Chương 94: CHAPTER 92 -Night Bell

"We have no proof of that, Jeanne…" Maliard sighed, tearing off a piece from the strip of dried meat in his hands. He sat cross-legged on one of the pews, completely in shadow. Rain pattered against the stained glass, leaving shaded streaks outside.

"But Maliard, I think I can trust him." Jeanne didn't meet his eyes. She focused mainly on the strip of meat in his hand and licked her lips. Maliard snorted, gently tossing her a package wrapped in a silvery film.

"You both need to improve your diet… The only ones around here who stay healthy are me, Lance, and Lucas! I don't know how you survive by stealing Noel's breakfast." She snapped open the dried meat at once, chewing it quickly and furiously.

"I-I don't steal… I share." Maliard glared at her while Jeanne wiped her hands with a handkerchief clumsily pulled from her pocket. Despite her pale appearance, her tongue was unsettlingly red.

"Your sharing has the same nutritional value as a nobleman's banquet… You should stay in shape." Maliard raised his gaze to the ceiling, sighing as he crumpled the paper and silently tucked it into his pocket. Jeanne tried to pinch her stomach, looking at him sideways.

"Has Lance recovered? You've only told me about this nun, but it sounds more like a delusion." Jeanne shook her head firmly, staring straight at him.

"He wouldn't lie. I'm sure of it." She replied with extraordinary certainty, while Maliard sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose with his fingers.

"I trust him, and you know it, but three days with that relic active? Even Lucas trembled when I told him! If it hadn't been for the free Frequency in the air and the constant supply provided by the Teufel, by now we'd be dealing with a monstrous husk of our companion." His face showed no emotion, yet the air had grown tense. He shook his head, now looking at her with a tired face.

"I've seen what that relic does when abused, and I don't want Lance to risk that. So it's not that I don't trust him, but right now he's not in a stable condition." He murmured, lowering both his voice and his head. Jeanne nodded, sighing.

"Maverick agrees too. This place is attacking our minds." Jeanne turned and, with a quick smile, looked at him once more.

"You're right, and for that I apologise." Her footsteps echoed down the corridor as she headed back to the sick ward. Delicately and without a sound, she opened the door, staring at the cocoon of sheets on the bed. It rose and fell at regular intervals, shaking with each echo of Jeanne's footsteps. She approached, head bowed.

"I believe you, Lance. Forgive me, but this is something only I can do. When you owe me an apology, I'll be ready to accept it." She sat on the edge of the bed with a smile, running her fingers over the sheets.

"I'll check the ritual myself. Please stay here." She sighed, quickly leaving the room again with the same delicacy with which she had appeared. Under the sheets, Lance wiped the water from his eyes. He clicked his tongue and uncovered himself, covering his face.

"Pathetic…" He murmured before closing his eyes. The cathedral was a gigantic construct, and yet there were very few accesses to the great bell at the top of the tower" Could help. I'm not sure about the mapping, but if the singularity is now dormant, it's perfectly possible to access it from the same door you described. Be careful, Jeanne." She quickly reviewed Lucas's information on her watch, stained with drops of bluish and yellow paint.

She looked away from the screen, finding herself before the door covered in white soot. She laid her hands on it and pushed hard, releasing a grim, creaking sound. What greeted her, instead of the endless desert, was a mass of decomposing plant matter. The smell was sulphurous and left a faint tingle on the tip of her tongue. Jeanne covered her face, feeling the ground turn soft with every step, its tread squelching. Around her there were no colours, only grey and brown with some dull green tones.

"The stairs should be in this area." A slab resting in the centre of the room drew her closer. She bent slowly, trying to move it, but immediately withdrew her fingers. A moan escaped her mouth as she looked at her red, bleeding fingertip.

"It burns…" The wound began to regenerate, and she now stared at a glint beyond the rotting leaves. She hopped over the dead flowers, spotting a strange, pale door studded with silver buttons. She tore away the moss and anchored vines, noticing the strange rusted lock shaped like a pointed circle.

"But the key just won't fit here?" She pouted as she examined the cross-shaped head, grumbling. She looked around, ran to close the door, and returned to the lock.

"This will be a little indelicate." Jeanne brought her index finger to her lips and bit it, letting thin white drops flow. She pushed it almost into the hole and began to turn it, while the paint took on the qualities of iron. After a few seconds, the door opened, and the lock fell to the ground at Jeanne's feet, now pale. She hid it under the plants and began to climb the long spiral staircase.

"Mann always scolded me when I did this..."Jeanne smiled despite the disgusting air surrounding her. She could almost hear the voice, sharp and worried. Nothing could be seen outside; she was alone with that long, interminable, cracked staircase. Small pieces were missing from the steps, especially in the centre, perhaps from wear. Strange dark stains marred the gleam of the pale marble.

"Is there also this grim air here?" As she walked, the idea that someone could live in such a place made her nauseous.

"Can people live so blinded by something they cannot choose?" A faint echo accompanied her solitary voice. The silence evoked the memory of a man with the same eyes as hers.

"Could you have been the exception?" She stopped, gently stroking her eyelid, then shook her head.

"Now I've even started talking to myself! What would the others say if they saw me like this?!" She smiled, patting her pocket.

"My weapon is safe in here. Though Maverick really has some peculiar ideas…" She walked silently, occasionally glancing at the darkness behind her. A cold, unsettling sensation.

"What is the purpose of all this? Trampling the will of others in an attempt to improve it. In the end, don't you just make things worse by chaining others?" She lowered her gaze, having found her rhythm. The marble was luminous at times, as if it were a mirror. Her distorted, thoughtful face appeared directly beneath her. She smiled, resuming her walk.

"Perhaps this question suits me well…" After dozens of minutes, she arrived before a thick door, golden and set with various blue jewels. The lock was identical to her key. She slowly inserted the iron into the opening and turned with her fingers. The mechanism produced three quick clicks, and the door began to creak. A violent gust of wind struck her, cold and damp. Jeanne closed the door behind her, leaning out of the large circular openings that carried the bell's sound.

"The city at night…" She smiled, watching the spectacle of lights, colours, and music spreading across the horizon. The hilly area with its wind-tossed crowns, and in the distance, the great waves conquered by boats and ships wrapped in white smoke. From that position, the people seemed like swarms of ants flooding the streets, each with their own tasks and duties. Jeanne felt her heart tighten, continuing to smile sweetly at the view.

"It's truly magnificent." She pulled away from the opening, raising her head and finding herself directly beneath the colossal golden bell: it was intricate, with a motif identical to that on the fingers, set with blue and red jewels and connected to a complex mechanism of dark, braided ropes. Her gaze lit up when she saw the wooden bench covered in writings, parchments, and gigantic leather tomes. She approached the rotten, thorny wood, staring at those intricate and complex characters.

She ran her hand over the spine of one of those books, feeling a shiver run down her arm. A sense of nausea began to pierce her stomach as soon as she noticed the drawings.

"Is this the ritual?" Drawings traced in reddish ink painted a macabre scene. A woman pierced by a lance and grasped by a thousand hands, nailed to a cross with pointed ends. Beside it, one could see the shape of the lance, irregular and covered in spikes, almost like a splinter. Above the cross, a portal should have opened, but all the notes were completely illegible. She set down the parchment, laying it carefully despite her trembling fingers.

She bumped the table slightly, knocking over a smaller, less worn tome.

"And what's this? A diary?" Jeanne wondered as she bent to pick it up. A new gust of wind struck the bell tower, scattering the papers around, though never risking them flying away. Her fingers began to flip through the pages. At first there were only notes, pervaded by unsettling hints of malice, but as the pages thinned, the unease grew.

"I met an extraordinary woman. I was only here to monitor the escape of the 'cultivated,' and yet the goddess reserved me a treasure! I will do everything possible to bring honour back to the Mundus Aureus!" There were no writings, only a note scribbled by pressing a pen on the paper, decorating the page with lurid dark stains. Jeanne continued to read those notes, without date or indication, until the last pages froze her body.

"After my long discussion with the Lady, I finally have everything to fulfil the true purpose of the sacrifice of Saint Heloise! This cathedral defends these heretics, but it has a price; everything has a price, and that is precisely that this magnificent structure will be the place where the spark for the golden age of the empire will be born anew. I will sacrifice Elise and that woman who came with that black-armed demon! They will feed the womb of the new goddess who will reign over us ants!"

Jeanne dropped the diary, immediately turning toward the colossal, reverberating bell. The jewels began to vibrate while a strange white mist spread through the room. Instinctively she drew her weapon, gripping it tightly. An unsettling hiss joined the chorus of vibrations, while her breathing slowed more and more. After an interminable minute, the noise ceased completely, and the bell stopped moving, lighting up white.

"Something is coming!" Jeanne dodged to the side, feeling the violet splinter slice a lock of hair from her forehead. She slid sinuously backward, bending her leg high to launch herself onto the edge of the bell tower. The cube in her hands burst, expanding into a sinuous blade with a guard decorated like wings.

"I must protect the holy Father…" Two beasts blindfolded with black linen, their bodies emaciated and composed of stone and violet crystals, appeared. On their backs, hairless wings dirty with dark slime so viscous it even glued their mouths shut. The chains at their necks were pulled, revealing their jailer.

"I deeply detest the church." Jeanne snarled at the sight of Servy, the nun now dressed in a red tunic with golden touches, greased with that same demonic mixture that permeated the bodies of the angels chained to her. The chains slid from her thin arms, and her face, now mutilated by a series of cuts and blinded by the wounds; only her lips kept their splendour. Her head rotated mechanically toward the girl's blade, pointing a finger.

Jeanne slid backward, feeling the slobbering jaws of those monsters graze her face. She began to slide down the smooth curve of the dome, clinging to the spire with a tentacle of white paint. She tightened her grip, hanging along the gigantic structure. Around her, a whitish mist had now spread, with an acrid smell and fearsome density. Every noise of Bayork had vanished, and now she could only hear the laments of the beasts before her.

"They're fast and have the advantage on the ground. Mr Clerc explained what to do in these situations…" Jeanne tied the rope around her waist, folding the blade and separating it into two daggers. She took a long exhale, followed by an equally long inhale. She spun the daggers between her fingers, lowering her centre of gravity until she pressed against the dome's surface. The two horrid statues stared at her, one beating its wings while the other clawed at the ground, dragging its stone limbs toward her.

Jeanne brought the dagger to her lips and vanished. One of the creatures was immediately yanked back by her rope, now taut. The white vine wrapped around the rock, pinning its wings and suffocating it.

"Back of the skull…" Jeanne's blade sank in quickly, chipping the rock and releasing a spray of dark slime. She grabbed the rope, tightening it and using it as an anchor to propel herself forward. With force, she kicked the beast full in the chest, shattering it. She vanished again, and the rope lost tension once more, staining with dark drops. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Jeanne re-gripped the blade in time, catapulting backward as the second beast plunged from the sky. It crashed into the dome, sending up bricks and gleaming splinters. The beast lunged at her while her dagger's blade rested delicately against the white rope." Hemelsblauw." The moment it was severed, the paint turned electric blue, instantly beginning to spark. The creature turned its blindfolded face toward the swarm of electrical discharges and was struck.

Amid the light and smoke, her frame echoed, taking on a heavier shape. The beast tore through the smoke with its claws, rebelling against the violent shocks. A shadow enveloped it completely, covering the little light filtering through the mist. Its body was swept away, shattered by the great maul gripped by the girl.

"One target left." Jeanne dodged to the side, avoiding the lash of the chains. From the top of the bell tower, dozens of dark, heavy iron whips rose, waving from the windows. She began to run, shattering the roof beneath her without ever taking her eyes off the main dome. A chain grazed her shoulder, raising a great rain of debris.

"Got you!" Her eyes lit up as she slammed her heel into the ground. With a violent rotation, the hammer flew from her hands toward the dome. A gigantic cloud of dust and wood. The ropes holding the bell snapped, sending the bell crashing down through the cathedral. Jeanne did not stop running, leaping high as white liquid gathered along her arm." Grijs en blank." A colossal curved blade formed on her arm as she pulled herself toward the remains of the dome using whitish vines.

With violence, she slashed everything in her path, coating it all in a pale film. The columns were lacerated, the papers shredded, and violet sprays stained the floor. Jeanne caught her breath, gripping the maul's handle tightly. She lifted it, letting the dust and remains slide from its head. The girl stopped staring at the pit and turned toward Servy, nailed to the wall by that pale mixture. She was snarling and hissing, thrashing and making the chains sway. Her arm had been amputated and was slowly fading.

"There's nothing I can do for you…" Servy writhed, spitting slime onto the glue and continuing her hissing. For an instant Jeanne felt the urge to vomit, yet she simply stared at her.

"You're just a victim. You didn't die for your convictions. You were simply unlucky." The frame became a scythe, luminous under the light.

"I'm not as good as him, and believe me, I don't have the slightest ounce of interest in creatures like you." The blade slowly moved toward her twitching neck, trembling and painful. Jeanne stared her straight in the eyes, her face darkened by shadows.

"But… You don't deserve a merciless death." Jeanne raised the scythe, trying to reap her head, but something else had just defiled her body. A violent beam of greenish energy had just pierced the bell tower and the nun. Jeanne saw the smoking hole before her as violent applause rose in the air.

"Magnificent, you are truly magnificent…" From the bell emerged a colossal arm, wrapped in golden, incandescent chains. She had never seen him before, yet her hair stood on end, and she gripped her weapon even more tightly. The entire figure towered as it advanced, shattering the roof beneath its mass. Its skin was dark and carved with deep violet furrows, its eyes vibrating with the same colour, its arms weighed down by colossal iron crosses.

Behind it, a red-haired woman, her face disfigured by a black crystalline mass. Her arms covered in the same dark material.

"Come now, Lucia, don't tremble! This sacrifice will bring new joys." Abbondius stroked her head, smiling. With every movement of his fingers, small splinters slid to the ground, and the hissing increased.

"You're Abbondius, right?" Her blade was aimed at him as he smiled amiably.

"Of course. I am the humble servant of this Church." He took a second step, drawing ever closer to her. The mist behind him writhed, like living flesh. Jeanne landed on the roof, gripping the scythe with a dark, grim face.

"I see…" Jeanne rotated the weapon between her arms, making it whirl a few steps from her hips and neck. The shaft fell between her fingers, its curved head pointed at him. Abbondius smiled, raising the iron crosses.

"Then you must die." Jeanne vanished from their sight, and the priest knelt, feeling the blood warm his knees. Lucia looked around, immediately being knocked away.

"The tendons?" The cold, bloodied iron was delicately pressed under his chin, with pressure so slight it didn't cut his throat. He raised his arms without turning.

"Stop the ritual, and you'll die quickly." Abbondius opened his eyes and began to laugh. Jeanne brought the blade closer, beginning to slice thin strips of skin. She frowned, watching that priest indulge in a long, decorous laugh.

"It cannot be stopped… And besides, you are a truly terrible liar." Abbondius rose abruptly, swinging the blades with force toward her face. Jeanne retreated backward, immediately noticing that half her vision had gone dark. She touched her face, feeling the deep gash across her eye.

"Don't pretend to show mercy… It's an insult to true demons." Abbondius shook the blood from the blade while Jeanne smiled, her other pupil lit red. Lucia stepped in front, staggering toward her.

"I didn't notice before, but now I'm certain this area is damaging me or maybe… freeing me? Either way, it's better to finish this quickly." The blood on her face turned white and pink, gradually rebuilding the tissues. Abbondius crossed the crosses, stomping his foot violently. Jeanne smiled, lunging at them with force. A green beam erupted from Lucia's skull, burning the roof. The nun found herself crushed, pressed hard to the ground while Abbondius swung his weapons.

His index finger fell to the ground, and he felt the scythe's iron slide into his stomach.

"You're perfect as a vessel, but it's over now." His innards returned to place while Jeanne coughed and spat red clots. Her vision was beginning to fail, and a strange cold was contaminating her bones.

"You're not used to this air, just like that boy." Abbondius slammed the crosses into the ground, raising a finger to the sky. Jeanne looked up, watching the eye-like crack spread across the black sky.

"Elise's corruption is already taking hold as we speak, and this cathedral will become nothing more than a conduit to the higher dominion!" He opened his arms, staring at the sky with his tongue hanging from his lips.

"Damned filth…" Jeanne murmured, re-gripping the frame. The air turned almost sharp while the priest's laughter echoed in that mist-wrapped world.

"Come now, come now. You and she will have a prominent role!" Jeanne fell to her knees, no longer able to hold the scythe. Abbondius grinned, advancing slowly toward her.

"I'll let you say your last goodbyes to all the sacrifices you've brought me." Abbondius's shadow stretched over her, darkening even the ruins. He reached out his hand when he noticed the ground shake and violent booms spread through the air. Jeanne turned toward the bell tower, just before it exploded in a violent burst of black and white discharges.

"YOU'RE STILL HERE! KING OF HERESIES!" Abbondius grabbed his blades, grinding his teeth, his pupils shot with blood. Five knuckles struck his face, accompanied by a diabolical cry. His body slid along the entire cathedral roof, crashing into the front structure.

"A promise is a promise…" Jeanne saw him standing in the dust, able only to smile. The bandages on his body were slowly burning away, revealing dark scars in contrast with his golden gaze. He turned toward her, smiling.

"Forgive me. I got everything wrong." Having said that, he swept the cloud away with a gesture of his arm, pointing his pupils at the priest's figure. He noticed Lucia lying on the ground and shook his head.

"Lance…" He nodded, clicking his tongue and raising his fists.

"What's the matter? You can't save her. They're just constructs to make sure everything works correctly." Lance stomped the ground at the sound of Abbondius's words. His breathing was heavy, raspy.

"THEY WERE PEOPLE!" Discharges of Frequency flew along the roof, crashing against the mist barrier. Abbondius laughed, watching the boy despair.

"What do you know about people?! AREN'T YOU THE ONE WHO PROMISED THAT HARLOT THE IMPOSSIBLE?!" Lance's gaze went pale, glued to the priest's face. He stood up, lifting the heavy crosses from the ground.

"You should have heard her screaming earlier, praying for me to save her, thinking you would come to the aid of a filthy whore like her! You have no idea how much I laughed. That was the greatest gift heaven has given me." Without even murmuring a word, Lance raised Lachesi to the sky.

"Why didn't she tell you? She's just a slave without parents! A failed scrap ready to…" The air surrounding them began to electrify. It felt like it was about to contaminate itself with a sinister presence.

"You deserve... Extermination." His voice sounded distorted, as if multiple voices were merging in his throat. His arm began to cover itself in black scales, while white locks started forming on his nape and the tufts on his forehead.

"NO, LANCE!" Abbondius laughed and laughed as he watched the boy before him being devoured by his own guilt. The dark metal was reaching his elbow, and his scars were turning violet." Lachesi devours…" Before he could finish the sentence, thin fingers covered his eyes and mouth. Something squeezed him from behind, drawing him close to a strange warmth. Abbondius's mood immediately shifted. Lance was drooling and weeping, yet the hands pressed on him did not let go.

"Please… Don't reduce yourself to this." Jeanne held him tighter and tighter, cutting herself against the cursed relic wrapped around his flesh. Her hair slid over his nape as his breathing calmed. Lance fell to the ground, bleeding from nose and lips. He turned to look at her, eyes streaked with many tears.

"Elise is giving in…" Abbondius smiled as he felt the tremors. The entire cathedral began to fracture, while colossal masses of coffins and skeletons emerged from the ground, almost building a cage around the building. The bones in the columns began to writhe and the skulls to shriek; from the coffins emerged humeri covered in black, grim slime.

"Farewell, little beasts." Lance turned toward him, but it was already too late. Jeanne, without hesitation, grabbed him and tried to drag him away.

"What are you doing! We have to…" A green light dazzled both of them, precisely from where Lucia lay. The entire cathedral was wrapped in a greenish flame, and the roof collapsed completely, like shattered glass. Everything fell into the chasm between dimensions, into Hel's maw. Masses of grey cumulus sand began swirling around them, as if to deprive them of all perception. Screams, laughs, and cries echoed from nowhere in that encompassing darkness.

The boy fell through the darkness, feeling colder and colder as he plunged into the black. Lance's eyes strained against the void and caught a glimpse of Jeanne, falling without moving.

"JEANNE!" He kicked off something, perhaps a piece of debris, and threw himself to catch her in the darkness. He grabbed her hips, embracing her as the air whistled around them. He looked around, with no certainty of a handhold and the premonition that soon everything would end. He shook his head, holding the girl close and biting his lip." KARMESIN MAUER!" A red veil wrapped around both of them, hardening instantly. The impact came moments later, raising a gigantic greyish cloud and producing a deafening echo.

"W-What happened…" Jeanne tried to lift her arms, noticing how much they burned. Even in the darkness, she understood she had been struck by that glow. Straining, she began to let Frequency flow into her tissues, turning them into paint. In silence, she felt the ground around her, finding it strangely warm. She stretched her fingers further, sensing a strange beating.

"What a joy… You're all right." A groan rose from her lips as she lit a faint flame on the tip of her index finger. She immediately noticed Lance's pained face, understanding well where she was sitting. She stared at him, pale, slowly rising from on top of him to dust herself off, turning her back to him.

"Why are you here?" Lance sat up, looking at the bandages on his arm. Jeanne didn't deign to look at him, twirling a lock of hair around her index finger.

"Because I want to make amends for my mistakes and not go back on my word. I was wrong, and I know it. I want to apologise to you, I want to apologise to everyone, but right now I have to earn the right to do so." Lance stood up, clenching his fist, a smile stamped on his pale face. Jeanne stopped moving, looking at him.

"You don't need to earn it with me…" Jeanne whispered, walking into the darkness, reigniting the little flame on her finger. Lance watched her curiously, immediately following her as he remembered Abbondius's words.

"What did you say earlier?" After minutes of silent walking, Lance stared her straight in the face, tilting his head. She looked at him blankly for a second, then turned away.

"I was just thinking out loud… I was afraid I'd hurt you." Lance laughed, shaking his head.

"Don't worry, light as a feather! But you were burning up. Could you have a fever?" Jeanne began to tremble and shake her head vehemently, speeding up.

"Th-These are the catacombs, right? There must be an exit for sure!" She raised her burning finger, lighting the way.

"Relax, I can still see Frequencies in this place. There are thin threads in the air, all tangled around a gigantic skein… Jeanne, we're no longer in our world right now." Lance murmured, looking around at every trace of sound. Sometimes a pebble crumbling from the walls, other times a slimy slithering in the dark. From Lachesi, Lance pulled out his sword, raising it above his head. A hiss in the darkness, and Lance delivered a slash.

Jeanne turned, seeing a crystal head roll to her feet, already beginning to decompose.

"In Hel, they definitely see us better." He murmured, striking the tip of the blade against the ground.

"I imagine our powers are stronger too. They have a bigger trail to follow." Jeanne lowered the flame on her finger, moving closer to him.

"Despite training, I could never use her power this well before... The influence of this place is horrid." The girl mumbled a few words under her breath after hearing Lance and began walking beside the boy again.

"Elise, we're coming." He gripped the hilt tightly, passing the pile of dust before him to plunge into the darkness.