucid thought back sharply. He wiped cold sweat from his forehead.

'If I go totally numb, I lose my humanity. I need to feel this. I have to remember what those bitches did to me.' Senna stopped walking. She looked back at his pale face. She registered his severe distress but chose not to comment on it. She simply offered a sympathetic nod and continued the tour.

"The angels began their days early," Senna explained smoothly. She pointed toward a row of empty, austere rooms.

"They woke before dawn. They consumed simple meals of concentrated light and water. Then they proceeded to morning prayer. Their daily routine was strictly regulated."

"You sound like a tour guide who memorized the brochure," Lucid noted bluntly. Senna ignored the sarcasm. She led him through a set of heavy bronze doors into a wide courtyard. The ground here was withered and cracked. Broken stone benches sat under dead, petrified trees. The area resembled an old archaeological dig site rather than a divine garden.

"We used to play here," Senna stated softly. She touched the trunk of a petrified tree.

"Right. Hide and seek with divine entities. Sounds like an absolute blast," Lucid muttered. He rubbed his temples. The phantom image of a blood-smeared face flashed in his peripheral vision. He squeezed his eyes shut until the hallucination faded completely. They left the courtyard and entered a massive structure resembling a grand courthouse. Thick marble pillars supported a domed roof. Heavy ledgers and stone parchments lay scattered across long wooden tables. Translucent figures occupied the room.

Phantoms of men with long white beards, flowing robes, and large feathered wings stood around the tables. They argued silently. They pointed fingers at one another in heated, mute debates.

'They look like a bunch of angry Greek philosophers,' Lucid thought. He watched a bearded angel slam a fist on a table without making a sound.

'Just missing the togas and the cheap wine.' The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

'A Greek what?' Alice asked. Her divine presence echoed with genuine confusion.

'Never mind,' Lucid answered internally.

'It is a joke. I make those so I do not start screaming and never stop.' They left the courthouse and stood at the bottom of a vast subterranean basin. Lucid looked up. A colossal training arena hung suspended high above them. The structure was violently broken apart. Massive chunks of dark, heavy stone floated in the ambient light. They were entirely disconnected from the surrounding architecture. It looked completely wrong.

The jagged dark stone did not match the elegant yellow-gold marble of the archive and the courthouse. It looked as if a giant hand had ripped a piece of a completely different world and forcibly grafted it into this underground space. Lucid stared at the floating platforms. Translucent figures occupied the broken arena. Phantoms of men and women engaged in relentless combat. They swung phantom swords and thrust phantom spears.

They wore heavy armor that did not match the flowing robes of the scribes from the courthouse. A female phantom on a lower platform suddenly lunged forward. She swung a curved blade downward over the ledge. Lucid flinched violently. His traumatized brain overlaid a horrific memory onto the phantom. The ghostly armor morphed instantly into a purple robe. The curved blade became a raw bone sickle. He saw the face of the cannibalistic clone smiling at him from the dark corner of his vision. He dropped to one knee.

He gasped for air. Cold sweat poured down his neck. The phantom pains flared in his stomach exactly where the fleshy appendage had gutted him. He squeezed his eyes shut and gripped his knees tightly.

'Breathe,' Lucid told himself.

'It is just a ghost. It is just a very angry ghost.'

'You are spiraling again, my chosen,' Alice stated inside his mind. Her tone carried her usual divine superiority, but a thread of genuine concern lingered beneath it.

'Your physical vessel is reacting to phantom stimuli. I must sedate your nervous system. You are going to compromise our mission if you collapse.'

'I am fine,' Lucid thought back. He forced a dry, sarcastic chuckle.

'I just realized I forgot to buy tickets to the celestial wrestling match. My mistake. Let me just enjoy the free violence from the cheap seats.'

'Your reliance on terrible humor is a known defense mechanism,' Alice replied coldly.

'It does not mask your elevated heart rate.'

'Leave it alone, Alice,' Lucid thought.

'I told you already. I need the pain to remind me I am still alive. If you numb me, those freaks win.' He forced himself to stand up. He wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve. Senna stood a few paces away. She watched him with a patient, formal expression. She did not rush him. She did not judge his sudden panic.

"What exactly is going on up there?" Lucid asked. He pointed a trembling finger at the floating combatants.

"Because that does not look like peaceful angelic prayer to me. It looks like a slaughterhouse."

"They are the Valkyries," Senna explained. Her voice remained perfectly kind and even.

"They are the militant arm. They train for a war that has long since passed." Lucid studied the broken architecture again.

"They do not fit in. The stone is wrong. The design is completely different. It looks like this entire arena was ripped out of somewhere else and shoved down here."

"You are very observant," Senna agreed softly.

"It was never meant to be a part of Celestia." Lucid stopped rubbing his chest. The word hit his brain like a physical blow. He remembered the texts from the academy. He remembered the old legends about the fallen divine city.

"Celestia," Lucid repeated aloud. He stared directly at her. Senna did not elaborate. She turned away from the broken arena. She adjusted her small posture and began walking down another descending path. She completely ignored his implied question. Lucid let out a long breath. He looked up at the fighting Valkyries one last time. He recognized the brutal efficiency in their movements. They fought exactly like desperate soldiers.

'She is hiding massive amounts of information,' Lucid thought. He followed Senna into the shadows.

'We are walking through the ruins of Celestia, and she is giving me a guided tour.'

'Do not trust her completely,' Alice commanded. Senna navigated the complex flawlessly. She knew every turn and every hidden corridor almost too well. They finally arrived at the deepest level of the ruins. A massive, circular vault door dominated the final chamber. Complex runic seals glowed faintly across its metallic surface.

"This is the central repository," Senna explained. She gestured toward the massive door.

"It stores all of the currency. It contains all the Fate Essence the world currently needs. The entire economy is bottlenecked right behind this metal wall." Lucid stared at the vault. He calculated the implications.

"So, this is the main piggy bank."

"This is the way to meet Father," Senna corrected him gently.

"By taking what is his, we will make him very angry. He will have no choice but to manifest." Lucid crossed his arms.

"Let me guess. We bust it open."

'We do far more than break it,' Alice projected. Her formal authority returned in full force.

'We must distribute the wealth correctly to revive the dying economy above. When we breach the vault, we will attach a siphon rune to the main reservoir. We will pump the raw Fate Essence directly into the atmospheric condensation cycle. It will rain down upon the lower districts as ambient energy. The citizens will absorb it naturally, bypassing the nobility completely. We will flood the market with free vitality and destroy their artificial scarcity.' Lucid let out a harsh, sarcastic laugh.

"We are going to make it rain money on the poor. I am sure Father Commerce will love that."